#AND i can get through their website without a fucking queue

[meaningtotellyou]

omg regal theaters are also playing the movie

#this works #AND i can get through their website without a fucking queue #the closest AMC is an hour from me anyway. no. regal is only across town

[plumbobpaparazzi]

Peek into my Mods folder...

This is dedicated to @alltimefail-sims or anyone who needs a little help with lag!

I have several mods I refer to as "efficiency mods" that are little quality-of-life tweaks that make the game smoother for me, either by reducing lag or reducing immersion-breaking hiccups. As always, your mileage may vary, but hopefully this is helpful to someone. :) List of mods under cut to keep your dash clean.

No Intro - Whether you are trying to 50/50 your mods, testing new CC, or just need to shave time off your game loading... get rid of the cinematic intro.

Free Will Delay - Do your sims curbstomp their queue and proceed to fuck off to something unrelated? Yeah, me too, until I got this mod. From the mod description: "[E]very time you tell your sim to do something, they will be forced to listen! …For 5 minutes. Then they get free will back again. This is probably why controlling Sims in Sims 4 feels so bad! Because you lose control the second they start doing what they're told. Even if you queue up actions, the total time is STILL five minutes- because it goes from the last direction you give your sim. So you can tell them to do 3 hours worth of stuff while paused…and they'll get control back after 5 minutes. This mod changes this timeframe to an option of your choosing, to make controlling your sims feel more rigid."

Simulation Unclogger - This is an oldie-but-goodie mod from Turbodriver that helps interrupt when Sims get stuck in an endless action loop.

Evolve/Fertilize All Plants - Kind of weird how we can Harvest All but you can't Evolve or Fertilize All, right?

No Empty Venues When Arriving - Helps with the issue of going to a community lot and waiting around for Sims to show up. May cause increased lag if you are bottlenecked by RAM.

Food Autonomy Overhaul - Stops your stupid Sims from eating ingredients, AND allows Sims who hate cooking to autonomously grab quick meals. Didn't know they wouldn't do that? Yeah. That's a thing.

Don't Do That! Version 1 and Version 2 - Removes autonomy on annoying actions that can't be affected by MCCC tuner, like reactions and some trait idle animations.

Less Obsession - Lowers autonomy for certain things without disabling entirely. I still want my Sims to paint, but I don't want them to start a new figure painting any time they are left unsupervised.

Smarter Self-Care - Makes Sims prioritize their needs better before they are uncomfortable. I only use the packages for NPCs and Pets.

NPC Relationship Autonomy Fix - Stops random Sims from breaking into your house to ask to be your BFF (and tunes the requirements so they actually have to be your friend first.)

Buy More Upgrade Parts - Allows you to buy a package of 50 upgrade parts for when you are grinding out handiness or robotics.

The following mods are all by Bienchen and don't have a direct page for each package. You can search by name pretty easily on their website. I recommend flipping through and grabbing anything you find useful - I have a total of 368 of their mods installed. Here are some highlights:

novisibleecoeffects - The aurora will nuke your framerate. I know it's pretty, but oh my god.

noautonomousbakewhitecake - Does what it says on the tin, keeps your house from being overrun by cakes.

harvestnogroupinteraction - Stops club members from autonomously harvesting plants. Those are MY death flowers!

lessemotionidles - Reduces unnecessary idle animations from emotions, great for preventing your Sims from looking flirty at inappropriate times...

lesspreferenceidles - Stops your sims from thinking about how much they like fishing/fitness/etc. when they should be doing things.

happytoddleridledisabled - Stops the idling from the Happy Toddler trait. SUPER useful for family gameplay.

laundry_buffsandsoloidlesfix - Stops or reduces idles related to laundry. It's just clothes, bro

eldertweak - Reduces elder animation idles.

hastopeewalkstyleforchildonly - Helps get your Sims to the toilet in a reasonable amount of time.

tinyhousebuffhider - I know I'm in a Tiny Home, I don't need a moodlet.

lottraiteffectshider - Hides the little floating lightbulbs around Sims heads from lot traits.

notraitnotifications - I know my geek likes video games, I don't need the pop-up every time I play.

noholidayoutcomenotification - Please don't rub my nose in the fact I forgot to celebrate.

nofestivalnotifications and nofestivalnotificationsound - Helpful when a pack is new, but years later... no thanks.

noenrollmentandscholarshipinfo - No more info screen about the two universities. I think most of us know it all by now.

nouprootplant - Never cry because of a misclick again

simschangeoutfitwhenhotorcold - Should have already been autonomous, but alas.

novisualpoliteintroeffects - I don't know if I am the only one, but the glowing really bothers me.

restaurantsittweak - Sit down and eat your dang food! No more wandering Sims.

longerprom - Takes 6 hours instead of 4 so you can actually do something.

I probably have other QoL mods that could be helpful, but these are my recommendations to start with. Love to all the modders that keep this game playable <3

#sims 4 mods #ts4 #mods #ts4 mods

[narcissa-black-supermacy]

mutuals you’re thankful for in 2022?

(I even did it on anon for you!!!)

thank you DEAR ANONYMOUS FRIEND whose identity i totally do not know lmao because its not like i asked you to send this to me whattt that would be embarrassing

here we go (in no particular order, this is the way it shows up in my following list)

@fonkeloog : thanks for going along with my nonsense and being open minded and supportive about everything i do even if it's not your thing. love seeing you in my notifications, always <3 your poems and photography are everything, i sincerely wish you all the success with that in 2023. here's to another wonderful year of football and memri memes and kilt smut and complete discord chaos.

@heartofspells : holliiiiiii where do i even begin. meeting you this year has been a fandom changing experience, truly. i love everything you create even if sometimes it makes me cry and kick things. i hope things get less hectic for you this year so you can rain on us with more angst and poetic porn. thank you for letting me rant and brainstorm ideas and you're always welcome to dump your thoughts on me whenever <3 i never don't enjoy hearing those. hope we get to spit even more this year together.

@tracingpatternswrites : mallllll my LOVE. i think you're my fandom soulmate. everything you write makes me lose my mind and i care about all your pieces as if they're my own. thank you for being the push and support i needed to explore new things and pairings this year (here's to more threesomes and incest in the upcoming year ahaha). ALSO. we should. totally co-write something this year. something horrific and ground shattering. (once i'm done with all my oneshots). the internet would never recover.

@soloorganaas : bestieeee. what do i even say? you're literally like the only one of two and a half people in total on this website (one of them being me lol) whom i trust blindly and completely with our boys and with wolfstar in particular. it either takes us 13 business days to get back to each other or we can talk for 3 hours straight non-stop. we should do more things like hanukka wolfstar this year. push our (correct) agendas in this fandom. co-writing something with you one day would be the dream. maybe sometime this year?

@sweetpeasandlilies : bruh with the amount of stuff you've been through this past year i'm surprised you're still on tumblr akjdgh so HUGE respect for that seriously. i'm still blocked by like 27 people because of you lmao but good riddance i guess. ain't nobody gonna stop us. i live for your writing and for your shitposts. honestly. its everything.

@padfootastic : dude what can i say?? a breathe of fresh fucking air is what you are on this hellsite. and i know you're busy as hell these days but seeing you on here and your ideas and your writing (and your tagsss bruh your tags i read all of those just so yknow) is one of the things keeping me from losing my mind in here. if we had fandom elections i would vote you in as the authority on everything james potter and sirius black. i trust no one but you.

@mxlfoydraco : serra <3333 i live for your tags. you put drarry and amazing (actually diverse) fanart and Correct Opinions on our dashes and i love you for that. this place would not have been the same without you. fandom is alive and flourishing thanks to people like you who comment and give reccs and keep older fics and fanarts alive (and ship jegulus without disrespecting Sirius the MVP Black) and i couldn't be more grateful. please keep blessing us with your presence and the legendary Queue.

@leogichidaa : your writing is honestly ground breaking, and the limitless creativity of your genius ideas never fails to amaze me. if i had to hire a team of writers for a canon marauders story, you would be the first on that list - we need more people who do reg and the others justice with their writing. i can't wait to see what else you will bless us with this upcoming 2023 <33

@artemisia-black : it's hard being a person with Correct Opinions(tm) on a site like tumblr in a fandom like the marauders but you are doing AMAZING. please never stop writing what you write and talking about the Blacks, people like you and your metas are the backbone of this fandom. wish i could make everyone sit down and read those before they touch our precious characters.

@sequinhaze : yazz! very excited and honoured to be calling you a mutual tbh, after i've been stalking your blog and writing forever now lol. you are Wrong about prongsfoot but i forgive you for that because you're Right about literally everything else and that's so much more important to me. i selfishly hope that you never stop writing for this fandom because you offer such a refreshing take on most characters and your characterisation is always on point. ily. wishing you peace and happiness this upcoming year (and wishing myself loads of unbreakable heaven porn w feelings).

@broomsticks : jackieeee you're one of the rare people in this fandom who is completely open minded to new ideas and dynamics, and is the definition of a multi-shipper. i don't think i know one single other person on this hellsite who likes both remadora and wolfstar and blackcest and peter and snape and isn't afraid to talk about it. alsoo! your tagging system. duude. i wish my blog looked like that wtf.

@elvendorx : (i forgot what your main blog is sorryyy) - we didn't really get a chance to interact much yet but i just wanted to let you know that your metas on the mwpp in general and james and sirius in particular are absolutely golden and i appreciate them so much. wish i could make it a legal requirement to fully read and sign those before anybody so much as thinks of writing about j&s. looking forward to more of you in 2023.

@roalinda : thank you for putting prongsfoot on my dash <33 we desperately lack content for them and even the blogs that do post about them are usually still centric around a different ship. we need more people like you honestly. and i looove your additions in the tags, always read those.

@squintclover : rorryyyyy <33 your microfics and your writing are everything. i love it. always appreciate seeing you on my dash. i hope we get more chances to interact this upcoming year and i can't wait to find out what you've got in store for us.

@benjamin-ovich : i just want to thank you for writing what is one of the most amazing and heart breaking prongsfoot masterpieces i've ever read. i still need to leave a proper comment on that which is not just me screaming incoherently but just know that i've gone back several times to reread some parts. especially the first chapter and the memories. ((the scene where sirius tries to roughly "fuck lily out of him" lives in my head rent free. literally. one of the hottest prongsfoot scenes in existence wtf)).

#thats it #i think?? #oh gosh im really hoping im not forgetting anyone #i love yall <3333 #thanks for making this fandom a better place #asks

[thessalian]

Thess vs Work Welcomes

You don’t want to get me started on politics today. My day-to-day is bad enough. Because today was unmitigated, unadulterated, hell on wheels.

Every morning, I check the Transport For London status page to make sure there isn’t going to be any bullshit on my commute. I checked this morning. No bullshit on my commute. ...Apparently this doesn’t take into account minor roadworks that shut bus stops, because yet again, Thames Water managed to get my regular bus stop shut. So my day started with hiking to the next stop.

Then, roadworks along all manner of roads caused some delays - I need to start adding the traffic reports to my transport status and weather checks in the morning, fuck my life. And then it turns out that, out of more or less nowhere, we had to detour around Camden High Street. Again. And apparently that one was just TfL being slow about updating their website because that’s going to be a detour all week.

So as you can imagine ... the commute wasn’t fun.

Neither was what I found when I finally got into the office (barely on time; I always leave early specifically in case of bullshit like this). Because what I found waiting for me at the office was the following:

A print-out of an email that was apparently sent to our main email address on Friday morning, containing a list of somewhere between 12-15 reports for me to dig out of the system. (Note: Scruffman insists that no, I am not the only one who he asks to send out reports like that. So why the fuck didn’t he ask one of the others do to it on Friday afternoon? Or any time on Monday? Why did he make the individuals making the request wait two working days and an entire weekend for their reports, if he wasn’t just waiting for me to get back because he didn’t want to hand it to someone else or - gods forbid - do it himself?)

A few emails from the IT people, who are apparently not sure they’ve set things up properly after all, decided to ask me questions that they’d have the answers to more than I would, and told me to contact somebody directly despite telling me the last time we had a conversation that I needed to go through the ticket system. *headdesk*

450 items of typing in the queue. FOUR. HUNDRED. AND FIFTY.

Scruffman insists that we’re not really understaffed. However, given that the elderly lady who was supposed to just be off sick has been away for months without so much as a word, and given that Sid walked out, and given that Sunshine left and there’s supposed to be a replacement for her being sought but the intranet tells a different story, and given that the woman who was supposed to be coming back from maternity leave in August still isn’t back yet, and given that we have several new trainees who are doing reports at lightning speed and no fair few people are coming in and reporting on the weekend ... YES WE ARE FUCKING UNDERSTAFFED. But they won’t tell us about what’s happening with the elderly lady on sick leave, or the other lady who hasn’t come back from maternity leave, or the vacancies left when Sid and Sunshine left and when those might be filled. They won’t let one of our part-timers take full-time hours despite her having asked for it. We should not be developing a backlog that size when someone goes away for a week. And yet.

I did bring some of my fudge and maple sugar candy to the office to share with the girls. Goblin ... I made an effort with Goblin, to actually ask if she’d like some. She looked at me warily and asked what it was, and when I told her, she recoiled like I’d offered her deep-fried cockroach and said, “Eugh; no, not having that”. I mean, a “Not my thing, but thanks” would have sufficed... At least that was outweighed a little bit by Milady, who said the fudge was wonderful, asked if I’d practiced it a lot, and looked amazed when I told her that was my first try because she’d tried it awhile ago and it just never set right.

We barely dented the backlog. We’re all going to die under that kind of weight, y’know.

And on top of all that? My first bus of the day was a half-hour late, and as a result, it was so crowded that I had to get off partway through just to breathe and stretch out a little bit, seeing as I was crammed in with a lady with no concept of personal space whatsoever. I got home an hour later than I normally do, tired and aching and really pissed off at the world.

