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typingatlightspeed · 8 months

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TF2 Fanfic - Complex Carbohydrates

Following the events of Expiration Date, Engineer decides to invite Medic for a few beers out back of the base, as a final sort of come-down from everything they'd been through over the weekend. Some easy conversation and light flirting seems a pretty good way to celebrate being alive.

A giftie fic for @missjamiekaye, and thank-you for that lovely Sword Van piece! <3 They asked for some Engie and Medic being flirty bros. I hope this passes muster!

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It had taken hours, but finally, the last of the giant, mutant bread monster had been disposed of. Most of the work had been done by Pyro, if they were all honest. The firebug had delighted in torching that big mess of grains and tentacles, reducing it to ash which was then unceremoniously dumped in a nearby ravine, hopefully not polluting any groundwater after the fact.

Not like the groundwater here could get any more polluted than it already was, anyway. Not without changing its colour and viscosity, at least. The lead levels were already more than enough to scare even penny-pinching RED into supplying an external water source for its mercenaries, whom had never been known to be the recipients of much in the way of creature comforts from their employers.

Thank goodness the paychecks were huge.

Engineer hung his hardhat and goggles up on the pegs he'd installed next to the door in his quarters. He scrubbed a hand over the stubble of his shaven head and let out a long breath, now that everything was said and done. He was exhausted. It had been the longest three days of his life. Terror, shame, determination, panic, and entirely too little sleep had filled the time between the discovery of just what teleporting does to bread, and the discovery that what teleporting does, it just does to bread. He didn't think it possible to chug along on adrenaline for days on end, but now, as it leaked away, he wasn't just tired, he was weary.

Even so, he wasn't headed to bed just yet. There was something important he needed to do.

The door to the infirmary opened slowly but not quietly, the door's hinge squealing almost as a defense measure. Engineer made a mental note to oil the damn things tomorrow.

The room was only half-lit, theories and calculations still scrawled on the chalk board, wall, floor, anything chalk could cling to; evidence of their weekend-long desperate bout of research and development. Engineer hadn't worked that hard that fast since college, though he had to say, the company was much better. Medic was at least as much the mad genius as he was, and it had been nice to have someone on a similar wavelength to bounce ideas against.

"Hallo?" Medic asked, turning, bent over in front of his open refrigerator. Likely chilling what few samples he'd managed to wrangle after Pyro had befriended the small, angry loaf of mutant bread the doctor had managed to keep contained for most of the weekend.

"Hey there, Doc," Engineer greeted with an easy smile.

"Ah, Engie. I'm surprised to find you awake. I had assumed you'd be dead to the world at this point." Medic chuckled lightly, standing and closing the fridge.

"Still too wound up from it all. Exhaustion's finally crashin' in but my mind ain't done turnin' yet. You know how it is."

"Indeed I do." Medic took a deep breath, feeling the same fatigue creeping over him. His nose scrunched up in dismay. "Ach, this whole room smells like yeast."

Engineer chuckled at that. "Weren't gonna say nothin', but you ain't wrong. But speakin' of..." He lifted his hand, showing the gift he'd brought: a six-pack of frosty, cold beers. "How 'bout we go partake of some more yeast out back? Actually enjoy some of this weekend 'fore we gotta be up for work in the mornin'?"

"Those are the only carbohydrates I think I'll be interested in for some time," Medic chuckled. "My friend, once again you prove to be the idea man between the two of us." He gladly followed Engineer out the door, shutting the lights off in the infirmary behind him.

The night sky stretched out for what seemed like forever, dampened only by the light pollution of a few stray lamps along the perimeter fence. Engineer switched off the porch light, saving their eyes a bit of strain in the dark, and settled on the edge of the dry, creaky old structure, the six-pack of beers separating him from Medic.

The cool breeze of the night air caressed them gently, neither chilling nor buffeting them, merely whispering past in a gentle sussurus that seemed to ferry away the stress of the prior three days. Engineer snatched up a beer and popped the cap on the edge of the porch, then handed the bottle to Medic before doing the same for himself. They lifted their beers and clinked the bottles together in a silent toast before taking a pull.

"Thank you for inviting me," Medic said with a wistful smile, watching a stray cloud drift past the moon, its light illuminating it with a silver halo.

"'Course," Engineer demurred. "After what we been through, some cold beers with a good buddy is just what this doctor ordered."

Medic snorted a laugh at that. "I'll admit, this is a far better way to spend time together than in utter, mortal terror, furiously experimenting for three days straight."

"Amen to that. If I'm gonna be experimentin' with you, I'd much rather it be relaxed, 'n after a couple of beers." He smirked against the lip of his bottle, a proper smile pulling at his lips as Medic blushed and tittered in reply.

Medic didn't look at him, a laugh caught in his voice. "So is that why you asked me out here?"

Engineer split into a crooked grin. "That depends on whether it's gettin' me anywhere."

Lifting an eyebrow, Medic took another swig from his bottle, letting the silence stretch on just a bit. "You know, one of these days I'm going to call you on your bluff and take you seriously."

"When that day comes we're both in for a lot of trouble."

"I worry far more for everyone else."

They shared a laugh at that, downing the rest of their beers. Medic glanced sidelong at Engineer. It had been a long, long weekend. Though, truly, even if their initial theory had held true and it had been the end for them, he could scarcely think of a better way to go, throwing science at the wall and trying to crack a nearly insurmountable problem with Engineer at his side. He was the only man he'd ever known whose ever-churning mind could keep up with his own. If he had just a few fewer morals he could even surpass him, which made Medic glad that his friend had at least some scruples left to his name, if only to save his own pride.

Engineer's thoughts must have followed a similar path. He withdrew another beer from the pack and gestured to Medic with it. "Still can't believe we both managed to jump to a conclusion like that. Somethin' affectin' bread like that sure is gonna be one-to-one with humans." He scoffed. "We were so wound up we straight skipped over where that didn't make a lick of sense."

Medic shrugged, nodding with the assessment. "To be fair, it isn't exactly like there are reams of research on the side effects of teleportation on the human body in the first place. Our daily use of them and the records kept about it is probably the closest thing to a study that's ever been done, which is hardly saying anything. Something, anything, showing a reaction like that is cause for concern, since it was such an anomaly. We were working with the data available, which was very incomplete." An impish grin crossed his too-white teeth, "We did manage to untangle the problem. After all, we had the two greatest minds of our generation working on the project."

"Shucks," Engineer demurred, blushing a bit. "I'm just glad this weren't the end. Would'a been a sad way for a bunch of hardened killers to go. All that fight in us just to die from tumors? Shame."

"Agreed. Even living as we do, it would be cutting everything far too short. Too much left undone, too much left unsaid," he took a sharp breath, realizing how personal that sounded, and quickly rejoined, "too much yet to learn and discover!"

Engineer let it slide, not taking the easy opening to needle his friend. "Ain't that right." He used the edge of the porch to finally open the bottle he was holding and offered it to Medic, "Doctor?"

"Doctor," Medic replied, accepting it gladly with a giggle.

Engineer opened his own beer and they clinked the bottles again. "To wheat."

"To complex carbohydrates!"

They chuckled and knocked back their beers, settling into a comfortable silence as they stared out across the desert, the pale, silvery light of the moon lighting up the rusty sand a fetching shade of blue.

"Y'know, Doc, I—"

"Ludwig."

Engineer turned to look at Medic, lifting an eyebrow. "Pardon?"

"My name is Ludwig."

"Oh."

