#except it was already really long. lol. anyway I don't have 3 hours to write a more detailed explanation of all the layers of irony but

[poorlydrawndirk]

We're on air.

More precisely, I was on air when I recorded this, but the details are largely irrelevant. Because I don't really feel like covering fuckin' introductory quantum mechanics and telling you exactly how the influence of the Skaian universe, when applied at the quark level and taken alongside the probabilistic effect of quantum behavior, superposes via particle states and results in the formation of what you might refer to as "overlapping timelines". And that's already getting real abecedarian about this shit.

Yeah, sue me. Try boning up on basic physics while you're at it.

So. I'm sure you'd love to hear about how I managed to rig this sick as hell channel-cum-blog up and get it to straddle the space-time continuum like an antediluvian Olympic gymnast doing mad splits over baby's first toy pony, but that ain't the point of this little exercise. Posting what's effectively a vlog is enough of an onanistic venture without adding Skaian Principles For Dummies: Electric Boogaloo to the schedule.

Where was I?

(Rhetorical question. Don't answer, if it needed to be said.)

The name's Dirk.

Strider. Yeah, that Strider.

I'd be more worried about internet safety, but seeing as there are only up to two people alive around here no matter how far you pull my timeline back, and I'm one of 'em, it doesn't exactly compute. Face it, brosephine: you aren't getting to year 24xx post-hilarocaust, and you sure aren't getting past that. Wasn't shat out of a lab yet when you were committing identity theft and scamming doddering old ladies out of their sadsack pensions.

(If you manage to get pizza delivered out here, I'll tip extra.)

Besides, you already knew my name, didn't you?

Maybe your next question's going to be:

"Why are you calling this a vlog when it's obviously just a blog?"

Or maybe,

"Why is your URL poorlydrawndirk when it's totally malapropos?"

Buckle in, kids. Strap yourself into that convertible toddler-safe harness and keep your ass glued tight to all the prime polyester-lined foam, because this ride's about to pull into the station and vehicular standards are some passé 21st century horseshit.

The first thing you have to understand is that even peering upon the brink of these echelons of irony is a skill that you'll never grasp in your life. But that's fine. I'm around. And if it puts your mind at ease,

I'll be the one pulling the strings here.

(There's the tired callback. It's not wrong, but it's tired. Worn out enough for it to be begging you to take it out back behind the shed and put it out of its misery.)

(I'll leave it at that for now, because self-referencing is one thing, but if I get any more meta, I'll have to start narrating in twelve-point Times New Roman.)

Anyway, I'll be breaking it down, just this once. Magnanimous as hell, I know. I could wax poetic and in doing so obfuscate the actual meaning once more from obtuse minds, thereby adding another strata to irony so layered that it's settled past sedimentary and is ready to unearth some fossil formations, but let's be real. That shit would fly over your head so far it'd be trying to dial ground control at Houston.

Here we go.

Vlogs aren't cool; making one ironically is.

Putting in this much effort into making a multiversal vlog makes it cooler, ironically.

Putting in this much effort to make a multiversal vlog when the doomed timelines are all inherently fuckin' doomed, as the name implies, and therefore functionally useless to communicate with, makes it more ironic.

I have Heart powers and am able to achieve my ultimate self through my alpha timeline. Therefore, not only is this pimped-out vlog functionally useless, but I actually don't need it at all.

Which means this wasn't too hard to set up to begin with. Ironic, considering the complex presupposed conditions necessary for bridging that 'verse gap.

And despite framing this as a vlog, this is obviously a blog.

Even though it's just a blog, all these drawings I've made had you convinced that I really thought I was posting a vlog.

And in a way, I'm still making one. It ain't the traditional format, but the almost videographic mannerisms I've been laying on you more than compensate for the fact that the video part of "vlog" doesn't exist.

Except it does, for me.

And because it does, none of these pictures are drawn to begin with. They're all film stills. Screenshots, if you prefer.

Which makes the qualifier of "poorly drawn" untrue.

But it's also almost true, because you can call them poorly drawn by virtue of them not even being drawn. Ride that definition of "poorly" down the one-way rail and you're here, selfie central, population two, me and you.

Of course, that means we have to cover the quandary of truth itself. What constitutes the truth? Titillate that thought for a second.

If I consider the attached files to be selfies, but you consider them to be illustrations, which is it actually?

An analysis of the "truth" means that we have to start delineating how much of this is subjective, tying us in bed with the concept of knowledge. The Socratic take calls for dialectical conversation and inquiry via questioning; therefore, if I just bequeath my knowledge to you on a pretty little metaphorical platter, it won't mean fuckall. So we have to keep digging. Get your pickaxe ready, 'cause we ain't hitting any diamonds of wisdom any time soon.

In fact, maybe that ain't the right direction. Flip it turnways. We gotta climb a li'l higher for what we need.

Maybe we gotta head to the roof.

now. brought cal.

where making this HAPEN.

Haha.

Just fuckin' with you.

Welcome to my blog, dude.

Want water? Imagine I got you a nice, chilled glass.

Let's get this parasocial relationship pumping.

Questions? Concerns? Misguided pseudo-parental queries about whether or not it's safe for your pipsqueak to be exposed to a full dose of radically Stridered bullshit?

Cool.

Make it all three and drop it in the asks, yeah?

#Dirk Strider #Homestuck #Homestuck Fanart #Bro Strider #Ask Blog #(( #No set timeline! primarily dirk but occasionally other splinters. yeah that includes scratch because why not. it sounds funny. #not a kinnie not a fictive! just a guy with a little bit of time and some bad ideas. #please note that it took dirk approximately five hours in the video to get ready. thank you. #yes the intro is one very lengthy quasi-shitpost. I was going to cover sincerity and the socratic dialogues even more #except it was already really long. lol. anyway I don't have 3 hours to write a more detailed explanation of all the layers of irony but #'trust me bro' #this is a regular askblog despite being named like one of the 'badlydrawn' ones. #im not gonna write long ass monologues at everything i just thought it'd be funny here #i'll spice up the actual blog layout later. for now - hope you enjoyed! #Also - runs not daily prob closer to weekly))

[lowkeyremi]

Hey there! was looking through your stuff and realized you’ve never written about Iida before. So guess what? IM gonna be the change…

Could you possibly write a scenario of Iida going through the motions of proposing to the reader? How he’s super meticulous and everything has to go according to plan to where things just…don’t? lol.

But things work out anyways because of course it’s Tenya Iida.

You can do gender neutral or fem, I really don’t care. Thanks!

— lovelyiida ❤︎︎

Perfection t. iida x gn!reader

remi's note: hiiiii!!! i do need to branch out on who i write about don't i? lolll anyway i was super happy to see you requested. you're one of my fav writers on here and it's an honor to write for u!! this is such a cute idea too bc he's def an over thinker and needs everything to go 100% his way. also. wow. this was wayyyy longer than i intended for it to be <3

cw: fluff, slight angst in the beginning, things don't quite go as planned, tenya goes to his big bro for advice, silliness, a little bit of swearing.

He's tense of course, sitting in his office as the time ticks by. He wants to call his brother just one more time but he knows exactly what he's going to say, "Tenya, you're stressing this too much, they're going to say yes." Which is not what he wants to hear. He needs an absolute fool proof plan and then some.

As he's sitting there thinking his secretary walks in, she looks tired and Tenya pities making her stay a little after her shift finished. "Sir, don't you think it's about time for you to head out? I don't mean to intrude but your partner did get off of work about two hours ago, correct?" She asks looking at her watch.

Two hours? He looks back at the clock. His stomach drops automatically, you must be worried about him. Tenya's never more than an hour late from work, except on nights he tells you he'll be working late.

"Oh my, I suppose I should get home.. I didn't realize how much time has passed by." Truth is, he's not ready to go home. There are already about twenty five different failed scenarios he can think of at the top of his head.

The secretary notices this and she gives him a soft smile, "I'm sure they'll say yes, sir. You guys have been together for six years now and for as long as I've worked for you I haven't seen your partner's love waver." He should be comforted by her words but he's too caught up in his thoughts to feel any comfort.

"I can't do it tonight. I wanted to take them out for dinner and do it afterwards but it's too late tonight. I think I'll aim for this weekend." He sighs quietly. This is the 8th time he's failed to propose to you. He really has been trying, but it's so.. hard.

You're amazing in so many ways and such a kind hearted person. At the same time you can be strict and helpful. You're absolutely everything Tenya's wanted and needed in his life, so it's hard. He doesn't want to propose to you only for you to deny him.

