#which A yeah its just 'the bay' not the sf bay area

[trapper-faggot]

It physically pains me to hear people call it san fran

[phantomato]

Uber

Nottmort (Tom Riddle/Nott Sr.), Modern Muggle AU, ~2k words

Thanks to @yletylyf for kicking around this idea! Tom drives an Uber in the Bay Area. Thoros & co need a ride.

—

Abraxas and Orion are bickering over luggage in the background when your Uber pulls up. Black, of course, so it’s a Mercedes that will smell a little too much like leather cleaner when you get in, but none of you have ever ridden in an UberX or, god forbid, an Uber Pool, and you’re not about to start.

Your colleagues—never forget, you are not friends, no matter how much time you spend with them—slide into the back seat before you can even begin to help load bags into the trunk. You’re left alone with the driver, and though he offers to help, you haven’t let yourself sink that low as to make this man pile all of your shit in his car while you sit around and watch. And anyway, it feels like the polite thing to do. More than Abraxas or Orion, you’ve been raised to be polite.

So you fold yourself into the front passenger seat, too kind to push the seat all the way back and give yourself the leg room you need even if Orion, behind you, is just 5’8 to your 6’3, and smile at the driver as he confirms your destination.

He’s pretty. You’ve been in a lot of Ubers and you’ve never seen a driver this pretty. Is that classist?, you wonder to yourself, remembering something you read in Vox the other day. Probably. Nevertheless, you’re taken by the curve of his mouth, the sweep of his dark hair, and you throw a smirk over your shoulder at Abraxas who you know must have also noticed.

“Traffic to SFO will be busy,” he says regretfully, and you roll your eyes. Orion refuses to take the early morning flights, unwilling to wake at 3 AM, and you’re always stuck with these long, miserable Uber rides down from the city to the airport. “And Terminal 2—right in the middle of it. There’s construction around those doors, if you haven’t been there—”

“We know,” Orion butts in rudely, shutting up your driver for the few minutes it takes to get out of your neighborhood.

You use those few minutes to swipe through your phone. Email—nothing important. Messages—you clear the notifications. Your Instagram is alight with people reposting the same infographic about voting rights and you make a mental note to kick some money to that non-profit that’s been all over Twitter lately. You close out apps and end up back at Uber, watching your car’s laggy progress through the San Francisco streets. Your driver’s name is Tom, the app informs you. It’s a nice name.

You clear the side streets and Tom offers amenities. “If you want any water, there are bottles in the cooler between the seats,” he calls back to Abraxas and Orion, “and mints in the cup holder. You can adjust the air conditioning if you like, and there’s a charging cable attached to the back of my seat if you need it. Would you like to choose any music?”

“No,” Abraxas says, and whether he means the music or the entire spiel doesn’t really matter, given his withering tone. You look back at him, trying to convey ‘Be nice’ with just your eyebrows, but Abraxas is fussing with his hair and ignoring you.

Tom’s one of the chipper ones, it turns out, because he takes the rejection in stride and shifts to the dreaded personal conversation. “What do you all do for a living?”

“Ah, we invest in companies, mostly start-ups,” you say, trying to avoid—

“Venture capitalists!” Tom guesses, and he’s right but you hate the term and its connotations. So what if you are all white men whose family money has bankrolled tech speculation? It’s what anyone with half a brain would do. You donate, you read the liberal news—at least, you think that’s true for all of you, though Orion was friends with that Republican mayoral candidate and Abraxas’ father sponsors that conservative think-tank and…

Ah, fuck. “Yeah, pretty much,” you agree, hating yourself.

Behind you, Orion digs his AirPods out of his pocket. You hear the snap of the magnetic lid as he closes himself off to the world. Abraxas is slouching, the hem of his third-favorite cashmere cardigan catching on the seat behind him, and you realize that you’re alone in this conversation.

Well, fuck it. If those two pricks are going to make you call the Uber, deal with the reimbursement paperwork, and sit in the front seat, you’re going to talk to the driver and make this car conversation as painful as possible for them.

As if reading your thoughts, Tom does the one thing that guarantees a terrible ride: he pitches his app idea.

“You know, I’m also a software developer,” he says, which is at least more promising than when someone isn’t, “and if I had the kind of funding that companies like yours provide, I would absolutely make this app.” He proceeds to describe something completely inane, the type of exclusive, niche social networking app that hasn’t had legs since before the Trump presidency and you would be content to let him drone on, to let Abraxas keep melting into his own seat and to let Orion channel his anger through a knee driven into the back of yours, but—

But for all that Tom’s idea is stupid, he has the energy of the best pitches you see. His energy is infectious. His eyes light up, he gestures with one hand, and when he stops to take a drink (one of those water bottles with a built-in straw, which you associate with joggers and your lamest employees but which does very different things to you when it’s Tom’s mouth wrapped around the top) you’re transfixed by the wet sheen over his chapped lips.

And so, yes, maybe it’s mostly lust, and maybe this is a sign that you need to download Grindr again, even if only to jerk off to the dick pics you’ll get, but you start to actually talk to him.

“There’s no future in niche social networks,” you say, halting Tom in his tracks. “There will always be new ones, don’t misunderstand me, but the broader landscape is saturated by the top names, and they’ll buy out their competitors if they need to. Perhaps you can topple Tumblr, but that’s not a path to profit. If you want to impact the social market, you need to pinpoint the novel interaction model that you want to offer and make yourself buyable.”

“Buyable,” Tom repeats, like he’s never been interrupted before. He probably hasn’t. The first rule of Ubering around the Bay Area or the Valley is to never engage the app pitches, and Orion has started kicking your seat for your transgression.

“Yes,” you enunciate. “You want to be bought out and brought in at a high level. The giant that eats you may or may not use your idea, but you’ll make a comfortable sum as a consolation prize.” You’ve helped companies through this before. You’re flying out to New York this week in part because one of your investments is considering purchase offers and you want to strategize in-person. The founder is dallying, sending emails about independence and integrity, and Orion will bully him into selling while you and Abraxas negotiate the best terms for the contract.

You can feel Tom’s eyes on you. Abraxas might be calling “Thoros…” from the back seat, and Orion might be attempting to annihilate you with his gaze alone, but you’re smiling at that handsome face behind the wheel and hoping for an accident on the 101.

Unfortunately, you make it through San Bruno without running into more than the usual level of traffic, and Tom’s pulling up to your terminal much sooner than you would like. Abraxas and Orion jump out of the car with uncharacteristic speed when it stops, Orion even moving to stand by the trunk in readiness to take his bags. You delay.

“Do you have a business card?” you ask, when it’s clear Tom’s waiting on you.

He fumbles to pull a wallet from his jeans. You can’t quite get a view of his ass as he does, but that doesn’t stop you from looking.

His card is bent at the corner, printed cheaply, and probably from his last job. You’re pretty sure that company doesn’t exist anymore. Tom taps the phone number. “I can be reached here,” he says smoothly, but his professionalism cracks when he adds, “by call or by… text.”

You know what sort of texts you’d like to receive from him.

Pulling out your own card case, you hand him your card. “Text me,” you say, your voice just this side of appropriate, “any time.”

Tom visibly swallows and jumps out of the car. You take your time getting up, and if your cashmere sweater—Margaret Howell, not that Elder Statesman piece of shit Abraxas is wearing—ends up in the footwell of Tom’s passenger seat, well, you’ll be back in SF next week, won’t you?

“Thanks for the ride, Tom,” you tell him as you take the handle of your luggage, letting your fingers brush his. “I enjoyed our conversation.”

“Yeah,” he nods, and you don’t care that Abraxas is snorting behind you, he’s been judging you this whole trip and he lost out on a hot guy’s number as a result. “It was…”

“Thoros,” you interrupt him before he can ramble and psych himself out. “My name is Thoros, and I really would like to hear from you.”

Tom looks at you then, and you see him pull together the same sureness that drew you into his initial pitch. “I’ll text you about the app.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” you say, meaning it.

—

Bonus:

“You know,” Abraxas drawls as you sit in the United club lounge, gesturing lazily with his overpriced airport Fiji water, “if you tip him too much it’s like you’re paying him for sex.”

Orion looks up from his phone then, removing one earbud for the first time since he put them in. “I’ve paid more for sex with less attractive men.”

“Welcome back,” you say, “I didn’t realize you had paid any attention.”

“Someone would need to not have eyes in order to miss how hot that Uber driver was,” he bites back, returning to his phone.

“Well, I’m tipping him extra anyway,” you announce, confirming Tom’s five-star rating. Should you write a review? Is that too much?

Abraxas, with a grumble, declares, “I’m telling Alecto not to approve this expense.”

—

Bonus bonus:

Your phone buzzes at the end of dinner, the celebratory affair to close the sale which someone had insisted must be at Lilia, even though Abraxas doesn’t eat carbs and you would have preferred to grab a slice at Scarr’s rather than haul out to Williamsburg, anyway.

It’s Tom. Of course it’s Tom—you’ve been texting all week, and between a few late-night flirtations and one very bald statement of interest, you’ve got a date set for when you’re back home. You’re going to Mensho Tokyo, since he lives in the Tenderloin and you live… vaguely around the Tenderloin, at least, you tell people you live there when you want to seem cooler, and Tom is the type of guy that makes you excited to stand in line for hours to get seats. You’re already thinking about whether you might put your arm around him while you’re waiting, and you unlock your phone to see what he’s saying now.

It’s a picture message.

A picture of Tom, wearing your Howell sweater and no pants and oh god oh fuck—

“Was that Uber driver’s dick?” Abraxas whispers, next to you, and you curse your luck. “Remind me to call the next Uber, Jesus Christ.”

[palmett-hoes]

Andrew grew up in California. Therefore, at least in his head, he calls everyone "dude."

oki doke so i've actually spent a bit of time in the area where andrew's from, bc my aunt and her partner live there. oakland, bay area, right next to san francisco

now i haven't been back in several years and i wasn't exactly hip with the local slang bc i was 13 and being a carted around by a set of 50 year old lesbians, so i called up @i-did to talk ab this bc he has been there a lot more recently than me

we do agree however, and we're quite sorry to inform you anon, that your linguistic geography is a little off.

'dude' is heavily Southern Californian skater

los angeles, san diego, etc.

they don't really say that in oakland, which apparently has entirely it's own local slang

(though, in all transparency, i did once meet some surfers at the berkely marina who just wanted to "ride the gnar 🤙" so like,, anything's possible)

so anyway here's some True Blue oakland slang, courtesy of @i-did so if any of it's actually wrong it's his fault not mine:

hella - it's common almost everywhere now, but 'hella' originally came from oakland

yadadamean - short for 'Do you know what I mean?' sometimes shortened just to 'yadada' and just,, so many syllables

house to the neck - apparently means "the house is empty/i have the house to myself" and is completely incomprehensible to me

(on a serious note, i feel confident saying this is pretty clearly AAVE and while it might be interesting to know or sound funny if you're not familiar with it please don't start throwing these phrases around or using them in fics)

@i-did ALSO said, and i quote, about san jose, the area where aaron canonically grew up, "that's part of the bay area that people are always ashamed to say they're from there and just say the bay and hesitate to say where because san Jose has no culture and sucks"

"It's the Sacramento of the bay area lol"

"Yeah like they're literally just the city with the airport to get to the bay that isnt in SF lol its pathetic haha"

so uh,, sorry, aaron. went from the shitty part of the bay to the armpit of the south. sucks to suck

[bustedbernie]

It’s not coddling developers. It’s a mix of encouraging developers to build more supply for families (and not just “hip singles”) and state sanctioned tax benefits and public housing. The current problems in the USA (and to an extent in Canada) are zoning and parking minimums which have largely made traditional developments not financially feasible. Walk around many older American cities and you will see courtyard apartments, quadplexes, duplexes, wallups, brownstones, or other forms of higher-density developments. In the USA, it has become so onerous to build that the only profitable ways to build are housing developments on the periphery (i.e. suburbia) or LARGE luxury properties inside cities. What we are missing is the framework to build what a lot of urbanists call “the missing middle.” In many American cities, the types of housing I just listed above have been either illegal or too expensive to get any return on investment on. So yeah, I see the criticism. In certain cities (especially LA, SF, DC and NYC) the development we do see is all luxury, large buildings. But why wouldn’t it be when everything else is untenable? This is the issue at hand. To make matters worse, there are neighborhoods in Los Angeles zoned for single-family home construction NEXT TO METRO STATIONS. That is unacceptable and elitist if ever there was a case. And look at where the Red Line terminates in North Hollywood! It’s a GIGANTIC parking lot in the middle of a city of 4million people. That could be converted into parks, housing, shops and workspaces for thousands of people. Instead its parking... Which also places a cap on the utility of having a metro station nearby, one of the most efficient and high-capacity ways of getting around we have in our toolbox.

Bulldozing neighborhoods? This is the problem in places like San Francisco where white liberals are more interested in “preserving the view of the bay” and “maintaining the character of the neighborhood” than they are of building more housing to accommodate folks that need homes. I agree, but the bulldozing of neighborhoods largely already happened during the freeway construction boom of the post-war period through the 90s. Some cities are smartly demolishing these freeways and restoring neighborhoods. In San Francisco, there have been proposals to redevelop industrial areas in the old harbor areas into housing districts. These too have been controversial for some of these reasons (THE VIEW OF THE BAY :’(  ) and it’s just... so silly! Very few live in these industrial areas, so now we throw in people who don’t even live in a largely useless area as it currently is preventing change because they take their tea on the porch and don’t wanna risk seeing different buildings in the distance? I can never grapple with this way of thinking when even the most inoffensive way of adding housing to our cities seems to get people up in arms. Maybe we are too used to our suburban way of life and are trying to replicate that in cities? idk. But we gotta find a way to change this mindset. 