I am trying to think of a way to handle this situation at the office. Scruffman ... I have to wonder how many people he’s lying to that things are okay at this point. I heard him telling someone, “Oh, we’re just a little bit behind” and I was looking at the 400+ queue and biting down on “A LITTLE BIT?!?” He knows, is the thing. He knows because he’s had to pitch in and type a few things himself. We. Need. Another. Typist. We can’t keep doing this. But because they won’t even talk to us about it, it’s not like we have an opening to say anything, and Scruffman gets really pissy if anyone questions his chosen course of action, so...

Why? Why do all my jobs go to hell this badly? This is not the “Welcome Back” I wanted.

#Thess has a day job #Thess has a commute

[seymour-butz-stuff]

While I’ve somehow managed to live as a white person for more than five decades without once feeling persecuted over the color of my skin, the 24/7 White Grievance Media sees an America (or, rather, a dwindling majority of very concerned white folks) under existential threat. In other words, it’s easy to sell grievance to conspiracy-primed racists who greedily swallow performative nonsense like a flock of deranged pelicans scarfing down perilously over-microwaved Hot Pockets.

It’s pretty easy to get on the TV these days if you’re sufficiently determined. I imagine if you called Tucker Carlson’s producers and told them you’re a white guy who was standing behind a Black guy in the doughnut queue at a Circle K and the Black dude took the last two crullers—even though you’d clearly remarked on how delicious they looked—there’s a decent chance Tucker would mention you at the top of his show.

Case in point: An apparent astroturf group that was dreamed up by a right-wing organization has been sending flyers to people in Dallas’ wealthy, predominantly white suburbs. The flyers demand that local parents keep their children out of Ivy League schools to make room for more students of color. The pseudo-organization, Dallas Justice Now, also threatened to publish the names of any parents who refused to sign the no-Ivy pledge.

It sounds too “good” to be true, right? Almost like it was purposely concocted to chafe the taint of drunk Uncle Steve, who hates the Ivy League eggheads in charge of so many of our leading institutions, but nevertheless wants said eggheads to remain a soothing shade of ecru.

And that’s exactly what happened.

The Dallas Observer:

Scant public information is available about Dallas Justice Now or its leadership. The group hasn’t replied to the Observer’s inquires, but the group’s website traces back to a right-wing PR firm called Arena. Online research also connects Arena to Keep Dallas Safe, an organization run by a confirmed astroturfer, suggesting there may be deeper connections between these efforts in terms of funders and strategy.

One of the local anti-fascists who combed through the website’s history told the Observer that they “noticed [Dallas Justice Now] had backdated blog posts from before their website was up, and so we started looking through their posts.” (The researcher requested to remain anonymous.)

It didn’t take long for the researchers to locate source code that led back to Arena in an archived version of Dallas Justice Now’s website. From there, they found a server that showed several similar testing sites, including one for Keep Dallas Safe.

Oh, damn. That’s sleazy, huh? Yes, what we really need in this country is more brave patriots willing to sluice napalm onto our country’s long-smoldering racial tire fire.

And there’s even more (alleged) dirt on this gaggle of (allegedly) smarmy astro-Smurfs (to see the unrolled version of the following thread from attorney Geoff Bowser, click here).

https://twitter.com/geoffreybowser/status/1419730575263518723

Bowser went hunting for the only person publicly associated with the group, Michele Washington. 

https://twitter.com/geoffreybowser/status/1419730578560229382

Uh oh!

https://twitter.com/geoffreybowser/status/1419730584298049542

Next, Bowser looked for previous media coverage of the group, and found a very unlikely “journalist.” 

https://twitter.com/geoffreybowser/status/1419730587288489992

Bowser followed the trail to the website where Fairley published her “journalism.”

https://twitter.com/geoffreybowser/status/1419730587288489992

Needless to say, right-wing media latched onto this story like a pair of Putin-branded nipple clamps on Donald John Trump’s inglorious, special sauce-festooned bosoms. The story showed up on PJ Media, The Daily Mail, and Tucker Carlson Tonight, among other places, because fact-checking is for leftist cucks, apparently. 

https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1420427724485693449

The right-wing machine wants white people to be very afraid. Very, very afraid … and angry.

Conservatives know how triggering it is for white people when people of color begin insinuating themselves into institutions that were once forbidden to them, and particularly when they demand equal access. There’s been one whole Black president, they lament, and there are even BIPOC superheroes now. Now they want to go to Ivy League colleges? Slow it down, folks. Maybe everyone else can get in after another generation of Kushners is done painting the hallowed halls of Harvard with Coors Light and crushing mediocrity.

Maybe.

It made comedian Sarah Silverman say “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Just $12.96 for the pack of 4! Or if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.

[mmikmmik2]

First impressions of episodes five and six under the readmore

The Astro Queue Car

LMFAOOOOOO at Min-Gi jumping from polite and rule-abiding The Nice One to being a smug asshole. I'm so proud of him. Passive-aggressive-ing his little heart out.

PASSIVE AGGRESSION IS AN EXTREME SPORT AND MIN-GI IS WINNING.

But yeah, jokes aside, obviously Min-Gi should be treating Ryan better. I'm definitely interpreting this a lot as Min-Gi acting in perceived emotional self defense but there's probably also some malicious "SEE, YOU WERE WRONG TO GO ON WITHOUT ME" revenge here.

I saw several other people speculating that Ryan might like the train, and I definitely thought that was plausible too, but Min-Gi almost seemed to like in this episode getting to just hang out with Ryan and be superior the whole time. But I also definitely think his anger that (as he saw it, or wanted to believe he saw it) Ryan wasn't learning lessons was legitimate. Feel like both of the guys both have a lot of paradoxical simultaneously contradictory emotions going on and both keep failing to reach the core of their issues with themselves and with each other - it feels believable that they keep ping-ponging back to 202.

LOVED the moment where they realized the astronauts are all dead. Very visually cool and creepy, and I loved Min-Gi's realization that standing still could be just as much of a mistake as making the wrong move.

Love the continuing theme of like... rushing ahead alone, and refusing to follow, can both be forms of abandonment

When the lobby of the party tower got weird and I recognized it as the moment in the trailer when the Steward appeared, I legitimately started saying "YESSSS. YESSSS," over and over again out loud. I fucking love the Steward. And Kez freezing? Is that because she's a denizen? Oh my god. I hate seeing denizens harmed but I love when they have vulnerabilities because they're artificial beings (like Atticus being turned into a ghom - we have no definitive proof but I can't imagine Amelia could do that to a human - it feels obvious to me that the orbs could only be used to "reprogram" beings that were created by those orbs in the first place). Listen, seasons two and three spoiled me with existential horror and weirdness, but apart from /maybe/ Lake hitting the invisible walls in The Wasteland they never had any "REALITY IS RIPPING APART AT THE SEAMS" horror moments the way season one did (the sun spasming in the corgi car as the Steward put its claws into that miniature world's guts? the sky behind the sky in the unfinished car? Atticus's transformation? the half-finished world being built within the engine? so good, so juicy) and I am so, so hopeful we're gonna see the Steward bring some of that tastiness this season.

The Party Car

THIS EPISODE WAS SOOOOOOOOOO GOOD

FAVORITE OF THE SEASON SO FAR

Like it delivered on multiple levels

LOVE the development for the guys, love that Ryan tried to hide the Chicken Choice Judy shirt (looks like that logo is also one of the stickers on his guitar case? but the sticker isn't nearly as big a sign of vulnerability as keeping a shirt that's too small for him to wear just because Min-Gi made it for him) and Min-Gi tried to downplay his stylophone.

I really like that Min-Gi explicitly talked about anti-Asian bias and how he was worried they'd hit a glass ceiling (if that's the right phrase to use here?) even if they were relatively successful as musicians. I was expecting this season to make an effort to build on Ryan and Min-Gi's race as part of their characters, because I've gotten the impression the writers of InfTrain do care about doing that kind of thing right, but I assumed it would stay on the level of subtext and minor incidents like Min-Gi's manager mispronouncing his name. I'm glad the show got to go there and have a character talk about racism and how it affects him.

Loved that they repeated the part with Ryan on-stage waiting for Min-Gi, but this time Ryan didn't leave while Min-Gi stayed, they had a reassuring talk between the two of them where they came to understand each other better. I /love/ when InfTrain has moments like that, where characters redo a persistent narrative/theme in their life but change the ending.

Really though I felt so fucking bad for Ryan, I was like hearing the audio from the "You can pinpoint the second when his heart rips in half" meme when he was up on stage and realized Min-Gi wasn't coming, /again/

Really liked Kez being pigeonholed as "the funny one"/"the fuckup" in her friend group. Feels like a major theme this season is characters being afraid of being perceived as failures and trying to control what other people think of them.

Almost teared up at the final moment of Min-Gi inviting Kez to join the private party in the bathroom and him and Ryan quietly, comfortably jamming together. I'm gonna cry I love them all so much

LOOOOOOVED THE TRAIN LORE THIS EPISODE

I loved getting to see a mixed denizen friend group apparently roaming the car looking for parties, that was so juicy

THE FUCKING BOOTS ARE FOR CONTROLLING PASSENGERS? THEY'RE RESTRAINING BOLTS TO GLUE THEIR FEET TO THE FLOOR WHILE THE STEWARD IS TALKING TO THEM? THAT'S HORRIBLE AND I LOVE IT!!!!

So it looks like the jumpsuits and boots DID used to be standard issue for passengers, and Amelia just got her stuff back at some point between boarding and when we saw her in the season premiere! One wtf that sucks!!!

I love that there's this creepy procedure for the Steward to like deliver messages from on high, I love how weird and disturbing it was, I love that Kez iirc said something along the lines of being used to that (i.e. her getting frozen) happening sometimes HOW OFTEN DOES THAT HAPPEN? WHY ARE YOU LIKE THAT, ONE?

So, the Steward seemed to have been traveling through the train issuing that message to all passengers? I think that was implied in One's broadcast? So interesting, I wonder how many other changes in procedure have been implemented that way. My first impression was that One was using it to broadcast from a different car, but I guess it wasn't explicitly clear if he was using the Steward like a remote speaker or if he was behind that mask the whole time and just didn't feel the need to flip it up to address the guys more directly.

There was a moment where the Steward paused and there was muffled dialogue but I couldn't hear it at all... I don't have closed captions turned on right now (if they'll even work if I do turn them on, I cannot emphasize enough what a piece of shit the HBO Max website is)... my first thought was that One backed away from the "mic" while he and Amelia were talking (it would make sense if this change in procedure were something Amelia talked him into somehow?) but maybe that was his two personalities murmuring to each other? Hm.

#infinity train spoilers

[tripstaysnoided]

Flow Just Like Water

Story and writing-related transparency update and my many shames...

The Question on Everyone’s Mind

“Hey you haven’t updated No Stars over Uptown in almost a year...”

Hmm, I hate it when you’re right. (This section has been rewritten ad-nauseam to curb back the bitchiness by the way)

So back in early/mid 2018, the idea was to divorce Uptown from a person who influenced it (and myself) heavily. She was my most important audience member, the closest friend I ever had, and unfortunately someone who used her power to bully, ostracize, and hurt others with my help. I cut contact when the hurt + some self-awareness finally reached me. Apologies were made and I feel like my work will never be done with it, but there was still Uptown.

Between censored comments, entirely recasting Axel’s save, different plot threads, and a load of disclaimers, there was nothing that would scrub her influence from the story. There was no way to cleanly drop everything because of how deep her influence went. It disgusted me to look back at it, and I had to private the blog because I feared what it endorsed, even if just in the past.

I pulled back from that sims writing community. I had its main thread on the Official Forums removed too (I guess if that was a mystery to anyone). It was a surrender that I never wanted to do, but I had it in my mind that if I was gone, then she wouldn’t be there either. Uptown became this cursed item, and as I quietly retired it, I noticed that she went quieter too. Not gone, but enough to make me sleep easier at night and even occasionally say hello to old friends.

And I hope deep in my heart that no one else is getting hurt in my place, but now this is gonna haunt me all day huh!

The two paths forward...

1) Complete Uptown rewrite that I’ve been threatening everyone with all year. While it won’t ever be clean because I can’t undo time, I do have a sound outline for a story that is much more true to my actual vision and how I’ve evolved, with a few necessary boundaries in place that are going to be there for all stories moving forward: no more casting calls and no more collaborative efforts. I am not going to open myself up to this happening again, even if the people have changed.

2) Same as above, but I continue the original Uptown as a favor to loyal readers alongside the rewrite. I would try to put the effort into it that I initially did, but with no promises on an update schedule and no advertising. I did ask myself “is there Patreon but without pledging money, just the private posts function” but it could operate as part of a private forum, a members-only part of a website, etc.

Also readers of the original would be beholden to a rule of “don’t spoil the rewrite for new readers, c’mon guys”. I mean, not really, but it is a good courtesy to extend to people.

Priority on this isn’t high but you at least will see what is!

I will probably make the blog public again either way due to the many broken links on my Tumblr but we’ll see. There are other things to deal with as I shall list!

Where Life’s Been Regardless

Been spending more time with my grandpa every weekend. Life’s pretty good and he’s warming up to my dogs.

Shiny New Webbed Site

Cucumber Fields Forever is a site I own now. We have a full domain, cucumberfieldsforever.com, a blog with one post, and the framework needed to host stories the way I want to and still through WordPress. The functionality of likes, comments, and following should still be the same but you know...I’ll take feedback too...

The main blog still has an undefined purpose though I do have drafts sitting around about:

The maybe/maybe not hoax band that was on the Metal Archives and the history of Funeral Doom Metal.

The curious case of when Sims 4 babies get their genetics and my only collaboration (read: was talking about it with a friend and might quote her if needed, it’s actually a bit of a doozy)

Amazon.com’s fake dried udon noodles, an actual issue by the way.