These thoughts shouldn't consume him because he knows you love him. You've given him plenty of your firsts, and him the same. That ugly little voice in the back of his mind won't leave him alone though. It's the same voice that made him think avenging his brother for Stain's wrong doing was okay. The same voice that told him it was okay to dress up as a civilian in order to save Bakugo. The same voice that gets him into so much trouble.

"Good night, Ms. Suzuki." He says waving in her direction as he packs every thing in his brief case.

"Good night, Sir, you've got this." She says, and he sucks in a breath as her heels click away from his office.

Does he have this?

He doesn't remember much, doesn't even remember driving home. Yet here he is unlocking the door. Upon opening it he can see the soft glow of the TV in the living room. The smell of take out reaches his nose and he immediately relaxes.

"I'm home, baby." He says loud enough for you to hear. His eyes soften as you jump up off the couch to greet him.

"And where were you at mister?" There's a smirk covering your face and he opens his arms to embrace you in a hug.

"Work," he sighs before continuing, "I didn't notice the time until Ms. Suzuki mentioned it." He hears you click your tongue. He feels so at home with your arms wrapped around his neck.

"If you keep overworking that poor lady she might just quit." He smiles at your lecture.

"I know, I know. Tell me about your day? I'm not feeling too good." He says quietly.

"Sick?" You ask checking his forehead. He shakes his head 'no'.

"I just feel like shit right now." He slumps slightly. Your eyes soften and you lead him to the table for some dinner.

He listens to you talk about your promotion and how one of your co workers pulled you aside to tell you that you did not deserve your new position.

"Congratulations, my dear. I wish I could have bought you some flowers. I didn't receive your messages, because I had my personal phone off today. Also don't take their word to heart, they're just jealous of you." He picks up some noodles with his chopsticks.

"It's nothing to worry about Tenya, I promise. Also I know they were jealous but it's still hard to ignore. What about you? How was your day?" He wants to tell you, he really does. He wants to tell you about how much he's struggled to propose to you these last few weeks but he doesn't.

"Nothing really interesting happened today, just the usual." You can tell there's something he's not telling you but instead of prying you nod your head. If he wants to tell you he will.

It's been about four days since then and Tenya is sitting in his brother's home holding his nephew.

"Uncle Tenya?" The small child asks.

"Yes, Hachiro?" He looks just like his mother Tenya thinks. The only feature the little boy did get from Tensei was his red eyes.

"When will you marry [name]? I want a cousin." Tenya's first question is does he know how kids are made?

"Well, um. I'm not sure. I haven't asked them yet. What do you mean you want a cousin?" He asks the child to elaborate.

"Well I mean my mommy and daddy had me somehow so you and [name] can get me a cousin, right? I want someone to play with." He sounds sincere and it makes his heart tug a little bit. Hachiro is absolutely adorable.

"Don't bother your uncle with such questions, your friend is here for your playdate." Tensei says to Hachiro who immediately hops out of Tenya's lap to run down the stairs where his mother and best friend await him.

"That kid, he's something alright." Tensei chuckles sitting down with two cups of tea.

"Thank you for letting me come over on such short notice." Tenya's stressed because he believes tomorrow is the day he will actually ask the question.

"Of course, what's up little bro?" Tensei sips at his tea.

"I think tomorrow- tomorrow I'm going to do it. For real this time." His breathing becomes shaky and his brother's eyes light up.

"You can do it, Tenya. Let me tell you from experience, it won't be a perfect fairytale proposal but in the end it will work out. When I decided to marry Maria it was so awkward because I had to have our translator there to tell her what I was saying. Since then, I've been learning english. She loves to look back and laugh at our engagement though." He says with a smile.

Tenya thinks to the day his brother called him and told him that he asked Maria to marry him. Tenya asked him if he learned the phrase in english to which he responded with "um... our translator was there to tell her what I was saying and vice versa." He thought it was the silliest thing he'd ever heard.

"Basically my proposal can't be worse than yours?" Tenya asks with a smirk to which is brother playfully punches his shoulder.

"That is not what I said you little brat." The two break into laughter and Tenya feels much lighter.

"I've got to go get things set up." He responds standing up. His brother also stands up and the two hug each other.

"Call me and tell me how it goes afterward!" He nods and on the way out he tells his nephew and sister in law goodbye.

You were still at work by the time Tenya got home. He calls your favorite restaurant. In order to ask of a special request. He knows they don't do reservations but he wants to know if he can make an exception for this special moment.

"Sorry sir, we don't do reservations. It's a policy." The woman over the phone says and he's crushed.

Suddenly he has the idea to order out, "Can I call back tomorrow and place an order for pick up?"

"You most certainly can, Sir!" Her voice has no hatred just pure kindness.

"Alright, thank you. Goodbye." As soon as she says bye back to him he hangs up quickly forming a plan. He'll order your favorite food to go and set up a cute date at your favorite park, then when you're finished eating, the two of you will walk over to the water fountain you met at and he'll get down on one knee for you.

It's simple, he'd really love to go all out but he can't bear the stress of something potentially going wrong.

He hopes you'll like it.

He asked you to meet up at the park you used to frequent when you guys first started dating.

He's shaking slightly, while looking at the placement of the rose petals and candles. He'd sent a picture to his brother and Midoriya for assurance. Both told him it looked really good.

He's dressed in a blue button down and black slacks, not too fancy but not plain.

He sees you walk up to the table, a smile finds its way to your face and your eyes sparkle.

"What's all of this?" You ask. He helps you sit down on the wooden bench. You take in the beautifully set table. It's slightly windy but you don't mind.

"Um. I- i uh you know. Felt like we haven't been on a proper date in awhile so decided to set up a little something."

"Well you've out done yourself, baby. This looks so pretty." A little bit of stress is lifted off his shoulders. He's happy to hear you compliment his work.

The two of you eat your favorite food. You happen to notice another white box that sits closer to the end of the table.

"Ooooo, is that the cake I like from that place?" You ask pointing at the box. He nods quickly. His face flushes slightly when he sees you smile. It warms his heart.

"It is." You look into his red eyes trying to find the true meaning of this date, but your boyfriend is good at keeping his composure.

You won't give up much to his dismay, "This must be a very special dinner if you got me this cake." He shakes his head and shrugs.

"I promise it's nothing out of the ordinary." He calmly baits you into a different topic of some of your favorite foods which you go on about for twenty seven minutes. Yes, he was counting.

"Are you ready for cake?" He shouldn't even have to ask because he already knows the answer but he asks anyway.

"Of course I want cake! Can I cut it?" Tenya's calm demeanor drops right at that moment. He's starting to panic because he didn't bring a knife for the cake. It's only a minor inconvenience but still causes him to doubt himself.

"I'm guessing you didn't bring a knife, huh? It's alright, I'll cut it with the end of the fork!" You scooch over to grab the box, mouth watering at the thought of your favorite cake.

"You sure? I could run down to the nearest convenience store and-"

"Relax, honey, you're over thinking this. We won't die, I promise." Your words ground him. He takes deep breathes until he's calm again.

"Right. Sorry my love." The disappointment on his face causes you to frown.

"Aw come on, don't apologize. I promise it's fine." You cup his chin with your free hand and he leans into the touch with a small smile.

"Are we walking to the fountain? I'm stuffed, I don't wanna walk too far." He nods at your question. He's smiling like a teenaged boy and you're wondering what he's up too.

With your hands intertwined and the cool wind hitting your face, you feel content. There's no place on earth you'd rather be than right here.

The beautiful fountain where you met Tenya was close in sight. You could see the lights that were placed inside of it shining brightly.

There's a small thunk that reaches your ears and you turn around thinking you might have dropped something.

When you stop to turn around, you notice a small velvety box that had fallen to the ground.. it must be Tenya's.

"Tenya, wait. You dropped something." He turns around to see what it is and when he does all the color drains from his face.

"Fuck... fuck! The one time everything needs to be perfect I fuck it up." He says cursing himself. You realize what the box is and a giddy feeling takes over.

"Tenya, please calm down. It's okay I'll pretend I didn't see it." You say closing your eyes. It makes him chuckle a little bit to see you act so innocent.

"I appreciate the effort but the surprise is ruined..." He sighs and rubs his face roughly.

"Tenyaaaa. Were you going to take me where we first met and propose?" You ask with a wobbly smile.

"Mhm." You can tell he's upset over it being "ruined" but this is about the happiest day of your life. He's so sweet and thoughtful and knowing him he's probably been stressing this for a long time.

"My poor boyfriend stressing this moment, oh come here baby." You stretch your arms out for a hug and he doesn't hesitate to hug you back.

"Yes, by the way." You whisper into his ear and he scoffs playfully.