There are also ways to radically increase density without “harming the character” or building giant skyscraper blocks. Many European and Asian cities demonstrate this. Paris is famous for its 19th century apartment blocks that essentially quadruple capacity of a city block and create the situation that Paris intra-muros is about as dense as Manhattan, while only having a few skyscrapers at all. 

To further my point, I will again point to France, which is the only capitalist country that kept up housing pace against communist peer nations in the post-war while also continuing to add housing in urban centers. Of course, France has a ton of problems, particularly in the Paris suburbs, but those are slowly being addressed. Paris is currently adding 60,000-80,000 new units of housing per year with the Grand Paris project. Many of these units are built by private developers, and many are subsidized or built directly by the state. In addition, the state is funding the construction of over 200km of new metro to better connect existing neighborhoods throughout the region, expanding the RER (an express regional commuter system), as well as new light rails and rapid bus lines to further these goals. This is partly why the Paris region remains much more affordable than London, which is not too far away and struggling to keep up. You can also compare it to New York. Just googling, I’ve found several studio apartments for rent for under 600€ in the 14th arrondissement. They are even cheaper if you’re willing to live near an RER station outside of the city proper. Looking at places near NYC, not at all comparable. Yes, Grand Paris has its detractors, particularly those that don’t want power to continue concentrating in the capital city, but, the results seem to be speaking for themselves and Paris is actually trying to fix many of its problems with inequity and poor orbital area transport whereas we’re still having stupid fights here. Metro and RER stations are more and more becoming important nodes in the urban fabric even on the periphery and building around these new stations will provide the housing the region needs as it sustains growth. And France is the example that is not kind to developers and has lots of state involvement. If you want another radical proposal, look to Japan which has state centered urban planning. Zoning doesn’t exist as it does in the USA, which means a family house in Tokyo can be torn down and replaced by 20 apartment units without the years of public hearings we have to deal with here. You will see plenty of urbanists point to Japan as the ideal way to handle these issues as Japan handles housing prices far better than the USA and UK are currently. I personally prefer the French model, but that’s me. Just trying to give another example that is far more friendly toward developers that has been shown to work. 

So yes, lets not coddle developers, but also realize the USA has a 30 year backlog of construction, and not the government nor developers can alone rise to meet this challenge without radical changes and playing every card we have. Even more concerning is I read some months ago that there simply are not enough construction contractors and workers in LA County to even keep pace with some of the CURRENT construction, let alone what we need to be adding to our current stock to make cities more habitable and affordable. 

[devilstree]

Answer the questions and tag 11 people you want to know better!

@devildomz tagged us in an ask game. ok hell yeah this is a 2 in 1 blog

1. What do you prefer to be called namewise?

adri: adri !

nat: nat ........ lol our names are right there

2. When is your birthday?

adri: june 29 ... cancer season 😌 ✌️ 

nat: december 11 sagittarius gang only

3. Where do you live? (You can just give the country’s or state name if you’re not comfortable with sharing the city name)

adri: both of us are from the sf bay area

nat: what she said

4. Three things you are doing right now?

adri: i made fresh strawberry milk + boba and i am sipping on that. i am also listening to weeb music. i am also drawing somn 👀

nat: i am dyeing fabric in a pot with acrylic paint bc im in the throes of finals week and also im blasting fall out boy just one yesterday cause its 2015 again. yeah

5. Four fandoms that have your peak interest right now?

adri: at the forefront it is literally obey me the demon dating sim and haikyuu the volleyball anime is my ultimate comfort media. thats all folks i dont have four

nat: obey me is my emotional support quarantine hyperfixation but also animal crossing

6. How has this pandemic been treating you?

adri: not kidding! godawful! i hate it here ive never been more depressed in my life

nat: my life is gonna turn around as soon as im done with class next week but for now i am literally going through it.

7. A song you can’t stop listening to right now?

adri: tattoos together -- lauv

nat: mouth of the devil - mother mother

8. Recommend a movie

adri: marie antoinette dir. sofia coppola. is something that can be so personal 

nat: phantom thread 2017 dir. paul thomas anderson. absolutely insane

9. How old are you?

adri: i am 19

nat: me also

10. School, university, occupation or other

adri: university but summer break just started 4 me. double majoring in english/environmental studies 

nat: university also i go to art school. studying textiles & trying to double major in illustration. still working on the last one tho........

11. Do you prefer heat or cold?

adri: for outside weather sunny and warm, for indoor temp cold

nat: 70 degrees is the ideal living temperature i dont take feedback. also it is better to be cold than hot

12. Name one fact about you that others might find unusual

adri: bruv i am a normie i cannot think of an unusual thing. i am a vegan thats my weirdest unusual shit

nat: idk uhhhhhhhh. actually ok i thought my birthday was the wrong day for 10 years

13. Are you shy?

adri: i do not think that im shy i literally am just woefully picky with people i have in my life so i snip out people i dont immediately click with. not shy just unfortunately frigid akhddkg

nat: no only on the internet 

14. Do you have preferred pronouns?

adri: she/her

nat: anythings cool honestly but i prefer he/they slightly.

15. Biggest pet peeves?

adri: gross but. aggressive burping without apology when i dont know u like that

nat: hate it when ppl try to be rude funny like what is ur damage lol.. only do that if i know u -_-

16. What is your favourite “-dere” type?

adri: i had to look this shit up bc i didnt know any dere type other than tsundere but i still say tsundere because its so fun

nat: not a weeb so i had to check anyway its deredere i love happy bitches. good for them

17. Rate your life  1-10. 1 being crappy, 10 being amazing.

adri: last week it was a -8 but today it’s a 5??? im unfortunately going thru some shit rn but im on the up again

nat: 3-4 right now but i am finally getting off my ass for my finals. as soon as next week passes i guarantee i WILL be at 10

18. What is your main blog?

adri: @adrisama where i blog about haikyuu and rb whatever else i want

nat: @goo-mies its just everything there.

19. List your side blogs and what they are used for.

adri: oh christ. they are all lowkey dead for now bc i literally caught obey me disease but @twilitinhere for twilight blogging. @puffsleeves for blogging about anne with an e. @agrestes for miraculous ladybug. u are looking at the newest sideblog here at devilstree dot tumblr dot com

nat: i have an art blog @dovebranch and an aes blog @solohsis which r the only ones im really using rn. i used to have a tf2 sideblog but i havent touched it in 2 years and the art is old so i am NOT sharing

20. One thing you think people should know about you before they become your friends? 

adri: this is just for people who follow this blog and play obey me.... i stan satan and mammon. yes they r on critical opposing ends of the sapiosexual/morosexual spectrum. i have two hands!!!!!  🤧🤧🤧

nat: im just gonna piggyback off of what adri answered. anyway i stan levi and asmo who are also on opposite extremes except its the two ends of the cringe-sexy scale. (pinches fingers together) its about the duality

[pchangposts]

a melancholic realization.

its about 12 am on a saturday night and i hadnt received a single snap, text message, or fb message today. as i watch all my friends having fun with each other via their social media, it starts to dawn on me where my place in their lives is. ive always been envious of people who have some tight group of friends they can always rely on to hang out with and just have fun together casually. i feel like i was always the kid that people knew and was friends with, but i was never really included in like a “best friend” type of group where people would just hit me up and ask to hang out. that was until i joined PBL and everyone was constantly asking to hang. even though i was introverted, it felt nice to be a part of a tight friend group for once. and then i took that for granted when i started to join APO. 

all of a sudden i started a new friend group with my $ fam and before i knew it, i had drifted away from my old PBL fam. even in their social media stories today, i see them hanging out all the time, going to events together, grabbing routine dinners with each other. part of me thinks, what if i had just stuck with PBL. would i have been included in all these close friend group routines? i definitely do miss these friends right now but at the time i joined APO, i didnt much care about these thoughts because i felt so happy and tight with my APO fam/friends. hung out everyday, went to events together, could hang out with anyone at any given time. yeah, i was happy. I developed some of my closest relationships during APO and im grateful for it. i guess i just wish that it lasted even after college. i see all of them hanging with each other in their stories, with my self absent and uninvited. i appreciate the times i do get invited to big parties or events that are thrown, but at the same time, it feels like those might be the only things i may be invited to in the future. they all celebrate birthday meals with each other and just from simple stuff like that, i just miss being able to casually hang out with them. but i know i have no right to impose myself on stuff they dont feel the need to invite me to, i get it. life after college, definitely gets lonely. it was a lot easier with my roommates in oakland right after college. they were fun, inviting, and very easy to get along with. after they moved out i think i just felt that a part of me left with them. i definitely miss them a lot. i love my roommates right now too, but at the same time, i feel as though i have to tread carefully and hold in a lot of my thoughts. just recently, i was scolded for saying my first thought (which i thought was a very trivial one at that). i felt bad and so now, i feel as though i dont want to say anything as to not start any trouble. i want to be able to hang out with the roomies but theyre all so busy, i feel the house is empty half the time. i find myself alone in my room for periods of time, hoping for someone to message me to hang out or even grab a simple bite to eat. but im starting to lose all these connections and i start to receive fewer and fewer messages every day from people. and its making me think: maybe my time up here in Bay Area is over? anytime someone asks me when i would consider moving back to SoCal, i always proudly tell them, “in several years, when all my friends in SF have moved away”. maybe i was naive thinking that “moving away” had to be a physical connection. i now realize, its more of an emotional connection and if i were to move back to LA, probably no one would rly care? i wish it were as simple as that but unfortunately, i have no one back in SoCal to return to either. everyone in high school had cast me out like a loner and an outcast. that was part of the reason i was excited to move to berkeley for school for a fresh start. guess everything came full circle huh. definitely the one friendship i regret losing the most would be with serena. she was a loyal friend and one i could count on. i just wish i hadnt taken it for granted. i wish i hadnt taken all of these friendships for granted. saw some quote somewhere “i wish there was a way to know youre in the good ol days, before youve actually left them”. maybe if i knew that, i couldve done something different to maintain my relationships with friends. 

lol or maybe im just being super angsty right now because im taking accutane, which are meds known to cause depression. which is ironic cause im taking the meds since i was self conscious and depressed about my acne and it helped get rid of my acne. but yeah, id say if you were to ask me if i was happy with life, i could quite confidently tell you no. ive lost a lot of the meaningful connections with my friends, and it only gets harder to make new ones as you grow older. im not really sure what to do with myself and i dont know how im gonna survive. but watching some throwbacks on Disney Plus is at least helping a little bit. i hope i can be happy again one day. i hope i can read this in a couple years and be able to tell myself, youre gonna be ok. 

[sawyersick]

1 through 69 because you gotta twin with me

OMG ASDFGHJKL

aight here goes bitchez

1. are you religious?

nahh but my parents sent me to church camp when I was in elementary school??? For the cheap childcare I guess???

2. what animal do you think you’re most like?

I haven’t thought about this much but I think a field mouse!!

3. how do you take your coffee?

never……………………… I hate coffee

4. how old were you when you had your first kiss?

my mom’s bosses son forced himself on me when we were 6 lol so I don’t count that……….. so 15 i guess (according to my friend, if there’s no hormones it doesn’t count lol)

5. museum date or aquarium date?

AQUARIUM AQUARIUM AQUARIUM

6. do you have any tattoos or piercings? do you want more?

Just my ears are pierced and I have a whale (badly) tattooed on my hip I’ll post pix if you want but its pretty uggo

I want another whale on the other side so I’ll be symmetrical and a triangle hand tat….. maybe an eyeball tat (a tattoo of an eyeball…. not one on my eye lol)? I’m not really interested in anymore piercings tho

7. favorite fruits?

strawberries!!!

8. favorite vegetables?

when I was 12 I ate so many carrots my skin turned orange and my mom thought I had jaundice

also I heckin love mushrooms

9. i’ll only date you if _____. (fill in the blank)

I’ll only date you if you treat me with respect :(

10. do you cry a lot?

yeah lol at least twice a month minimum

11. who are your closest friends?

I don’t really have any? I’ve felt distant from my irl friends lately so idk probably just demo

12. have you ever been a part of a protest or a march?

I did the walk out for gun violence

13. do you play any video games?

helllllls yeah but I usually only play 3/ds

14. did you ever have an emo or scene phase?

yes and I think I’m still in it rip

15. what color is most of your wardrobe?

I think I wear a lot of blue! and black and white too i guess…… I’m trying to add more reds tho

16. what do you like to do for fun?

I bake and sew and draw! and listen to music

17. what is your biggest fear?

body horror tw for this one rip

being abandoned, being forced to do horrifically gross/unclean stuff, getting my eyes gouged out, getting the bones in my hands broken, getting acid poured on my face, the people around me dying, being forced to eat live slugs, getting my skin peeled off with a knife

18. name a subject you know a lot about.

whales/the ocean in general and baking!! and the band Liily

19. favorite fictional characters?

hm idk? Link and Zelda from LoZ, Clover and Snake and Aoi from 999, rhyme from TWEWY, Maka and Soul from Soul Eater, Storm from the Xmen, Ariel from the Little Mermaid, Chun Li, the Kagamines, Rilakkuma

idk I just thought about characters I have merch for

20. do you read a lot? what are your favorite books?