Things I’m reading! (This’d be a monthly feature if so)

For the sake of unity, I am thinking of solutions for hosting old and shameful content there including Uptown and for the real fans in my followers feed, Eight Cicadas...a world I totally have plans for too (not really). I don’t want them to be front-and-center, and that’s why I mentioned forums/members-only content. I finally have that power! Maybe.

Ooooh but what are the costs? Not too much to handle, that’s what. 😉 (Like really, I don’t need any hand-wringing about this, I can manage my finances)

Project Queue (In Order of Confirmedness)

Outrun the Scythe: have you seen me post out-of-context Sims 3 pictures? Did you want more? Did you hope it was Linda in Custody? If the answers are yes, yes, and “meh, whatever you want”, then you’re in luck.

Outrun the Scythe is a Sims 3-based tale of a young gay man and his zombie grandma, as they are both offered separate roles of being the undying intermediaries between the world of humans and the influence of a race of space daemons. It’s pretty familiar if you’ve been following me pre-Uptown, taking some cues from stories I’ve kept under lock and key like Eight Cicadas, The Chains of Lyra, and the not-so-locked-up Ironstar Immortals (of which Outrun is just the direct sequel to sans any retconning...ah the smell of early 2013 and performative heterosexuality)

Ah, back to my roots.

It’s a hybrid of gameplay, story, and lore about my little race of daemons with a lot of my own idiosyncrasies that I’m not really ashamed of: basing it off a super-polarizing Sims 3 challenge from a site I moderate, using a lot of EA’s pre-made townies and their genes, lots of unnecessary posemaking, stupid references. It’s a comfort to have in my roster.

While the first few chapters are in the middle of revision, I have around six in the queue and will be making this public when I have ten. I’m guessing December then?

Undocumented Black Widow Challenge: I just did this for fun/forum kudos (yes, in fact I have joined many forums), there was going to be a short story but it was quickly becoming something against my code of ethics. I mean, sims die and all. (read: I had to choose between “heterosexual widow” and “widow with some same-sex marriages that still end in tragedy, reinforcing negative stereotypes to the public for the sake of me not getting bored and detached during gameplay” so there were no good choices. Except for her affair with the mailwoman, 10/10) I hope to finish this before October ends and get my medal on Boolprop, I’m pretty far through it all. I might upload the sims involved anyways. This is for TS4.

I mentioned it because it’s keeping me busy. But not for long!

NaNoWriMo 2020: Dipping my toes into that again! It’s not sims-related, just a tale of lesbians, nosy neighbors, a haunted beach house, and some light murder and kidnapping. And I actually got my brother to scout out locations for me this weekend. If there’s any demand, I can share chapters as the rough drafts are finished, especially for the sake of proofreading.

Not saying I’m publishable, but wouldn’t it be nice? Will keep me occupied for much of November.

Untitled “Dear Diary” Challenge: Tired of feeling left out of the fun on the Boolprop forums, their “Dear Diary” challenge was the one that appealed to me the most on first glance. Why? Probably once I found an idea that let it be set in the early/mid-2000′s to begin with and explore some interesting characters through diary entries (which I have mixed feelings on as a literary device but I think that’s just me saying “well I didn’t like Dracula”, yes you get bonus points for writing it like a diary)

Also writing is the one skill I’m good at across multiple games. Wanna hear me bitch about the cooking skill tree in TS4 or riding in TS3? I’ll spare you.

I guess I could have included “spending time on Boolprop with old and new friends” in where my life has been. It’s a nice lil community if also a place with its own idiosyncrasies as well. So it doesn’t feel like I’m promoting another community if/when I make a thread there for Outrun the Scythe, I want to have a couple chapters of this ready to go by Outrun’s release, though it’s not gonna be the highest priority compared to it nor as long because I think I can blast through the gameplay quickly.

This one will be played in TS4 due to it having the easiest writing skill/I dunno variety is the spice of life. And hopefully another December release.

Defunded or Forgotten?: Oh shit I actually released stuff in 2020 and told no one? I do have a “mortifying ordeal of being known” sinking feeling whenever I get a site hit because it’s not my best work (but good enough) and veered sharply into issues I may be over my head in, though I try to be a good noodle with research and listening. Maybe hiding is bad after all.

Being based off a very flawed and incomplete Sims 3 challenge I found in the annals of the Official Forums, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work just making sense of things. And I’m scared of working on reconstructing the house but I haven’t abandoned the project yet. The story has eight chapters so far and is pretty game-based with some additions here and there. Scared of how long it could be though!

Date for this unknown.

Untitled Sunlit Tides Decadynasty: another year-long abandoned TS3 project with a much stupider reason why. Last update was about Hua getting ready for her wedding, and I wanted to do some poses for a bait-and-switch wedding chapter because to put it mildly, her real one was an absolute disaster.

Blender decided to fuck up its interface again, I got discouraged (this probably does account for some of the Uptown delays too), and when I decided to plow forward, it was for other projects instead.

Meanwhile I played all the way to Gen 5′s teenhood and the only thing stopping me is time (it takes almost 30 minutes to load the file right now, though they’ll be looking at moving towns in a couple gens) and maybe fear of the Logic skill.

Date for this also unknown but it’s easy to pump out updates once I’m in the groove for it. My third heir had a difficult life so maybe I’m just trying to bury it.

Also I just noticed the view count there was really good and probably because I linked it here on Tumblr last year. Thank you so much guys. I can’t really fret over views on Carl’s forum these days thanks to the years-long death spiral pretty much every forum anywhere has been riding on. But it’s a nice surprise. And it’s an alright little challenge recap to read during your lunch break or whatever.

The Wawas

I figured I’d end on the real news everyone wants! Both the chihuahuas are a year and a half now and reached their adult size around a year ago. For the most part, they are happy and healthy dogs.

#state of the uwunion #long post

[3starsquinn]

Study Mary || Connor & Orion

Timing: Weekend of 10/17, right before Rio’s birthday

Setting: The Scribrary

Parties: Rio and @connorspiracy

Summary: Rio gets the chance to show off the Scribrary to Connor so they can try to research Bloody Mary. Their search yields minimal results.

Orion has grown accustomed to this. Apparently, the friends that he had been making around town were all just involved in the supernatural as he was. Rio had lists of things he needed to look into at the Scribrary, why not had a ghost of legend come to life to his queue. He pulled into a parking lot on the campus where he was supposed to meet Connor and sat in his car until Connor got there. “Hey!” He waved, “So the building is in the woods behind the campus. Cars can’t get there anymore, so it’s a bit of a walk. The place isn’t exactly… modern. I’ve been trying to clean the place out but it’s really outdated. You ready?”

Connor had several Go Pros on him, along with his regular camera and phone. He didn’t know exactly how much Rio wanted him to film, if anything, but he was curious about this place, and was interested to get it on camera. People made documentaries about crappy things all the time. Why should this be any different? “What, no state of the art streaming set ups in every room?” Connor shook his head. “You should be ashamed,” he teased, giving Rio a wink. “Alright. Lead the way then. Blanche and Adam mentioned you’re kind of the book bloke, so I figured if anyone can find something on Bloody Mary, it’d be you.” He followed wherever Rio led, interested to see the place where Rio housed his books. “Isn’t it a pain in the arse coming here all the time? You ever thought about digitalising it?” 

Orion led the way through the woods. The terrain wasn’t perfect, but it had been worn down from the myriad of trips that Rio and some others had taken to the place. Although he had been more open and willing to show the place to people he still kept access pretty limited. As it was, he had only actually shown a few people how to get into the building. Everyone else needed an escort. “Ha ha. Very funny. I haven’t really gotten the chance to set up internet yet. It’d be a bit difficult to explain that to Spectrum.” Regardless, he appreciated the compliments from Blanche and Adam. He wasn’t sure he believed the kind words, but it was still flattering nonetheless. “I’m pretty used to the hike now, actually. Before I moved in with Winston I sort of lived here for a bit. Unofficially.” Rio’s favorite part about showing the building off to people was getting to the empty clearing where it sat shrouded by magic. “Actually Winston and I are working on digitizing it! They’re building a website and everything and I’m working on moving things over but… well you’ll see for yourself. It’s a lot of stuff to switch over.” Rio moved towards the rotting tree, using the same method his uncle had shown him so many years ago to make the building visible. Once he was done it was as if an invisible fog began to lift as the building slowly became visible. “So uh- The building looks old but I promise it’s safe. The library is a little cleaner than the rest of the space.”

Connor followed, grateful he hadn’t worn any of his nicer clothes for this trip. “This town and its bloody forests,” he joked, grunting as a branch snagged on his jeans. “How’d you even find this place?” It didn’t seem like the sort of place you’d stumble on by accident. Which was probably a good thing, because having all this information out in the woods stuck him as pretty risky. “Winston’s your room mate, yeah? I think Blanche or someone mentioned they’re into computers and gaming and stuff.” He watched as Rio found the way in, raising an impressed eyebrow. “Damn, should’ve filmed this part so I can come back later without you,” he teased. “I’m not scared of rotting old buildings, mate. Look who you’re talking to.” He turned on the GoPro to take some shots, and pulled out his phone too for good measure. He’d probably set up a steady-cam when they were settled in. “Are there ghosts here? It seems haunted as fuck,” he snickered, but followed Rio inside, wide-eyed and impressed. “Damn, I could spend hours exploring this place.” 

“Well this building used to belong to a group of people called the Scribes,” Orion began explaining, though he didn’t want to focus too much on them and bore Connor to sleep, “They used to keep records of the supernatural. My uncle wanted to be one of them. He showed me this place when I was a kid.” Rio was actually surprised that Connor hadn’t met Winston yet given the way the town usually worked, “Yeah! I moved in with them and our roommate Ricky a few months ago. Winston’s a genius with all the computer stuff, way better than me.” Probably not the best resume seller when Connor had just officially hired him to help film and edit, but Rio tended to be painfully honest. Especially when it came to complimenting Winston. “Ha! Okay, yeah fair point. You are alarmingly unafraid of sketchy architecture.” Rio opened the front doors and made his way down the hallways, winding back through the building and towards the library. “Your guess is as good as mine, honestly. I’ve never seen but, but I guess I wouldn’t. You might like to hear that this place has a ton of rooms that are locked and I still can’t get open.”

Rio wiggled his eyebrows and grinned, clearly something that might pique Connor’s curiosity. At the end of the hallway, Rio pushed the big door open into the massive library, book shelves going two more levels and sprawling from floor to ceiling. “Yeah it’s uh- pretty crazy right? This is why I’m still working on digitizing” Rio shrugged but found one of the old work desks and jumped up on it, pulling his laptop free from his bag and opening it up. “But I do have the place mostly organized. My guess is we should start in the section about ghosts and spirits?”

"Oh yeah. I think I've heard of 'em. Used to safeguard supernatural knowledge, have big old archives and stuff. I guess that makes sense." Connor knew about ghosts, demons and the varying types of supernatural to the extent that was expected for someone who made his living filming videos about it, but when they made their way to the massive library, he was struck with the realisation that no matter how much he tried to learn, there'd always be more to know. The fact both excited and intimidated him. "This is sick, mate," he said, rubbing his hands together with enthusiasm as he scoured the shelves. "Right, where’s that section then? We should start with Bloody Mary, yeah? And then maybe possessions and polters, see if we can find something that'll help Nadia and my mate." 

Orion liked seeing people’s reactions to the place. It reminded him of his own reaction when his uncle had brought him here so many years ago. Rio had always been fascinated with books and learning, so his excitement wasn’t surprising. But he liked seeing how his friends reacted to the space. “Yeah, it’s pretty crazy.” Rio laughed, pointing over one of the tables, “I keep a hoard of snacks under the table over there. I got soda and junk food if you want to grab anything.” Rio would swoop by and grab something once he figured out exactly where they would start looking. Though he was far from ever completing his goal of completely digitizing the place, Rio had gotten the place fairly organized and had mostly made sure that things had stayed organized. To the point that Rio asked when people borrowed things they just returned them on the tables so Rio could be in charge of putting them back.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and there will be an entire journal labelled Bloody Mary. But until then I think we will just have to scour the section on spirits and hope for the best.” Orion wished he had something more concrete, but for now he could only hop up from the table and lead Connor towards the ghost section, taking a small detour to grab a drink before doing so. The ghost section stayed on the first floor, mostly because it was one of the more common ones he had pulled information for. Side effects of his friendship with Blanche no doubt. “Pull anything that looks like it might be useful and we can start going through them, okay? Some of the old Scribes kept journals and I’ll grab them just in case something like this has appended before.” 

"I love places like this," Connor enthused, hands running along the spines of the dusty books on the shelves. He could see why Rio and Winston were having a tough job digitalizing everything. "It's like a supernatural treasure trove. Do they have anything else cool? Old artefacts or anything?" His inner supernatural geek bubbled to the surface for a few moments before he remembered why they were here, and he gave a shrug. "Something cool to look into after we sent Bloody Mary Bloody Packing," he said with a goofy smile. "It can't all be doom and gloom." Connor had a knack for finding the silver lining in dark situations. He liked to think it was part of what made him fun to watch. 

"Ghosts and spirits and ghoulies... but first, snacks." He went to where Rio had pointed, a bag of gummy bears and Lays potato chips. He'd just have to wipe his hands before touching the books. He munched on Rio's offerings as he perused the shelves, doing his best to contain his curiosity and only dig out what they actually needed. "Here's one on Malevolent Spirits. Maybe she's in there." He placed it on the pile, along with whatever Rio had pulled. "Ghosts of Scottish Legend? Sure, why not." Within a few minutes, they had quite the pile to get started on. 

“Me too, obviously. I still have a whole makeshift bedroom set up just in case I stay here too late.” Orion laughed, happy to have another person to share the knowledge with. “This place has a ton of stuff that I still don’t know about, honestly. I’ve always just been too afraid to explore the place by myself. Plus some of the doors are magically sealed. I can’t get them open.” Rio hadn’t put much thought into trying to get them open, honestly. He was curious by nature, but that curiosity wasn’t nearly as strong as Rio’s fear of danger. Way too many things could be behind that door.