Medic finished his beer, taking the pause to sort out his thoughts. "We just stared Death in the face and watched him flinch so hard it was physically indistinguishable from a seizure. We spent three days with barely any food or sleep, experimenting and theorizing and calculating, around the clock. We've just been through a special Hell together; we deserve know one another's names, OPSEC be damned, don't you think?"

"Awful poetic of you," Engineer replied, his voice soft. He was a bit touched, truth be told. "Alright, Lou. You can call me Dell."

Medic smiled at that, more than a little amused by the American's immediate need to create a nickname for a name that was only two syllables long. "Dell. Sehr gut."

"Nice to meetcha," Engineer teased. He finished his beer and set about cracking the last two, handing Medic his and lifting his own for a final, silent toast.

Medic grinned, and their bottles clinked, and the chirping of crickets filled the easy quiet that settled there as the exhausted, trimphant mercenaries spent the last hours of their weekend enjoying one another's company.

#TF2 Fanfiction #Team Fortress 2 #TF2 German Engineering #TF2 Engineer #TF2 Medic

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robogart · 2 years

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Hi! It's ok if you're not comfortable awnsering- but I was wondering how much you make a month from art on average? I'm going into my second year of art school and I'm getting worried about how lucrative online independent work would be. You seem to have a system that I could see myself enjoying, specially compared to the usual instagram and youtube artists you see thriving from online work. And if you don't want to give out numbers: Does it make a living or do you need/work a second job? Ty <3

Hey! This is a great question and I’m going to apologize in advance because it’s going to be a LONG answer! Mostly because I think this is a great way to shed some light on just more “regular” type circumstances for art jobs things! But I hope I can answer this question sufficiently!! 🙏💖

Okay - so I don’t feel comfortable saying how much I make (I’m superstitious that if I share it in a public space it will be dashed IMMEDIATELY) but I can definitely talk about logistics!

So to preface everything with the simple answer: I DO make enough now to have a living! It’s a SMALL living, but I’m able to focus just on my artwork for now! Which is honestly still wild to me and I AM waiting for the rug to be pulled out from underneath me at any given moment (I am throwing some salt over my shoulder as we speak, just in case)

Now I just want to talk about some general insight points about my current situation/how I got to this current situation:

I have only JUST been able to move out (I’m 28 now)

I live in a shared apartment with my friend (fate was SO on our side and this has been a whirlwind 2.5 months omg)

I have student loans to pay off ($400/month! Gross!) on top of rent/life payments. If you’re in this boat, always keep it in mind!

For 7 years after college, I was working on art (commissions, personal, etc) and also working “part time” (30+ hr work weeks so lmao not really but for employer-benefit reasons 🙄) This is for 7 years after school! It took a bit to get here!

I only had to pay a small rent when I was living at home so while it took 7 years (underpaid, family circumstances, physical/mental health woo!) I WAS able to save enough to move out

most days I can still hardly believe I’m here @ w @;; and it’s a constant working process to figure out how to stay here as well! I work 8-10 hour days, 6 days a week.

And if you’re like me, I don’t come from money, so my parents aren’t in a position to help and I have student loan debt. This has informed a lot of my adult life!

That said, I have been lucky to be in a family with a steady lower-middle class income AND ALSO in a pretty stable/functional family situation so that I was able to move back home for a while to save a bit of money. Not everyone has those circumstances to plan financially! But if you come from a more secure/affluent financial background, some of this might not apply to you - which is fine too.

My advice would be to first and foremost make a budget list for yourself (love my google sheets! I have MULTIPLE budget lists lmao)

Make a budget list that covers what you would NEED to earn each month. And then from there, make a sheet that shows what you DO earn each month from art!

Try to track that income for at least 3-4 months of steady work!

If those numbers continue to meet up, then I would say that’s a green light!

If they don’t meet up - maybe look into some part time stuff! Which, like I said before, can be REALLY solid. And it’s always solid at least for a steady line of income, which is great! 💪✨

And remember to treat your job like a JOB! Clock in and clock out! It’s just a job! Not your life! Keep doing you! 💖 Too many times have I given 100% on jobs when it really should be like 80%! Save your energy for yourself too!

And if you are able, think about moving back home. Saving money is ALWAYS a solid choice. Give yourself some time to figure shit out and get your ducks in a row.

I’m only able to do what I can now because I lived at home for 7 years and worked pretty non stop! (working in the morning to afternoon at my first job, coming home doing chores, and then working from 8-11 on art)

BUT, always know, that we are NOT the same person!! You’re going to have a different path from me and so will many others! But in case you wanted a general picture of my circumstance, I’m hope this helped!

And as always, do NOT feel pressured by my advice here!

Advice is just to help INFORM your OWN decisions! Never to make them for you! 💖

I feel like I both talked about A LOT and I’m ABSOLUTELY missing something from here! 🤔 So I apologize for such a novel!

But if you or anyone else reading this thinks of a question about this type of stuff, let me know! I try to be pretty transparent about this since I feel like I’ve only seen a lot of advice from people not with students debt so it’s always been a little frustrating 😔💦

This work IS possible, but it was a lot of work to get myself here! And it’s still a constant dance of figuring out new things (which is equally exciting and a bit stressful) ^ w ^;;; 👏💖💖💖

But thank you for reading this far omg! I hope it was a little helpful at least! ; w ; 🙏💕

#text #A LOT of text I'm so sorry! TT w TT

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hostilecityshowdown · 1 year

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Shawn making chocolates to make up for a fight he started with Diesel, but it goes horribly wrong.

[ ao3 ]

It was pure coincidence that the next hotel boasted a small café-bakery as an offering of hospitality. Around thirty miles back, Shawn realised he had to do something to apologise to Diesel for the scene he caused. The trouble was deciding what to do.

Maybe it was their ongoing rise in popularity that convinced the boss to pre-book them one of the swankier hotels, something at least a full star above the typical motor lodge they could afford on their own dime. Maybe McMahon was just concerned about making a good impression on the new recruit, considering how swiftly Diesel had turned coat on WCW and jumped to the WWF only two months before. Or, perhaps, this was an attempt to dissuade Shawn, himself, from engaging in his usual illicit activities - whatever the reason, Diesel was down in the gym, taking full advantage of their accommodations. After their argument, the previous night had been rough, to say the least, with too much awkward shuffling around each other in the too-small room. Shawn was used to pushing the beds together, but Diesel didn't move the nightstand aside as he normally did. He showered, bedded down, and went to sleep, leaving Shawn standing in the ambient light of the hallway peeking under the door. Feeling like a lost puppy, he eventually crawled under his own bedspread and restless leg syndrome'd himself out of any real sleep until dawn. Diesel took off during one of the few hours his partner was unconscious, leaving a brochure opened to the gym's page on his bed to indicate where he'd gone.

Things were not good.

It was the first real fight they'd had, Shawn realised as he stared at the thick, day glow orange curtains, and he was doing a pretty bad job at making up, even though he resolved to do so en route to their current hotel. He bundled the comforter up against his chest and clutched it, sighing, racking his brain for a solution; he was determined not to let himself leave bed until a light bulb illuminated above his head. Metaphorically, at least, he thought to himself, already pacing from one end of the room to the next.

"So much for that," he grunted, tussling his hair furiously with both hands, leg bouncing every time he pivoted to pace another line. "It can't just be sincere, it's gotta look sincere. Believable, not like I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar and the thing I'm sorry for is getting caught. I gotta apologise for popping open the cookie jar in the first place."

Shawn's stomach growled. He stopped pacing, looking down at his abdomen as if it had spoken to him.