I used to??? Haven’t had the time for it in a while though and I’ve been reading a lot of how-to books as of late….. I really liked the Legend trilogy though

21. how would you describe your style?

art style and fashion style would both be classified as “cute but tries to be edgy” I think

22. did you have a favorite stuffed animal when you were little? do you still own it?

Yes!! a pastel elephant with a rattle in it named Elephant (very creative I know) He’s in my stuff somewhere now and this question reminded me to go find him again

23. what’s something most people love that you hate?

hmmm…. sports? mustard? airpods???? idk

24. do you think you’re a good singer?

actually yes? I wanna be in a band but I’m lowkey afraid of singing in front of people I know but have no problem doing it in front of an audience of strangers hmu if you’re in the SF bay area I’ve written 6 punk songs

25. who do you live with?

my parents and cat

26. favorite desserts?

ice cream, anything with chocolate or whipped cream, creme brulee, lemon tarts

I’m not too picky though lol

27. what is the best decision you’ve made in your life so far?

realizing that I can actually do mostly whatever I want and most things have fewer consequences than I think

also cutting people out of my life that emotionally exhaust me

28. favorite makeup brands?

uhhhh whatever’s cheap and doesn’t make my eyes burn ig urban decay is good when I can afford it

29. favorite clothing stores/brands?

Goodwill??? I used to shop at f21 but I try not to anymore

30. what was your first job?

working at a lake teaching windsurfing and sailing and I still work there

31. do you take a lot of naps?

n o  I absolutely  h a t e  taking naps and try to avoid them

32. what is your favorite part about your body?

hmm I have pretty good hair i think and sometimes my eyes? I have huge (genetic) eyebags tho which gets me down

33. are you more dominant or more submissive?

In day to day life I guess I’m more dominant??? like I make decisions when nobody else wants to :0 also idk intimately since iM aN aDuLt vIrGiN and pretty sex repulsed but probably sub 

34. are you more outgoing or more shy?

outgoing but sometimes it makes me annoying

35. how tall are you?

short…………………………. 4′8/143 cm

36. what is your body type?

uhh hourglass????? maybe pear I got them Thunder Thighs according to the guy who got kicked out of drama club for peeping in the girls changing room

37. favorite flower?

calendula, sunflowers, lavender and dianthus!!

38. favorite planet?

Neptune??????????????????

39. what do you want to dress up as for halloween this year?

I wanna be the bride of frankentstein but in a shiro lolita coordinate to make her look ~fancy~ or the Nancy part of Sid and Nancy if I’m in a relationship by that time

40. do you prefer to date people the same age as you, younger, or older?

Ideally the same age and I’m wary of dating anyone more than 2 years younger or older than me but I’m more willing to date older than younger

41. describe the person you’re in love with/have a crush on in great detail.

yall know who it is already but

in a band, dark hair, kinda tall, very fashionable, coincidentally happens to be the same racial mix as me, good at art, very humble, really sweet, lives in SoCal, has a hand tattoo of milk and “aye yah” on his arm, paints his nails orange, wears a lot of rings, gets freckles in the summer, prefers vanilla over chocolate, ties his shoes the cool way

42. who is your biggest inspiration?

idk at the moment? I like to draw from many inspirations

43. do you have any kinks?

???????????????????????????????????

44. do you own any pets?

one (1) very loving cat

45. which celebrity do people say you look the most like?

……………………….. myself

I literally had to google mixed race celebrities and STILL none look like me lol

46. do you like sports?

not really except I weirdly like baseball

47. have you ever seen a broadway musical?

Yes!! I won tickets to On Your Feet and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory

I also won Hamilton tickets but saw it in SF yall should download the app

48. what is your favorite kind of food?

noodles!!

49. would you rather be a fairy or a mermaid?

MERMAID actually I have a mermaid tail too so

50. what is your instagram?

@wishwhale :)

51. glossy lips or matte lips?

glossy by default because I have chronically dry skin/lips so matte lips are sooooooooooooooo uncomfy but it looks good on other people lol

52. do you like cherry, grape, blue raspberry, watermelon, or green apple jolly ranchers the best?

grape because im weird

53. what are your best personality traits?

I’d like to think that I’m kind and sometimes funny

54. what is your ethnicity?

asian/white

55. what different hair colors have you had?

brown and brown with pink that was supposed to be purple

56. favorite disney princess?

Ariel! bc mermaid

57. favorite album of 2017?

Humanz by Gorillaz  or Deep Dream by Daddy Issues I guess

I was weirdly obsessed with Feel Your Feelings Fool when it came out but I’m not really into it anymore though

58. have you ever had braces?

nah

59. favorite holiday?

Halloween! Because dressing up is fun

60. post a selfie.

how do I make this smaller anyways I don’t normally wear this much makeup but I’m going to a small show tonight

61. are you a good swimmer?

Yes!! I swim once a week at my local pool

62. do you wear jewelry?

I used to wear a lot………. like multiple necklaces and bracelets and rings daily but now I wear my ring every day and a necklace/earrings if I remember

63. can you play any instruments?

I’m learning guitar!!

64. do you have any siblings?

short answer is no but you can dm me for the long answer

65. are your grandparents still alive? how old are they?

just my maternal grandmother and she is almost 90! My paternal grandmother lived to 102 so I’m hoping for those good genes though (I think she would have lived longer because my family suspects elder abuse by my weird aunt)

66. who knows the most about you?

hmm probably Demo or Emily

67. are you a more quiet person or do you talk a lot?

I! Never! Shut! Up!

68. what advice would you give to your 13 year old self?

shut the fuck up you stupid bitch you arent cool

69. how many pillows do you sleep on?

two

[thecollegefootballguy]

My Trip to the 2019 College Football Championship Game!

The 2018 season had its ups and downs but after all of that excitement it became clear that two teams were the obvious choices to play for the National Championship. Alabama and Clemson went a perfect 12-0 in the regular season and won their respective conference championships. They then plowed through their semifinal opponents with ease, setting up a title game that would be completely undisputed, featuring the only two choices to be called the best team in the nation for the 2018 season.

Maybe the matchup was boring, after all there are 130 teams in the highest division of football and for the fourth straight year the winner of national title was going to be either the Alabama Crimson Tide or the Clemson Tigers. Boring yes, but they’re in the game because they’re the most deserving. Plain and simple.

It did seem like people were getting a bit fatigued for this fourth go-around. After all, ticket prices started to fall once Notre Dame and Oklahoma got knocked out of the running. Though I’m sure a lot of it also had to do with fans of these Southeast universities checking the cost of travelling to the Bay Area on short notice after the match was set and thinking twice. Their loss was my gain.

I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. I moved to San Diego to attend SDSU and spent a good 5 years in sunny SD before moving back up to the Bay around this time last year. It was quite a fun coincidence then that the College Football National Championship Game would come to Levi’s Stadium the year that I made my return. My dad--who introduced me to college football and sports in general--and I had been planning on going until the cold reality of paying $1500 per ticket hit us in the face. It was a nice thought, but ultimately too hard to swallow. Then, in late December, the prices started to fall. I wish I could say we waited until they bottomed out around $150, but we were too excited to have that kind of patience.

Just to be cautious, we took public transit to the game. We knew that it would be a hassle to drive to the stadium, it turns into a zoo when we went to 49er games. Plus you never know what kind of state you’re in after being around football for most of a day. We took the Caltrain, the SF to SJ commute, down from our station and my dad began chatting up a nice couple from Huntsville, Alabama in the seats across from us. Their son was in the band and they were nervous about the game. My dad told them not to worry, he was fully confident in a Tide victory. They asked me and I said I wasn’t that certain.

We changed over to the VTA, the local light rail, along with the Bama couple. My dad gave a guided tour of the Silicon Valley offices that we passed to the couple, who snapped pictures at the nondescript, box shaped buildings where Google, Amazon, Yahoo, and Youtube make their magic happen. At the Great America stop we bade them goodbye and good luck, and sauntered over to the pregame tailgate. It was around noon and the game wasn’t going to start until the evening.

We slipped through the still rather small-ish crowds, past the ESPN booth and its caravan of buses, and made our first trip to the beer and merch stands. I had to pause and admire one of the food areas: there was brisket and pulled pork for the Southerners who made the trek but also crab fries for the locals. We wandered around as the crimson and orange fans kept filtering in. Every once in a while we’d encounter the odd unaffiliated passerby, most of them wearing PAC-12 shirts and occasionally the out of place Silicon Valley techie taking in the scene. I got a few compliments on my SDSU sweatshirt. One kind old Alabama fan stopped me and asked if I went to South Dakota State, he had kids and grandkids who went to the USD. I had to let him down gently.

We got our pulled pork and crab fries, whose preparation likely pleased few of the fans in attendance, and went down to a tented area with tables to eat. I spotted perhaps the only open table in the tent the same time as a Clemson fan and we agreed to share. He was a nice guy and was at the game with his parents and uncle. We chatted for a while about various sports history moments that a Clemson man could share with a Bay Area family. Dwight Clark was mentioned more than once (later that night we passed by his statue on the way out). His group came over after a while, having spent time in the now considerable lines forming around the food and drink. After a nice half hour or so of conversation we went our separate ways, but not before my dad and I were gifted the famed $2 bills, with a perfect orange paw print stamped in each one.

We spent the next few hours hanging out, waiting for the game to start. We bought merch, bought drinks, and watched the predominantly orange crowd start to buzz with a nervous energy. Alabama fans were concentrated on the other side of the stadium. I checked twitter and felt tried not to feel angry that my favorite accounts were making fun of the projected low attendance. It seemed like every Greenville, Mobile, and San Rafael resident who made the trip was having a good time. Then again, the game hadn’t started yet.

I’ve written nine paragraphs and the game hasn’t begun so let’s fast forward a bit. My dad and I were comfortable in our fancy indoor digs but we just had to be outside for kickoff. We walked the long way around the stadium and up and up and up to out seats. We were one row below the highest in the house, and smack dab in Tuscaloosa West. The anthem and flyover went off without a hitch, and suddenly we had a football game on our hands. Oh yeah, and the stands were full after all of that fuss made by the press.

Clemson’s first drive isn’t worth mentioning but Alabama’s certainly was. On the Crimson Tide’s third offensive play of the game Tua Tagovailoa, undefeated in his college career, gave up a shocking pick six to put the Tigers up 7-0. No matter, on the third offensive play of the second drive, Tagovailoa threw a bomb to Jerry Jeudy to even things up. Then on four plays the Tigers scored. And Bama marched right back down the field.

We watched the first four drives of the game, which was turning into a very unexpected score-fest, high up in our seats before we began to make our way to warmth of the United Club.

[Redacted because we snuck in to a better part of the stadium and I can’t say how]

It’s a good thing the first quarter turned out to be so long, we didn’t actually miss a whole lot. The game was developing in a strange manner. By the time we got indoors and got some food Clemson had grown their lead to 28-16 midway through the second quarter. My dad noted that the Tigers hadn’t actually stopped Alabama on any drive. The Tide had scored two touchdowns, kicked a field goal, and Tua had thrown two very ill-advised passes that were intercepted. It definitely felt like a near-even game, with Bama slightly outplaying the Tigers but nothing to show for it.

In the last minutes of the first half Clemson finally got a stop and not for the last time either.

Halftime was spent indoors away from the marching bands. The only college football tradition I’ve never enjoyed went totally ignored on my end. A million dollar band can’t buy my attention, my apologies to that nice couple from Huntsville.

The third quarter was surreal. Suddenly Alabama couldn’t score to save their lives. The Tide spent minutes and minutes grinding out drives that went nowhere against a defense that had solved them. The fake field goal was just the beginning. Bama couldn’t convert on 4th down in three straight attempts. Meanwhile Clemson made every possible (and perhaps impossible) play conceivable to score. The scoreboard crept up from 31-16 to 38-16 to 44-16 before the third quarter was even up.

Back in the United Club, we were again sitting in a predominantly orange part of the stadium and the atmosphere was charged. When the Tigers began to pull away the feeling was a nervous excitement, then giddiness. By the fourth quarter it was absolute delirium. It wasn’t just obvious that Clemson was going to win, it was obvious that they were about to absolutely embarrass the alleged best team in football. The Alabama machine, the dynasty of the 2010′s, was being completely humiliated on the biggest stage in the sport. 

This wasn’t some flukey upset like the A&M, Ole Miss, and, yes, the earlier Clemson title in years past. This was a mauling. Nick Saban’s Alabama hadn’t lost like this EVER. This was Saban’s best offense on what looked like his best team and they were getting lapped by the understudy. Dabo Swinney, a former backup wide receiver for the Tide, had built--essentially from scratch--a program that could BTFO of Alabama on a good day. And it was a pretty good day for those Tigers.

And we still had the fourth quarter. It passed pretty quickly. Alabama was still futilely grinding out long drives that went nowhere, but now Clemson joined in bleeding the clock dry. They could've hung 50 on Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide if they’d wanted to, but against the wishes of the more vindictive (and scorned) fanbases, the Tigers pulled the plug. The last few minutes were a bit of an anticlimax, the game had been won, some time just had to be spent to make it official.

The confetti cannons sprayed out the orange and the Clemson band played, though I never got a handle on what the cheer was. If it was fun for an outside observer it must have been exultant for the tens of thousands of Tiger fans who made the trip, and the thousands more who were watching on tv.

I’ll cut my travelogue short here. I stayed for another hour enjoying myself before my dad and I slowly made our way home. The denouement felt good but is hard to verbalize.