"I can I ask the question first?" You roll your eyes the stray tears falling onto his shirt.

"[name], I can't even lie I've been stressing this moment for the past couple of weeks. Let me tell you it has NOT been easy. I've consulted to my brother and Midoriya countless times in order to ensure a perfect proposal and if I'm being honest I should have taken Tensei's advice of 'it won't be perfect' it would have saved me a lot of stress.... but, would you do the honor of marrying me, being my equal, and staying with me through any and everything?" His voice is shaky and he's blushing so hard that you want a picture to show to everyone.

"Yes! Yes I will. WOOP WOOP. He likes it so he's about to put a ring on it!!!" You yell in excitement to no one in particular.

He's crying and laughing at how silly you are.

"I don't know what I was so afraid of."

"Me either!" You agree.

#bnha #mha #mha x reader #bnha x reader #tenya iida #tenya x reader #tenya iida x reader #iida x reader #mha iida #mha tenya iida #bnha tenya #bnha iida #mha fluff #bnha fluff #boku no hero academia x reader #my hero academia x reader #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #mha x gn!reader #mha x gender neutral reader

[starlightkun]

hiiii mel <3 i’m.. thinking of starting to write for nct.. mostly jaemin.. and i more or less have an idea for formatting but it’s been a really long time since i’ve had to do graphics for fic’s (like the banner and stuff!) and i was wondering if you had any tips for that? like where to find good pictures (solid backgrounds seem like the best choice for not clashing with the lettering, a problem i ran into unfortunately…) and also is there any particular place you get your fonts from? if you aren’t comfortable answering that (or any of this!) then that’s totally ok and feel free to just give general advice or ignore this completely :]

now i leave you with renjun… https://www.instagram.com/reel/C117-m9JGuo/?igsh=aXI1YmZ6M2YycHg1

hiii! under the cut!

so you've already got a good idea with using solid backgrounds for fic headers to make it easier for the text to show up! i source pretty much all my images from the groups/idols' official social medias. i just caution you not to take screenshots of say, instagram uploads, because this will degrade the quality of the image. either download it from twitter or wherehaveyou, or from an updates account like neocatharsis or wayvment here on tumblr! another word of caution: DO NOT DOWNLOAD TEASER IMAGES/PHOTOSHOOT IMAGES FROM CONTENT CREATORS WHO MAKE EDITS TO THE IMAGES, SUCH AS CHANGING THE COLORS, UN-WHITEWASHING, ETC., WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION. THAT IS THEFT FROM OTHER FANS. updates accounts like neocatharsis and wayvment simply reupload the original images posted by the entertainment company/idol in the exact same form without making changes to them. editors make alterations to the image and that new image is their own creative work, separate from the original one posted. you need the editor's explicit permission in order to use their edited version as a fic header.

i do all of my editing on my phone for my fics (except for the thin section dividers that i use, which i make in pirated photoshop cs6 so i can get specific dimensions, 540x2 pixels, and make the gradients super quick in a way that i know how to do. there may be a super easy way to do this w an app on ur phone too, that's just how i know how to)

anyway, if i have a photo that i really like, that i just knowwwww matches with the image of the guy in the fic in my head or smth, that i just rlly want to use but has a busier background, sometimes i'll use the portrait editing settings on my phone to blur the background a little bit and that makes the text a lot more legible (i have a samsung but im 99% sure iphones can do this too)

i typically don't bump it past 1 or 2, or the edges of the blur start looking a bit harsh, and i find that i don't really need more than this for the text to pop against the background anyway!

as for putting the text on the photos, i've the used the app phonto for years! it's completely free, doesn't put any watermark on your photos, comes with a bunch of fonts pre-installed, isn't super ad-heavy (it has a rlly small banner ad all the time at the top, and only shows u a skippable 10s ad when u save a finished photo), and you can download fonts from the internet to install straight into the app!

my favorite free font website is dafont.com, i literally will spend hours just browsing on there looking at fonts to download lmao. anyway here's how i find fonts for stuff and download, install, and use them with dafont and phonto:

once you have phonto downloaded, open dafont.com

up at the top, it has a bunch of different categories of fonts. for this example, i chose fancy > groovy, and then on this first page, i liked this font called "lostar" (there's also a search bar up there, but it only searches font names, not kinds of fonts, so if you're looking for a groovy-feeling font and you searched "groovy," only fonts with the word "groovy" in the name would come up)

i then press download, and open in my browser (i use firefox btw, which is why it looks like this lol). make sure you're opening the .zip file with the phonto app (it opens directly into into phonto on my phone, you may have to choose to open the .zip file using the phonto app from several options, instead of your phone's file explorer or some other app on your phone)

in the phonto app, you have to click install, then install again (it gives you the option to rename it, but i just keep the original font name bc why would you rename it?).

that READ THIS.txt file is a message from the font maker, it's the personal use license for the font (most of the fonts on dafont.com are free for personal use ONLY, and these .txt files that are contained in the .zip files are notes from the font makers telling u what u can and can't use the fonts for. generally, as long as ur not a business, u should be good this is not legal advice, please read them. also there's usually little thank you notes from the font makers in here as well!)

click ok.

then you've got to slap some text on an image. you can choose an image from your camera roll, use one of their plain images, or open a pre-saved work-in-progress. for this example i used one of their premade gradients to make it easy

type whatever it is you want, click font. the left tab is the pre-installed fonts, the middle tab is the fonts that you've downloaded from elsewhere. here's the lostar we just got!

oh can't see it.

there we go! how fun! i'll probably use this in a fic header in the future. download button in the top right.

#hope this was helpful! #i don't mind sharing this stuff #i didn't invent fic headers or dividers or literally any of this lmao #answered #anonymous #talk #text #mine #writing tag #i suppose.....since its about my fics.........sorta...idk dude #also the renjun cheekies 😭😭 thank youuuu

[mangonatural]

Rules: Make a 24 hour poll with the names of your WIPs, let it run, then work for 10 minutes for every vote the winner receives.

Thank you for the tag, @angelcasendgame!!!!! I am not sure I will be able to work on anything very soon just because life came after me again, and turns out I'm gonna be moving over the next month or so, but I really do hope I can find time!!

None of these have names yet lol. I put the SPN ones first, but technically I've been trying to break my writer's block by returning to The Great Gatsby (It's all Nick/Gatsby btw, just realized that might not be immediately evident) with limited success. It's always come easier for me. But all of this is stuff I do actively want to work on.

Ohh I don't know who to tag. I'm sure everyone in this circle has been tagged already, and most of the people I talk to regularly enough to know about their projects have more or less left Tumblr... I do absolutely want to pass this your way though, @antique-ro-man!! (It's Wes, btw!) I also wanna tag @heyfagbutt! And then anyone else who sees this and wants to participate, I also encourage it!! This is such a cool idea :D !!

Long, rambling explanations down here ⬇⬇

I think the name is pretty explanatory? The gist of it is they go after the same guy and become pseudo-enemies but they keep bumping into each other like this and decide to work together after a while 👍 this is a really bad hook LMAO. Anyway, I'm trying to build on the idea that they work REALLY well together when they do it intentionally but fail comically when they don't.

Pretty much what it says on the tin as well. No Supernatural AU. Dean goes to a community college to get a certification to help with his work elsewhere, but Cas, a figure drawing model, catches him drawing (which Dean's been doing on and off as a hobby) and tries to get him to sign up for the arts program.

I technically only have a summary of this, and I'm not entirely sure if I will write it all out, but I do want to at least put more time into the development before I dedicate to giving up on it bc of scope lol. I just have SUCH a soft spot for fake relationship AUs. Also, I just found out that while I have FINALLY aged into independent FAFSA eligibility, I am once again tax bracketed out. Anyway, financial abuse is real and I want to project my suffering onto Dean. Also immigrant Cas, but I haven't decided where I want him to be from yet. I think this has a lot of potential for some pretty hefty character redesigns too so it's also compelling to me from that angle. I guess I could also write it for TGG, but I did initially think of it for Destiel, so.

I don't know how to explain this one very well except that I had unhelpfully written "poolboy au" in my notes and then proceeded to forget what the hell I meant. This fic was an attempt to resurrect that but ended up being a funky modern West Coast re-imagining where Gatsby can't even "make it" as much as he wants to, and Nick can't find a place to live except for a less-than-legally rented pool house. It's not meant to be a full rewrite or anything though.

Uhhh yeah, I'm keeping the details private for this one ahaha but that's just because it wasn't supposed to be a big deal and I told a friend she would see what it was when it was done...like oh god probably a month ago at this point... My original scope for this was quite small, but research for it, indecision, and a nasty case of writer's block that I've had for nearly a year now have kept development a bit slow. Hopefully, I'll finish it before the year comes to a close.