"... Cookies, huh?" That was… Perfect. That was-

“-why I need to use your kitchen, capisce?” Shawn was leaning both elbows on the counter, chin propped in one hand, chewing his gum furiously and bouncing one leg so hard he kept knocking his knee against the pastry display case. He’d spent extra time on his hair, pulled out some of his more understated jewellery, touched up his nails, even applied a little bit of makeup. Just enough to make his eyelashes more noticeable when he fluttered them pleadingly and to cover up the bruise on his temple beneath his bangs, something Shawn earned in his latest match before Diesel could interfere. It was one of the things they’d fought over, but he omitted that part of the story when he explained his dire situation to the barista working the hotel café. He was young, probably college age, with enough piercings and processed hair to make Shawn suspicious of how he scored a job in the hospitality industry but, hey, whatever, who was he to judge? He was a jacked, 6’1” dude trying to coerce this kid into letting him use his employer’s kitchen to bake cookies for a man he nearly kicked in the jaw because he was angry at himself, after all. To drive his point home, Shawn bat his eyelashes up at him and clasped his hands together pleadingly.

“I don’t know, man….” The barista’s name tag read ‘Silas.’ “I can’t let you back here.”

“And I understand that,” Shawn responded immediately, spreading his hands out, palms pointed down and fingers splayed. He nodded sympathetically. “This is really important, my livelihood- our friendship could depend on this. How ‘bout you give me the stuff and I’ll, uh, I’ll mix the batter, and you can… Cook it for me?”

After a few moments of silence that lasted an eternity for Shawn, Silas sighed, shoulder’s slumping. He shook his head and resumed cleaning the whipped cream canister tips. Poor kid, he was probably only holding this job down because he desperately needed the cash and would move onto the next shitty gig in the next shitty town as soon as he had the gas money. Shawn pulled out his wallet, licked a finger, and leafed through a few bills. “I can comp ya for it.”

“No, that’s, uh,” Silas mumbled, searching for the least offensive words. “Unprofessional. Can you wait here a sec?”

All too happy to tuck his wallet away, Shawn nodded vigorously and resumed his leaning on the countertop, practically dancing foot to foot. Silas’s eyes were dark and soft, warm, his sympathy genuine - he wasn’t just taking pity on Shawn, and he held up a single finger with chipped black nail polish before he disappeared into the kitchen behind him. When he returned, he was carrying a plastic mold and a few transparent bags. He laid them all on the counter and nudged them towards Shawn. “Here, you can use these. Bring back the molds and whatever you don’t use, please?”

“Uh, thanks?” Shawn replied, dumbfounded. He picked up the mold and turned it over in his hands, realising the shapes were… Little teddy bears holding hearts. The bags contained paper lollipop sticks, cellophane wrappers, and satin ribbons. “Hey, Silas, pal? What am I supposed to do with these?”

Silas winced before getting his face under control. A little too under control, unfortunately, his tone deadpan. “Chocolate lollipops.”

“...Chocolate lollipops.” Silas nodded. Shawn exhaled slowly and laid the mold down on the counter gently, as if fragile glass. “And how the hell am I supposed to do that?”

Looking taken aback, the teen shrugged a shoulder a first before catching himself. He held up his finger again, ducked back into the kitchen, and returned with a cookbook and notepad, the kind one would tear pages out of and clip to a turn style for a chef to snatch orders from. Placing the book on the countertop, he flipped to the index, trailing down the list until he found what he was looking for and tapped it, mumbling the page number to himself. After turning to it, he laid the notepad on the open page and leaned down so far over it Shawn thought he was going to put his head down and go to sleep. Shawn sort of wanted to do that, honestly, but instead he watched Silas copy the recipe down for him and accepted the paper when it was handed to him. Silas’s writing wasn’t sloppy, but it was sharp, with a flare that reminded Shawn of calligraphy and those moody goth albums Diesel liked. “I adjusted the recipe for you. If you follow these measurements, you won’t need another mold. Do you… Want some measuring spoons and stuff?”

–

Silas sent Shawn back to his room with a full box of stuff, including a hot plate, pot, silicone spatula, and all the ingredients. Initially, he’d tried to convince Shawn to buy the foodstuffs himself, but the fifty dollar bill Shawn somehow coerced him to accept changed his mind. Triumphant, Shawn fumbled with his key until he managed to open the door and tumble into the room, setting up his workspace on the window sill and nightstand in a near-frenzy. The analogue clock clattered to the floor, hotel notepad dropped behind the nightstand, the curtains haphazardly shoved aside. He’d left the do-not-disturb sign on the doorknob and hoped Diesel would heed the warning. Standing back with his hands on his hips, Shawn tapped his foot and assessed his battle station.

It looked perfect. He had already greased the mold and laid the sticks in their little slots, tossing the rest of the cooking spray and sticks on the bed. Beside the mold was powdered sugar, four cellophane wrappers, and four strips of ribbon. To the left were measuring cups, red, off-white, and dark melting chocolates, three metal pots, three piping bags, a pair of scissors, and a jug of water, all lined up on the windowsill. Against the wall left of the window, taking the place of the bedside clock was the plugged in hotplate, pot, three spatulas, and a chocolate thermometer. He couldn’t find any Fun-Tac, so he stuck the recipe to the wood paneling above the hotplate with his chewed gum. Shawn felt pretty damn proud of himself for laying everything out in a mildly coherent order. It took him a really long time, and he had to tie his hair back away from his neck. He almost broke a sweat there.

Pouring water into the pot and a bowl over it, then flipping the hotplate’s switch to ‘on,’ Shawn measured out somewhere around how much of the red melting chocolate was necessary and stood in front of the double boiler, staring. He shuffled from foot to foot. It was too quiet in the room, actually, and he crouched in front of the television set to fiddle with the dials, one hand carefully balancing the metal measuring cup. It was only when he heard the hotplate hissing that he remembered he was boiling water.

“Uh-oh-” Shawn bolted upright, lunging across the room to turn the heat off. It was a miracle he didn’t spill any of the chocolate discs. Without checking the temperature, he poured the chocolate in. It instantly melted into a dark red mess and he snatched up one of the spatulas, stirring furiously, but it kept clumping. “C’mon. What the hell?”

He tried to pick up the bowl but jerked his hand away, shaking his fingers furiously, the spatula dropped in the bowl. He didn’t have any oven mitts. “Ow. Damn, what was that for?” Shawn was almost whining as he carefully lifted the spatula, half the red chocolate stuck to it. It looked sort of… Melty, the silicone bending, looking soft. When he tried to give the muddy chocolate a stir, some of the spatula swirled into it. He was going to have to give Silas way more than a fifty to make up for this, he realised, jogging to the bathroom to grab a few hand towels. He emptied the whole affair into the trash bin and tried again, this time reading the recipe closely and actually measuring the temperature of the bowl before adding the chocolate. The thermometer was held with one hand, the other stirring with a more solid spatula- it took him a few tries to figure out which hand should do what, and more than once he nearly checked the spatula and stirred with the thermometer. Behind him, the television was playing an episode of Family Feud, volume too low to make anything out.

“This is harder than it looks. That punk actually knows how to make these?” The Heartbreak Kid was muttering to himself, consulting the recipe again as he removed his earrings and threw them on the bed. “Looks like… I cool it down a little bit and put it in the piping bag next. That’s doable.”