What I would like to say is a great, big thank you to all of the Alabama and Clemson fans who traveled so far to see their teams play. I had a great time and both fan bases were perfectly charming the whole way through. I’ll forgive the one bit of bad behavior I saw when a despondent Tide fan in a sea of orange had words with a guy in an OU sweatshirt who was hollering his way. I doubt I could’ve composed myself any better. If looks could kill.

I couldn’t fit this in anywhere else but before I go I must comment on the weather. It rained buckets the days before the game and hasn’t let up since. I’m sure it dampened the plans of most of the tourists who came out in droves, many of whom had never seen the Golden State before. But, just like the Rose Bowl, whenever there’s a special game to be played, clear skies of sunny California suddenly appear. There’s some kind of magic attached to it, I’m certain.

It was a strange feeling watching that game. For once in my life I was watching sports without a vested emotional interest. It was a very liberating feeling going in without a nauseous nervousness or the thought of “what if?” permeating the game.

Thank you all for reading if you made it this far. This was a pretty singular moment in my life as a college football fan so I wanted to cover it properly and give all of my thoughts. I hope you don’t mind the extra details, I’m sure you were watching it yourselves so you didn’t need the straight retelling anyway.

I should also probably thank my dad for getting me into football, paying for my college, and buying the tickets.

-thecfbguy

[goodson]

ur able to travel so much its so cool!!

hell yeah brother!!! onionestly working a job where i can work at different offices was such a game changer. like i dont have pto because of 1) my surgery and 2) im sick constantly so like... i wanted to go see mbmbam live in sf... so im just gonna work out of one of our bay area offices... which is what im doing literally right now lol 

i miss being yung and carefree where i had a job but no financial responsibilities b/c i would just fuckin go on a month long trip around the east coast because i COULD!!! but travel has always and will always be one of my biggest priorities :^)

[multipleservicelisting]

San Francisco’s Tech Workers Make the Big Move

SAN FRANCISCO — The Bay Area struck a hard bargain with its tech workers.

Rent was astronomical. Taxes were high. Your neighbors didn’t like you. If you lived in San Francisco, you might have commuted an hour south to your job at Apple or Google or Facebook. Or if your office was in the city, maybe it was in a neighborhood with too much street crime, open drug use and $5 coffees.

But it was worth it. Living in the epicenter of a boom that was changing the world was what mattered. The city gave its workers a choice of interesting jobs and a chance at the brass ring.

That is, until the pandemic. Remote work offered a chance at residing for a few months in towns where life felt easier. Tech workers and their bosses realized they might not need all the perks and after-work schmooze events. But maybe they needed elbow room and a yard for the new puppy. A place to put the Peloton. A top public school.

They fled. They fled to tropical beach towns. They fled to more affordable places like Georgia. They fled to states without income taxes like Texas and Florida.

That’s where the story of the Bay Area’s latest tech era is ending for a growing crowd of tech workers and their companies. They have suddenly movable jobs and money in the bank — money that will go plenty further somewhere else.

But where? The No. 1 pick for people leaving San Francisco is Austin, Texas, with other winners including Seattle, New York and Chicago, according to moveBuddha, a site that compiles data on moving. Some cities have even set up recruiting programs to lure them to new homes. Miami’s mayor has even been inviting tech people to move there in his Twitter posts.

I talked to more than two dozen tech executives and workers who have left San Francisco for other parts of the country over the last year, like a young entrepreneur who moved home to Georgia and another who has created a community in Puerto Rico. Here are some of their stories.

Ah, the normal life

“I miss San Francisco. I miss the life I had there,” said John Gardner, 35, the founder and chief executive of Kickoff, a remote personal training start-up, who packed his things into storage and left in a camper van to wander America. “But right now it’s just like: What else can God and the world and government come up with to make the place less livable?”

A couple of months later, Mr. Gardner wrote: “Greetings from sunny Miami Beach! This is about the 40th place I’ve set up a temporary headquarters for Kickoff.”

Remote personal training happens to coincide well with remote life, but he said his start-up’s growth this past year was also due to his leaving the tech bubble and immersing himself in more normal communities, a few days at a time.

The biggest tech companies aren’t going anywhere, and tech stocks are still soaring. Apple’s flying-saucer-shaped campus is not going to zoom away. Google is still absorbing ever more office space in San Jose and San Francisco. New founders are still coming to town.

But the migration from the Bay Area appears real. Residential rents in San Francisco are down 27 percent from a year ago, and the office vacancy rate has spiked to 16.7 percent, a number not seen in a decade.

Though prices had dropped only slightly, Zillow reported more homes for sale in San Francisco than a year ago. For more than month last year, 90 percent of the searches involving San Francisco on moveBuddha were for people moving out.

Twitter, Yelp, Airbnb and Dropbox have tried to sublease some of their San Francisco office space. Pinterest, which has one of the most iconic offices in town, paid $90 million to break a lease for a site where it planned to expand. And companies like Twitter and Facebook have announced “work from home forever” plans.

“Moving into a $1.3 million house that we saw only on video for 20 minutes and said yes,” wrote Mike Rothermel, a designer at Cisco who moved from the Bay Area to Boulder, Colo., with his wife last summer. “It’s a mansion compared to SF for the same money.”

The amount of room they have felt surreal after various Bay Area apartments. He told me they have so much counter space, they can keep appliances like the food processor in the kitchen itself.

And then the people around them — neighbors — started doing something strange. They brought cinnamons rolls and handwritten welcome notes.

Wait, no income tax?

“We’re selling our house and moving out of SF. Where should we go and why?” Justin Kan, a serial entrepreneur who co-founded Twitch, asked on Twitter in August.

Joe Lonsdale, a co-founder of the software company Palantir, which moved from Silicon Valley to Denver, wrote back: “Come to Austin with us. Growing tech ecosystem and Texas is the best place to make a stand together for a free society.”

Also: no state income taxes.

Austin, population one million and the Texas city most would say is closest in spirit to the Bay Area, has long had a healthy tech industry. The computer giant Dell is based nearby. The University of Texas is one of the top public colleges in the country. And the music scene is eclectic and creative.

Now the local tech industry is rapidly expanding. Apple is opening a $1 billion, 133-acre campus. Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook have all either expanded their footprints in Austin or have plans to. Elon Musk, the Tesla founder and one of the two richest men in the world, said he had moved to Texas. Start-up investor money is arriving, too: The investors at 8VC and Breyer Capital opened Austin offices last year.

Some of the favorite gurus of tech workers are already there, like Tim Ferriss, life-hacker, who left for Austin in 2017, and Ryan Holiday, whose writing about stoicism is influential among the start-up set.

Sahin Boydas, the founder of a remote-work start-up who had lived in San Francisco and its suburbs over the last decade, saw all of that. He looked at his wife and two young children, working and learning from home while crammed into a Cupertino rental that had seen better days. Much of the late summer, the air was full of smoke from wildfires. For days, electricity would go in and out at his house.

“You start to feel stupid,” said Mr. Boydas, who is 37. “I can understand the 1 percent rich people, the very top investors and entrepreneurs, they can be happy there.”

So he and his family moved to Austin. For the same price as their three-bedroom apartment in Cupertino, they have a five-bedroom home on an acre of land. For the first time, Mr. Boydas has outdoor space. He just acquired two rabbits for his children. Sure, it’s (very) hot, but he’s ready for it.

“We’re going to get a cat and a dog,” he said. “We could never do that before.”

And it’s not just the cost of rent that is lower — the water bill is lower; the trash bill is lower; the cost of a family dinner at a restaurant has fallen significantly. Mr. Boydas said he hadn’t even known about the taxes.

“I run payroll for myself, and when I saw zero, I called the accountant like there’s an error — there’s no tax line here,” he said. “And they were like, ‘Yeah there’s no tax.’”

“Ok guys hear me out, what if we move Silicon Valley to Miami,” tweeted Delian Asparouhov, a principal at Founders Fund, which invests in start-ups.

The mayor of Miami wrote back last month: “How can I help?”

Now there is a very vocal Miami faction, led by a few venture capital influencers, trying to tweet the city’s start-up world into existence.

The San Francisco exodus means the talent and money of newly remote tech workers are up for grabs. And it’s not just the mayor of Miami trying to lure them in.

Topeka, Kan., started Choose Topeka, which will reimburse new workers $10,000 for the first year of rent or $15,000 if they buy a home. Tulsa, Okla. will pay you $10,000 to move there. The nation of Estonia has a new residency program just for digital nomads.

A program in Savannah, Ga., will reimburse remote workers $2,000 for the move there, and the city has created various social activities to introduce the newcomers to one another and to locals.

“We try to make the transition easy,” said Jennifer Bonnett, vice president of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the Savannah Economic Development Authority, whose program started in June.

Keyan Karimi, 29 and a start-up investor, took Savannah’s invitation to move there (though he didn’t ask for the reimbursement).

Seeing the inequality of billionaires in San Francisco’s wealthy Pacific Heights neighborhood and the homeless camps down the hill ground on him. So Mr. Karimi went home to his parents house in Atlanta to ride out some of the pandemic. Then he detected something strange. The city he thought was boring had gotten pretty interesting. Or maybe he had just never noticed before.

“I had no idea how much was going on here. I was sort of myopic,” he said, pausing and correcting himself: “No, I was arrogant.”

Mr. Karimi started looking at Zillow and studying the Southern cities he had ignored. He likes old houses and wants to fix one up. Savannah has a lot of those. So just a few months after leaving his $4,000-a-month one-bedroom in San Francisco, he’s working with the local business development group to put together a maritime innovation center in Savannah to invest in and guide shipping and logistics start-ups. He bought one of those old houses.

Savannah has one of the largest ports in the country. “No one knows that,” Mr. Karimi said. “I figure we can do something with that.”

The only downside is mosquitoes, he said. “I get eaten alive.”

There are 33,000 members in the Facebook group Leaving California and 51,000 in its sister group, Life After California. People post pictures of moving trucks and links to Zillow listings in new cities.

The founder of both groups, Terry Gilliam, is planning to take members on a house-hunting road trip through eastern Tennessee this spring with stops in popular post-S.F. destinations. One tour will be Chattanooga, Knoxville and Johnson City.

“When people decide to leave San Francisco, they usually don’t know where they want to go, they just want to go,” Mr. Gilliam said.

Mr. Gilliam, who met his wife when they worked at a Bay Area Chili’s restaurant, said she wouldn’t let the family move yet. And so the Pied Piper of the California-bashing Facebook community is still in Fremont, on the eastern end of Silicon Valley.

The gang’s all … here now

“People always get pissed at me when they hear birds in my Zoom,” said Ed Zaydelman, a longtime leader in San Francisco’s Burning Man community (and former New York City club promoter), who is forming an entrepreneur community in Costa Rica. “And I say, ‘Come join.’”

If San Francisco of the 2010s proved anything, it’s the power of proximity. Entrepreneurs could find a dozen start-up pitch competitions every week within walking distance. If they left a big tech company, there were start-ups eager to hire, and if a start-up failed, there was always another.

They could live jammed into a rambling Victorian with fellow nerds who — thanks to the popularity of polyamory — were having a lot of sex. More money was made faster in the Bay Area by fewer people than at any other time in American history.

No one leaving the city is arguing that a culture of innovation is going to spring up over Zoom. So some are trying to recreate it. They are getting into property development, building luxury tiny-home compounds and taking over big, funky houses in old resort towns.

“All these people want to do is this live-on-the-land stuff, but it’s not as easy as people think,” Mr. Zaydelman said.

He calls his new development company Nookleo, and he is building five tiny-home communities for remote workers. The little houses cost between $30,000 and 40,000. Each compound has four to six homes, a small organic farm, a yoga deck, a swimming pool and a kitchen clubhouse. Two clusters are already underway in Costa Rica, with Mexico and Portugal next.

In Puerto Rico, Gillian Morris, the founder of the travel app Hitlist, is also recruiting. Her San Francisco breaking point came after her roommate was attacked on their street, and she did a sort of gut check of herself over whether the street scenes and feeling of danger were worth the high rent. She moved to San Juan in 2019, even though it also has a crime problem. But now she lives in a huge house in the middle of the city.

“I have 12 people leaving San Francisco over the next three months to join a co-living community I set up,” she said. “It’s amazing here.”

And for the Baja-leaning, there is Bear Kittay, a co-founder of Good Money, an online banking platform. Now Mr. Kittay, another longtime fixture of the Burning Man festival turned developer, is building a property for the new digital nomads.

“The things that make this city ill are not within my control to change,” he said of San Francisco. “A lot of people are choosing to go to places where there’s opportunity, and maybe it’s a place that is more conservative and there can be an integration of dialogue. Or a place where they can live closer to nature. That’s what we’re doing.”

Nikil Viswanathan, who co-founded the blockchain start-up Alchemy, recently fled San Francisco. He said that there was no reason anymore for him or his colleagues to be there, and that he had always wanted to live on the beach. So now he does, in San Diego.

But the expats still find one another. Not long ago, he stumbled on a cluster at a party.

“I knew it was an S.F. crew because when I walked in because they had the full dual monitor with the ergonomic keyboard on a standing desk,” Mr. Viswanathan said, adding that conversation revolved around the lower cost of living. “One of the S.F. guys was like: ‘I just had a burrito for $6. It was amazing.’”

The last burrito he had in San Francisco cost $15.

They won’t necessarily be missed

Longtime Bay Area residents may well say good riddance to people like Mr. Viswanathan. People who distrusted the young newcomers from the start will say this change is a good thing. Hasn’t this steep growth in wealth and population in a tiny geography always seemed unsustainable?