Rio didn’t waste any time once they had built their stack of books. Rio wasn’t much fun once he dove into research. He had an ability to completely block out the world while he was skimming the pages. Rio flipped through pages quickly, scanning for keywords that might give any inclination that Bloody Mary had shown up before. Bonus points if there’s a way to get rid of her. Or them. Did evil spirits identify with a certain gender? Rio wasn’t willing to interrupt his reading to entertain the question. He finally perked up from his spot once he had find something interesting, mindlessly waving his hand and smacking against the table top to grab Connor’s attention. “Hey. Look at this. This chapter talks about a female spirit that anyone can see. Not just mediums or undead. The description sounds eerily like how I would describe Bloody Mary.” He handed the book of to Connor to take a look at and see for himself.

"A bedroom?" Connor teased, giving him a playfully flirtatious snicker. "My book collection brings all the boys to the yard?" Luckily, Connor wasn't actually trying to get laid, so he didn't really care if his jokes were shit. "Damn. I'd make it a challenge to open those doors." A task for another time, definitely, but one Connor certainly wouldn't forget. "How'd you come to know about this place and be the designated book-lord, anyway?" he asked, still snacking as they worked through pages, and pages, and more pages. 

Interest piqued, hopes perhaps just a little bit higher than they'd been before coming in, Connor leaned in to get a closer look at the passage Rio was talking about. "Did they give her a name? I've looked up 'Bloody Mary' in a bunch of these indexes and most of them so far take me to passages that say she's just fictional." 

“Ha ha. Hilarious.” Orion rolled his eyes at Connor but laughed. He handled the shameless flirting surprisingly well, considering how he used to be whenever someone pretty so much as spoke to him, let alone flirt. But Rio supposed a lot of that anxiety was taken away once he had started dating Winston. “It’s more like a community room anyways. It let my Scribes have a place to crash if they were deep into research. The place has a bunch of bunk beds.” Something from Connor’s tone of voice told him that the room research would be coming up at another, less chaotic time. “My uncle knew about the Scribes. He was training to be one right before the Scribes bit the dust. He brought me here when I was a kid. I think I might have been the only one in town that even knew the place was here until I started to show it to people.”

“Um, give me a minute” Orion pulled the book back towards him to scan through further, flipping pages until he finally found the word, “A theory. Right here, he says that it has a lot of similarities to modern day myths about Bloody Mary. I don’t think this guy ever confirmed anything though.” Rio flipped a few more pages, “Looks like he did some sort of study. Tried to gather a bunch of people to see who could see bloody mary.” Rio passed the book off to Connor again.

Connor edged closer to Rio to get a good look at the book. “Lemme see that…” He replaced whatever book he’d been nose-deep in with the one Rio had been reading. “You know, I think this might be her.” He read through the rest of the page, his eyes zeroing in on something down near the bottom. “Oh, mate…” He pointed to the passage, reading it out loud. “The spirit targeted only those who had taken human life; those who were innocent were spared.” He flipped through to the next page, which was so heavily water damage that it was barely more than a blur. “Great. The part about how they got rid of her is gone.” 

Though it hardly helped many others in this town, Orion breathed a sigh of relief that Bloody Mary only targeted murderers. It was a bit of a relief to know that he didn’t have to worry about the ghost trying to kill him. Whatever confidence he had dropped when he realized that the same couldn’t be side for the majority of his friend group. He knew for sure that Winston, Blanche and Nell had been involved in the resurrection of Nell’s sister. He also knew exactly what they had done in order to bring her back. And Rio wasn’t naive enough to believe that Adam had never taken a life. The anxiety spiked again and Rio forced it down by focusing instead on Connor’s words. “Great. Water damage. Of course.” Rio sighed and slid off of the table to grab his laptop. “I’m going to see if there’s anything else in here by the same Scribe that wrote that. If we can’t find anything then maybe… try to find some sort of spellcaster? If this thing was summoned, maybe someone knows ways to reverse it.”

Connor’s throat was dry, his cheeks warm as the feeling of concern overcame him. “Does that mean those high school kids who’d summoned her killed someone?” he asked, mostly to himself. “Or maybe the rule doesn’t apply if you summon her. Like, you sort of take that risk upon yourself by bringing her into the world.” He pulled out his phone to take a photo of the pages, sending them along to Nell, Adam, Jasmine and Blanche. “That’s a good idea.” Unlike Rio, he knew nothing of any potential murderers among his friends, but his interaction with Adam down at the river stuck out like a sore thumb in his mind. Adam didn’t know if he’d killed that girl or not. He’d been too drunk to remember. It had been an accident, but maybe Mary wouldn’t see it that way. “We really need to find a way to get rid of her.”

“Good question. I’ve heard summoning stuff is dangerous anyways. Maybe they did something wrong and that’s how they ended up dead. Either way it’s sad.” Orion couldn’t imagine willingly being part of something like that back when he was in high school. But he didn’t know the context of their situation. Regardless, now Rio and Connor and whoever else was around were stuck with cleaning up the mess. “Well, I can tell it’s going to be a long night. Maybe I can talk Blanche into picking up a pizza and meeting us here. Turn this into a study party? I have lots of energy drinks. Plus beds if you want to crash part way through the night!” Maybe they’d get lucky and come across something useful.

#wickedswriting #c: connor #chatzy: connor #study mary #chatzy

[pennswoodsman]

I’m at the Acme on Passyunk ave with my dad. I’m really struggling to keep my head up lately. I made the mistake of deciding to let my prescription for Zoloft run dry to see if I still need it. Clearly I do. This last week on several occasions I got triggered with something then fall into a crippling depression for the next few hours, sometimes until the next day.

I got a raise at work for the first time in 4 years. At first I was thrilled. Then I find out it’s because their minimum wage has increased and they had no choice but to raise it. So....I haven’t bothered to tell anyone. It doesn’t feel like a victory. In fact it depressed me knowing that I’m now just making the banks minimum wage, I went from being a supervisor to an aimless loser making shit wages...again.

A few days later I’m at the Amity park for an ice cream social with the boys. This is the first time I’ve been to this park in about 5 years. A sudden rush of memories of being happy with Dawn and socializing with other parents and their kids overcomes me. I find myself again re-living all of Dawn’s lies and the hurtful things she said and did in 2017 and 2018. I realized I was about to have a panic attack right there and then...while I was waiting in line for ice cream with the boys. I was trying so hard to be pleasant and strong for Kevin and Nate, but I felt that god awful nothingness in my chest and that feeling of about to tear up. Plus my teeth were sore from clenching my jaw so much. I drove home feeling exhausted. I felt a little better hanging out with the boys and watching a movie together.

Now it’s Thursday and I have a long shift. I am so depressed I can barely speak above a whisper. Everyone is annoying me. At one point a team member puts me on mute to talk to a customer and I start looking at naked chicks on Reddit. Without thinking about it I mutter to myself “man, that’s an edible vagina” to suddenly realize I said that while on mute, not on hold. I panic and hang up. It’s a recorded line and now I am wondering if it’s only a matter of time before they hear it and fire my ass.

That night, I had a series of nightmares. One was right when I first fell asleep. I was driving the Rogue by myself late at night. It was somewhere in Berks county. I felt really out of it, like I was drugged up on prescription meds or something. I accidentally drove up on the sidewalk and just stopped myself from crashing into a tree. I continued to drive even though I knew I was severely impaired. I was reversing to get back on the road and I ended up driving off the road again, this time going into the woods. My seatbelt was wrapped around my right arm, pinning it against my chest. I was trying to free it with my left hand but it kept slipping out of my fingers. I finally got it out but, right on queue, the car slide down a refine and off a cliff. I calmly watched the car plummeting toward the ground through the windshield. I said “goodbye world” and I knew that was it. I woke up with a jolt as the car was literally about to smash from 200 feet.

A couple of days later I was on Reddit again and a man who was in his 40s was asking a question in “dating over 40”. The man said he doesn’t have a good job, his mother pays his mortgage and grocery bills and is this a deal breaker for the ladies. Not that I was shocked by this, but I don’t recall a single woman saying anything but negative things. Saying why would anyone want a loser? Why would anyone want a man who can’t take care of himself? Etc. I sent him an encouraging message to not listen to them, shit happens and if you have a parent who can afford to help you it shouldn’t be the end of the world. I then suggested to not mention his mother pays his mortgage and other bills until a few months in so that way, she could get the know the “real you” and not pre judge you. Some random woman sent me a reply stating that not telling his dates right away is being manipulative. I honestly don’t agree. Since when do you discuss how you pay your mortgage and bills in the first few months of a relationship? I know I never have and would never ask. I said that and all she said was “look up manipulative in the dictionary”. It made me remember how Dawn claimed I was manipulative without even the seeing the slightest bit of irony in that accusation and it got me spiraling towards another panic attack.

Which brings me to today. I worked my Saturday shift, gathered as many family photos to bring to my dad’s house as my trunk would carry and headed out. I put on the “AskReddit” things to hear about entitled celebrities from the stage hands. Once that story is done it automatically went to “ladies what are examples of a man child?” By the first 5 minutes I was so depressed I could barely lift my head up. I am a fucking man child. My house is filthy, I have a shit job and my father pays my way through life. I have a brand new car which is normally a thing to be proud of but I find myself feeling shame that it wasn’t me who paid for it. I feel massive shame for almost being 46 and still dependent on my father. I feel massive shame for being 46 and still having no real career to speak of. For having this generous GF who deserves such a great man but sometimes I feel like she deserves better than I.

The thing is, it hasn’t even really been a bad week per se. Kristan got us SECOND ROW TICKETS FOR DEAD AND COMPANY!! She loves Jimmy Buffett, which is great because making the leap from Buffett to the Dead really isn’t that big of a change. Plus she has heard Scarlet Begonias live a ton of times and didn’t even realize it was originally a Dead song. Her birthday was last week and I wanted to send her some Scarlet Begonias from a florist. I checked all the websites of the local florists and none of them had any. So, I ordered some faux ones from Target. I also got her Jimmy Buffett tickets this coming August. Mine are only lawn seats though. So, not quite as awesome. I did agree to wear a grass skirt and coconut tits at the show. Hey, when in Rome, right?

Sigh....

#depression #anxious #deep breath

[isthisthingeven0n]

trying to stay private : m.k

brief summary: you’re a famous actress and are dating matt. you two have been together for almost a year under the radar and intend on keeping it that way. that is until david accidently captures you both and includes it in his vlog

word count: 1.7k requested: yes, by the sweetheart that is @florencxs - i hope you like it baby warnings: lotta angst, but a fluffy ending

* masterlistin’ / masterlistin’ 2.0

(everything on my blog is my own writing. if it is shared on another page or website know it isn’t me. all rights reserved. - i have to start doing this as I had some shit on my other blog with plagiarism)

***

It was always your intention to keep your relationship under the radar. Both of you were still enjoying the privilege of having alone time and it actually means you could be alone- as opposed to a series of paparazzi following your every move.

With Matt, you could forget that side of your life for a little while. You’re able to live in the moment instead of watching your every move. With Matt, you feel safe and secure knowing you can just be yourselves and not pose for cameras.

At least, you could until David found out.

He came over to film a bit for his vlog, that’s all it was supposed to be and you were more than happy to help. Since you met Matt, it meant you spent more time with his friends and slowly, they became your friends too. None of them treated you differently, you weren’t on a pedestal with them. You could simply be yourself without fear that one of them would capture a photo and post it.

David was filming his bit in your hallway, listening as you sang to yourself in the kitchen. “This is nice.” David mutters to himself, motioning to the shelf displaying various awards you’ve won over the course of your career so far.

Not long after the bit had been filmed, you heard the door open and Matt walked in. You let out a sigh of relief, knowing it was only him. “You’re not filming, right?”

Turning around to face you, David shakes his head as you relax in Matt’s arms. “I know the drill, don’t worry.” David states, holding one hand up as a smile crosses his face. “Like I get it.” He adds and you nod in response, feeling Matt squeeze you lightly.

“We can trust David, don’t worry Y/n.” Matt comforts you as he releases you from his embrace and wanders into the kitchen. “Are those cookies I smell?” He asks with a smile, glancing back as you nod along.

“Your favourite, of course.” You tell him as he spots them all laid out on a plate alongside another script.

As Matt picks a cookie up, his eyes wander to the script as he raises an eyebrow. “Another one, huh?” He asks you as David walks in, his camera in hand but he rests it on the counter- a sign to inform you he isn’t filming.

You run your fingers through your hair before you take a cookie, and David does the same as you take a seat opposite Matt. “Yeah, my agent thinks this one would be a good role.” You state half-heartedly. “I just don’t know if it’s for me.”

“What’s it about?” David speaks up in a muffled voice as he chews on his cookie, causing you to smile.

“I can’t go into detail, but my role would be the villain.” You say and you watch as their eyes widen. “I know, I know, so unlike me.” You laugh lightly and Matt shakes his head.

“Honey, this will be insane for you!” He cannot stop his smile from growing in excitement as his hand reaches out for yours. “It’ll make you a more diverse actress, how can you say no?”

You sigh quietly, glancing down at the script. “I’ll be away filming in England for a year.” You state.

Matt remains quiet, having heard the catch to the deal of a lifetime.

“I think I’ll leave you two to it.” David mutters as he picks up another cookie before grabbing his camera. “Thanks for letting me film, see you guys later.” He calls out as he lets himself out, leaving you and Matt alone to discuss this.

“I know what you’re thinking,” You speak up, lifting your eyes to see him focusing on the marble counter. “and I know, it’s a crazy offer but what if I don’t take it?”