By the time he looked down again, the chocolate was already starting to harden at the edges. He gave it a quick stir before pouring it into one of the piping bags, remembering his mother doing something similar when she’d make butter cookies on Saturday nights. Something about the memory made him miss Marty. Shaking the thought off, he snipped the bottom of the piping bag a little too wide, shuffled to the mold, and tried to be meticulous about filling the hearts the bears held. He overfilled the first one, nailed the second and third, and didn’t have enough chocolate for the fourth. Damn. “Big deal, Diesel wouldn’t eat four of these, anyway.”

He tossed the empty bag in the garbage, set the bowl aside, and realised how exhausting this whole process was when he looked at the dirty spatula. Next up was the white chocolate, so he’d use the clean spatula for that, but reuse the dirty one for the regular chocolate. The brown should cancel out the red, right? The process went more smoothly this time around, Shawn even getting the ratios right when filling in the little bows around the bears’ necks. Somehow everything went wrong the second he thought he had everything under control; Shawn forgot to check the temperature before adding the last batch of chocolate, which he suspected he measured wrong due to misreading the numbers, and he had to snatch the bowl up and stir like his life depended on it. The chocolate smoothed out thankfully and the spatula didn’t melt, but it was way too much, and when he glanced at the mold he realised he hadn’t let the white chocolate cool enough before pouring it. Only the last bear’s bow wasn’t deformed, and the first bear’s heart had expanded during hardening and oozed into other portions of the mold.

The chocolate in his hands started to harden before it was all melted and he got it back on the heat, trying to get into the rhythm of stirring and temperature checking again, but he kept forgetting the number and he was probably stirring too much and this was way, way too much chocolate and he was going to get Silas fired and-

A knock on the door made Shawn jump right as he was taking the chocolate off the heat. Luckily, he was able to make it tumble out of his hand towards the window sill, and somehow the bowl landed upright with a loud clang.

“Shawn?” Diesel’s voice came from the other side of the door. Shit. Shit, shit- “I’m coming in.”

“Wait-” Diesel didn’t wait, unlocking the door even before he spoke, and froze when he saw Shawn’s makeshift kitchen. Initially, his expression was vacant. Even with his sunglasses, Shawn could tell he was trying to process this, and Shawn didn’t know what else to do but stand there clutching the red-and-brown chocolate covered spatula, staring at Diesel helplessly. He was vaguely aware that the chocolate might harden before he could get it into the mold but wasn’t sure what to do about that. Diesel blinked. Shawn cleared his throat, voice strained, a little higher than he would’ve liked. “I’m, uh, sorry.”

“For… What? Are you making d-”

“No! God, no,” Shawn barked out a forced laugh and ran a hand through his hair, rocking on his heels. He felt sweat run down his forehead and his face flush. His face couldn’t decide if it wanted to smile or grimace. “No. I’m making chocolate suckers.”

“...Okay?” Diesel inched into the room almost cautiously and closed the door behind him, moving like Shawn’s delicious confectionery concoctions were wild animals that would leap out of the mold and maul him. Maybe there was something to that, with how bad Shawn screwed them up. “And you’re sorry for making chocolate lollipops?”

“Yeah- no- hold on-” Suddenly remembering the chocolate again, Shawn almost dropped the spatula and whirled around, snatching up the bowl and furiously shoveling the swiftly hardening chocolate into the cavities, foregoing the piping bag altogether. More accurately, he dumped the contents of the bowl onto the mold, positive he didn’t measure correctly as he watched the chocolate cover the entire surface even after filling out the rest of the bears. Some of the chocolate had hardened, creating little lumps here and there. Defeated, Shawn heaved a frustrated sigh and tossed the bowl and spatula on the windowsill. “Fuck.”

“Shawn,” his partner’s voice came from right behind him, fingers grazing his arm. Diesel spoke so softly Shawn almost cried, stomping his foot before pivoting on it, hands fluttering up Diesel’s arms, over his chest and up, hands settling on his neck. He felt jittery. He was so tired. He could run a marathon and sleep for a week at the same time, and he wanted nothing more than to twist Diesel’s arm until his elbow dislocated, except maybe drag Diesel into bed- “Shawn.”

“Whuh?” Shawn blinked, hard. His nose felt runny, his throat tight, face hot. He sniffed, blinking back tears and inhaling sharply. His chest felt like an airplane cabin that forgot to depressurise. At some point Diesel had pushed his shades into his hair and was looking at him with concern, hands hovering just under Shawn’s elbows. He was trying not to cringe at how hard Shawn was rubbing his thumbs against the sides of his neck, but when Shawn jerked his hands away, Diesel quickly clapped them back against his skin with his own hands. The leather of his gloves was so soft. It made Shawn want to cry. “Yeah?”

“You’re okay. Tell me what’s going on?”

“I screwed it up,” Shawn laughed. It sounded wet. Gross. “I screwed up, okay? I’m sorry, I’m an impulsive asshole and I never should’ve kicked you or got in your face and you didn’t do anything wrong, I’m just an asshole, and I’m supposed to be making it up to you and apologising but I’m fucking stupid and can’t read and-”

“Whoa,” Diesel squeezed Shawn’s hands, fingers pressing into his knuckles. He slid his grip down Shawn’s arms slowly, hovering over the junction of his arm and torso only briefly before grasping him more firmly, hands coming to rest over Shawn’s waist. He squeezed again and Shawn shuffled closer involuntarily. He was learning he loved when Diesel held him more than almost anything else in the world, maybe even more than rhinestones and gold camera flashes and- “Pump the breaks, Heartbreak. Let me get this straight: You’re making chocolate lollipops to apologise to me?”

Feeling a pathetic wave of shame, Shawn nodded. He couldn’t look at Diesel’s face anymore, laser focused on his Adam's apple. Diesel didn’t acknowledge it if he noticed.

“Okay. Thanks. I forgive you.” What? Shawn frowned, trying to process that. No, that wasn’t right. What? Diesel kept talking though, not giving him any time to parse what he was saying out. “And you’re making these lollipops, but it’s not going well.”

“Silas wrote the whole recipe for me and he gave me all this crap and I really, really should’ve just- just bought my own, because he’s not supposed to, but his handwriting is so stupid and fancy and-”

“Who the hell is Silas?”

“The barista, Diese!” Shawn stomped a foot and pat Diesel’s neck firmly, glaring, suddenly indigent. He could feel a tension headache forming as his eyebrows furrowed and a scowl threatened to twist his face. “Downstairs, in the- the bakery- thing! I bribed him to give me his shit and he copied the recipe for me and I fucked it up and now what am I supposed to do, huh?”

“Okay,” Diesel mumbled, squeezing Shawn’s waist again. Shawn’s leg was jittering, a staccato much unlike his stomps when tuning up the band. He didn’t like that but didn’t have time to dwell on it, thoughts coming to an abrupt halt when Diesel wrapped his big arms around him and squeezed. Shawn’s arms wrapped around his neck, Diesel’s stubble scratching against his cheek. Diesel huffed, the sound muffled by Shawn’s shoulder. “Alright. Let the chocolate cool and we’ll pry the lollipops out, okay?”

‘Kay,” Shawn whispered, voice cracking. He leaned all his weight against Diesel and played with the ends of his hair. He hadn’t gelled it back, his bangs parted in the middle, and the back was wavy but flipping up and out. It was soft, maybe a little frizzy from excessive flat iron use. That was Shawn’s fault, though. They stayed like that for a while, Shawn gradually gaining awareness of the Family Feud audio still quietly playing in the background. He muttered without realising he was even doing it until it was too late to stop himself. “Cowboys.”