These tech workers came like a whirlwind. Virtually every community from San Jose in the south to Marin County in the north has fought the rise of new housing for the arrivals of the last decade. Maybe spreading the tech talent around America is smart.

Locals have also seen this play before. Moving trucks come to take a generation of tech ambition away, and a few years later moving trucks return with new dreamers and new ambitions.

After the dot-com bust in 2001, there were fallow years before the latest, long-lasting boom — just as there were fallow years after the PC industry consolidated a decade earlier. That led to the dot-com boom. It is the circle of life in the Bay Area.

And those who are staying are digging in. “When 12 friends left, it felt like powerlessness,” said Diana Helmuth, a 32-year-old writer and marketer in Oakland. “Like these forces were too big. The forces of the world felt too big.”

Now, though, she is hardening toward those who say life is better somewhere else and were in town only for a job. “I say, ‘Great, goodbye, have a great time somewhere else.’”

    Multiple Service Listing for Business Owners | Tools to Grow Your Local Business

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[orbemnews]

They Can’t Go away the Bay Space Quick Sufficient SAN FRANCISCO — The Bay Space struck a tough discount with its tech employees. Hire was astronomical. Taxes have been excessive. Your neighbors didn’t such as you. In the event you lived in San Francisco, you may need commuted an hour south to your job at Apple or Google or Fb. Or in case your workplace was within the metropolis, possibly it was in a neighborhood with an excessive amount of avenue crime, open drug use and $5 coffees. But it surely was price it. Residing within the epicenter of a growth that was altering the world was what mattered. Town gave its employees a alternative of fascinating jobs and an opportunity on the brass ring. That’s, till the pandemic. Distant work supplied an opportunity at residing for a couple of months in cities the place life felt simpler. Tech employees and their bosses realized they may not want all of the perks and after-work schmooze occasions. However possibly they wanted elbow room and a yard for the brand new pet. A spot to put the Peloton. A high public college. They fled. They fled to tropical seashore cities. They fled to extra inexpensive locations like Georgia. They fled to states with out revenue taxes like Texas and Florida. That’s the place the story of the Bay Space’s newest tech period is ending for a rising crowd of tech employees and their corporations. They’ve instantly movable jobs and cash within the financial institution — cash that can go lots additional some place else. However the place? The No. 1 choose for individuals leaving San Francisco is Austin, Texas, with different winners together with Seattle, New York and Chicago, in accordance with moveBuddha, a web site that compiles knowledge on shifting. Some cities have even arrange recruiting applications to lure them to new properties. Miami’s mayor has even been inviting tech individuals to maneuver there in his Twitter posts. I talked to greater than two dozen tech executives and employees who’ve left San Francisco for different elements of the nation over the past 12 months, like a younger entrepreneur who moved residence to Georgia and one other who has created a group in Puerto Rico. Listed below are a few of their tales. Ah, the traditional life “I miss San Francisco. I miss the life I had there,” mentioned John Gardner, 35, the founder and chief government of Kickoff, a distant private coaching start-up, who packed his issues into storage and left in a camper van to wander America. “However proper now it’s identical to: What else can God and the world and authorities provide you with to make the place much less livable?” A few months later, Mr. Gardner wrote: “Greetings from sunny Miami Seashore! That is in regards to the fortieth place I’ve arrange a brief headquarters for Kickoff.” Distant private coaching occurs to coincide nicely with distant life, however he mentioned his start-up’s development this previous 12 months was additionally as a result of his leaving the tech bubble and immersing himself in additional regular communities, a couple of days at a time. The most important tech corporations aren’t going wherever, and tech shares are nonetheless hovering. Apple’s flying-saucer-shaped campus is just not going to zoom away. Google remains to be absorbing ever extra workplace area in San Jose and San Francisco. New founders are nonetheless coming to city. However the migration from the Bay Space seems actual. Residential rents in San Francisco are down 27 % from a 12 months in the past, and the workplace emptiness charge has spiked to 16.7 %, a quantity not seen in a decade. Although costs had dropped solely barely, Zillow reported extra properties on the market in San Francisco than a 12 months in the past. For greater than month final 12 months, 90 % of the searches involving San Francisco on moveBuddha have been for individuals shifting out. Twitter, Yelp, Airbnb and Dropbox have tried to sublease a few of their San Francisco workplace area. Pinterest, which has probably the most iconic workplaces on the town, paid $90 million to interrupt a lease for a web site the place it deliberate to broaden. And firms like Twitter and Fb have introduced “earn a living from home without end” plans. “Shifting right into a $1.3 million home that we noticed solely on video for 20 minutes and mentioned sure,” wrote Mike Rothermel, a designer at Cisco who moved from the Bay Space to Boulder, Colo., along with his spouse final summer season. “It’s a mansion in comparison with SF for a similar cash.” The quantity of room they’ve felt surreal after numerous Bay Space residences. He advised me they’ve a lot counter area, they will preserve home equipment just like the meals processor within the kitchen itself. After which the individuals round them — neighbors — began doing one thing unusual. They introduced cinnamons rolls and handwritten welcome notes. Wait, no revenue tax? “We’re promoting our home and shifting out of SF. The place ought to we go and why?” Justin Kan, a serial entrepreneur who co-founded Twitch, requested on Twitter in August. Joe Lonsdale, a co-founder of the software program firm Palantir, which moved from Silicon Valley to Denver, wrote again: “Come to Austin with us. Rising tech ecosystem and Texas is the perfect place to make a stand collectively for a free society.” Additionally: no state revenue taxes. Austin, inhabitants a million and the Texas metropolis most would say is closest in spirit to the Bay Space, has lengthy had a wholesome tech trade. The pc big Dell relies close by. The College of Texas is among the high public schools within the nation. And the music scene is eclectic and artistic. Now the native tech trade is quickly increasing. Apple is opening a $1 billion, 133-acre campus. Alphabet, Amazon and Fb have all both expanded their footprints in Austin or have plans to. Elon Musk, the Tesla founder and one of many two richest males on the earth, mentioned he had moved to Texas. Begin-up investor cash is arriving, too: The buyers at 8VC and Breyer Capital opened Austin workplaces final 12 months. Among the favourite gurus of tech employees are already there, like Tim Ferriss, life-hacker, who left for Austin in 2017, and Ryan Vacation, whose writing about stoicism is influential among the many start-up set. Sahin Boydas, the founding father of a remote-work start-up who had lived in San Francisco and its suburbs over the past decade, noticed all of that. He checked out his spouse and two younger youngsters, working and studying from residence whereas crammed right into a Cupertino rental that had seen higher days. A lot of the late summer season, the air was filled with smoke from wildfires. For days, electrical energy would go out and in at his home. “You begin to really feel silly,” mentioned Mr. Boydas, who’s 37. “I can perceive the 1 % wealthy individuals, the very high buyers and entrepreneurs, they are often glad there.” So he and his household moved to Austin. For a similar value as their three-bedroom house in Cupertino, they’ve a five-bedroom residence on an acre of land. For the primary time, Mr. Boydas has out of doors area. He simply acquired two rabbits for his youngsters. Certain, it’s (very) sizzling, however he’s prepared for it. “We’re going to get a cat and a canine,” he mentioned. “We may by no means do this earlier than.” And it’s not simply the price of lease that’s decrease — the water invoice is decrease; the trash invoice is decrease; the price of a household dinner at a restaurant has fallen considerably. Mr. Boydas mentioned he hadn’t even identified in regards to the taxes. “I run payroll for myself, and after I noticed zero, I known as the accountant like there’s an error — there’s no tax line right here,” he mentioned. “And so they have been like, ‘Yeah there’s no tax.’” “Okay guys hear me out, what if we transfer Silicon Valley to Miami,” tweeted Delian Asparouhov, a principal at Founders Fund, which invests in start-ups. The mayor of Miami wrote again final month: “How can I assist?” Now there’s a very vocal Miami faction, led by a couple of enterprise capital influencers, making an attempt to tweet the town’s start-up world into existence. The San Francisco exodus means the expertise and cash of newly distant tech employees are up for grabs. And it’s not simply the mayor of Miami making an attempt to lure them in. Topeka, Kan., began Select Topeka, which can reimburse new employees $10,000 for the primary 12 months of lease or $15,000 in the event that they purchase a house. Tulsa, Okla. can pay you $10,000 to maneuver there. The nation of Estonia has a brand new residency program only for digital nomads. A program in Savannah, Ga., will reimburse distant employees $2,000 for the transfer there, and the town has created numerous social actions to introduce the newcomers to at least one one other and to locals. “We attempt to make the transition straightforward,” mentioned Jennifer Bonnett, vice chairman of Innovation & Entrepreneurship on the Savannah Financial Growth Authority, whose program began in June. Keyan Karimi, 29 and a start-up investor, took Savannah’s invitation to maneuver there (although he didn’t ask for the reimbursement). Seeing the inequality of billionaires in San Francisco’s rich Pacific Heights neighborhood and the homeless camps down the hill floor on him. So Mr. Karimi went residence to his dad and mom home in Atlanta to experience out among the pandemic. Then he detected one thing unusual. Town he thought was boring had gotten fairly fascinating. Or possibly he had simply by no means observed earlier than. “I had no thought how a lot was happening right here. I used to be type of myopic,” he mentioned, pausing and correcting himself: “No, I used to be conceited.” Mr. Karimi began Zillow and finding out the Southern cities he had ignored. He likes outdated homes and desires to repair one up. Savannah has a variety of these. So just some months after leaving his $4,000-a-month one-bedroom in San Francisco, he’s working with the native enterprise growth group to place collectively a maritime innovation middle in Savannah to put money into and information delivery and logistics start-ups. He purchased a type of outdated homes. Savannah has one of many largest ports within the nation. “Nobody is aware of that,” Mr. Karimi mentioned. “I determine we are able to do one thing with that.” The one draw back is mosquitoes, he mentioned. “I get eaten alive.” There are 33,000 members within the Fb group Leaving California and 51,000 in its sister group, Life After California. Folks put up footage of shifting vans and hyperlinks to Zillow listings in new cities. The founding father of each teams, Terry Gilliam, is planning to take members on a house-hunting highway journey by japanese Tennessee this spring with stops in fashionable post-S.F. locations. One tour might be Chattanooga, Knoxville and Johnson Metropolis. “When individuals resolve to depart San Francisco, they often don’t know the place they need to go, they simply need to go,” Mr. Gilliam mentioned. Mr. Gilliam, who met his spouse after they labored at a Bay Space Chili’s restaurant, mentioned she wouldn’t let the household transfer but. And so the Pied Piper of the California-bashing Fb group remains to be in Fremont, on the japanese finish of Silicon Valley. The gang’s all … right here now “Folks all the time get pissed at me after they hear birds in my Zoom,” mentioned Ed Zaydelman, a longtime chief in San Francisco’s Burning Man group (and former New York Metropolis membership promoter), who’s forming an entrepreneur group in Costa Rica. “And I say, ‘Come be a part of.’” If San Francisco of the 2010s proved something, it’s the ability of proximity. Entrepreneurs may discover a dozen start-up pitch competitions each week inside strolling distance. In the event that they left a giant tech firm, there have been start-ups keen to rent, and if a start-up failed, there was all the time one other. They might reside jammed right into a rambling Victorian with fellow nerds who — due to the recognition of polyamory — have been having a variety of intercourse. Extra money was made quicker within the Bay Space by fewer individuals than at every other time in American historical past. Nobody leaving the town is arguing {that a} tradition of innovation goes to spring up over Zoom. So some are attempting to recreate it. They’re moving into property growth, constructing luxurious tiny-home compounds and taking on massive, funky homes in outdated resort cities. “All these individuals need to do is that this live-on-the-land stuff, nevertheless it’s not as straightforward as individuals assume,” Mr. Zaydelman mentioned. He calls his new growth firm Nookleo, and he’s constructing 5 tiny-home communities for distant employees. The little homes value between $30,000 and 40,000. Every compound has 4 to 6 properties, a small natural farm, a yoga deck, a swimming pool and a kitchen clubhouse. Two clusters are already underway in Costa Rica, with Mexico and Portugal subsequent. In Puerto Rico, Gillian Morris, the founding father of the journey app Hitlist, can also be recruiting. Her San Francisco breaking level got here after her roommate was attacked on their avenue, and he or she did a type of intestine test of herself over whether or not the road scenes and feeling of hazard have been well worth the excessive lease. She moved to San Juan in 2019, despite the fact that it additionally has against the law downside. However now she lives in an enormous home in the course of the town. “I’ve 12 individuals leaving San Francisco over the subsequent three months to hitch a co-living group I arrange,” she mentioned. “It’s wonderful right here.” And for the Baja-leaning, there may be Bear Kittay, a co-founder of Good Cash, a web based banking platform. Now Mr. Kittay, one other longtime fixture of the Burning Man pageant turned developer, is constructing a property for the brand new digital nomads. “The issues that make this metropolis sick usually are not inside my management to vary,” he mentioned of San Francisco. “Lots of people are selecting to go to locations the place there’s alternative, and possibly it’s a spot that’s extra conservative and there could be an integration of dialogue. Or a spot the place they will reside nearer to nature. That’s what we’re doing.” Nikil Viswanathan, who co-founded the blockchain start-up Alchemy, not too long ago fled San Francisco. He mentioned that there was no cause anymore for him or his colleagues to be there, and that he had all the time wished to reside on the seashore. So now he does, in San Diego. However the expats nonetheless discover each other. Not way back, he found a cluster at a celebration. “I knew it was an S.F. crew as a result of after I walked in as a result of they’d the complete twin monitor with the ergonomic keyboard on a standing desk,” Mr. Viswanathan mentioned, including that dialog revolved across the decrease value of dwelling. “One of many S.F. guys was like: ‘I simply had a burrito for $6. It was wonderful.’” The final burrito he had in San Francisco value $15. They received’t essentially be missed Longtime Bay Space residents could nicely say good riddance to individuals like Mr. Viswanathan. Individuals who distrusted the younger newcomers from the beginning will say this alteration is an efficient factor. Hasn’t this steep development in wealth and inhabitants in a tiny geography all the time appeared unsustainable? These tech employees got here like a whirlwind. Nearly each group from San Jose within the south to Marin County within the north has fought the rise of latest housing for the arrivals of the final decade. Possibly spreading the tech expertise round America is sensible. Locals have additionally seen this play earlier than. Shifting vans come to take a era of tech ambition away, and some years later shifting vans return with new dreamers and new ambitions. After the dot-com bust in 2001, there have been fallow years earlier than the newest, long-lasting growth — simply as there have been fallow years after the PC trade consolidated a decade earlier. That led to the dot-com growth. It’s the circle of life within the Bay Space. And people who are staying are digging in. “When 12 buddies left, it felt like powerlessness,” mentioned Diana Helmuth, a 32-year-old author and marketer in Oakland. “Like these forces have been too massive. The forces of the world felt too massive.” Now, although, she is hardening towards those that say life is healthier some place else and have been on the town just for a job. “I say, ‘Nice, goodbye, have a good time some place else.’” Supply hyperlink #area #Bay #Fast #leave

[nitewrighter]

Florida Mayhem & Seoul Dynasty are going up against each other. It's going to be a blood bath. God have mercy on FL ono. Also I don't really get why people hate the league skins, their not suppose to be other people's liking, they are to show your support for a team. What do you think?