“Y/n, you think I’m going to stop you?” He asks you sincerely. “I’m never going to stop supporting you, even if it means you’re in England filming. I’ll come and visit you because I know you’re doing something amazing that’ll impact your career.” He rambles on, unaware of how your heart is close to bursting out of your chest. “Honey, are you okay?” Matt speaks up, snapping you from your thoughts as you sniff lightly.

Rising to your feet, you walk over and sit on his lap, wrapping your arms around his neck. “This is one of the many reasons why I love you, Matt.” You tell him before kissing him softly.

“You never cease to amaze me, Y/n.” He says with a light laugh. “And for that, I’ll always love you back.”

*

You sit, watching the world pass you by as you sit back and finish memorising your lines. It’s hard to believe how quickly the time has flown by since you accepted the role to the directors wanting you to fly out. In a matter of weeks, here you are nearly landing in Heathrow airport.

As the plane lands and you descend from the plane through the airport, you’re met by your security. “Ma’am, I’ve been advised to tell you that you need to check your phone.” He states seriously, causing you to raise an eyebrow as you pull out your phone.

All you can see are thousands of notifications about Matt, all of them about you and Matt.

“Fuck.” You almost yell as you bring your hands up to your face. “How did this happen?!” You turn to your team, looking at them as they all share worried looks. “We were so careful, who leaked this?” You pull up the photo that caused this all.

It’s of you and Matt. You can tell them exactly where it is in your house. The shelf below your awards lies a shelf of photos of those you love. One of the photos happens to be of you and Matt during New Years just before the fireworks began.

“Y/n, you need to compose yourself because there are hundreds of paps waiting for you outside.” Your assistant, Tony speaks up. “If you need to know this very minute, David accidentally included it in a vlog.”

Your heart begins to break. “How?” You question bitterly, having felt all trust lost in a matter of seconds.

“In the vlog, he came to your house to film and included footage of your awards, how impressive it was. Obviously, some fans are super intentive and spotted the photo on the shelf underneath.” Tony explains as you groan loudly, crouching down to stop the tears spilling.

You take our your sunglasses from your bag, your team surrounding you. “Let’s just get this over with.” You tell them as you begin to exit the airport, ignoring the reporters and paparazzi as you reach the car and immediately dial Matt.

“Hello, Y/n?” He mumbles sleepily, the sound of his gentle voice capturing your heart in a cage. “Is everything okay?”

You sniff lightly, taking your glasses off. “Matt, everyone knows.” You tell him calmly, holding back your tears.

“What’d you mean, I, I how?” He stutters over his words, trying to comprehend how in the space of twelve hours everything has crumbled.

“David, he erm, included a clip where there was a photo of us in my hallway.” You state tiredly, feeling all of your emotions hanging by fine strings about to snap at the slightest disturbance.

“Fuck.” Matt mutters as you hear him shuffle from his bed. “Let me sort this out, okay?”

“What can you possibly do, Matt? It’s out, there’s nothing we can do to rectify this. My career is in jeopardy right now.” You’re yelling down the phone as tears fill your eyes. “I’m sorry.” You cry down the line, your body filled with exhaustion. “I’m just so tired and this is the last thing I expected to hear when I landed.”

Matt sighs quietly to you down the line. “Honey, it’ll be okay.” Matt tries to reassure you. “I love you, okay? Now, whatever happens, that isn’t going to change.” He tells you, causing a small smile to rise on your lips briefly. “Just, focus on work, leave this to me and David to sort out.”

“Are you sure, Matt?” You question, looking over at your team seeing all of them on their phones, dealing with being damage control. “My team has it under control for the best part.” You mutter to him, not wanting to interrupt them.

Sitting upright on his bed, Matt nods to himself. “I’ll speak to David, okay. Just, just go knock ‘em dead.” He tells you with a smile on his lips.

You laugh lightly down the line, wiping your eyes. “I love you, Matt.” You remind him, wishing he could be with you at this moment, knowing you want nothing more than to curl up into him.

“I love you too, Y/n. Now go on, I know you’ve got work to do.” He speaks clearly down the line as you glance out of the window, seeing rain gentle pattering onto the window. “Is that rain I hear?” He questions.

“Yeah,” You say with a half-laugh, “the first time I’ve seen it in months. More soothing than the California sunshine I’ll admit.” Your eyes don’t budge from the runs of rain connecting together, moving at a faster pace down the windows as you pass by queues of cars. “How is the heat back home?”

“Could be worse, but then again, you aren’t here to complain it’s too hot.” He jokes, causing you to roll your eyes and glance over at your assistant who taps her watch.

“Well, you better get used to me complaining it’s too cold and wet here without you, Matt.” You chuckle before you let out a small sigh. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll talk to you later, yeah?”

“I’ll be ready and waiting sweetheart. Stay safe.” He speaks through a smile as he releases a heavy yawn down the phone.

“And you, speak soon.”

With that, you hang up the phone and shove it back into your bag as the car pulls up outside of the office. You can already see flashes from cameras and your name being shouted, but all you do is slip your sunglasses back on and wait for your cue to leave.

#bloody loved this idea #thank you for requesting it love! #matt king #matt king imagine #matt king imagines #matt king x reader #matt king fluff #matt king angst #matt king oneshot #vlog squad #vlog squad imagine #vlog squad imagines #vlog squad fluff #vlog squad angst #vlog squad x reader #vlogsquad #vlogsquad imagine #vlogsquad imagines #vlogsquad fluff #vlogsquad angst #vlogsquad x reader

[purplesurveys]

1040

survey by amandahudson48

When's the last time you said you were sorry? Maybe last Friday or yesterday? I haven’t been replying to Andi because I was in a slump, then when I was finally able to get back to them I made sure to apologize first and explain why it took me a while to respond.

Have you done anything interesting in the last week? I got to dine in at a restaurant again after nine months last Monday, and I brought my parents to treat them as well. The three of us had ramen, then I also treated them to frozen yogurt after. It felt nice to be out, but we also headed to a mall Gab and I used to regularly go to so everything ended up being too difficult to process and I was fighting tears the whole time at the ramen place.

Are there any songs you listen to everyday? I don’t think so. There have been a lot of days where I’ve avoided music altogether.

What do you consider a waste of time? Having to manually go to a government office nowhere near your house to queue for an ID or document when it could be done digitally, but you can’t and have no choice anyway because the agency’s website isn’t even working. In short, welcome to the Philippines where the government can steal billions but can’t maintain their own damn websites.

How do you react to stress? I tend to have a shorter fuse around people. So that I don’t accidentally lash out on anyone, I’ll bring myself to work on autopilot until I get a task done. If I find time to myself, I cry in private for a few minutes because stress sucks; then I try to dust myself off and get back to working.

Have you ever considered what you would do in certain life/death sitches? Sometimes. My game plan for the most part is to simply scream at the top of my lungs to rouse attention, but I’ll never really know what I’ll do unless something actually takes place. I have a track record of being scared frozen when scary men have approached me in the past, so idk if I will have it in me to scream in a life or death situation.

Have you ever gone mud riding? No. Photos don’t look too appealing mostly because I’m not into vehicles and driving them on unconventional terrain lol, but I mean I would still give it a shot at least once.

Do you edit your photos? Just sometimes, if I mean to show off or promote someone/something to my mutuals; like the time I promoted my uncle’s business when he gave me a free cheesecake. I usually use the VSCO or Foodie apps.

What kind of cookie do you like the most? Chocolate chip cookies that are crispy on the outside and gooey inside; and dark chocolate macadamia cookies.

Do you enjoy working alone? Sure, though I don’t mind the occasional groupwork.

Is there anyone you're not over and feel like you never will be? Yes, I’m in exactly the same place I found myself at five years ago.

Do you like long or short surveys? Medium-length, so like anywhere between 40-70 questions is the perfect length for me.

How often do you listen to your iPod? I used to listen to it everyday because I brought it with me throughout middle school and the first half of high school. When iPods slowly went out of style in junior year, I started using it less frequently.

What kind of house do you want? Something modern and minimalist; I’d like it to be predominantly rectangular or square in shape with large windows. I do also want a brutalist style for myself but I might have to give that up if I ever end up with a family, as I don’t want my kids thinking their own home looks aloof and unapproachable.

Would you like living on the coast? It sounds like paradise. Yeah, absolutely.

What song was the last you listened to? To Let A Good Thing Die - Bruno Major. Then I got really sad and had to stop listening to music altogether and scramble to watch something hilarious on YouTube.

When's the last time you were really late to something? Last week, for a meeting with a client :/ I wasn’t accustomed to my weekly calls just yet and ended up attending a 4:30-5 PM meeting at 4:57, right when it was ending, because I thought it started at 5. It was embarrassing and my manager was rightfully jokingly mad at me.

Do you prefer to take back roads or the highways? Highways as much as possible, but if I’m stuck in traffic and if it looks like I wouldn’t be able to get to my destination on time then I ask Waze to guide me through backroads.

How do you spell your name without consonants? Rbyn or Rbn, depending on what you consider y to be.

What's the last movie you watched? Uhhh it was still That Thing Called Tadhana but it’s been a while. I mainly watch a Korean drama titled Start Up these days.

What would you like your generation to change? The people society votes into office. Young Americans seem to be leading the charge on this front, which is so so great. Meanwhile in my country Manny Pacquiao is planning for his 2022 presidential campaign and we are once again fucked because voter’s literacy is so fucking low that I actually see a possibility of him winning. Migrating has never sounded more attractive.

Do you use your cell phone a lot? Yeah, it’s beside me with the screen turned on nearly the entire day.

When's the last time you saw an ocean wave? Not sure about an ocean wave, but the last time I saw a wave in general (we were at a beach) was August 2019.

How long can you hold your breath? Maybe a minute max? I haven’t had to try in a while.

Would you rather work behind the scenes or be the star? Behind the scenes. I loathe the spotlight and I’ve never been the performing type, and I always hated it whenever I’ve had to perform in school or for a family function. It’s also why, as fun as hosting looks like as a career, and as much as I know I would’ve been decent in it if I tried, it was just ultimately never the path for me.

Are you a sore loser? Yeah, I hate it. I’m competitive to the bone, which personally sucks too because it’s hard for me to enjoy games lol. I make it easier for the playing crowd by just watching at the sidelines so that I don’t ruin things for them.

When's the last time you used a pair of scissors? Yesterday when I was doing embroidery.

What was the last word you thought? I mean...’embroidery,’ I guess, since I typed it last before reading this question.

Is it easy to make you angry? It takes me a while to explode.

Have you wondered if other people wonder what you’re thinking? No.

Do you sing a lot? When I’m alone and am certain no one can hear, yes.

Do you think you have an addictive personality? Uh no, not really. I like keeping a certain distance with everyone I interact with. As nice as I can be, I try to make sure my personality isn’t the type that would ~leave people wanting more~ so to speak.

Which affects us more: our genes or the environment in which we're raised? For me, it’s the environment. Genes are strong too, but they’re already there; they’re given, they’re constant, they’re wired into each person. The fact that people can still be constantly affected depending on what kind of situation they’re in says much about the capabilities of being raised in a certain environment. For instance, I know for sure I would’ve ended up being more emotionally stable if I was provided with a healthier, gentler upbringing.

Why do you believe that? Oops, I may have already answered it above.

Honestly, do you enjoy arguing? Nah. Watching others do it can be fun, but I avoid them myself.

Do you prefer to use tape or glue? Tape. More secure.

Do you see routine as a comfort or a rut? Comfort. I do like bursts of spontaneity every now and then, though.

When's the last time you cried? Last night. I wanted to this morning, but I already did so much heavy crying last night that I just gave myself a break today.

Do you believe that love can get you through anything? No. I know that now.

What do you wish you had more of? Money is always a good answer. Also, weekends.

If you HAD to change one thing about your best friend, what would it be? I wish Angela lived nearer, so that it’s easier to visit. I wish Gabie wasn’t so selfish.

Have you ever gone to sleep mad? It’s harder that way, lol. But I mean yeah I guess I’ve felt angry while trying to go to bed; it’s just that I usually use certain outlets so that I could calm down and fall asleep more easily.

Do you like your computer? I love it. Even though it’s an older Macbook Air I have no plans to replace it; it’s still so low-maintenance and reliable after all this time.

Which theory do you wish but perhaps not believe was true about afterlife? This is a good question and something I always wish was verbalized more. For me, it’s the idea of reuniting with all your deceased family, friends, and pets in death. That has always given me comfort, but I don’t necessarily cling to it.

Is there anyone that you truly could not live without? I can think of one such person, but we’ll see if it holds true.

#survey #surveys

[indig0tea]

Final 2020 Update: 2021 Goals!!

Cross posting from my devART

Also links to all my alts and shit will be at the end of the post if you need them!

So some of these may be unrealistic due to my struggles with ADHD/Depression Combo but. I wanted to get these down somewhere so you guys can see them and be aware..

Please note, my executive functioning abilities are absolutely Butchered on the regular by my ADHD alone, and the various stressors of 2020 have absolutely taken anything else I might have had in that department and tossed it out the window.

Something something something, financial stressors outside of my control sends me into shut down mode and I can't do anything productive or even fun until it's handled, but because I'm not doing anything productive, I'm not making any money, and the stressors gets worse and worse and it just ends up in a horrible cycle where I constantly want to die because I'm not able to create anything to relieve the stress! Which is why you've all seen... pretty much a standstill on my productivity save one or two pieces a month if I'm lucky

That said, I'm going to start trying (hopefully with some outside help/accountability to keep me on track while I'm unmedicated) to put a system in place that doesn't make me constantly want to die while like. maybe actually getting stuff done! So I'm making some optimistic goals for 2021 regarding both my art and ability to make money, so here goes!

I'm breaking this down into 3 parts:

Changes to expect regarding my social media, commissions in general, posting, etc;

Overall Goals for 2021;

and Goals for January specifically.

Changes to expect going forward from here:

I'm going to be making some changes regarding my social media accounts, including this one, mostly concerning when, where, and how I'm posting.