I also don't know how to explain this one well other than "after being rejected by Daisy (Canon Divergent), Gatsby attempts to buy his way into a bewildered Nick's heart. Though the fic is from Nick's POV, Gatsby's just had his worldview shattered and is in a bit of denial, but instead of pursuing Daisy harder, he channels all of that energy into Nick (though he's not really sure why he's doing it at first). I wasn't sure what to put up at the top because I absolutely don't want my code name for this public at least until it's done LMAO.

#new post #tag game #spn #cause i'm gonna kick this over to my main too bc of the tgg #but i SAID i was gonna quarantine the spn stuff here so . #sorry i feel soo much more rambly than normal #did you know that some property managers will approve you in fewer than 2 hours after you submit your application? #can't stop thinking about that

[teeftoobaybee]

Hey so this is my first time asking for a headcanon but how would the mercs (of your choosing) feel about an s/o with really long hair? Sorry I know this is specific but hndbsnjs I love your writing

i used to have long hair and i would daydream about how people would play with it lol (and tysm!)

-------------------------------------------------------

scout

the man is constantly playing with & touching your hair, no exceptions. whenever he has a second of free time he already has a few locks of said hair around his fingers. he offers to try and style it, but don't expect too much as he'll find a way to mess it up.

a hoarder in bed. he'll wrap your hair around himself like a scarf so be ready to loose a few hours of sleep. as much as he's annoying with it, scout really likes your hair and shows it anyway he can (which is obvious by now)

-------------------------------------------------------

heavy

an expert in hair care. growing up with 3 sisters, he'll constantly insist in braiding or brushing it for you. taking care of your hair relaxes heavy and reminds him of simpler times back home.

when preparing for battle, he'll offer to tie it up for you so it doesn't get in the way (honestly, accept the offer. you'll look amazing in any style heavy does for you. most importantly, it won't get loose) he'll secretly make sure it doesn't get damaged in battle as well.

-------------------------------------------------------

spy

second to heavy in hair care. somehow knows what exact products you need and already has them available for you. he'll even brush it for you if he's in a good mood.

putting effort in appearances is important for spy, so seeing you taking care of your hair so diligently makes him happy. he'll occasionally help you in the process and is always amazed at how beautiful you look at the end. he likes your hair just as much as scout would.

#tf2 #tf2 scout #tf2 scout x reader #tf2 x reader #tf2 heavy #tf2 heavy x reader #tf2 spy #tf2 spy x reader #tf2 imagines

[sunnysunoo]

Love Letters ; Sim Jake

Pairing: Jake X Reader

warnings: explicit language and cursing

word count: 3k words

genre: friends to lovers au! fluff with tiny pieces of crack lmao

Jake was always known for being this perfect guy in school. I mean, they're not wrong. They always described him as if he's this walking piece of art in the hallways. People would stop to just stare at him. You'd stare at him all day too, but you set priorities first: writing him love letters.

You're no Lara Jean, but I guess you can say that she's what inspired you to write Jake letters. Who needs Peter Kavinsky when Jake Shim exists anyways?

note: Not me completely disappearing off of tumblr for like months and then showing up again suddenly lol. I got really busy the past few months since I was completing requirements for school, and I really didn't have the motivation to do anything at the time so I took so time off to take care of myself first so I hope you understand :) But now since it's summer break, I am given at least 2 more months until I go back to school in August :)) Here's the long-awaited Jake imagine that I completely forgot about lmao hope you enjoy <3

P.S I finished writing this at 1:26 am so please excuse the really shitty plot and grammar ill rewrite it once i wake up

tag list: @cha-raena ( sorry for the rlly late post bestie )

Dear Jake, First of all, I will never call you Jaeyun because calling you by your English name makes me feel like I'm your friend. Calling you by your Korean name makes us feel like we're cold strangers to one another and I don't want that. I want us to be something more than that, but it's hard when you don't even know who I am. I'm surprised how you don't grow tired of me just dropping letters right into your locker every time you open it, and that's one of the things I love about you. You don't just throw away people's efforts and you treasure them with care. It makes my heart beat so fast as if I ran miles away from here.

We're already one year left until we graduate high school, and I don't want to end my high school years without you realizing my feelings for you. I know for sure that you would never reciprocate the feelings that I have towards you, so I want to treat this as closure in case we do forget about each other in the future. Yours truly,

Moon

__

"How is this person not over you? That's like the tenth one this month," Jay said, looking over Jake as he reads the letter from his secret admirer. Jake has always been receiving these letters from the same person everyday for the past four months. He's thankful for the letters because they definitely make his day better, knowing that there's someone out there who loves him as who he is regardless of looks. He's not gonna lie that these little notes and letters make his heart race too. "Do you have any plans with finding the person behind the letters?" Jay asked as he watches his best friend trying to hide the small smile that's been growing. No one really knows who this mysterious person is and why they decided to name themselves the moon, but we don't judge anyone in here. If they want to be the moon in their next life, then so be it. "I really want to find the person who's making these letters," Jake shoved the letter in his backpack, trying to not wrinkle it. "But I don't know where to start." "Who's finding who?" A voice popped suddenly beside the presence of the two boys. You leaned beside the locker beside Jake's, watching him as he grabs his books from his locker. "Did Moon drop your daily letter today again?" "They did as usual," Jake wasn't even surprised. He would expect the letters every time he enters the school in the morning. He would open his locker to see the usual small letter placed inside his locker. He usually arrives at seven or earlier, but he's surprised that he could never even catch a glance of this anonymous sender around the campus. "Should I go to school at five in the morning?" "Five in the morning? Isn't that a bit too early?" You questioned, followed by a shaky breath. "The school doesn't even open until six." "I could just walk to that nearby convenience store I always pass by to grab a coffee." He argues, closing his locker shut before walking towards his classroom.

You and Jay followed beside him, and you sneered under your breath, "You don't even wake up to your alarm clock."

"Why don't you even want me to go early anyway?" He glances as you try to give him an answer. But before you could say something, Jay replies first.

"You’re probably hiding something." He said. You rolled your eyes and narrowed your eyes at him. "You are so weird." You grunted, before walking ahead of them. You feel panicked because you were scared that you made yourself obvious to them.

__

You were inside your classroom sitting on your desk. There were only fifteen minutes left before lunch, but you had eaten your packed meal before instead of going to your school cafeteria. You were fidgeting in your place, conflicted about Jake finding his secret admirer, not knowing that it was you who's been sending him letters the past few months. You're not scared of him finding out that the letters were from you; that was the entire reason why you wrote him letters in the first place. You're scared of how he was gonna confront you about it. Would he like you back? Would he hate you? Would he avoid you?

Your mind was full of scenarios but you were suddenly brought back to reality when a hand planted itself on your desk. You look up and saw Jay standing in front of you, eating sushi with his other hand. His face kinda looks like he knows something, and it's freaking you out a bit.

"What?" You asked, suddenly flustered over how his eyes stared right into you. He took the seat in front of your desk and flipped it so it was facing you. He sat down and blurted the phrase that you were dreading to hear from anyone.

"So, you like Jake?"

You suddenly feel like punching him in the face with his sushi.

"What??" Your body felt like, and you were left a nervous mess. Your heart like it was going to pump right out of your chest any minute, and your hands started to sweat.

Jay's mouth formed into a smirk. He caught you. "Jake may be a bit oblivious, but I can totally see right through you."

“Haha...no you don’t,” You tried to deny, but it was all useless when his expression looked unconvinced.

“Oh yeah? Then why are you all red? You look like a bursting tomato.”

“You don’t know that," You leaned further into your seat, playing with the strings of your hoodie.

“C’mon Y/N, you’re not even trying. Just give up and admit it,” Jay was trying to help you confess your feelings for Jake. Frankly, he knew it was you sending him letters this whole time—how can Jake not see it?

With a heavy sigh, you slumped and laid your head on your desk, embarrassed. “Fine. I like him, okay? Are you happy now?”

The smirk on his face grew wider, feeling proud of himself. You are not dealing with his annoying crap this early in the morning. He grinned and munched on his half-eaten sushi. “I knew it.”

“Congratulations,” It was muffled because you hid your red face away from him. All that was on your mind now was how you could book yourself a flight all the way across the world.

“But seriously, since when did you have a crush on him?” You raised your head to face him, giving him a look that could kill, except Jay finds it entertaining rather than intimidating.