“What?” Baffled, Diesel drew back from their extended hug, mindfully shifting Shawn’s weight back onto his feet. Shawn pointed at the television behind Diesel’s back as the speakers dinged, the word ‘COWBOYS’ displaying on the board. Forty-seven people had responded to the survey with ‘cowboys’, Diesel noticed as he turned around. He hadn’t even realised the game show was on. “Cowboys.”

“Cowboys,” Shawn echoed, nodding sagely. “‘Name something that Texas is famous for.’ Cowboys.”

“...Cowboys,” Diesel said again. He snapped out of his trance and turned back to Shawn with a raised eyebrow, patting his shoulder. “Why don’t we pop those suckers out?”

“You wanna help?” A grin threatened to split Shawn’s face, his mood deftly swinging upwards. Energy coursed through him again and he didn’t notice how tired Diesel looked as he spun, picking up the filled mold and holding it out to Diesel. Some of the chocolate had dripped over the edge during hardening, creating a single slab of chocolate with four sticks embedded in it. Shawn beamed despite this. ”I made them myself. D’you have a knife? We can carve them out.”

“I’ll get a knife,” his bodyguard assured him, examining the chocolate. “Wait here.”

While Diesel meticulously carved the chocolate bears out, Shawn laid on the bed, kicking his legs and flipping through the SkyMall catalogue he’d stolen from the flight he took to meet Diesel the first time. He hadn’t gotten the chance to look at it before then, and he tossed it onto the opposite bed when Diesel held up the four misshapen, heart-clutching bears at Shawn, freed from their chocolatey prison. Shawn rolled off the bed and landed on his feet, knees bent, springing to Diesel’s side in a motion akin to a leap. “Mission success.”

“These look great, big daddy.” He whistled, plucking only the best bear from Diesel’s hand and spinning it around. “Wrap ‘em.”

Diesel snorted and handed Shawn a second lollipop, along with two of the wrappers. Diesel was significantly more graceful when fitting his wrappers over his pops, Shawn struggling to hold both of them at once and muscling through it. He followed Diesel’s lead and twisted the ends around the sticks, apprehensively looking at the ribbons Diesel held out to him but not making any move to take them. After a few seconds, his partner took back the bear he handed Shawn, trading it for a singular, pink satin ribbon. Shawn beamed, leaned over the lollipops to give Diesel’s cheek an almost comical smooch, and went to work. He ended up having to sit down and wedge the stick between his thighs to tie the ribbon on prettily enough. By the time it was ready to present to Diesel, the big man had already tied off his three ribbons, sticks clutched between the fingers of his left hand. Oh.

Uncertain, Shawn held the lollipop out, brought it back towards himself, then fully extended his arm towards Diesel. The bottom of the stick was pointing at him. “Sorry. For being such a jerk.”

“Eh, you’re my jerk.” Accepting the lollipop, Diesel laid all four of them on the windowsill and opened his arms instead. Shawn didn’t hesitate, barreling into Diesel so hard he nearly toppled his chair backwards. “Oof. Launch a torpedo at me next time, why dontcha?”

Shawn laughed and covered Diesel’s face in obnoxious kisses, ignoring his protests.

“Fired?” Silas repeated, taking the notice from the hotel owner. She crossed her arms over her chest and frowned at him sternly, body language saying ‘I knew hiring you was a bad idea’ despite her silence. He scratched the back of his head, shrugged, and figured this would give him more time to focus on his band, at least. “That’s fair. Do I get comped for my PTO?”

#[ colour commentary ]#big daddy cool diesel #the heartbreak kid #[ voyager ]#:3c #[ seven ]#[ slater ]#mango provided the prompt but this one is for u guys. enjoy some of the only non-horror content i've been able to write for these two #featuring a special guy that i won't tag because i want it to be a surprise for mango #123kid #[ mango madness ]#[ requests ]#long post

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callgespenst · 6 months

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sequel to a previous readmore

A while back I was talking about my buddy JJ who had just passed. It's been almost six months since then, somehow, which doesn't seem right. I think about him a lot still. Sometimes it's sad thoughts, sometimes it's angry thoughts, but it's usually just, thinking. I think I finally realized that I'm grieving and that I need help, I have a Monday appointment with a new therapist. I've been in and out of therapy for most of my life at this point, for one thing or another, and I've had some really good help, and some downright unhelpful help. Regardless of what this turns out to be, it's free through my employer, and that's what really matters.

I've gone out of town 3-4 times to help clear out his storage unit full of manga, Transformers, and assorted other action figures and robots and such. I've made probably a dozen total dropoffs between the local secondhand toy store, the local hobby store, and a second, slightly less local hobby store. The first location will take most of the standard toys and collectibles, the second, all the unbuilt model kits (I think those are finally cleared out), and the third, all the built model kits (most of those are gone now too). Most of what remains is either part of a massive lot of Transformers, a sizeable number of Kamen Rider figures, or a handful of Diaclone toys I'll have to reunite with their boxes. It sounds like a lot, but it feels extremely manageable compared to what was in there before. Not doing anything else with that for the rest of the year, though, his mother doesn't want to have to think about that during the holidays, and I can't really blame her for that.

Not this weekend, but next weekend, is hopefully going to be a big get-together with the old friend group we used to hang out with. I'm looking forward to it, but definitely dreading it a little too. No idea how that's going to go at all. I'm sure it'll be just fine and it'll be a good time to reminisce and catch up (probably a few people I haven't seen in five years).

I feel increasingly guilty for any part of the estate sale I keep for myself. It's not even a percent of a percent, and his mother even said I could keep whatever I wanted to, but man, don't I have enough crap of my own already? In the latest batch, I held onto a few of the built model kits, but I got rid of even more of my own, just put it in with the rest of the trade-in, so I guess it evens out.

The other thing I've been doing, there's a good number of built non-Gundam kits that I didn't know what else to do with, and I've been setting them up with cool poses and display stands and dropping them at hobby store display cabinets across the state. The big purple Zoids scorpion at the local shop, an Armored Core at another place, Bio Robo and Bio Hunter Silva's mecha, Fighbird and Draias. I think I'm going to run out of hobby stores before I run out of Super Mini-Pla. This weekend I'm going to another Hobbytown, I'm pretty taken with my setup for this one.

(The Japanese reads, approximately, "There Are No Problems In Space". It's a dumb little phrase I came up with when we were taking Japanese together in college.)

Anyway, I've been ignoring work for the last half hour and should probably get back to that, but I feel a little better writing this all down somewhere.

#gespenst updates #cw: unnecessarily heavy again probably

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zablionsea · 6 months

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My Feelings on Employment

I was reading the last post I reblogged, which was about the frustration with being alienated from the results of your work.

Now, I suppose I have a higher tolerance for bullshit that doesn't matter, after all, I was a good student in high school, haha.

Even so, I really feel this with my work, very funnily enough, on a certain fan wiki. Yes, I trudge through tedious tasks nearly every time I touch that thing, and often, the biggest tasks are the most tedious ones like summarizing every chapter or compiling song information.

However, even if it's something like logging months worth of Twitter information into a spreadsheet, I still can find it incredibly rewarding because it has a tangible result (in that case, creating a near-complete log of SL's update history).

Obviously, I'm not paid for this, but gosh, I wish I could do stuff like this for a living: trudging through the tedious bullshit for everyone else's sake. Repetitive, tedious, and invisible work often scratches an itch in my brain anyway, making it more enjoyable for me than others.

Unfortunately, my interest solely lies in video games in a way that's just plain unmarketable. I couldn't even list my experience with the wiki on a resume for a whole host of reasons, least of which valuing my separation of online life from brickspace life. It's been a substantial part of the past few months, and yet, it's not really there.