I am also going to be making some changes to my commission policies, prices, and payments in the coming year, namely:

Lastly, I will be making some changes to my art discord server!

Moving forward, I am going to be MOST active on my twitter and tumblr accounts. They're just easier for me to maintain in general, and although I hate twitter's formatting, it's just easier and faster, and frankly after deviantART and Instagram fucked with their websites/algorithms, it just makes the most sense for me as an artist.

I'm also going to be making an effort to make scheduled cross-posts on all my accounts. In the past, I've been really irregular about when and where I post things (most things got posted to my old tumblr account but never here, i rarely remember to post to instagram, etc).

This is going to include commission slots, finished piece dumps, etc.

I will also be making an effort to semi-regularly post sketch dumps, both digitial and traditional. I am also considering at this time offering a monthly digital download of my sketch collections, though I am undecided as I'm not really sure how many people would be interested.

Increasing commissions prices to reflect time spent working on specific commission types, as well as my personal cost of living.

Planning and announcing commission slots in advance.

Taking and finishing regular commissions to cover living expenses on a monthly basis

Payments will be exclusively through paypal invoice, and will be broken up in halves: first half will be taken up front after I have started and given proof of start (base sketch), the second half will be paid after completion, with WIPS given between first and second payment. Fully completed art will be given after receipt of second half. This is both for my personal protection as an artist, as well as for the comfort of the commissioner as my completion time can sometimes be long due to my ADHD/executive dysfunction.

Moving forward into 2020, my discord will be SFW, but 18+ only. This is a personal comfort thing. I'm 25 years old now, and just really don't want to spend time hanging out with teenagers.

I'm also going to start trying to schedule art streams again! Since this is the only place I can live stream due to my art computer's limitations, it just makes sense to like. Schedule them so more people are able to attend. I haven't decided exactly how that's going to look, but once I have I'm going to make an announcement and formatting guide somewhere for people to see so they can make an informed decision about joining the server.

I will also be regularly posting in the server again. This may or may not be cross posts from twitter and such, we'll see, but I DO plan on being more active there since it's been kind of dead.

I may also reformat the whole server again. We'll see!

Goals for 2021

Regular Adopt Sets -- 2-3 per month. Size, price, and number in set will be decided on case by case basis.

I'll be doing a monthly prompt for myself as well. This is just to get me back in the habit of creating things I like for myself to just feel... less bad about my art in general, and about making art. Also it'll be good for my artistic development i think?

Keeping a monthly sketchbook for warm-ups and in-between pieces. May be offered as a paid download at the end of the month, we'll see.

Might start a patreon? This is EXTREMELY dependent on what my userbase looks like. Tiers and rewards to be decided at a later date

Regular traditional sketches + scan and upload of said sketches. May also be offered in the monthly sketchbook.

Draw more self portraits & self-expression pieces! I don't know if any of yall realize how repressed I've been in the last year without therapy, and I did't either until I forced myself to pursue a vent piece earlier this month, and then felt immensely better afterward so. Going to start doing that! Maybe I'll feel better weee

Regular posting to social media! (see changes above)

Drawing less fantrolls bc I'm just bleh about them lately, drawing more original content!

Drawing fancontent that ISN'T homestuck? We'll see but I'd like to. I don't usually draw fan art bc like. Idk in my mind I don't feel like my interpretation of things is important or cool and I think thats a confidence thing and I'd like to change that so! I'm gonna start making more fan content.

Draw more full illustrations & backgrounds in general because I actually enjoy doing them it turns out?

Practice painting more !! Both traditionally and digitally....

Goals for January 2021

Finish at LEAST 1/4 of my art queue. I'm shooting for half, really, because fully completing it might actually kill me but! We'll see! Maybe I'll surprise myself. But I'm setting the goal low to keep my mental health problems in mind.

Finish and release the base set i've been working on, on and off. It's an homage to  the old pixel doll days of 2009-2012, and the full sheet will be free to use (with stipulations, as I have some people blocked that I don't want using it). BUT! There will also be a mix and match .psd that will be pay to use (it'll be pay to use a, bc it'll be huge, and b, bc the edits to make it mix and match results in like 6 seperate bases in general so.... yeah. pay to use)

Finish the pay-to-use base pack i started in june (i may scrap and restart though, we'll see)

Possibly release all old p2u bases of mine in one pack on gumroad? price tbd but it will include old iterations as well as unreleased remakes.

Making some dainty-specific bases! One will be f2u, one will be p2u.

I have a whole dainty YCH set for january! I just have to finish the example... (:

Perhaps I'll be announcing a collaborative project later in the month! It depends on where each of us are at, at the time! We'll see! (: You should be excited though! It'll be a ton of fun!

EXTERNAL LINKS

Instagram

Twitter

Tumblr

deviantART

Discord server

[musashi]

i'm thinking about playing the stalk market for the first time and i have a basic understanding of how it works, but i was wondering... where do you usually look for good turnip prices? like is a there a website people list their prices that you usually visit or do you just randomly run across them on tumblr? also if i do find someone with a good turnip price, is there any general etiquette i should be aware of when visiting their island? sorry for so many questions lol

oh fuck yeah!

so always give urself a little safety net w turnips: don’t invest everything you have. keep some savings! when you have some success in the stalk market it becomes REALLY tempting to just throw all your bells into it but in the event that something goes wrong like for instance you accidentally time travel a day backwards without thinking and all your turnips spoil........... its good to have bells to spare.

it is a lot smarter to look at others prices than rely on your own, but checking your own with the turnip prophet tool is very very helpful to know what your prices are gonna look like, ESP if you play multiple weeks in a row.

my personal favourite website to use is nooksguide. i basically check it every day when i have some free time to see if anyone has their gates open. my personal goal for prices is around 600+ bells per turnip, but i will settle for a 500+ if i’m really anxious to sell. another website i really like is turnipexchange for its queue function, but there are a lot of people demanding bells/compensation at the gates on there and personally i think that’s in poor taste so i avoid them xD

remember that when you’re using online prices like this, turnip selling can be a bit of an ordeal. you will be stuck in the airport trying to get in, either because the island is full or because people selling cant all close the windows in time (this is where the ‘interference’ text box comes from) remain persistent. it’s not uncommon to spend an hour or more trying to get into one island, but usually you will get in if you just keep trying. 

(this is why i like websites with queues--queues make it so everyone gets in and out at the right pace! turnip selling only takes like 5 minutes with this method)

island etiquette is same as always--try not to run unless they have paths set up, you wouldn’t want to trample their flowers. don’t take anything off the ground unless they have signage that indicates its there for you. don’t pick fruit unless its specified as okay. 

TIP. animal crossing tipping standards say 10% is the preferred amount. i usually end up making 1-2 million bells with the amount of turnips i can fit in my pockets, so i’ll tip 2 99k bell bags by dropping them at the airport or near the person hosting if i can find them. even if the person says they dont need tips, its common courtesy to tip. hosting people on your island is a lot of work because of how not equipped this game is for heavy online play, so the least you can do is tip.

lastly, try not to linger too much on someone’s island when you’re selling, as a lot of people are waiting to get in after you and it takes quite a while to watch people leave/enter the island as is. OH and when you head home, do it through the minus button on your switch, not through the airport. running through the aiport dialogue takes forever and muddles the connection for people trying to fly TO the island, but using the minus button is like 3 button presses and you’re out.

i know that sounds like a lot but i promise you’ll get the hang of it haha! its super worth it and you make BANK for investing. im always super excited to do my turnips for the week x3

#Anonymous #wendy answers

[sparrow-ink]

covid diaries aka memoirs of the plague

trying to keep my thoughts organized and coherent has been a bitch recently, so i’m going to try to put them down more or less in order here and see where we end up. this is going to be heavy on personal covid content and might get long, so please skip if either distresses you.

so last tues, the uh... 24th i guess, i started feeling ill. mostly like allergies plus a bad headache. i had a feeling i was getting sick but didn’t want to alarm my spouse or housemate/best friend, so stuck with ‘could very well be allergies and dehydration.’ also it very well could have been, and it was very reassuring for us all to tell each other that. my company had already moved the majority of employees to work-from-home, including me, so i already wasn’t going to come into contact with anyone outside my home.

symptoms got worse over the next few days, congestion, headache, feeling feverish, cough started up. we didn’t own a thermometer, and my spouse and housemate tried every wal-mart, wal-greens, target, etc to find one. housemate said at one place they laughed at her when she asked if they had any. i tried ordering one on amazon with no luck. either they were $90+, out of stock, or not shipping until may. i settled on ordering on for shipment in may. the seller messaged me the next day and said they couldn’t fulfill the order and asked to cancel it.

from our last costco trip we had already (unintentionally) gotten stocked up on toilet paper, snacks, and some dry goods. at some point before I got sick, spouse and I bought a bag of rice and bag of potatoes, because I intermittently try to do mealprepping and seemed being stuck at home would be a good time to try again, what with national and state-wide states of emergency being declared. also seemed good to have them in supply. and we were still stocked up on cold and flu medecine from when i got bronchitis mid-dec to mid-jan. so we were/are pretty well-stocked on essentials? that was reassuring, as i was obviously, noticeably sick by last friday.

i was hoping i would get better over the weekend but i did not. still couldn’t find a thermometer anywhere. governor had issued the state-wide stay-at-home order on uh...thurs? weds? but already being sick, and already working from home, and not going out, it didn’t really affect me much?

i feel like i should mention at this point that since the state of emergency was declared and we started to transition to working from home, i’d been trying to ration my social media (tumblr/twitter/insta) time for my sanity. but also not having information makes me feel helpless, so i had the CDC covid page up and checked every day. and then the colorado state covid page too. seeing the numbers of confirmed cases double, and triple, from week to week was... hm.

also one of my younger siblings moved from colorado to arizona at the start of march, and presumably lost their phone because i haven’t heard from them since despite poking. that hasn’t been concerning during a global pandemic. not at all. they’re probably not dead. i mean, you’d think a bitch could call their older sibling to let them know they’re not dead, but whatever. i’m sure they’re fine. probably. anyway.

where was i. so by the weekend i was Not Feeling Well At All Actually. my cough had become “scary.” my housemate did all the dishes in the kitchen despite not being responsible for most of them. i felt, and sounded, disgusting.

i checked the covid testing requirements again, and basically found that in colorado you had to be dying to be tested for covid. cool.

monday rolled around, still not better. i ended up having work computer issues (their end, not mine) where i basically ended up laying on the couch in my office while IT did IT things. a blessing. i slogged through the rest of the day. just felt like i wasn’t tracking well, couldn’t focus on shit. that evening while watching shows with husbeast & housemate, i had a truly uncontrollable coughing spasm/fit that seemed to just go on. could barely talk without coughing. i coughed all night. i basically didn’t sleep.

tuesday morning i woke up, and started coughing again. i could hear a crackle echo up my throat when i breathed if i was in the right position. i sat up to try and get my breath. i think it was like 6 am. spouse creature (already awake from my coughing) gently rubbed my back. i started crying. i just wanted to sleep, and i couldn’t sleep, and i couldn’t stop coughing, and i felt like i could barely breathe, and things just hurt, and i couldn’t think straight. i felt so... defeated. i think it freaked out the spouse creature. i usually only cry during children’s movies.

i took the day off of work. i hadn’t taken a day yet because i was already working from home, and it was the end of the month which is the busiest for my team, and my boss had said last week that if i felt i could work, they needed me. by tuesday morning i was out of energy and also fucks. i got in the queue for a teladoc appointment. per the CDC and colorado covid websites, telehealth visits are to be the first option in order to help prevent the spread, etc. also i would have done teladoc anyway bc i don’t have a PCP.

it took a few hours to get connected with a doctor. i think i started coughing while he did his intro thing. he basically said, well i think i know what you’re calling about, but why don’t you tell me. i told him. and coughed some more. he said my symptoms are consistent with covid, and in a perfect world they’d be able to get me in for rapid testing, but they couldn’t. that basically people are only getting tested at this point who are getting admitted to the hospital. some people were able to access testing through their PCPs but even that was drying up. he advised me to self-isolate (already on it lol) and for my household to self-quarantine for at least two weeks from when i started showing symptoms. and i could un-self-isolate once the majority of my symptoms calmed down AND when i didn’t have a fever for three days straight with no meds. he prescribed me an inhaler and a cough suppressant pill, though he said the cough suppressant might not do much since it didn’t seem to be working for anyone else with similar.

husbeast had run out to get some more supplies by the time i got on the vidcall with the doc, mostly liquids and electrolytes. he went back out once i gave him the rundown, to fill my prescription and get me the good costco chicken soup once they were open. he also, miracle of miracles, managed to find and buy a temporal thermometer at costco for like $45 i think. a true champion. my temp seemed to be fine in the afternoon, a touch above normal but fine. i’m not actually sure what my personal base temperature is. i should also say that i’d been consistently taking dayquil and sudafed since the previous weds.

that evening my temp started to go up. and up. or at least i think it was tuesday night. maybe it was weds? freaked out spouse, i got up to 102 F even with sudafed and additional acetaminophen. i basically had a fever from tues through this morning (friday), while taking pills like clockwork. always seemed to get worse in the afternoon/evening and be better in the morning. today at least it’s stayed below 100F, even mostly below 99F.

the cough and difficulty breathing has been the worst part. i have delicate baby lungs to begin with, and i have allergies and a history of childhood asthma. so i’m already paranoid about my breathing even with a normal cold. but to hear that i would have to immediately proceed to emergency services should my symptoms progress to: can only get a few words out, can’t stand up or walk across the room, can’t maintain conciousness, to hear that was... something. because then it’s basically like, okay, if I get pneumonia and my lungs are filling up, then i can go see a doctor in person. cool. and i know it says on the websites that there’s no approved treatment for coronavirus, that treatment for less severe cases will be the same at home as it would be in person, but shit. i woke up so many times last night feeling like i was fighting for air, waking up because i was coughing so hard i had to sit up all the way to breathe, and i kept thinking, what if i just stop breathing in my sleep? not like i would notice, right?

it’s been scary. i’ve been trying not to freak out my people with more crying and whatnot, but i’ve already got anxiety and this shit aint helping. i’m trying to stay relatively calm and not make them deal with me losing my shit on top of already taking care of me and bringing me soup and water and pills and asking what they can do for me. i’m tired of being sick. i want a new pair of lungs. i want to not feel like i’ve been hit by a truck. my ribs hurt from coughing so much. my chest hurts. my whole body aches. the headache keeps coming and going. i can’t stop fucking coughing. i don’t want to die, i just want to maybe go into a coma and wake up when this is all over. once the line of dump trucks has stopped running me over.

and i’m just so mad at the lack of preparedness in the US. i’m so pissed that i can’t even get tested, i can’t know for sure what the fuck is happening to me. i’m so mad that the cheeto is president during this. i hate this fucking timeline. i hate that we don’t even have clear numbers on cases because of mismanagement. i hate that i keep feeling like i’m about to throw up because i’m coughing so fucking hard. real fucking reassuring to know that the symptoms i’ve been told to watch for, to know that i need to go to the hospital, are the same ones that constitute an emergency and would mean that i would basically have to be rushed there. wearing a facemask if we can find one.

ugh. the other worst part is that i haven’t even been really coherent enough to write. and i’ve only been able to settle on a few things to read and watch. being sick makes me picky and like, impossible to please. so i’m spoiled for choice with 4+ streaming services, but nothing sounds good. and my people are working from home, but they’re still working. they can’t spend all their time with me. i’m bored, and everything is garbage, and there are only so many times i can rewatch the princess bride. i have been napping quite a lot, but even that doesn’t take all day.

maybe i’ll write some crackfic. then it doesn’t have to be coherent. and it would be in the spirit of covid to write some real absurd shit i think.

anyway. i might delete this later. i feel better for getting events put down and venting.  also i apologize, i have no idea how to do a readmore cut on tumblr anymore.