“I started having a crush on him when we were in fifth grade. It was at a friend's birthday party, and he saw me being all quiet and lonely. Honestly, I forgot who’s birthday that was.” You told him the very first time you had discovered feelings.

“He saw how sad I looked so he accompanied me the whole time. He was even trying to feel more included in the games and stuff.” You felt a smile ghosting on your lips as you can still vividly remember how you felt your heart tug the first time. “It was kinda like I fell in love at first sight.”

Jay faked a gag, so you lightly punched him in the shoulder. He may be a bit of an asshole, but he’s one the most caring and kind people you’ve ever met. It honestly felt good spilling out your feelings about Jake to him.

Speaking of, Jake was watching you two play around and laugh at Jay's little jokes from outside, and he felt something burning from inside him. Was it that he felt jealous of you and Jay?

No, he can’t be...right?

Maybe it was because of how he felt separated from you and Jay because of him being a separate class.

Yeah, maybe it's because of that.

__

Dear Jake,

I just had the most bizarre day today, and I felt like telling you about it.

It was chemistry period, and we had to be partnered with someone for a lab project. I ended up getting paired with Yeojin. We kinda created this unexpected friendship, which I love. We would crack jokes at each other, tell funny stories, it was so fun to be with her that we had completely forgotten about our project. So now, we both got a detention slip for making an accidental explosion.

How about you? How was your day? I hope it was just as fun as mine. If you feel like the day just wasn't as happy or you're feeling down, just now that it's okay to feel that way because days like these just lasts for 24 hours. It will be all over before you know it and you'll be greeted by another day. Maybe it will be different, and you would be all happy again just like how my day went. Maybe being with you would be my happiest day yet, and I couldn't wait for that day to come. See you soon :)

Love,

Moon

__

"Yeojin!" Jake called, seeing her walk down the opposite way. "Hey, mind if I ask you something?"

"Hey Jake," She greeted him with a smile. "Sure, go ahead."

"Could you perhaps give me any information about your partner in Chemistry?" He had hopes of getting any kind of description about his mysterious sender, but he was instead given a sad frown on Yeojin's face.

"Sorry Jake, but that person told me not to tell you about their information." She gave an apologetic smile. "I wish you all the best in finding them!"

Jake muttered a small "okay," and sighed before walking away, feeling defeated.

Yeojin knew that he was gonna ask about Moon the moment he called her from across the hall. She couldn't wait to tell you about this.

__

"Hey Y/N," A voice said from behind. You turned around to see Jake with his backup hung on his shoulder. He brought his hand up and raked his hair, and you felt your face grow red. Jake is like a gift from the gods. How can someone look so ethereal even if they're just standing there? You could stare at him all day. You couldn't even understand a thing he said until he started waving his hands in front of you.

"Hello?" You blinked multiple times as you were brought back out to reality. You saw Jake's face grow into concern. "Are you okay? spaced out."

"O-oh..No, I'm completely fine." You reassured him, feeling embarrassed. "What were you saying again?"

"I was asking you if you wanted to go to school with me early tomorrow."

Well, shit.

Your eyes started to go wide, and your hands started to go clammy.

"Tomorrow?" You repeated, voice trembling.

'Well, yeah." He pouted his lips, and you felt like melting into a small puddle in your place. Your heart started to pound heavily.

Oh my fucking god, he is so adorable.

"Okay, sure I can go with you tomorrow," You weakly smiled at him, slightly tense.

How we're you going to give him the letter now?

__

"Good Morning," Jake said as he watches you close the gates of your house. It was past five in the morning, and you were a mess.

"Morning," You replied back before running your fingers through your hair, getting rid of any flyaways.

As you started walking your way to the bus stop, Jake kept on glancing towards you from time to time. He knew you were pretty, but since when did you become really beautiful in his eyes?

The walk was pretty quiet, but it was a comfortable silence. For him, mostly.

Meanwhile, you couldn't stop freaking out. You had written a letter the night before, but you don't know how you were going to slip it into his locker without him taking notice. If he saw you, he would know.

"Are you sure you're okay? You've been like this since yesterday," Jake blurted. You looked at him before heaving a sigh.

"It's nothing," You mouthed, suddenly feeling anxious and gloomy.

"Something on your mind?"

"Something like that." It was hopeless. I guess he would have to miss this letter today. It was the first time you skipped a day, and you're feeling guilty that you would have to see Jake's face sadden that he wouldn't receive it today.

As you two stop at the bus stop, Jake looked slightly panicked as he was rummaging through the pockets of his blazer before looking through his bag. "Hey, do you have an extra pen? I left mine at home and I have a quiz today."

You snickered, "Out of all the days, Sim Jake. The same day you have a quiz is the same day you forget your pen."

"Very funny." He scoffed.

As you unzipped your bag to grab your pencil case, a folded piece of paper fell out without you realizing it. When Jake went to pick it up, he notices that it was folded the same way as the letters in his locker. It looked so identical.

Once you already got your pencil case out, you were about to hand it to him when you saw what he was holding that made your body freeze with your hand holding the case in the air.

"Why were one of my letters inside your bag?" He glanced at you, waiting for you to reply.

If you were freaking out before, this is a whole other thing. The thing that you were fearing the most is happening right before you.

"Maybe it fell into my bag yesterday..." You stammered, making up an excuse to look like it was an accident. You were tightly holding onto your pencil case, chanting many curse words in your head as you watch Jake unfold the letter.

"I don't think I've received this one yet," He said before he opened the letter and read it.

You watch as his expression formed into confusion as he reads through the paper. It only took a few moments before something in him clicked that it was you sending him the letters.

"Y/N," He began, and you started quivering in fear.

You should've known this would happen, but you didn't expect it to happen this sooner. In fact, you believed that this wouldn't happen at all. But it did.

"Let me explain," You eventually gave up and accepted fate and watch as your identity as "Moon" be revealed to your crush. You're now exposed so you didn't have any other choice but to explain everything. "Yes, I am Moon. I was the one writing you the letters that you've been getting in your locker."

Jake's face was unreadable. He looked bewildered and puzzled. He was trying to comprehend what was happening right now. All this time, it was you?

"I started crushing on you when we attended that birthday party before. I didn't want to confess my feelings for you because I was scared that you were going to harshly reject me, so I started writing down letters as a way to tell you how I feel about you without making you feel awkward around me." You continued, eyes suddenly taking an interest in your shoes. They were brand new too.

Jake was silent, and you felt your heart crack into pieces. You were mad at yourself for being so careless about it that he ended up finding out about you as his secret admirer. You wanted nothing else but to run back home, lock yourself in your room and cry with your sad playlist on loop.

You were expecting a harsh rejection coming from him, but what surprised was how he took dangerous steps towards you, minimizing the gap between you two. He placed his hand under your chin, forcing you to look up at him.

"I don't plan on rejecting you Y/N," You stare into his eyes as it reflects the sunlight of the early morning. "I'm actually happy that it was you."

You look at him, puzzled. He lowly chuckles under his breath before leaning over to place his lips against yours. It was a light, quick kiss, but it brought you feeling ecstatic. You've dreamed of this moment before, and now that it happened, you thanked your clumsiness.

As he pulled away, you were sure your face was a red mess.

"Thank you," His smile was as bright as the stars in the sky. It was the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. "Thank you for making me like I'm special to someone."

You felt flustered over his words. You were scared that he could hear the sound of your heart pounding loudly. The butterflies in your stomach were going wild, and you felt like this was all a dream.

"So, what am I to you now?" You broke into a smile as he grabs your hand, intertwining your fingers with his.

Jake acted as if he was thinking, "Hm..maybe my best friend still?"

He bursts into a fit of giggles as he sees your smile slowly disappear, replacing it with a look of disbelief. You removed your hand from his and walked at a faster pace away from him.

He ran to match your pace beside you before holding your hand again, "I'm sorry, I won't ever do that again. Is my girl mad at me?"

"Oh my god, it's only five-fifty, Jake." You too broke into laughter over his cheesiness, but your heart fluttered over the thought of Jake calling you his.

__

HERE’S A LITTLE BONUS! since I've made you guys wait for 4 months :(

"What the fuck?" Was the first thing You heard from Jay as you and Jake entered the classroom. All of your classmates were staring at your and his hands intertwined together.

Jay stood in front of you two, crossing his arms together. "Can one of you explain when this happened?" he motioned towards your linking hands. You and Jake smiled at each other before walking away, leaving Jay in a fit of joy, and confusion.