I bought a San Francsico Shock skin for Genji, even though I watched San Francisco Shock get its ass handed to it by Valiant in real time that same day. *shrug* He’s orange and gold! Those are Bay Area colors!! And it says ‘SF!’ I had to get it!! And then I ran into a Lúcio who also had a Shock skin and we were both rapidly squatting at each other and I felt  Bay Area solidarity in that Numbani spawn that round. I feel like this is probably one of those points of disconnect between like… sports and geekdom. Like I grew up in a family that’s pretty into baseball, and the Giant’s colors are orange and black, which like… outside the context of halloween or sports is not a color combo you see fashionistas eagerly jumping at but it’s like… it grows on you. You grow up seeing your family dress up in the jerseys and you get attached to it. So I’m kind of used to “oh yeah! Orange for San Francisco! Like our bridge! Good!”

 I think people not super connecting to the esports colors is just part of the disconnect between esports and… well… sports sports. Sports sports are more established. You grow up with kind of garish colors and you develop a personal attachment to them—they’re trying to start an esports league with Overwatch and taking a sporty approach to it with these skins, and that kind of makes people who are really into Overwatch for its aesthetics go “Wait–what?” But I like the skins to be honest.

…Lowkey I also want the Valiant skin for Mercy because I really really like green but also my gut repulsion towards LA sports teams stays my hand. 

[piperhalliwellskitchen]

Your fun but painfully hard Charmed asks, as promised :) How would you rank all eight seasons of Charmed from your favorite to least favorite? How would you rank all four sisters from your personal favorite to least favorite - and why? Which were your favorite and least favorite romances of the series? Which sister relationships do you love most and least (e.g. Prue/Piper, Piper/Phoebe, Prue/Phoebe Piper/Paige, Phoebe/Paige...?) And what would you most want to change about the series?!

oooooooooooo these are great!!! ranking of all the seasons favorite to least favorite for me is: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 4, 7, 8the first three are my favorite because i feel like the first three seasons were the most interesting and i reeeaaallly loved shannen doherty’s acting. due in part to her excellent acting and the writing of the first three seasons there was something vaguely more real about the first three seasons, vs. the rest where it kind of turns into supernatural soap opera (which i still love) and becomes a little more like fluff. still enjoyable but missing a certain grit. sister ranking: piper is my favorite because i love her and want to be like her the most, prue is my second favorite because i’m probably actually a lot more like her than i think (and we have the neurotic oldest sister thing in common!), and paige/phoebe are on equal footing with me because i relate to both of them in the same way - free-spirited, a little edgy (i relate to seasons 1-3 phoebe more than “grown up” phoebe in the later seasons) but even though i relate to them they’re not necessarily my favorite… but i still love them….prue & piper is my favorite sister relationship, hands down! shannen + holly are great friends in real life which really shows in their acting in the first three seasons.. honestly i felt like after shannen left, piper was never really able to recreate that same relationship and she just sort of became everyone’s mom which is part of why i don’t like the later seasons as much…. i love phoebe/paige because paige brings out the mentor in phoebe and phoebe/prue was always fun - they had a little animosity but i think they really bonded by the third season (though phoebe got over prue’s death way too easily in the fourth season, tbh..) piper & phoebe always had a good relationship that was fun to watch - in the first 3 seasons, she was the buffer from phoebe to prue and after prue left, piper and phoebe bonded as like sister-moms to paige, introducing her to the craft and that was fun to watch… piper/paige is probably my least favorite sister interaction because i feel like when paige came along, piper really became more of a curmudgeon and i LOVE piper as a mom, don’t get me wrong, but she acted like too much of a mom with paige, when the reality is that paige is an adult.. and it took a while for piper to kind of adapt to that. in some episodes/seasons/scenes she recognizes it, but in others, it sort of seems like a bit of lazy acting on holly’s part maybe? to treat paige like a baby…things i would most want to change about the series… oo… for one, make the setting true to san francisco LOL. you can’t just have a few shots of the golden gate bridge, some cable cars and ghirardelli and call it a day - that’s not all that SF is! i’ve lived here for a few years now and there’s only a few eps/scenes that really made me believe it was SF. the slum lord in season 5, and some of the buckland scenes could be in the financial district. the show doesn’t ever mention the east bay (oakland, berkeley, etc) or if it does, it’s an afterthought. but their house? the fact that they have a front yard and a sunroom???? unheard of in SF, especially wherever they are supposed to be located.. they made a reference to where that was supposed to be in the first season which was WAY off (somewhere near eddy/o’farrell… which is deep tenderloin and has ZERO manors… not a nice neighborhood like theirs) - and they kind of avoid mentioning any of the neighborhoods at all which is like a HUGE thing in SF. they never talk about the mission, nob hill, financial district, pacific heights, bayview district… etc… the show would have been a LOT more believable if they actually did some research and made the setting more realistic. also relating to setting… these are 4 total sisters (WICCAN sisters no less!!!!) in the bay area and not even ONE of them was at least a little bi???? the fuck?????? that was pretty ridiculous to me. also i got really sapphic vibes from phoebe, always. i understand the appeal of cole, but i think it would have been amazing if she had either a temporary or serious relationship with a woman after… a woman would have made phoebe feel way more appreciated and i think phoebe would have been really receptive to a relationship with that kind of love + mutual understanding.. but for real, the fact that not only did none of the sisters have any romantic relationships with women at any time, they also only had maybe a total of 3 lesbians featured on the show (and only ONE was a couple that it was explicitly mentioned they were together - oh and one of them dies.. shocking…) - that was really upsetting. this is san francisco, for fuck’s sake. there should have been a way more diverse character base - not just more lgbt characters, but more black, latino, lgbt and all those intersections.…speaking of diversity. there was a lot of racism in the show that watching it over and over again makes me pretty annoyed. a lot of the demons are always black, and really obnoxious tropes. like the witch doctor. the “tribal” demons. the demons that always die. and even the innocents that die first/quickest are always the non-white ones.. the bay area is a REALLY rich + racially diverse area, they really should have had more than (1) recurring black character (darryl.. and of course he was a cop.. smh) and they absolutely should have had recurring latino + asian characters. chinatown + japantown are HUGE parts of san francisco, and many parts of the bay area are almost exclusively asian or latino…. it’s pretty much unforgivable that they didn’t even really seem to try to incorporate non-white characters in the show in like a real, meaningful way. another thing they could have done better is ended the series at the 7th season, after they faked their deaths. the 8th season was pretty bad imo. lol. their fake alteregos were kinda fun but it was just so pointless… also as much as i love paige + rose mcgowan, i do wonder what the show would have been like if someone else was cast as paige… there was a confession on @charmedxconfessions once that i saw wondering what it would have been like if eliza dushku was cast as paige, and i admit that is an interesting thought. i’m not sure who i would pick, but it does make me wonder. rose is pretty and everything, but she’s really not the greatest actor, let’s be honest with ourselves here. lol. the first few eps in season 4 i think are the best example of this… she starts to get into it better in season 5, for sure, but… i wonder what it would have been like if they hired someone with more seasoned acting chops…. also with regards to paige.. her giving up her job made me sad, tbh. she did a lot of good work as a social worker and again with setting, it’s super unrealistic that any of them would go any amount of time without any kind of job. and if she had a good one like that, i think it was unrealistic that she would leave it? idk. i think it would have been interesting if she continued to keep her job and they could have delved into some of the problems of the city through that, too. (thus adding to the realism of the setting…) could have also been a good way to incorporate more interesting (and not white) recurring characters, too.the last season with paige’s relationship with henry… can we say.. SNOOZE. god that was such a boring, forced love plot. i actually like henry, but i really felt like that relationship was shoehorned in to give them all perfect husbands. same with coop. so boring. i’m not just saying this cus i think they should have dated women at some point, but like those relationships were literally so forced + boring. not only was the writing in the 8th season pretty weak, it seemed like those two romantic plots were a way to keep viewers interested. cheap tactics, imo. lastly!!!! (i’m almost done i swear) i REALLY wish they left things on good terms with shannen doherty, because the fact that they really never mentioned prue at all past the first few eps of the 4th season was really a shame. she was a HUGE part of their lives, obviously, as their oldest sister, and she was the most powerful witch for the first three seasons… the fact that they pretty much forgot about her entirely past the 4th season showed that they let their petty beefs control the show instead of caring about its integrity or fans.. like i’m sure i wouldn’t have liked shannen doherty in person much either (she’s a republican and from what i heard, it was her and alyssa milano’s political/personal differences that drove that wedge in the show) - but at some point you really need to just be professional. if you’re not doing it for the fans, who are you doing it for? it would have been good for them to either feature her in the last episode, or pan to a photo of her when piper/leo were walking up the stairs.. everytime i watch that i get so upset. it’s disrespectful to prue’s memory, and she deserved better.. ok… i think that’s it…. though i could seriously go on forever LOL. i love this show to death but i’m very acutely aware of all the issues this show has especially since i watch it literally every day lol… still love it… but yeah if they ever do a remake i have SUGGESTIONS…!!! hehEDIT: oh i just realized you asked about romances too! i kind of addressed it in my things i would change about the series answer... but yeah uh piper+leo are my favorite and i do love phoebe/cole sometimes.. in season 2, 3, and parts of 5/6. but yeah cole is pretty bad and abusive and ughhhhhh.. he’s just so.. tasty.. lollllll............ pretty much all of paige’s love interests are super boring. i loved prue/andy :( and again, paige or phoebe should have dated a lady at some point. lol.

[bruhnushka]

the bus. part 3

summary: its a surprise

warnings: slight cussing, nothing much else i think 

a/n. its here. finally. this part WILL BE FINAL. there are no more bus fics after this. writing chaptered fics make me anxious. thank you guys for the continued support. im going to make a tallest for any one who wants to be tagged every time i want a fic. reblog your @ here or send it in my ask box. 

pronouns : they/them

1,, 2,, 3

tags: @youtubeandsatan @favriotefightingfrenchmeme @katkitters @ur-pal-kal @thefallenbibliophilequote @justabravelittleblogger @lovinglyragesatyou 

lin got off the bus. it was slightly cold, a wind blowing through the air. he helped you step off, watching you stumble as you tried to stretch out your legs the same time you walked down the steps. your friend, tanushka, followed behind dyou closely, taking a photo of the moment you almost fell over. 

“i hate you” you muttered, making her laugh. you guys all stretched, yawned, and shook out the tiredness in your body. then you started to walk towards the large swarm of people that was your new zealand group.  “hey guys!’ you called, making them walk towards you. 

“and who may this little guy be?” Lin laughed, leaning down to say hi to Tanushka’s little brother, Avi. 

“im not little!” he pouted, crossing his arms and glaring at Lin. Another snapshot later, lin was introduced to everyone in your family, and they felt comfortable with him. your mom asked if you were sure you didn't faint when you met him, making Lin tilt his head back in laughter. soon you guys were supposed to go on the cruise. you walked to the line, Lin following you closely. then, another one of you family friends arrived. 

“hey babe!” he winked, making you gag. you through a soggy french fry at him, and he dramatically fell over. you threw your hands in the air and leaned beside him, holding his hand close to your heart. 

“i-im sorry! i didn't know” you pretend to cry.

“its too late- i see my son on the other side. carrie fisher? is that you?” he looks at you, then goes limp in your arms. in a matter of seconds you two were laughing again, hurled on the floor. the parents glared at you two for making such a big scene but you two didn't care. Lin was glaring at you for a different reason. 

“what?” you asked Lin, dusting yourself off. 

“nothing.” he says through gritted teeth, turning the other way so you couldn't notice the redness in his face. tanushka does, though, and winks at him, nudging his arm with her elbow. lin growls at her, only making her laugh. 