#long post #covid diaries #plague memoir #meatspace recollection #meatspace adventures

[im-not-corrupted]

Safi, No (a Witchlands Fanfiction) - Chapter Ten

Written with @un-empressed, who wrote Safi’s POV!

Read the other chapters: Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine 

Chapter Summary:

Safi orders jackets, and someone we hate gets pushed off a table.

Also on Ao3!

At first Safi had really been joking about the jackets. It wasn't like they could actually get them, was it? And even if there was a way to subtly defy Merik Nihar through an outfit, Safi knew that some of her group members would never approve.

Of course, Iseult, Caden, Lev and Zander learned long ago to give up rather than argue with her. Making them wear their jackets would be a breeze. Leopold didn't count - he'd wear his jacket willingly.

What Safi was worried about was the reaction the others would have. They were friends, sure, but their friendship barely started. They probably wouldn't like her getting the jackets without consulting them. They wouldn't wear them, which defied the point of jackets. Especially these jackets. They were meant to spite Merik specifically. There would be no point in buying jackets that would just stay inside wardrobes.

But as the week went by, Safi started to notice some things. She noticed the way Vaness started owning up to being her co-conspirator. There was much more mutual respect between them than Vaness would ever admit, and that was fine by Safi. She imagined Vaness would wear it once or twice, out of solidarity at least. Especially if Safi went through with the plan behind the others' backs.

Would Vaness turn away a gift? All Safi had to do was pay for it. She would have to wear it sometimes, out of basic decency.

That would probably work on Vivia as well. Safi still wasn't so sure what her problem was with Merik, but she wasn't completely opposed to the jackets when they were talking about it. And besides, she was unusually touched when Safi offered to pay for everyone's ice cream, since they came as a group. A single jacket wasn't that different than an ice cream, was it?

Safi doubted she'd have any problems getting Stix to wear her jacket. Her involvement had been pretty shocking, and even though Iseult told her that, realistically, Stix could be telling Merik everything they said, Safi still trusted her.

Safi knew Iseult was right, because Iseult was usually always right about this kind of stuff, whereas Safi just ran in and hoped for the best. Still, she trusted Stix completely, as stupid as it probably was.

Aeduan was Leopold's friend, and therefore his problem. Safi was going to tell him as much. It might be harsh, but she needed to take care of Vaness. One unwilling person was enough.

Safi made a mental list of pros and cons, and decided that it was totally worth it. Now she just needed to find a good website and place her order.

Ten custom jackets. Now Safi just needed to decide what they should say. It wasn't enough to just get matching jackets; They needed to be personalised. Needed to have hearts.

Safi opened up the group chat, looking for the suggestions of what the jackets should say. After scrolling up to reread the conversation they had about it, she still couldn't decide. It wasn't like anyone took the discussion seriously.

In the end, Safi knew she had to keep it subtle. And out of everything she wanted to put on a jacket, she chose the most obvious thing.

The jackets should be there by next week. Ten jackets, all the same, just different sizes. Safi was pretty sure she guessed the sizes accurately. And, if not, Caden could always help adjust them a bit.

They weren't very expensive. Turns out getting custom text on a jacket was easier than she thought too. She just hoped no one would ask about the fact that her jacket said Bribery & Corruption on the back.

Safi couldn't keep the smile off her face. This was a perfect, reckless plan.

Safi took her phone out and typed: love the smell of extreme probably unnecessary revenge so early in the morning. She sent a text to the group chat, revealing nothing other than the fact that she was up to something, but wasn't she always?

She didn't have to wait too long for responses.

Vaness: Safi, no

Iseult: I second that statement. What are you doing now?

Stix: Does it matter? She'll tell us eventually. And it'll be epic

Safi had to agree with that, at least.

Caden: We are not killing anyone, Safi, just so you know

Lev: I mean, depends on what you offer

Zander: We are definitely not killing anyone, Lev

Stix: I could work with murder if it's Merik. I'm friends with his friends though

Iseult: So... You're okay with murder if you decide who you murder? Saf, you're creating super villains

Lev: villains are cooler

Vivia: And there's not nearly enough female super heroes, which means we'd be mainly against arrogant men. That's a huge plus

Vaness: I made a mistake

Safi laughed out loud at the exchange. This group chat was the best thing she ever did. Well, maybe not the absolute best, but it was definitely up there.

Stix: So what I'm hearing is that the two of you will have my back if I rob a bank

Safi: Make that three

Aeduan: Nobody is robbing any banks

Lev: Not as of right now, but we totally could do it

Vaness: Safi, you are officially dead to me

Safi laughed out loud. Making Vaness go through all of this was hilarious on its own. She couldn't even begin to imagine what her reaction will be to the jackets.

Safi: Wait, don't bury me yet. You'll have much more anger-turned-energy for digging a hole when you find out what I have planned

Vaness: Safi, no

[x]

Vivia was fucking beautiful. There was nothing else to it.

She was absolutely beautiful. And based on their last conversation, maybe Stix actually had a chance. That, or she was just being self-centered.

She hoped that wasn't the case. Being self-centered meant being like Merik, which nobody would ever want. The thought itself made her feel sick.

Although, admitting she was self-centered wasn't like Merik at all, so maybe there was some hope for her.

But, Vivia was absolutely beautiful, and nobody could convince her otherwise. She was very much aware that she didn't know anything about her - she had told Kullen as much, too, though he hadn't been much help - but honestly, she couldn't help the flirting. She had no filter around pretty people, especially Vivia.

Vivia, currently, was waiting in line to get her food - at least a kilometre from the Bribery and Corruption table, which she began to refer to it as when she saw the name for the group chat. It was a fitting name, considering how many of their little group were, well, bribed or corrupted into joining the revenge plan.

Stix hated the distance between them, but it wouldn't last long. Before she went to get her food, Vivia had promised she would be back, so Stix was hopeful about that.

Hopeful enough to pay attention to most of the conversation going on, anyway. With Vivia in her line of sight, the only attention the Bribery and Corruption crew were going to get from her was forever going to be half-assed.

"I think we can safely say that the rumour we unleashed on Merik was successful," Safi stated in a business-like voice. Her business-like voice usually meant that she was planning something else, and that was almost enough to regain Stix's full attention.

Almost. She was still too busy staring at Vivia, and she was not ashamed go admit it.

"'Unleashed'," Iseult quoted with an eyeroll. Aeduan sat next to her, and they had been deeply engaged in their own conversation before Safi spoke and demanded everyone's attention. "Again, we aren't at war and we aren't 'unleashing' weapons on him."

Safi glared at her friend, though because they were so close, it really had no effect on Iseult. "Do I need to remind you that this is war and the rumour was definitely a weapon?"

"No," Iseult replied with a roll of her eyes. "I heard you the first few thousand times you said it."

"Good." Safi turned back to the rest of their group. "Does anyone have anymore ideas? We can't just leave it at one single rumour."

Lev raised a hand. Stix wasn't sure who Lev was, not really - all she knew was that she was a friend of Safi's and somehow part of the revenge plan. Stix wasn't sure how. "The offer to help hide his body is still up," she announced with a large grin. Zander, sitting on her right side, rolled his eyes.

Safi chewed on her lip, then shook her head. "Tempting, but no. Too risky. Anyone else?"

This time, Leopold spoke up. "Who else shares a class with him?" Stix reluctantly raised her hand, followed by Caden, Leopold, Aeduan and Vaness. Safi didn't need to do so - they all knew that their shared Geography class was the reason behind all this. "Great," he grinned. "When you get a task you have to do in groups or partners, make sure that everyone refuses to work with him."

"I like that plan," Safi announced, grinning back, but Vaness had another idea.

She rolled her eyes. "And how are we meant to do that? We don't posses the ability to control our peers' actions."

"If we did, there would be no revenge plan," Iseult pointed out. Stix wasn't sure what she meant - would there be no revenge plan because Iseult would control Safi and make her forget the revenge plan, or would Safi have controlled Merik and force him into staying silent during that one careful Geography class? Both options made sense.

God, if they could control the actions of the others around them, Stix would've made him shut up long before Safi would get the chance. Honestly, it would've saved her from being annoyed constantly in his presence.

But then again, if the hypothetical situation wasn't hypothetical, Stix wouldn't have had the chance to meet Vivia.

Vivia, who blushed whenever Stix sent a compliment her way; Vivia, who hated Merik just as much as she did, if not more. Vivia, who only had four more people to get past in the queue for food before she returned to the Bribery and Corruption crew.

Leopold sighed but he looked eager to explain. "Easy! Spread another rumour. Maybe Merik has a deadly, contagious disease. Maybe Merik shit his pants a few days ago. No one ever wants to talk to the guy who shit his pants."

"So, really, we're just spreading more rumours?" Aeduan frowned.

"Yes, but instead of feeling sorry for him, they're disgusted by him instead." Leopold grinned widely. "Perfect plan, no?"

Safi nodded eagerly. "I like that plan," she repeated. "Though, if we're to do this, make sure-"

"Attention please," a voice announced from the middle of the cafeteria. The voice was strangely familiar, but Stix couldn't place it - until the cafeteria gave a collective groan.

The school only ever got annoyed at one person at the same time if that person was Corlant.

Stix turned in her seat to see that she was right.

Corlant stood on a table in the middle of the cafeteria, wearing robes of black accentuated with dark grey cuffs that only just stood out against the black. He held a microphone close to his mouth in his left hand and a hard-cover book in the other - he always had his book with him. Stix assumed it was a Bible or another type of holy book, but, well, this guy was no Christian.

She, along with all the other students in the cafeteria, scowled at him. Who the fuck went around wearing robes? What the fuck?

"The time has come for you to repent," Corlant said, voice booming. He was far too confident for a guy everyone hated. "To repent for your sins! You are a plague upon this Earth. You are impure!"

Stix hugged, noting the constant 'you's and 'your's. Corlant was the damn plague upon the earth.

"Who the fuck gave this guy a mic?" Safi asked. She was loud enough for the Bribery and Corruption crew to hear, but not anyone else.

"Can we formulate a revenge plan for him, too?" Lev asked.

Corlant spoke again. "But do not fear! You can be pure again, with my help! I am the chosen one, the one-"

Stix had been paying enough attention to Corlant that she forgot about everything else, until she saw Vivia marching towards him. She could practically hear war-drums in the background as Vivia ripped Corlant's precious hard-cover book out of his hands with a force Stix didn't think she possessed before whacking him round the head with it. Vivia then proceeded to climb onto his table, hit him again with the same book, before shoving him off it.

Stix was too far back to see how he landed, but the whole cafeteria burst into cheers, including the Bribery and Corruption gang.

Vivia was beautiful. She was the most stunning girl Stix had ever seen, standing on that table with no expression but annoyance on her face.

Vivia was also the most confusing girl Stix had ever met. Vivia was shy, was quiet - definitely not the kind of girl to shove someone off a table after hitting them with a book twice. At least, that was what Stix gathered from their previous conversations.

Stix certainly didn't mind confusing, though. Not when it was Vivia.

Vivia headed back to the queue to resume waiting for her food, but the students before her moved out of her way, changing, "Down with purity! Down with Corlant!" Stix could just about make out how uncomfortable all the attention she was getting made her, and when Vivia got her food and sat next to Stix, she put her arm around Vivia's shoulders in what she hoped was a comforting way.

"You're a fucking adorable badass," Stix stated with a grin, loving the way Vivia's cheeks flushed red.

Safi cheered. "Hell fucking yes, Vivia! You are definitely corrupted."

Stix shot her a glare. "She is not corrupted."

*

Read Chapter Eleven here: Chapter Eleven

#The Witchlands #Truthwitch #Windwitch #Sightwitch #Bloodwitch #The Witchlands Fanficion #Safiya fon Hasstrel #Merik Nihar #Iseult det Midenzi #Caden fitz Grieg #Lev #Zander #Leopold fon Cartorra #Vaness #Vivia Nihar #Aeduan #Stix #Stacia Sotar #Bribery and Corruption #Corlant

[prorevenge]

Want to be a horrible co-worker to me and steal from the company? Hold my beer while I ruin your career.