#enhypen #enhypenwriters #jake shim #shim jaeyun #enhypen scenarios #enhypen imagines #enhypen x reader #jake x reader #sunghoon #jay #sunoo #heeseung #ni-ki #niki #jungwon #jakesim #parksunghoon #kimsunoo #yangjungwon #nishimurariki #leeheeseung #jaypark #parkjeongseong #enhypenjay #enhypensunoo #enhypenjungwon #enhypensunghoon #enhypenjake #enhypenheeseung #enhypenniki

[not-poignant]

It's kinda nice to know that other people don't care for pushy therapists either. My first one was kinda pushy and I feel like that set my progress back until I switched to a different one. But like a lot of therapy gets portrayed as like "confronting hard truths" and such so it made me feel a bit guilty to prefer the therapist who calls herself my "talking mirror of validation" lol. I do very much enjoy reading Ef's sessions though, it's a bit like therapy without having to do the hard bits lol

Oh yeah for sure. I mean one of the reasons Dr Gary’s style is what it is, is that so many of his clients are sex offenders and criminals, and so many of those people are narcissists and people who avoid taking responsibility for themselves and don’t want to hold themselves accountable or play the blame game etc. So he has a very ‘no, that’s not true, this is actually the reality of the situation’ style because of the nature of his clients.

Efnisien is kind of outside of that window because he does acknowledge that he’s responsible for his actions (and a bunch more besides). So where Dr Gary would normally have to be ‘but you did hurt someone, but you did rape that person’ instead he’s like ‘but you’ve never killed anyone, but this isn’t something you’ve ever done.’ But you can see the echos of his normal style by how often he simply agrees with Efnisien, when Efnisien says he’s done something that he has done, by simply a ‘that’s true.’

Most clients are going to do a lot better with validation (which, by the way, so does Efnisien! We’ve seen how he responds to Dr Gary’s praise and positive regard, it’s a very powerful tool), but the reasons sex offenders might be in therapy could be because it’s court mandated, or because they think it’s a joke, or because they think it might be fun to manipulate a therapist etc. etc. etc. Dr Gary’s regular clientele are not the clientele that like 90% of therapists are seeing. So those therapists can afford to utilise much softer styles safely, but those therapists can also often be easily manipulated by - for example - sex offenders and abusers.

I think a lot of therapy in the media in general is poorly portrayed. That being said, I’m still writing fictional therapy! The only way to really find out what it’s like is actually just to see some therapists, and read about it and talk to friends or family that have gone. I’m not writing ‘real therapy.’ I’m writing something fictional. It might have more research behind it than say, Good Will Hunting, lol, but that movie also didn’t have the luxury of taking 50 hours to tell, whereas I can take as long as I like with Dr Gary and Efnisien sessions vs. say, only getting to show two or three minutes of a session in a scene.

There are very pushy therapists out there, particularly those who preach short-form therapy (i.e. the often unsuccessful ‘I can fix all your problems in 6-8 sessions! Find out how!!!’ - fine if you just want to change your job and are stressed about it, absolutely crap at just about the majority disorders out there; better for short term problems, long actual disorder-based issues, though trust me, they’ll swear it’s not the case), and those who have departed from things like cognitive behavioural therapy straight into NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) and other pseudosciences. Generally speaking those therapists will 100% blame you if their techniques aren’t working, and won’t actually suggest any other techniques except for the one or two things they know, and seem to have no idea how to recommend other therapists or other styles. They will get maximum profits and then send you away (if you haven’t already left) thinking that’s reflective of the entire experience.

Conversely, therapists who see a client forever are also not necessarily doing their clients any favours, but that’s a whole other thing that I’m not going to get into today. It’s a very US-model of therapy, at any rate, so it’s not likely to be encountered here.

Therapy can confront hard truths, but for most people that’s a lot easier to do in a space of validation, acceptance and non-judgement, which means in many cases successful therapy can initially ‘feel’ gentler at least in terms of how the therapist speaks to you, and you do all that hard confrontation yourself, either in the session or between sessions. Just telling someone something like: ‘you’re avoiding all your issues because you don’t want to get hurt’ (as Dr Gary did) is not a successful technique (though I don’t think Dr Gary said it to necessarily be successful, some of his therapy style is also seeding ideas into Efnisien’s head and leaving them for Efnisien to percolate on for weeks/months/years lmao). Very few people are going to change anything in the moment from hearing that, even if they think ‘oh my god that’s true.’

It’s not illustrating any successful strategies for dealing with it. It’s not exploring why a person might feel that way. It’s not investigating why that’s so much more preferrable than all the other options. It’s not constructive homework that a client can work on. The client might objectively know it’s true, but that doesn’t mean it’s internalised, or that the client immediately knows what to reverse to ‘fix’ it. On its own, confrontation looks impressive on TV and in film, but it’s not useful without all the other stuff that is kind of boring to put on TV or film.

Even in Falling Falling Stars, I have the luxury of starting after 3 years of intensive therapy already, I can shortcut through a lot of groundwork that Dr Gary and Efnisien have already done together. Someone else might go to therapy for the first time expecting that kind of rapport (or any rapport) with their therapist, only to forget that I literally glossed over 3 years of all the work that happens before reaching a rapport like that.

ANYWAY, lots of rambling and thoughts about therapy and I’m going to shut up now ldskfjafsad

#asks and answers #falling falling stars #fae tales #fae tales AU #efnisien ap wledig #dr gary konowalous #anyway some people do GREAT with short form therapy #and with confrontational therapy styles #they might be someone who struggles to hold themselves accountable #but frankly most people do best in an environment of unconditional positive regard #and gentle guidance #or even self-guidance #it's just... some of dr gary's clients #are not going to go far #self-guiding themselves #Anonymous

[thebraingremlinsaremad]

Daily Blog #15: August 22, 2021

Dollar Tree is honestly pretty fucking awesome 👌👌👌

I set my alarm for like 6:25 this morning, but it took 6 minutes for the "Horsin' Around" theme song instrumental to wake me up. I was pretty tired lol. I just dismissed it and went back to sleep.

I only went back to sleep because I knew I had another alarm set for 7:00. That got me up.

I should mention that this was still in the RV over an hour away from the house.

After I got up, I went to go get a shower, and did so successfully.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten my brush this time and had to do it afterwards after my hair had a bit of time to dry, which did make it a little more difficult lol.

I got dressed and grabbed my stuff, putting it into my car.

I made it a point to see and say "see you later" to my grandparents before I left for the flea market.

My dad insisted that I stayed to say goodbye to my mom, so I left.

I did NOT have cell service up there, as was mentioned in my previous 2 blogs of which I could only post today, so finding my way was a tiny bit difficult until I got some service to ask Google to take me to "...".

It worked and I got there.

On my drive, I listened to 1 by Simple Kid, a CD I had previously purchased at a Dollar Tree location.

I got a call from the guy at the flea market saying that I had some people there waiting for me. He asked how far away I was, to which I said "about 10 minutes." Ironically, that call made me miss my exit, as Google couldn't talk during the call, and added about 3 minutes to my arrival time lmao.

I did sell the Xbox that he said someone was interested in. I got $40 for it. I spent 27¢ on it. Pretty good return if you ask me.

I couldn't sell it with anything other than a power cord because the controller and AV cables I had been using to play it there were for my personal console. I'm just glad I can actually hook my Xbox up and stop having to drag them to the flea market along with a small library of games.

Not too long after I sold the Xbox, someone came in and asked if I wanted to see some electronics he had in his car. I went out with him. It was a pair of 3ft speakers and a Pioneer audio system with dual cassette decks (although neither of them works) and a 25 Disc CD-changer, as well as the standard AM/FM tuner. Additionally, there was a Fisher amplifier and AM/FM tuner as well as a Fisher Direct Drive turntable. He said he wanted $60 for em, but before that he casually, and probably accidentally, dropped that he was just gonna take em to the thrift store.

Big mistake.

I got em for $35 lmao. THERE GOES MOST OF MY PROFIT.

Oh well.

I tested everything. As I mentioned, the cassette decks don't work, but everything else does apart from the turntable needing a new stylus.

I posted some new photos of the shop to Facebook, and someone soon DMed me about a stereo system.

I priced everything, and it turns out I have about $300 worth of equipment from that deal, the Fisher amp and tuner being worth about $150.

The buyer will hopefully show up next weekend, for he wants to buy the Fisher stuff ($185 with the turntable), the 3ft speakers, an 8-track deck, and a Kenwood deck we've had for a week or two.

The speakers are listed for $50 (and are worth around $100-150), the Kenwood Deck for $50 as well, and the 8-track for $35. That makes it about $320 in equipment. Since he's buying so much, I'll knock it down to $270 and essentially give him the speakers or cassette deck for free lol.