I've had to accept the fact that any job I take is going to have that feeling of isolation and pointlessness, and at this point, I'd be grateful to be capable of getting one at all. I feel as though my autism, mental illness, and low spoons as a result mean that I'm not very employable in the first place. I worry that I'm fundamentally incompatible with "work," and that hopelessness runs so deep that I can't be assed to apply anymore.

Hell, I'm so sure I can't get a job that I'm half-contemplating attempting to get art commissions set-up again, even though the reason I shut them down was having a severe anxiety attack over the mere idea of having a client (in addition to those factors that would make me unappealing as an employee kicking in hard). I know I'd hate it. I know it'd be just as overwhelming and frustrating and genuinely miserable as was obviously going to be the case before. Therefore, I haven't done it: because I respect my own well-being. But, really, it's better than having no income at all, right?

There's this painful tension with my college education, knowing that it's all gearing up for a big job hunt as I finally make an attempt to move out. I have such a deep contempt for what "work" is in the modern day, what profit-seeking and worker-diminishing trends have done to it. I wish it were better, for my sake and everyone else's.

#vent #zab.txt

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samwiselastname · 10 months

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Samwise Lastname Life Update (Negative)

I moaned and groaned in that selfie a bit already but like. I have many people who have offered to help me with many things. Truly thankful.

At the same time I've always been The Person with the stable job and full time wage, like, pretty much since I finished DBT halfway through college that's been my defining character trait. Even before then, it was "person who is a prime target for financial exploitation."

My current situation is a shared living space where I am covering about 4/5s of our expenses, by virtue of being able to mask my disability well enough to work full time. We are still coming up $400 short a month. I've just gotten assurance that should change, a housemate is seeking work, but. It hasn't changed yet, and even once it does, I will not feel secure until we have an emergency fund for housing, and I won't feel safe keeping any personal savings until that's settled. Which is a couple years out at this rate - even farther with some necessary home repairs, which will push our deficit even higher.

We only get takeout once a month at most, our expenses have been essential housewares and home improvement items - pest control, plumbing maintenance tools, repair supplies. A few hundred of that deficit is just repeat homeowner shit. We planted a garden this year which was an expense but, not exorbitant. I don't know how to cut down more without like. Eating less? Historically that approach has turned into dangerous weight loss & migraines pretty quick. As it is we're only spending about $100 more a month than the FDA's recommended frugal grocery plan.

I can stop buying alcohol & weed and save... about $10 a month. I could cancel some of my subscriptions and save $20-50. Anything I can cut back on at this point is not financially worth the detriment to my well-being, especially when things like "watching youtube on the TV" and "playing FFXIV" are like. Some of my only safe and passive low-pressure recreational activities.

Don't really know what to do about this other than keep grinding. I'm making myself sick. Tacking on any extra work - hobby creative pursuits that might one day turn into commercial creative pursuits, any amount of job hunting, even a shot at adult content creation - feels unbearable.

I am trying to stop "working overtime" because even the 40 hours fucks with my ability to do anything else. I tried to work around this by job searching and side hustling. Now all my hobbies feel like jobs and every day I'm not working on income feels like self-sabotage. It's stupid - I can get better compensation at my current job picking extra hours. At least when I do that I don't go into a neurotic spiral and stop sleeping. As much. It's at least effective.

So I have this limbo - working over 40 hours physically destroys me, and it's the only way to tip the scales at all right now. I know one can often get a pay raise by finding a new job but - yall the market sucks. I'm trying. I need full time remote WFH and good god is it bad out there. Plus my current insurance rn is killer - I have a 3k out of pocket max. My medical costs would outweigh the raise at any job I've successfully applied for thus far, because my current employer affords me this bizarrely fantastic health insurance with HSA deposits.

Just feel hopeless. If I've gone dark on you that's why. We have four months to get this shit fixed before we're totally fucked and I'm doing everything I can to buy us time.

#she is grumpy because she had to work 11 hours today without time-and-a-half for it #idk we might have a crowdfund up soon depending on how much help I'm actually able to get from my housemates

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balkanradfem · 2 years

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I'm also from South Korea and i appreciate and respect what the kindergarten anon did in making kids comfortable in their own skin and perceive appearance restrictions on women and girls, but really i'm getting envious or even to the point of doubtful here because if i pulled that in any work or college environment, kids would call me a feminazi, or they would report me to their parents and have my license revoked or getting into trouble. I would be brainwashing feminism into the kids or to friends and there's a reason why talks about feminism is shunned in the public sphere and among friend circles(especially if there's a guy, but it included all female groups as well), and children and students are very much affected by harmful MRA and hate logics on youtube and streamers on Twitch-like platforms. To talk about that or ease into tue conversation to anyone, including kids, you either don't do it or start with equally including hardships men face and open with "i believe in ALL sexes being equal and both male and female rights, but - " and still that wouldn't be enough. I know friends who'd gotten attention from their employers for this and professors who'd been called out by STUDENTS and harrasded for the same reason. So anon, you are so gutsy and i wish we could all work up the courage and have that energy around for change and understandment. It's so hard when feminism or anything related to women is villainized or treated like a ticking bomb and no one talks about it publicly in fear of public ostracizement or repercussions. Is it simlar like this in other countries or how does it show in a different way?

that is terrifying, anon, I'm so sorry! It sounds like a nightmare, if you don't make your appearance deviate from the natural and into a decorative form that is required, you can lose everything. What a horrifying world.

I'm from Croatia, and even if it's preferred that women look decorative for male enjoyment, I don't think it's a requirement, I've never owned make-up or dressed in a decorative way. It might have been a problem if I ever tried to work in a professional environment or male-entertainment or service industry, but as I don't do any sort of thing like that, I can walk freely looking like whatever. (okay, I'm a bit on the slob side and just go around the town in my old ripped apart gardening clothing and people look at me a bit weird but I won't get hurt due to it. I only make sure to dress in clean clothes for work.)

What you're describing sounds like a place of no freedom, where you have to preform constantly, have to fight against nature in order to keep the illusion of fantasy that is imposed on you. Is there a way to fight against it if the entire environment is so focused to squash it the second someone stands up to it?

It's also interesting that this specific male society requires women to work so hard to keep up the illusion, and that they're doing it via intimidation, ostracizing, threat of firing, threat of banishment, harassment and grooming. Why is it so important we look like decoration and not people? Can they not withstand even a bit of our nature, would it destroy them to acknowledge what a woman looks like? It's almost like everything would break down as soon as this one fantasy breaks down.