“anyways, richie, don't ever do that again. ill tell your girlfriend you were cheating on her!” you scold him. girlfriend? lin thought, eyebrow arching in surprise. 

“ishita-my love- no! don't tell her! ILL PAY YOU ANYTHING!” he gets on his knees. you roll your eyes, pull out your phone and ring her up. 

“hey, ishita? yeah this is y/n, your boy giggles was cheating on you by trying to flirt with me. yeah he's right here. you want me to give the phone to him? ok!” you laugh and hand gang the phone, and he glares at you. 

“hey babe...” he starts nervously, making you cackle. Lin grins at you, and you return the favor by planting a kiss on his cheek. you hand the ferryman your ticket and hop onto the cruise. 

you ask lin for a picture at the upcoming waterfalls. he eagerly nodded. you laughed and led him to the front of the deck, where tanushka grabbed your phone. 

“say indians are cheap!” she laughed. 

“indians are cheap!” lin laughed out loud, grinning. 

“indians are- oh my god is that a dolphin?” you cut off your sentence, and while you tried to point to the dolphins, your hand forcefully hit lin’s chest, making him fall over the rails and into the freezing water below. 

“lin!” you yell frantically, quickly going over your training as a lifeguard in your head and then throwing over the closes lifeline into the water. you saw lin was struggling to stay up, so you stood on the railing and jumped into the water. it was schocklingly cold, but you worked through it and pulled lin onto the life boat. soon, authorities arrived, helping you back onto the boat. dozens of blankets and towels were draped over the two of you, but in the end you two snuggled closer together to cope with the cold. your family group came rushing in to check on the two of you. 

“are you guys ok?” they kept asking, and you kept nodding. there were a few more miles to go before they reached the turning point and at which the boat would turn around and head home. the captains brought you some fresh clothes to change into and you accepted them gratefully. of course, they were all oversized merchandise, but they were warm. after you changed into them, you and lin snuggled into each other inside the rooms, three blankets meticulously placed to cover each and ever part of you two. you sighed contentedly into lin’s chest as you drank the hot soup the on-board chef and supplied. 

“Y/N!! LIT MANNY!! you guys still haven't gotten that waterfall picture!” tanushka said, pulling off the blanket form the two of you. you rolled your eyes, groaning as you got up. you called to lin. 

“this picture isn't gonna take itself” you laughed, pulling him up. 

tanushka instructed you two until you were in a perfect position. you rolled your eyes at her perfectionism, but knew it would turn out great, so you didn't complain. 

“3″

lin turned to look at you, eyes wide in adoration and sentiment. 

“2″

he glanced at your lips and decided to lean in, just a bit.

“1″

your lips were entangled with his, and the flash of the picture went on. crowds of people around the ship whooped and cheered and clapped, making you and lin blush. he shyly looked towards the floor as you gazed back at him. 

“what was that for?” “nothin” he mumbled. you brought your hand to his chin and turned his face towards yours. you planted a kiss on his nose, and then grabbed his hand as you led him towards the couch you two were cuddling on. 

it had been about two months since that encounter with lin. lin hadn't stopped thinking about you, not the entire flight home, not the drive back to his house, not the nights he spent trying to sleep. he needed to see you again. in the back of his mind, a plan was devising. 

lit manny 

hey! its lin! I've been meaning to text you for a while now, i didn't know what to say! i was hoping you could send me some of those pics📸?

you

yeah of course! :)

[picture file] [picture file] [picture file] 

lit manny

thanks! these are great 😇

you

no problemo! hey are you anywhere near the bay area by any chance?

lit manny

actually yeah! im on a secret mission (so keep it on the low-low) to check out how the angelica tour is doing!😎 are you going to one of their shows in sf?😬

you

yep. 3/18 will you be there? 🙃

lit manny

i think! see you there, hopefully 😬😬

you sighed in happiness, gripping the phone and collapsing on your bed. you glanced at the calendar. only a week more. 

and a week more was the longest ‘and a week more’ you had ever experienced. day after day went by agonizingly slowly, and you shook your head in discontent. but then it was saturday, and anxiety slowly filled your stomach. when you got up, you spent at least an hour looking for clothes to wear. you knew you wanted to impress lin, but you didn't want to seem to desperate. as you put yet another shirt down, you got a call. you checked the caller id, and there, in all his adorkable-ness was lit manny. you stifled a scream and answered it, putting it on speaker and setting it down on the bed as you checked more clothes. 

“hey lin! whats up?” you reach into the back of the closet and pull out a thin blue see-through shirt. you rolled your eyes in disgust and threw it into the growing pile of clothes. 

“nothing much! just checking up to confirm what time you're gonna be there. i was hoping you could come a little earlier? i want you to meet the cast- they all want to meet you”  “oh my gosh! gahhh! of course! what time?” you looked at the clock. it was 3:45 and the showing was at 8. 

“maybe around 6:30? if thats good enough-” “of course! ill be there!” you quickly cut him off, regretting your decision immediately. 

“oh, thats great! see you then!” he hung up, leaving you to shake your head. you really needed clothes. you limply threw your arm into the very back of your closet and lifted up a box. interested, you opened it up. the tape from the amazon package still hadn't been taken off. instead, in purple sharpie, it read. 

“when y/n needs clothes for a date and doesn't have any because theyre a fucking idiot” in tanushkas handwriting. you grinned wildly and opened it up, revealing the perfect outfit. even in tanshkas absence she was still saving your ass in relationships. 

you grabbed your backpack by the straps as you walked into the city. just three turns away lay both lin and the musical of your dreams. you shivered at the cold, but you didn't mind the biting wind. as you neared the theatre, you spotted the musical poster and started to grin. and you didn't stop until you reached inside. 

you had caught lin off guard in mid conversation. a wide smile donned his face as he walked towards you to meet him. he was talking to some of his fans and apologized as he led you inside. 

“so, how have you been?” he asks,, rubbing his hands together to generate warmth. 

“great. you?” you reply, setting your things down on a table. 

“wonderful. hows that family of yours?” “still nice i guess.” it was awkward silence, before lin suddenly stood up. 

“let me introduce you to the cast!” “oh my god of course! you have no idea how nervous i am right now!” you laugh, then walk with him to another room. 

“they'll love you! don't sweat it!” he chuckles, and leads you by arm to a group of people intently watching the tv screen, an episode of sponge bob playing. 

“hey guys! this is y/n!” they all turned and clamored around you, giving you compliments and laughing at lin and telling you how much he talked about you. you shyly averted your eyes to the floor and was in total starstruckedness. 

“wow guys, um, I'm a really big fan of all you!” you laugh, and they laugh with you. they all give you hugs and sit you on the couch. 

“you can chill here until the show, we've all got to get ready!” lin says, and the room is suddenly empty. you immediately text tanushka

tannioli ravioli

what the heck do u want u potato. 

you

I'm going to see hamilton

tannioli ravioli

yeah i kno so what

you

lin invited me backstage and I'm there right now and I'm freakingadslkghncnaksdjfh the fuck  ou t 

tannioli ravioli

YOU DIDNT TELL ME THIS BEFORE PRAY TO GOD YOU FOUND MY EMEGERGENCY  KIT

you

i did don't worry but its rlly awkward idk?????? how do you play this right so we can start you knowing

tannioli ravioli

fucking?

you

WHAT??? NO!!!!! DATING YOU PERVERT

tannioli ravioli

oh. nvm my previously typed out advise is deleted

tannioli ravioli

um maybe just be urself??? ik its cliche but like play to both of your interests, like see what he wants in a relationship and if match up with you he's the one. make sure he's not an asshole and he's open and honest. don't be a fake. if all else fails make him jealous.

you

thats actually good advice. 

tannioli ravioli

ur welcome

tannioli ravioli

also gtg me & alice got to marvin gaye and get it on while u heterosexuals be heterosexual bye ;)

you

u suck

tannioli ravioli

but your straighter than me so you suck harder.

you rolled your eyes and laughed. taking deep breaths, you analyzed your situation. before you could start, though, anthony walked in. 

“hey, the show is gonna start in like 20 minutes so... you wanna head out?” he asks. you laugh and nod, grabbing you things and heading out to your assigned seats. 

you were crying so hard. you had seen hamilton live, and your life goal was complete. you started to walk out before someones hands grabbed your arm. 

“y/n! wait! i wanted to hang out a little bit!” lin says, pulling you back into the theatre. you wiped your eyes, embarrassed, and rubbed your arms. why was san francisco so cold. 

“lin that was amazing. i know you didnt act in it at all but just, god you are such a genius. i could never write music that brings so much emotion, that is so perfectly created with each detail hand crafted” you look up at him with adoration. he kissed you. when his lips touched yours, a feeling of erratic calm set over your heart. you weren't in love, but you were definitely in something right now.. you brought your arms to his waist and deepened the kiss. 

as he pulled back, he whispered, “thank god for the bus.” you nodded in agreement.

ps. finally done. woo. last post for a while now. ily guys. sorry I'm a sucky blog 

[segadores-y-soldados]

Reaper: References

Alright so that “The game’s in the refrigerator” full audio came back around on my dash and I realized that not everyone probably recognizes Reaper’s references, so I figured I’d make this post to help pool sources and quotes, and also as a potential resource guide in the future.

Lots more under the cut!

A little bit of context

So as most Reaper/Gabriel Reyes fans know, Gabriel is from Los Angeles, California.  Los Angeles is the second-most-populated city in the United States (second only to New York City).  When the Spanish came, they founded a mission in the region named “Mission San Gabriel Arcángel” (wink wink) for the Archangel Gabriel, messenger of God.  For those of you unaware, the original route connecting for the 21 Californian Missions is called “El Camino Real,” or “The Way of Kings”/ “The Royal Way” - whether intentional or not, Gabriel’s last name of “Reyes” means “Kings” in Spanish.  The route is now historic and marked with bells that denote the way.

There are two major “valleys” in California - the Great Valley or Central Valley which spans the majority of the state, and is where the majority of California’s agriculture is grown, and the San Fernando Valley, which is the smaller valley where Los Angeles is located.  Californians can refer to either as simply “The Valley,” but more often than not when someone says they “went to the Valley,” or are “heading to the Valley,” they are referring to the San Fernando Valley.  Among American pop culture, “going to the Valley” is often a reference to someone heading to Los Angeles or Hollywood to try and become famous.  

Lastly, Blizzard’s headquarters are located in Irvine, California, which is one smaller cities that make up the “Los Angeles metropolitan area.”  This is cheekily referenced in the Numbani map, where a flight from “Irvine, CA” is listed as “delayed” on the Airport’s board.  Meanwhile, the Los Angeles flight is still “on time” on the map’s flight board.

Gabriel’s first reference to his ties to L.A. is on the Hollywood map, where he will say the line “Home sweet home” occasionally.

The Los Angeles Lakers

It’s not surprising then that Gabriel is a fan of the Lakers, one of Los Angeles’ two professional NBA basketball teams.  The Lakers have been known to be a strong team for some time (although we can nitpicks over fluctuations in their status), and regardless of how someone might feel about them (...like me), the team has produced some of the greatest players and basketball games in the sport’s history.

Second Reference: “The game’s in the refrigerator.”

The full line is: “The game's in the refrigerator: the door’s closed, the lights out, the eggs are cooling, the butter's getting hard, and the Jell-O's jigglin'!” (note that this is Reaper’s exact line).  This is a nearly dead-on word-for-word quote from a LA Lakers’ commentator, Chick Hearn, who was known for his unique phrases.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_Hearn

You can watch the original quote here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVi98BZ2OwA (against the Sacramento Kings!)

The meaning of the phrase is basically that “the game is pretty much over, we pretty much know who won.”

What’s fucking HILARIOUS about this is that by the time the “game” of Overwatch takes place (roughly 2076-2078) the line is almost NINETY YEARS OLD.  Reaper is making a fucking sports reference that, for him, occurred almost a century ago.  

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL.

Third reference (that may not be finalized): “Kobe, eat your heart out.”

https://clyp.it/y34uzzv0?token=d18fc817b96d0f98c6fd8b1e461a28a7

About 7 months ago, a user on reddit pulled a bunch of then-unused audio lines from the game ( https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/4sz7o8/i_extracted_some_of_the_audio_files_from_the/ ).  Some of them have been used (the Halloween and CNY lines).  Reaper, Lúcio, and Reinhardt have basketball reference audio lines that may or may not make to the game (March Madness event, maybe?).  Reaper’s line is a reference to one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Kobe Bryant, who just retired in 2016.  Kobe spent all 20 years of his professional basketball career on the Lakers and among most Americans is simply referred to as “Kobe.”  A fairly popular “slang term” among Californians (and other Americans) is to say the phrase “Kobe!” when taking a shot - at the hoop, at the trashcan, at...anything really.  The slang version was first popularized by Dave Chapelle, an American comedian.

http://full-lifeconsequences.tumblr.com/post/152446878702

Here, the McElroy Brothers demonstrate how the term is supposed to be used.

...It does not guarantee skill.

Sports, sports, sports!

And this is the one that got me thinkin’ about writing this, because I have yet to see ANYONE talk about this:

Fourth reference: “Welcome to the black hole.” / “Welcome to the Black Hole.”

I’ve offered an alternate version where the words “black hole” are capitalized because the phrase is almost certainly another sports reference.