Apart from that stuff, not much happened at the flea market. I sold some records, cassettes, CDs and I think 2 DVDs. One person bought a VHS tape? That money was the other guy's though. Oh well xD.

I can't say that I didn't miss my wonderful partner while on the trip. I actually brought along the stuffed animal they gave me (who's name is Greg) and snuggled with him both nights.

I was very happy to hear from them UwU.

They let me rant and I let them rant.

I honestly give them too much responsibility over me xD. I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna do this. HOLD ME TO IT."

I know I can't hold myself to anything I personally say (this blog being the only exception apparently), but I listen to them pretty well I think 🤔. If they tell me, "No, you don't need that VCR," so long as it's not some weird specialty thing, like a worldwide VCR 🥵, I'll be like "Yeah, you rite bro."

I love you man xD. You control my craziness pretty well. I'm so thankful for you UwU.

#relationshipgoals

So part way through the flea market day, I went over to Dollar Tree to buy some snack, but ended up looking through the CDs to see if there was anything good. I took photos of about 18 CDs and flipped through them online for the remainder of the flea market day.

I deleted the photos of the ones I didn't want and kept those that I liked. Surprisingly, I ended up buying 13 CDs there, but not before dropping them on the floor like the dumbass I am.

Also, sorry for all the nerd shit I spilled on your lap earlier. No one cares about amps and tuners xD.

I'M LISTENING TO ONE OF THE DOLLAR TREE CDS RIGHT NOW THO.

I already transferred over to my online library on iBroadcast and put the disc into my CD changer, which is now holding 164 CDs.

Its max capacity is 300 discs 🥵

WHY AM I NERD

Oh well

I like being a nerd gurl

Also maybe a technosexual 👀

I get really excited over some electronics. Like. REALLY excited.

Some editing VCRs are like "Holy shit that is SEXY. Look at those goddamn VU meters 🥵. And hhhh there are like 7 inputs on this thing and individual controls for left and right audio gain, not to mention Hi-Fi S-VHS recording. Hhhhhhhhhhh please gimme 😭. Why are you so expensive?"

I uh, mean, uh, *cough* look, pretty lights.

Oh yeah, I was gonna say the album I was listening to xD. MAN I GOT SIDETRACKED.

It's 37 Everywhere by Punchline. Def give it a listen; it's pretty heccin good.

Another notable album I picked up was Page One by Steven Page. I very much like the first track, "A New Shore." It's quite catchy and he has a great voice imo.

Also at dollar tree, I bought a regular bag of Fieras and 2 bags of Fieras Sticks, which were marked down to 75¢/bag because they're expiring soon.

I honestly like the generic Dollar Tree version of Takis more than actual Takis. They're a lot more flavorful when it comes to the lime, but also hotter at the same time.

Don't get the hot nacho ones tho. Hot nacho? More like hot pile of shit.

HAH

Goteem.

They're not that good xD.

THE REGULAR ONES ARE FIRE THO

"How do you do fellow kids?"

I got home and started working on putting the CDs onto my computer, and then onto iBroadcast, but not without first adding The Music Man to my digital library, something I had neglected for a month or two. The CD had just been sitting there lol.

I also switched my digital file for "The Black Parade" to that of the uncensored CD, which I had purchased before I event started working over 2 months ago.

MAN I'M LAZY

I eventually get around to shit tho lol. I guess it's just a matter of priority.

What usually takes priority is digging through everything to find something that I forgot about but then remembered, making a mess in the process that I would then have to clean up, at least partially.

I think the album just ended. I've been writing for a while xD. I'ma start "I Made You Something" by The Island of the Misfit Toys.

I'll tell you where that album came from in a minute.

In the meantime, where was I?

I kinda lost my train of thought despite reading up to see where I was. Oh well. On I go.

I ate dinner and kept working on those CDs, eventually putting my clothes from the week into the washer.

I FORGOT TO PUT MY SHAPING UNDERWEAR IN. FUCKING HELL MAN.

I wanted to wash em for this week 😭

No tight pants for Leonna I guess qwq.

Meanwhile, the box of my CD album cases is overflowing. I need another box.

I keep all of the album artworks in a big CD folder. That's almost full.

I wanna fill my entire CD changer. That's one of my big goals in life. Idk why, but I just wanna legitimately fill the entire thing.

My clothes are in the dryer now. I don't think I have the time (or energy) to fold them tonight. I'll leave that for tomorrow morning before work.

And God. Fucking. Damnit. I start school again on Wednesday. NOT looking forward to that, and neither are my 2 coworkers. We already have low enough staff, but only the two of them working is gonna be a pain in the ass.

I'll still work Saturdays.

I need to contact my guidance counselor to get out of the gym class I signed up for. I scheduled this shit before I found out I was trans, and I don't wanna deal with the fucking locker room situation 🙄 I have far more important matters.

Okay so anyway, the album I'm listening to came from a cassette. I bought this cassette a few months ago at the flea market along with a few others. The reason I bought them? They were all newer cassette releases from the 2010's, and they're all actually pretty good music from very indie bands.

Currently getting mad at iBroadcast's compression algorithm. It's unnaturally fucking anything over -10db up. Oh well, there's not really anything I can do about it.

I have like 13GB of music on my phone btw. That's about 3.5k songs on 268 albums.

I'm kind of an audiophile, but I'm too cheap to pay for a lossless service. Oh well.

They do actually have a lossless service on iBroadcast, but once again, too cheap.

Someone just sent me a friend request who legitimately posted that BLM and the democratic party are hate groups.

BLOCK.

Goodbye ho.

I don't get that. They call the democratic party a hate group when they hate people like me, and I, being more of a democrat although not fully because the 2-party system is fucked, think nothing more of them than they're very wrong about certain things, especially, as shown, that black people, as well as asian, Indian, native, and people of all ethnicities and backgrounds, are not equal to white people.

Yeh.

Totally.

You go buddy.

Anyway, yeah, I can, and do, convert music and video from analog formats to digital files in order for me to archive and listen to whenever and wherever I please. I've actually made a bit of a business out of it, but I don't get too much work from it. At least I'm not overloading myself xD.

I honestly have so much more to say, but I should probably go to sleep soon.

A few final shoutouts to the following people and companies:

-Dollar Tree

-Steven Page

-Broken World Media

-The Island of Misfit Toys

-Simple Kid

-Punchline

-My incredible partner QwQ I love you so much. Thanks for being the best all the time. I hope I can give you the best life ever.

Anyway I suppose this is goodnight. Lmk if you want a full list of the CDs I bought today! I'll link that song by Steven Page here.

And here's a good song from Simple Kid

I really like music lol. Enjoy these pieces.

Anyway, goodnight lol.

Lots of love,

-Leonna.

#Trans #Lgbtq #blog #daily blog #Dollar Tree #Dollar CD #Dollar Tree Cd #receiver #pioneer #fisher #audio #music #CD #cassette #iBroadcast #nerd gurl #nerdy girl #ramble #rant #please read this to figure out what my life is like even though it quite honestly doesn't matter at all but might still be kinda interesting #Spotify

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Sorry I haven't been active beyond shitposts lately, I've been busy getting my thesis up and running and barely have time or brainpower to spare to write at night before I pass out

On the bright side I read 6 pages of an academic paper this week and understood EVERYTHING. Yes I had to Google every other word (not literally, but it sure felt like it at times) but I actually understood it all in the end and I am so proud of myself.

6 pages, u might say, 6 pages is all u did in 3 days?? Well... Yeah XD It's a math and theory based paper, have mercy pls. I gotta work everything out on paper and then take notes that are informative enough for future reference and I get tired after every 2 pages to the point I'm falling asleep at my desk... I have a poor work ethic.

I also think I'm close to tying in what I wanna do to Systems Theory like my prof. Wants. He's very into reconstructability analysis and multidimensional relations with his probabilistic databases and well. I found that probabilistic deductive databases are a thing and You Know Me...

There's this thing called a trilattice right. And it consists of 3 partial orderings on the same set each going a different direction with each direction also being a lattice, it's actually *really* cool. Anyway, my profs catchphrase is BASICALLY "information is constraint" and GUESS WHAT BABEY. One of those partial orderings on the trilattice for the rules in the PDDB (probabilistic deductive database) is named Knowledge in a interval of [0,1] because it tells you the amount of information that specific fact gives you!