It makes sense why korean feminists are working so hard just to be able to walk the street looking normal, if this is how the world is :(

#radical feminism #feminism #beauty standards #female liberation #ask #korean feminist #i wish i could do something ugh #this is no way to live

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1000-directions · 2 years

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hi, can I ask what you studied at uni/college? <3

cw: suicidal thoughts

hi friend! so when i originally went to college at age 18, i was accepted as a classical languages major (latin and ancient greek), but my plan was to switch to creative writing as soon as i could. instead, i had a psychotic breakdown within days of arriving in campus, barely left my room for four months, and got kicked out at the end of the semester for not going to any classes.

after a lot of therapy, i started taking night classes locally while working, planning to be an english major. when i actually applied for full time status, i was accepted as a psychology major. and then as soon as i started taking classes, i changed my major one last time to biology, and i graduated with a biology degree at age 26.

i worked a few different jobs that i didn't really enjoy, none of which required the use of my degree, and then i went to grad school for something i don't discuss publicly because i think it can be too identifying, but anyway i realized it was a mistake almost as soon as i got there, but i'd already committed to this being my new path in life and i was too scared to back out. so i stayed for a year, hated every moment of it, cried all the time, completely dissociated a year of my life, decided that suicide was probably the only way out of the financial hole i had created for myself in pursuit of studying something i absolutely hated, and had a panic attack so bad i almost went to the hospital for it. luckily, i had enough clarity that weekend to realize that i had to leave, so i did. i'd completed enough coursework that i was given a masters degree in anatomy, which is probably my least favorite of all sciences, at age 33.

i realize this is a lot more detail than you asked for, but it's hard for me to talk about my pursuit of higher education without talking about mental illness. i was extremely ashamed by a lot of this for most of my life, which was very isolating and humiliating for me, but now i'm at a point where i'm proud of what i've overcome and where i've ended up, and i think it's important to share my experience and show other people that there isn't just one path.

i'm also going to say that i think it's absolutely bonkers that you are expected to know what you want to do for the rest of your life at 18. like i am just now, at 38, thinking that i probably know what i want to do for the rest of my life, 20 years after i first went to college. and that's okay, except that going to school is very expensive! for some career paths, you need very specific training from school, but for others, they just require a college degree because everyone requires a college degree and you are proving to your employer that you are smart and can work hard, and it doesn't matter what you studied, just that you did it at all. if i could do it all again, i think maybe i would have gone to trade school and learned something practical.

but anyway, i think there is such pressure on young people, in this country at least, to go to college because you're supposed to go to college, and it's such an expensive commitment that not everyone necessarily needs to do in order to achieve what they want to achieve! i am really glad that i got my biology degree, even though i've never used it, but my anatomy degree is useless. it was actually harmful to my job search, because it made me look too overqualified for the types of jobs i was trying to apply for. i was unemployed for six months before my current job offered me an interview.

anyway! i studied biology and anatomy. the only thing i've ever used my biology degree for is getting into grad school, and the only thing i've ever used my anatomy degree for is writing fanfic ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#asks #thanks depression #that unemployment life #suicide cw #suicidal ideation cw #long post #uni anon

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arathergrimreaper · 1 year

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J*hnny D*pp is untouchable garbage, ik, but there's one older movie of his I think about a lot called Benny & Joon, where he does this Buster Keaton sort of routine and after Joon sees it, she asks, 'Did you go to school for that?' and his character responds, 'No. I was kicked out of school for that.'

This scene and the underlying, probably unintentional, meaning of it sticks with me. For context, I'm not that talented at anything no matter how many hours I dedicate to it, but I've received compliments and more than a couple wistful 'I wish I could find time to do that's from people who've seen me crochet or draw or pole dance or what-have-you. There seems to be this misunderstanding that these things are doable for me because I have a plethora of time and resources or energy others just...don't.

This could not be further from the truth.

I make time to do these things. How? By sacrificing quality and time dedicated to the things society tells me should be the ultimate priority. Example? My crochet work drastically improved after years of false starts and finally finding the right teacher (Youtube) by...taking it to certain lectures with me in college. I would sit there and work on it even if it was large and took up my whole lap rather than taking notes. I still participated in class discussion. I still took my tests and did my essays (when ADHD and perfectionism didn't prevent me from turning in boring crap nobody gave a damn about). Classmates would look at me like I was insane, but not a single professor bothered me about it because my grades and class participation were solid.

Same thing with work. My current job is...well, I need money like many of you and 'beggars can't be choosers' yadda yadda. The point is, I have a lot of downtime in between duties and assignments, most of which only have to be done on a monthly basis. So I write. Fuck, I've written nearly three books worth of words since starting here nearly two years ago. One of which I did in a month (i was going for sterilization surgery consultation and wrote up 100 reasons and elaborations why i needed this surgery, just in case). And I draw. If anyone sees me at it (my back faces the door and there's high foot traffic by our office -_-), they don't say boo to me because I get my work done (and some of theirs too, lbr) and growing up with strict parents made swapping tabs and hiding chat rooms child's play. Thank Hephaestus for Firefox and adblockers.

I'm also not close with the majority of my blood family in the emotional or geographical sense. No real obligations there. Friends? The majority of them are...well, here. I regularly talk to and interact with 2 whole people in 2 different states. Even the effort of trying to meet more isn't a priority to me even though I make shallow attempts a couple of times a year. I'm not close to any coworkers either because I never feel I can trust them due to problems with gossipy coworkers in the past and, ofc, the current climate of people playing shoot-em-up when work pushes them past their breaking point.

Make no mistake, I am taking a risk doing these things. I risk write-ups and firing and dying alone and all kinds of shit...because I'd rather be doing art. Something I am never going to be able to live off of so I have to steal time from other things to be able to do it. When I go home, I barely have the energy to cook, clean, run errands, and do some meatsuit maintenance before I have to come back the next day. There have been so many times I've fallen asleep before I could get even partway through what I planned for the night, right at my computer or next to my sketch book.

I have to snatch back the time taken from me, there is no other recourse. Lunch breaks are not enough when we even get them (in OH, employers are not legally obligated to provide those. found that shit out at a factory i used to work at where i also wrote fanfic in a notebook between machine unloading). There are zero guarantees of a better afterlife or reward for continued suffering in this life and maybe it's the neurodivergency talking, but I refuse to waste more of it than I already have pretending the things I am forced to do are inherently better or more fulfilling than the shit I want to do.

TL;DR All this is really just to say: get sneakier. STEAL time back where you can. Else you're just going to keep wishing for more time you're never going to get.

#anya says shit

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yungcrybby-anonymousbosch666 · 2 years

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Rating myself

All of my clothes are workout clothes. I don't even wear jeans anymore. Never wore anything other than tshirts.

I don't do my hair like most other black girls. I just pull it back and go. I'm conscious of how this makes me different so now I have a desire to do things with my hair but I don't have the money and don't know how to cornrow or flat twist.

you may consider me eccentric. it is sometimes reflected in how i dress.

i do appear youthful to young people, most people can pick up on the fact that i am old but are put off by my youthful manner of dress, tastes, and behavior.

i have no sense of identity.

i enjoy make-believe. books, films and history are my refuge.

i am a control freak who is happiest at home.

I was "gifted" as a child but cannot handle anything even remotely related to math.

Studying Japanese for no reason other than I like it. Majoring in History because I like it. No career aspirations.

I did teach myself to read. My mother wasn't going to do it.

I avoided college, in part, because of the social aspect.

I was super passionate about massage therapy but dropped it like a hot potato.

Finding employment is daunting for me. Holding onto it is even worse.

I'm having cognitive difficulties right now and skipping class because of it.

I have to write down everything I hear or else I won't learn it.

My obsessions are unusual for my gender and race.

I am emotionally immature and very sensitive.

Anxiety and fear are all I know.

Extremely open to discussing feelings even if I don't understand them at all.

I hate going out because everything is just so much.

Moody and prone to bouts of depression.

When I was a teenager and young adult, I was prone to crying meltdowns but culturally, because I am black I could never express myself.

Being misunderstood really, really, really, really bothers me. Dramatic irony gives me stomach butterflies, I can't watch shows or movies that use this as a plot point.

I can go almost a week without talking to anyone but because my family has such a negative reaction to it, I make myself talk.

Because I am super shy and reserved people perceive me to be cold or stuck up. I'm just very, very nervous.

We all know I am outspoken.

People... counselors and therapists think I am good at social situations but I am not. I took theater all 4 years of highschool to teach myself to "act" normal. And also because I love make-believe, playing pretending and attention.