So, I've read so many stories on this sub and never once thought about sharing one of the most satisfying days in the history of my professional career. This is a long one but had fun reminiscing.

Straight out of college, with a degree in graphic design, hungry to find a good job in a horrible economy (2009) I applied all over the place. I ended up settling for a decently paid internship instead with really good company. A beer distributor, for a large and legendary macro-brewery. I was pretty ecstatic. Even if this was a part time internship it had great potential to turn into a full time job. I was hired in to be a graphic designer for their in house print shop and I would be working one other person, this girl Alice (name changed for anonymity).

My first day working I met Alice and she seemed really nice, knowledgeable and passionate about graphic design. Due to seniority she was technically my supervisor. After a few days working I learn a few things about her. Obsessed with running, obsessed with horses (she was a horse girl), home-schooled her whole life, and overall realized she was just an awkward person. Nothing wrong with that, some people are awkward, it's ok but all day everyday I would hear about running and she was obsessed with competing with her sister. It's all she talked about. Her obsessions were just draining to hear about some days but the obsessions come back later in the story...

Anyway, I dealt with the awkwardness for a while. I just learned of ways to ignore it. After a couple years is when the real trouble started. By this time I became a full time employee, not an intern anymore. We were pretty much equals when it came to rank in the office. Only thing she did more than I did was ordering. She would order ink cartridges for our printers, paper, print heads etc... that's all she did more than me. She still delegated work, but I didn't mind.

At a certain point I was put in charge of reorganizing our office and helped move everything around with my boss. The catch was that I got to pick where I sat, got to choose my desk and location if I helped move. Alice knew this, didn't care and said she was too busy to help with the reorganization. I was happy to help. The way our office was organized after the change was she sat in front of me with her back facing me and I would be all the way in the back of the office by the printers. So basically I could see everything she was doing on her computer, IF I wanted to or cared to. But we always got our work done, browsed the web for personal reasons occasionally throughout the day, it wasn't abused by either of us so no big deal. Like I said, she was my superior so she would designate jobs. We would get job requests from the salesmen and they would differ in difficulty and time to complete them. Everything was equal. We would bust ass and have an equal amount of work always....until I went on vacation for a week.

I go on vacation for that week and come back into the office to see her sitting in my desk...I'm immediately confused. I then notice her computer, picture frames, desk organizer, all her shit is now moved from her desk to mine...and all my stuff is moved to where she was sitting and was thrown everywhere. This bitch literally went through all my stuff, unplugged my computer and everything I had and switched desks with me while I was on vacation. No text/call, email or notice about it or why she did it. I look at her and say..

Me: "Uhhh, what happened to my desk?"

Alice: "Oh, so while you were gone the printers keep jamming up and I had to get to them quicker so I just switched desks with you since your desk is closer..."

Me: "Ok, I don't understand it's only like a 5 foot difference between your desk and mine..."

Alice: "Yeah I know, but they were jamming up and every time they would do that it would take too long to boot back up and restart everything."

Me: (in my head, total bullshit) "Yeah ok, I don't get it but whatever."

I didn't get, It was fucking weird and I was pretty pissed all my shit was moved and our desks were switched. Not only that but IT had to get involved to switch our phone numbers to our desk...that took a few days so I kept getting all her calls and she got mine. It was ridiculous. I didn't care after a few minutes when I saw the pile of work to do for the day. There were jobs backed up and the whole sales team was asking where their job orders were. Alice kept saying, "Oh it was so busy last week with just me here. Couldn't get it done. So we had to bust ass and play catch up for a few days...

One key part of all this is that we have a printing program that files and filters all the print jobs we send. It has date, time, file name, number of copies, time it took to print etc...I was curious so I go back one week to see what she did while I was gone, absolutely nothing. A couple of the days I was gone there were only a few files sent to print and they were projects that would have taken at most 15 minutes a piece to do. Even if the printers were jamming there is absolutely no way she could have done that little without slacking off the entire time. You can always work on projects and send them to the printer queue to send later.

As weeks started to pass after she moved the desks I noticed productivity started to go way down. Even worse I started to get a ton of projects sent to me, twice as many as usual. I was at the point there would be days I would stay 2 hours late just to finish things up. Not only that, but Alice worked out a deal with our boss she could start coming in one hour earlier (before anyone else is in the office) and leave an hour earlier at the end of the day because she had cRoSs fIt and bOot cAmP for running and needed to train for a marathon. That's fine except she wasn't doing her job.

The printing software we use to track everything was showing she actually wasn't doing jack shit. I don't get how clueless she could be to think she would get away with this either...we can both see every job that is sent (or not sent in this matter) to the printers. Showing for every 10 jobs I would send to her 1. Ahh...now I know why she moved the desks, so she could be where I was without anyone looking at her screen. I also noticed every time I would get up to go by her to grab something from the printers she would grab her mouse really fast and click away from whatever website she was on wasting time instead of doing work. I would also check to see what she did during that hour she would come into work early while no one was here...nothing...I would look to see what she did during the hour I was gone for lunch...nothing.

So here I am, coming in on time, busting my ass, doing a ton of work, staying late while she would waste an hour in the morning, waste an hour during my lunch and not even do the bare minimum while there. I had enough. Up until then I had to put up with her awkwardness and that's whatever but I was no longer going to put up with her laziness and poor work ethic.

I knew she was going on a long weekend trip in a couple weeks to run a marathon. I started taking screen shots of the print jobs on our system's queue every day at the end of the day showing what I did and she didn't do. Shows how she slacked off and gave me all the work to do and didn't do anything. It was more than enough proof to show she was abusing company time severely.

The Thursday she was gone I gave her a taste of her own medicine. I moved our desks back. I moved everything from my desk back to my old desk she stole from me and all her shit nicely put back on her desk. I kept everything nice and organized as if nothing was changed besides the location of the desks themselves. Even further I went and located extra long telephone cords so I didn't have to bother IT to switch our phones back again. I held on to all the screenshots I took of her slacking off and didn't show them to my boss. I wasn't going to unless she raised hell about me moving our desks which why would she? It was my desk originally, the printers obviously were not jamming ever, it was a bullshit excuse and I never got mad at her or made a big deal when she did it...so why would she get mad at me for doing the same thing? I didn't even care about the desk itself, I cared that she was slacking off and not doing her job where she was in a spot no one could keep track of what she is doing. She was supposed to be my superior, someone who can manage and delegate work, instead she took advantage of me and the company.

I didn't want any huge surprises so at the end of the work week I sent her a text:

"Hi Alice, just wanted to let you know I ended up moving our desks back to their original location. Figured it wasn't a big deal but I just wanted my original desk back that I claimed after I was given the option for helping organize everything. Just didn't want you to be surprised on Monday. Have a good weekend!"

I gave her more of a courtesy than when she did that...so I figure it wouldn't be an issue (there was). I didn't get a response or anything. So I walk in Monday morning after she got back from her long weekend and I just say hi, walk past her and go to my reclaimed desk.

Me: "Not sure if you got my text but I let you know I moved the desk back to their original spots, figured the original issue of the printers jamming up was fixed so I just wanted my original desk back

Alice: (turns around to look at me, clearly pissed) "Yeah, I got your text...btw we're going to have a nice long talk with Jim (our boss, name changed for anonymity) about this."

Me: "...ok, what's the issue? I just wanted my desk back? You moved them without even telling me before and there wasn't an issue. So why are you mad?"

Alice: "We'll just go talk to Jim about all this..."

Me: "sounds good, let's go"

Alice: (turns back to her computer, then turns back at me again) "Why do you have to be so Honoury!?"

Me: "Honoury?"

Alice: "YES! Honoury!?"

Me: "You mean ornery? And if you did intend to call me ornery, I'm not...at all, I just moved our desks back...exactly what you did before."

She just turned back around and we were called into my boss's office. He clearly didn't give a shit and was just fed up with Alice's BS since this wasn't the first time she brought up a total non-issue up to him before. She complained constantly, would bring up nonsense about the office all the time about things that just didn't matter one bit. This was another one. She goes on explaining how I just want to cause issues for no reason. Then Jim asks me, "Well why did you move the desks anyway?"...that's when I whipped out the stack of screen shots showing her lack of work and how I was being overworked and doing the work of two people.

He looks over everything and was pissed and frustrated. Questioned why this was going on and why the work wasn't delegated properly. He also mentioned he would notice how I would be here late all the time. She had no answer. Alice made up excuses how she was busy placing orders for supplies and doing other projects that were not all printed work that couldn't be tracked. He wasn't having any of it and just said to keep the desk the way they are and not change anything again. So I got my desk back.

Funny enough, now that I could see everything she was doing all the open jobs were delegated properly...WEIRD...all the workload was split evenly, SHOCKER...and all the bullshit from before stopped.

That wasn't even the pro-revenge part of the story! Needless to say, after this fiasco there were issues upon issues between us. There was a rivalry and we got along enough to just get the work done and that's it. I could care less about her, she would be nasty to me all the time and just say bitchy comments. Whatever...I could care less. I wanted nothing to do with her. I knew she had poor work ethic and did what she had to to keep her job by doing the bare minimum to make it seem like she was working.

Now, remember when I said I worked for a beer distributor? Pretty sweet gig. We got to try a lot of new beers we would distribute before they came out, even would tap kegs in the morning and have it available throughout the day. They would let us drink on the job, to a point. Just be responsible doing it. One day we have a new beer tapped outside in the warehouse and were able to drink in the morning. I had a couple and Alice kept going back to drink more. I was around her enough times drinking where I could tell she was getting buzzed or sometimes drunk. When this happened she would be forgetful and slack off (another shocker). When lunch time came around she barely did anything that day. I wouldn't say buzzed, but she was definitely in that lazy state of drinking a few beers.

I went to lunch and came back after an hour. I noticed she was gone already and had gone to lunch before I got back. Looked like she just got up and left. Computer was still logged in, crap all over her desk, half beer sitting there and probably just didn't care since she was in that lazy state of drinking.

-The Pro-Revenge Part-

I walk up to our normal printer to grab a couple emails I printed out, not on the expensive HP printers we print banners on, just our normal printers. I notice a couple pieces of paper sitting there under what I had just printed out. I look to see what it is and it's an invoice from eBay. I didn't think much of it but i did a double look after noticing one of the pictures is of the ink cartridges we use on our big 36" HP printers...these are typically $150-200 a toner cartridge depending on the color, and there were 10 total for each printer when being used.

"...No fucking way..." I thought to myself..."Is she selling these on eBay and pocketing the money?" I look up the seller name on eBay which was something like RunnersWorld347 or something running related (red flag). Turns out she has been stealing ink cartridges and selling them online off and on for over 3 years. On one transaction she made over $1,000 right before Christmas, probably to buy Christmas presents or something. Another was before her marathon she did earlier in my story. Probably to pay for that and her trip to go running. There were transactions for running shoes she purchased on there that I have seen her wear in the office on casual Fridays before, something horse related but forgot exactly what it was...it was hard evidence she was stealing product from the company and selling it on eBay. Since she did the ordering and inventory of all the printing supplies she could take advantage of it pretty easily, and she did. How stupid can you be to leave that kind of evidence sitting on a printer? Pro-tip, don't get tipsy and print off invoices of stolen property you're selling on eBay and forget about it.

I brought up all this information to my boss and showed him exactly what she was doing. He couldn't believe it and to be honest I couldn't either. Being a shitty co-worker and employee is one thing but stealing/selling thousands of dollars worth of company property? Really messed up. Jim ended up giving Alice the chance to come clean. He first called me into the office to let me know he will be talking to her and giving her the option to come clean about everything before showing her the evidence against her. I walked back to my desk and all I remember her asking me is "Uh what's going on, is everything ok?" after she noticed I was called in to talk to Jim. I just shook my head and said "Yeah, idk.." and a second later she was called into his office.

About 5 minutes pass and I see Alice walk back into the sign shop crying with tears running down her face. Doesn’t say anything to me as I watch her start to pack up her belongings in a box, that’s when i knew she just got fired. Half way through packing up Jim comes by and says, “are you done yet?” She replies no and starts going on her computer while Jim promptly stops her and says, “No! Don’t go on your computer, those privileges are revoked and you can not be on our computers or network anymore. It’s a liability” he allows her to get a couple personal files as he watches her like a hawk. She picks up her box of shit and is escorted out of the building. Last I ever saw of her. Best part of all this was done in front of all the sales team and managers. About 20 of them. They all watched this happen and all watched her be escorted out of the building.

About 10 minutes of people asking me what happened I realized 99% of people there absolutely hated her for related reasons revolving around her poor work ethic, nasty attitude and awkwardness towards everyone. I got a couple slow claps and hand shakes too.

I was called back in to Jim’s office a little while later. He explained they confronted her about the theft. Gave her the option to confess to everything and they wouldn’t press charges and allow her to resign. She confessed immediately. I ended up getting a raise right then and there and was promoted to sign shop manager and was put in place of finding a new team member to interview and hire in and was able to work closely to HR and hiring department to find the right person.

Long story short after that I stayed for another few months and got a great opportunity at a new job. But I was able to hire in a really good employee that was a quick learner and got her setup to be efficient and get shit done. It was almost like a “I must go now, my job is done, someone else needs me” moment when i left. Turns out she was just a toxic employee to most people well before I started there but was once untouchable because of her intimate relationship with a manager there. Never knew this, but once they weren’t a thing anymore there was no protection.

TL;DR worked with a god awful employee who made my work day miserable, didn’t do her job, wasted company time, went through my belongings and moved my desk and ultimately got caught stealing company property by me and I got her fired...then got a raise and promotion because of it.

(source) story by (/u/Purplepunch36)

#prorevenge #by /u/Purplepunch36 #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10