Another Californian sports reference.

https://youtu.be/X_2hsVvBPS8?t=391 (time 6:30 - I haven’t actually heard him say this in-game tbh)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8rdZ8wBsr4

The most diehard, intense fans of the Oakland Raiders have been called “The Black Hole” for sometime now, due to the fact that they dress in the team’s dominant color of black, accented with silver and/or grey.  These are the primary colors Reaper dresses in as well.  The phrase “Welcome to the Black Hole” is used by these fans as, well, a greeting or a statement.

Oakland is pretty damn far from Los Angeles, but the LA Rams are...not as notorious as the Oakland Raiders.  Oakland is far closer to San Francisco in Northern California (on the other side of the San Francisco Bay).  It has quite the reputation in the U.S. for being a “rough city,” but recently there’s been quite a bit of changes in the area (the gentrification of Oakland and SF Bay as a whole is really not the point of this post).  The Raiders’ entire aesthetic matches Reaper’s to a tee.

Which comes to the next one:

Fifth Reference: “Just win, baby!”

“Just win, baby!” was the catchphrase of one of the most well-known Raiders’ coach Al Davis, who led the team to a era of success in the 60’s and 70’s.  This makes the quote literally over a century old for Reaper (dude’s a nerd, I’m telling you).

“Under Davis' management, the Raiders became one of the most successful teams in professional sports. His motto for the team was "Just win, baby."[1] Davis was active in civil rights, refusing to allow the Raiders to play in any city where black and white players had to stay in separate hotels. He was the first NFL owner to hire an African American head coach and a female chief executive. He was also the second NFL owner to hire a Latino head coach. He remains the only executive in NFL history to be an assistant coach, head coach, general manager, commissioner, and owner.” - Wikipedia on Al Davis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RAlrzcdfRY

The Raiders are unfortunately currently in the process of trying to move to Las Vegas, Nevada unless the city of Oakland can meet the team’s requirements for staying.

Lights, camera, action

And just to round out the group, I’m gonna cover all my bases and get the easier ones out of the way too.

Sixth Reference: “I’m back in black.”

I kinda assume most people are familiar with this one, but in case you are not, this is a reference to the song “Back in Black” by AC/DC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAgnJDJN4VA

(God damn, what a fucking good song)

Another song titled “Hell’s Bells” also came from the same album (“Back in Black”) as the song “Back in Black”...yeah it gets a little confusing at times.  The album “art” is easily among the most iconic albums of all time for both its drama and its simplicity:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/ACDC_Back_in_Black.png

Seventh Reference: “If it lives, I can kill it.”

This one is a reference to Arnold Schwarzenegger's line “If it bleeds, we can kill it.” from the movie Predator.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNr0WXQ3Ho4

Notably, Schwarzenegger is one of the more recent “Hollywood movie stars” to have become a prominent Californian politician.  (Also notably, the Soldier: 76 skin “Commando” is another reference to another Schwarzenegger film “Commando” - aka the original “Taken”.)

Eighth Reference: Death Blossom

This one was new to me too!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/5ufces/til_death_blossom_is_in_fact_an_actual_military/ddtjbzy/

“Death Blossom” is a reference from the movie “The Last Starfighter” as a “last-minute surprise attack” where all enemies are obliterated in a “guns-blazing” “death spin.”

https://youtu.be/nmPGuMGs8cg?t=125 (time: 2:05)

(Seriously, please watch the link, I’m begging you)

The term has been picked up by American military members as a reference to surprise attacks where someone goes in “guns-blazing” as a final-resort attack.

Ninth Reference: “I’m not a psychopath - I’m a high-functioning psychopath.”

Finally - a reference that isn’t already thirty to forty years old.  This one comes from the BBC series “Sherlock,” in which the modern version of Sherlock Holmes says as a retort to accusations that he’s a “crazy psychopath”: “I’m not a psychopath - I’m a high-functioning sociopath.”  (I believe modern psychology does not differentiate between the two anymore, although really, neither term is particularly medical or scholarly.)

Reaper’s turn-of-phrasing on this one is meant to be cheeky and sarcastic: he’s correcting people by pointing out that he’s not “not just a psychopath” but an “ultra, high-functioning psychopath.”  Interestingly, there’s a concept among the modern theories of psychopathy that there are “successful psychopaths” - people who have low empathy abilities, exhibit ruthless behaviors, and may manipulate others to get what they want, but typically have the social skills to stay out of jail for any crimes they may (or may not) commit.  The hypothesis argues that many CEOs, politicians, lawyers, etc. are possibly “successful psychopaths” who channel their behaviors into economic or social successes.

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/were-only-human/psychopath-successful-psychopath.html

“They found that fearless dominance was significantly associated with overall presidential performance, leadership, public persuasiveness, communication ability and willingness to take risks. Scientists have examined the relation between fearless dominance and “everyday heroism”—that is, altruism entailing social or physical risk, like administering CPR to a stranger in need. Fearless dominance was associated with such everyday heroism, and it was also associated with early wartime heroism among U.S. presidents.

“So are psychopaths and heroes simply “twigs from the same branch”? Perhaps, although the successful psychopath remains something of a scientific enigma. This provisional evidence points to some tantalizing possibilities, but we still do not know for sure why one person with pronounced psychopathic traits ends up as a habitual and cold-blooded criminal, while another ends up as the prototype for Agent 007.”

(Please note that this is not an academic, scholarly, or medical piece - merely a conversation-starter)

And last but not least:

Keith Ferguson, Reaper’s American voice actor, was born and continues to live in Los Angeles.

http://thebageltron.tumblr.com/post/145037436303/i-still-cant-believe-reaper-and-bloo-share-the

So the real question we need to be asking Blizzard is:

WHEN WILL REAPER GET A “It’s hot in Topeka” LINE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_IlsPypwZs

[stellar-stag]

Wow it’s been a while since I did a personal update here huh

I’ve honestly transitioned a lot of my venting/personal stuff to twitter

(I promise I havent abandoned you for my furry friends)

(I kinda have)

(I totally have)

(sorry)

But I feel like the last couple months have been a whirlwind for me, so I may as well keep y’all in the loop. I’m gonna sort these by topic.

First off, I had some issues with my romantic feelings. There’s a guy, a very very good friend, who is just fantastic in so many ways. Friendly and kind and supportive, progressive and enthusiastic, and shares so many of my interests. Seems natural that I would fall for him, right?

Well I did, and it resulted in a lot of emotional duress.

He has a girlfriend, and I knew this going in, but I didn’t fight my attachment. In the process of admitting my feelings to him and working through everything, I learned a lot about myself and got some practice in controlling my emotional state and how I react to things. But I also relied on him as an emotional crutch and used him for validation, especially during some particularly low emotional points, which is unfair to him. It is only because he is immensely understanding that we remain close friends, and this could have easily resulted in disaster.

But through this process I have grown, and identified a new issue blocking me from being of completely sound mind: Low self-esteem and reliance on others for validation. During my more anxious periods, I would slip into joking self-deprecation, and somewhere along the way it stopped being so joking. But surely, now that I’m taking meds for anxiety it would stop, right? Well, no. Turns out, even if I stopped consciously having thoughts of “Wow, I’m so bad at this”, I didn’t automatically gain appreciation or acceptance of myself. This manifests in a particularly dangerous manner when guys who are attractive are nice to me. 

I end up conflating kindness with romantic intent, and decide that obviously, if someone doesn’t have romantic interest in me, I must be irreparably flawed in some way. This is bullshit, and I consciously understand that, but my subconscious doesn’t play by the rules. So I end up in a self-loathing spiral that only manifests in periods of intense romantic desire, and a month later I’m exhausted, bruised, and have run the risk of alienating those around me who care about me.

So how to fix it? I suppose I’ll need to work on drawing validation from within, so that rejection feels less of a condemnation of my character and everything I am. It won’t be simple, to be sure, but understanding the issue is the key to overcoming it. 

Here’s hoping.

Secondly: I started working out! As of today, March 24th, I have been to the gym 12 times this month (half the days, holy shit) and thats because I, last week, decided to go from 3 workouts a week to 5, solely because I wanted to. If you told me a year ago that I would, of sound mind and body and my own volition, wake up every weekday at 5:45am to go workout for an hour, and enjoy the experience, I would have called you a liar. 

But I am, and I do. I think it’s benefitting my mental health and self confidence, and I’m thankful that I’m in a place where its even an option. This is only possible due to a coalition of so many factors: A free gym in my office and a natural predilection to waking up early to remove barriers, I started taking Vyvanse in January to aid in my attention issues (not sure if I have ADD/ADHD or what, but it’s helping me remained focused in all aspects of my life and for that I am grateful). And, of course, two people who aided in the impetus for beginning and making it a habit: My dad, for giving me crippling self-worth issues my entire life and then visiting in February and criticizing my health and weight (because I was sweating after walking up a hill, which more and more I realize is not actually an indicator of my exertion! I am just a person who sweats easily, and its more a function of temperature and endocrine system than anything else) and giving me the sheer spite to begin working out, and the guy I was crushing on (who is intensely into working out, and I wanted to impress him. Yeah, I was hella thirsty. Sue me). 

Regardless of the reasoning, I found that (once I cut cardio because seriously, fuck cardio), I enjoy working out in the mornings. It’s calming to wake up by exertion and then cool down slowly at my desk before other people even wake up. It’s given rise to a ritual of sorts where I get to my desk, deal with my emails, make breakfast and tea, all before anyone shows up, so that I can really hit the ground running. And more than that, I don’t have a goal in mind. I’m doing this because I know it’s good for me and I want to be healthy, and I enjoy the exertion and following “good” tiredness. If I was trying to lose weight or trim  fat, or stuck only to cardio, I would have given up by now. But its a habit, and I love it, and I’m sleeping better, eating better, and feeling better.

Again, this is only possible because of an alignment of several factors, but I’m thankful for it, and I’m glad I got out of the mindset that “workouts must suck but people do them because they wanna lose weight”. You don’t gotta do anything you don’t want to do, and I wish I had realized that sooner. Im feeling way better about my body, even, because despite the fact that I haven’t lost weight or gotten trimmer from working out, I know I’m eating (pretty) well and working out, and that my body does everything I need it to. I can take pride in the callouses on my hands and the soreness of my body, because they’re proof of dedication, exertion, and effort, and those are way better things to feel good about than shape and size, anyways. If people think I’m unhealthy because I have fat, they can suck it.

Thirdly, I’ve begun looking for a condo to buy! Housing in the bay area is STUPID EXPENSIVE (and yes everyone knows this, and I know this, but it bears repeating). But I can put a down payment on a one bedroom in a good location, and I’m prequalified for a loan, and I just need to keep waiting and pouncing on leads. I think I’ll be happier living by myself with a kitchen to myself, and still going out to social events to prevent becoming a hermit. Plus, with this setup I can maybe bring dudes back and not have to show them the pigsty that is our living room or the shoebox that is my bedroom. I was terrified at the start of this process, but my mom and the realtor have been awesome about taking this step by step and ensuring nothing is confusing or surprising, which is sweet.

Fourthly, possibly because I’ve been taking Vyvanse but also possibly because I’ve finally begun understanding what the hell I’ve been doing, I’ve really hit my groove at work. The project I’m working on is complex but interesting, challenging but well understood, and I don’t feel alone but still get to feel a sense of ownership. It’s not the most fulfilling thing ever (I don’t know that working on payments platforms for a corporation ever will be) but I enjoy work, I don’t loathe going to work, and despite the fact that I was sick as a dog all this week, I came in everyday (after working out) to work full productive days, and I was happy at the end of each of them, more or less. Its not perfect but its head and shoulders above what most people get from their jobs, and I’m immensely fortunate to be in this position.

Fifthly, this is more a continuation of already known things, but I’m making cool friends in the furry fandom. I’ve made good friends, some who I hope I will keep as friends for the rest of my life, and I’ve already made plans to go to Reno in June and Disneyworld in November to hang out and have fun with them. As nerve wracking as being an adult is sometimes, the freedom is something I wouldn’t trade for anything. 

Sixthly, I’ve been taking a creative writing workshop in SF! It finished last weekend and I’m happy to not need to commute each week anymore, but I learned a lot about reading like a writer and choices you can make as a writer to achieve desired effects. The workshop focuses on narrators and how who is telling the story tells it, and the model they use for exercises is SO HELPFUL. We would read an excerpt of something, discuss how the narrator/choices/tense/mood all work together, and then we would write something in a similar format about whatever we wanted. Lemme tell yall, that is so much more helpful to me as a student than just prompts. Having a guide to format is like drawing from references, its helpful and and great for learning and gives you the tools to make your own things later on. I highly recommend it, and I can’t wait to get back to my book. 

Got a lot of art to make first, though. I’ve definitely improved a lot in artistic skill and confidence, and I’m loving finding niche styles that I like and mimicking them. The stained glass pic I posted yesterday is proof of that, I feel. Its drawn from Mucha and various real life stained glass windows and a bit from Kingdom Hearts, but I took these and the tools at my disposal and wove it into something that feels complete. I figured out how to apply a cloudy “glass” texture, glows, stabilization, symmetry tools, pattern design, and more all through the process, and I know theres so much room to iterate and grow, in shading and coloring and proportion. But even knowing I have room to grow, I’m proud of what I put out and I put a lot of my heart into that piece (yes, its a birthday gift for workout boy. Shut up). I think I’m going to accept commissions for pictures in this style, even. It’s great fun.

So yeah, the last couple of months have been intense. I’ve had ups and downs, but I’ve learned and grown a lot, and I think I’m in a really good place in my life right now, and I hope that every one of you achieves a similar level of peace.