No close friends since ever. Not interested in traditional "girly" or "womanly" days out. Never occurred to me that I could get my nails done until I turned 30 and noted how different I was from other women my age. Now I'm fixated on trying to be like them.

I don't go out at all and prefer my pets.

I now understand just enough about societal gender roles to know I don't want any part of them. But I used to fixate on boys when I was in middle school. Seemed like the right thing to do. Part of that is probably due to comp het.

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mangodestroyer · 29 days

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Anyone else regret going to college right out of high school?

Seriously wish I'd waited a few years and just got some work experience instead, to see what the real world is all about. While in the meantime, seriously pushing myself to do some career research.

I mean, I was at the top of my hs class and just assumed that me being good at math and science, and just picking whatever STEM field has the most jobs, would be the easiest and most secure bet for me. I also assumed that going straight to a rigorous engineering school, without prep or life experience, would work out.

Instead, I've become one of THOSE students who have switched majors a few times, AND schools. Took a couple breaks. STILL not entirely sure what I want to do. AND I passed the mark for graduating within four years.

And I've done extensive research on math jobs I can get with my background. I've already learned all the math that could possibly be considered useful to employers (outside of some rigorous study in differential equations, advanced calc, and statistics). So unless I really, REALLY want to go into academia, or shoot for a prestigious role in computer science, getting through theoretical math is really only worth if for the practice in logic exercises and for building a foundation, and should only be done as a hobby.

Not only that, but having a strong foundation in math isn't enough. You need to also learn a lot of programming, or you need to specialize in something like finances or engineering.

I know it's not really that big a deal. Like I said, I've taken so many college level courses in applied math. More than enough to have a minor in it. And literally, everything I've read said that employers are going to take that over someone who hasn't even touched calc 1 (if both candidates have the same qualifications otherwise). It definitely wasn't a waste of time. But I'm also not so sure I want to struggle for a few more semesters through rigorous proof writing courses when learning abstract math is just more fun when other people are doing the work. Especially if I did fine through a lot of the other math courses which, again, are useful. And ended up enjoying those more. I think I'd rather spend those last two years doing something that's more employable. At this point, I'd graduate within the same amount of time if I just transferred to something involving lots of applied math.

Also, I haven't taken an in person class in almost three years. As an introvert, I was okay with this for the longest time. Now... not so much. I don't know how we did it during COVID. I am now starting to understand why people hated it so much.

Honestly, good for the people who just knew what they wanted to do and got right to it/through it within a short span of time. But also, I totally get it now when adults, growing up, would talk about how they switched majors/careers a few times before finally settling on something. Also, I used to be a shitty teenager who thought flunking out of college was lazy and stupid (I bought into the whole "college degrees give you value in society" bs). Now, I don't even judge people if they drop out when they were close to graduating. Although a part of me still wants them to just go back and FINISH since they're so close.

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song-of-the-rune · 4 months

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Thinking about kaz and rikky and my fiance's character's soulscyhe

So for background -- the Soulscythe is a custom item a player character commissioned (ic, so player's idea, npc made it). You can socket a pre-treated soul gem into it. When you deal the killing blow to a creature with a soul, or any amount of a soul, you may choose to capture it into the soul gem. Roku (well, Go) had this made to hold a powerful fey who otherwise would have reformed. If it's full, you can choose to replace the creature in there, but that releases the last soul, so... you can see how that would be a problem. The character is fully aware of this choice -- they don't realize, due to some interference, that the thing asking is the thing they stored, but -- each time they kill something, there is a psychically asked question (which we jokingly call a popup window), "Would you like to release The Lady and capture <target>?" Kaz enhanced it so that, it's full, the wielder can borrow a bit of the captured soul's strength -- in this case, a spell the fey could innately cast.

The soulgem they used for this purpose, though, was infused with Go/Roku's life essence. This isn't the same as her soul; it's something she can grow back (and has), more like donating blood as opposed to an organ. Anyway, point being -- this was going to be Rikky's soulgem for attaining lichdom, and Go happened to respond to a vague, sketchy job listing at the mage's college for some quick cash. She realizes partway what this is and what it's for, and A) decides it's the perfect solution for her fey problem and B) is very much opposed to undead, so the party steals it. However, Rikky's already started binding the thing to himself -- hasn't transferred his soul, just binding it -- so there's some weirdness that the party's unaware of when they finally defeat this fey creature. (It is, in more ways than they realize, the thing connecting them to their current 'employer.')

Kaz has figured out the residual link, finally, and is gonna talk to them about it when they're back from their little adventure. We'll see how that goes; I'm looking forward to it ^w^

But if that was going to be Rikky's soulgem, you ask, how does he become a lich? Well, Kaz thought Iyo would want to be a lich and had started a soulgem for her. She became a psychic vampire instead, so Kaz has this spare lying around. Easy enough, right? Well, no, actually Rikky doesn't find out about this until it's much to late because he goes, you know what, fuck it. Kaz os unerringly loyalty toward me and would lie down and let me murder him if I asked. So I'm going to do that and jam my soul in there, and then I'm going to guilt him into doing the same in reverse. No life force transferral needed because it's all right there anyway. This plan goes over well enough, because the alternative for Kaz is essentially to kill Rikky, and he can't bring himself to do that. Rather than transfer his soul into Rikky, though, as Rikky did to him, he puts it in the spare gem, then hides the gem in Rikky's spine.

So anyway. I'm sure they know Rikky is a lich. I can't help myself. But I wonder which is a more dramatic reveal for the exact nature of things (though, it's up to the players whether either happens at all):

"With a final swing of Roku's blade, Rikkal's shrieking laughter finally stops. You hear Kaztik's knife clatter to the ground." "I close the popup window." "There is none." The players groan. It's a little cheap of me just to say he had another one, sure, but I can never resist making a lich, hehe, and they'll forgive me for it. They turn to Kaz, who -- unless anyone wants to continue combat? (I ask, knowing they're well-spent and would be much wiser to decline) -- runs to Rikkal's motionless corpse and weeps. They might invite him along, or they might be too angry. Regardless, right now, he's too angry to go with them -- but he'll calm down in time. They ask where the soulgem is. He says there is none. He's only lying by omission, but he's not a great liar, so maybe they catch on, maybe they don't. Maybe they look at the vertebra that Rikky wears as an amulet and check his spine for whatever replaced it. Kaz seems strangely calm about them taking it. Maybe they even destroy it, if Kaz can't convince them it's the wrong one -- and Rikky comes back. And back. And eventually, eventually, Kaz lets it slip that it's him. Because he's tired, and he's still angry about what happened. Just, if you haven't already, promise you'll destroy his, too.

"Would you like to release The Lady and capture Rikkal?" "What? I thought he killed Kaz." "He did." Everyone pauses. They just killed someone who didn't have a choice in the fight. It certainly explained why Kaz put up with all of Rikky's bullshit, though -- how do you get away from someone when you're the shell that stores their soul? And who knew what kind of control that gave over them. But there was no going back now -- Kaz was still undead, so no one in the party could bring him back. They can't release The Lady, either, as much as they might like to -- they'll have to take down Rikkal now, while they have the chance. They won't put their friend's death to waste. But... hey... why didn't it give the choice between Kaz or Rikky's soul? Or have two popups? That's an excellent question that I look forward to you figuring out.

#rune's tabletop adventures #It is one am why are we infodumping instead of sleeping #ocs.kaztik #violence tw #ocs.rikkal #villainposting

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