So I'm gonna ask him for help tomorrow morning to see if that can't be tied back in to a sort of reconstruction but for probabilistic deductive databases and their rules. Because with regular probabilistic databases it's easy to have 3 variables (ABC) then split into 2 (AB) and 2 (BC), and then reconstruct it from there right? But. I don't know how that would be possible with Rules based on facts and logic not just probabilities, and I wanna know if it's even possible because there IS still math involved with the rules, I just don't know if I'd be able to reconstruct anything with it cuz I don't even know the first step to that problem cuz it seems so different from the Regular PDB reconstruction problem and I GUESS that's what the whole thesis research thing is for, but STILL. I am just. So Tired. Let me sleep.

I put off so much work today just to do more research on my thesis like a CHUMP. I should've finished my parallel programming hw, but I didn't. Haha. I put it off too long already it's due Friday XD

Oh also I start work tomorrow so I will have even less time. But I am starting work!!! I'm actually kinda excited. I'm gonna be TAing 2 classes which sounds cool! except a lot of the students are my friends (4/5 in one class and 2/2 in the other!!). So it will be kinda awkward since I am the extra help session. At some point my prof (same one who is my thesis advisor) wants me to actually teach an entire lesson myself. I am so nervous I have super bad stage fright lol. Actually tho, these two classes tie right into my thesis subject so hopefully by then I will be well read on all the subjects necessary to teach. I can, at the very least, teach them reconstruction. Maybe not much else, but I got that going for me haha

Oh God what happened I was gonna go to bed with an apology like, "yes Ive just shitpost for the past like week sorry about that" but here I am 1am, meeting at 11am (I can't be fully rested on sub-11/12 hours of sleep fml), just rambling about my life I am so sorry

You guys wanna see a candle I made today as a gift for actually reading this (and as part of the apology)

It's so beautiful

I was gonna put one of my borderlands stickers on but I was worried it'd peel when I lit it, so I chose a sticker I had 2 copies of

My mom thinks it's hilarious and that's all I needed I also got her to say "big yikes" today because we spilled wax on the oven mitts my power grows

#Sleeping like. 13+ hours a day + naps is totally normal right #Totally. #You wanna hear someone frantically yell about probabilistic databases? No? Toobadyourereadingitanyway #Jkjk #Cruddy rambles

[adamsvanrhijn]

Ooh for the director's cut, I'd love to hear about the Jan 12, 1930 letter from "strange how I fit into you (there's a distance erased with the greatest of ease)"--if you need to break it up smaller, please do! I don't know if that's too long :p (or if there's something more interesting in that fic you're dying to talk about, I could have picked anything from it so please feel free to take this as a Star)

it is not nearly as long as it could be!! :-3 i think i can do all of it; let’s see! under a cut regardless. :-3 

link to fic: strange how I fit into you (there's a distance erased with the greatest of ease)

yes we use the entire title every time....yes we do

Jan 12, 1930

Dear Richard,

While I wait for you to telephone I thought I would write you a letter anyway. I know I've kept you waiting, and I'm sorry to have done. I've been busy, but you know what that's like. 

the scenario here, of course, is that they have scheduled a telephone call (either for this night or on a recurring basis; it’s up to the reader until we get to that point in the other fic in this series, which is a ways out) within the next hour or so & thomas has nothing to do until then so he decides to write. self-explanatory! :-3

the other element is that they don’t write every day or even necessarily on a regular basis anymore, by this point in their relationship. it’s been about 2.5 years since they met and they’ve been going strong, but they’ve also (richard especially) got lives and jobs they have to take care of when they can’t be together, and those can be fairly consuming. it’s right after christmas in this scenario after a very bad winter, and the crawleys are going through a lot! (almost exactly two months earlier: Here in Downton we're not being very optimistic about anything at the moment.) so that’s affecting thomas more than the already-busy time of year normally would be.  there is a Lot happpening at the abbey (which will be Gotten To in the fic that prequels/coincides with this one). we’re entering the great depression. work wise he’s been in a better place before. mental health wise he’s been in a better place before. but, he also some good things going for him too, and those are very much things he shares with richard, so.

Speaking of keeping people waiting, your mum told me to tell you to write her back. I'm sure I'll say this to you in an hour but in case I forget there it is. I told her that this is a very busy time of year for you, and she said that when she worked for Queen Victoria they didn't have any of the modern conveniences you do and she still managed to find the time to keep correspondence with her dear mother and father. So, you have no excuse. 

i just.......... love richard’s mom lol, love writing variations on her... in this verse she was a royal dresser herself in the ‘80s before she quit to marry mr ellis, yorkshire farmboy childhood sweetheart of her dreams, and have five beautiful & talented children (whom we shall get to shortly). you’re getting OC backstory in this commentary haha. 

now, the thing that Matters here for the reader though is that thomas was not only With Richard’s Mother, but that he was without richard present, and that also richard’s mum is close enough to & trusts thomas enough to bother him to harp at her son for him... because she understands that richard’s going to talk to his boyfriend more than he’s going to talk to her. and for thomas that’s huge, but it’s not new to him; the switch happened somewhere in ‘29. but the reader doesn’t get to see that, they only get to see this, so it’s like, epistolary in media res haha.

i’m actually curious to know when the click point in this letter was for people, because it’s been mentioned a few times in comments & in conversations i’ve had since then...! 

this letter is really like, a foil to the sept 23 1928 letter, when richard & thomas visit richard’s family together and then thomas writes to him while he’s on his way back. in jan 1930, richard is in norfolk doing his job, hasn’t been north in months except passing through it to get to balmoral castle, etc, so the vibe is different, but i wanted to convey that this has been going on for a while -- thomas is seeing richard’s family on his own on a semi-regular basis, and they’re inclusive of him to the point where they treat him as an extension-of-richard (in the thoughtful, romance-supporting way, not the not-your-own-person way).

Everybody else says hello and that they miss you and wish you could have come home for Christmas. Surely some of them have put this to you in writing by now but I am passing on the message anyway.

Other notable things from Sunday dinner that I'll try not to ramble on about once I've got you on the telephone:

and so same thing here, really!

worth noting that this day was thomas’s christmastide day off. (despite being three weeks after, but again. stuff goin on with the crawleys.)  

thomas is being a little flippant here... ascribing a different emotion to the thing he’s doing than the one he actually has. the fact that the ellises trust & value him is huge for him and he’s taking the responsibility to be the middleman very seriously, but he’s uncomfortable letting on that he feels that way, so he’s sort of downplaying both in put this to you in writing by now And try not to ramble on about. like, richard is Definitely gonna ask him to tell him all about how his family is and he knows it, but he’s also worried about getting any of it wrong/leaving things out etc so he’s putting it down on paper, too. which has the advantage of helping him organise his thoughts before they call! but the lessening-his-own-role-in-this thing is certainly a Thing indeed.

richard knows what he means by it at this point though. :-)

I got to hold Ruthie. Dick, in my forty years of life I have seen some very sweet babies, and you just may have the honour of being uncle to the sweetest of them all. I hope you can come meet her soon. It doesn't feel right that I should get to see your niece before you do.

 this is another integrating-thomas-into-the-family thing and also a Giving Thomas Children To Love thing haha. ruthie is of course the newest leaf on the ellis family tree! she’s the daughter of one of richard’s sisters (dorothy, sister 2/3, unmentioned in this fic because she doesn’t bother her brother about doing his laundry for him), she’s a november scorpio, she’s VERY sweet and thomas got a lump in his throat while he was holding her. 

those last two sentences... some very sincere thoughts there being expressed in plain language. like, on the one hand this is amazing for thomas and he’s finally, finally got an actual family to feel a part of. on the other hand it is missing a very big piece that is important to him and to everybody else, and thomas has such a strong sense of justice that kind of comes out here. both in the sense of thinking he’s not worthy of what he’s being given (a chronic issue of this thomas) / not knowing his place 100%, and, wanting richard to have what he’s entitled to but can’t access because of the position he’s in. and that’s not a comfortable feeling for thomas, because it’s something he’s powerless to, so there’s a reason he doesn’t dwell on it.

Teddy is about as tall as I am, which I do not remember as being the case the last time I saw him. This is what happens when first footmen breed. Maybe by the time you see him he'll be as tall as you are, which, as I have said in the past, is not actually that much taller than me. Just so we're crystal clear.

teddy is the oldest of richard’s nieces/nephews! he’s the first son of his older brother, who Was A First Footman & he’s like 17 here. again this is really about like, establishing that thomas seeing richard’s family is ongoing and that he’s serving kind of as the link between richard and his own family in a way. they’re really integrating as a couple. which is a BIG part of this fic that matters more once they move in together a few years after this bit but right now we’re laying the ground work for it.

aaaaaaaaand teasing of course. :-3

You must have received yours weeks ago already, but Hannah gave me the scarf she made. I can't believe you managed to keep this a secret from me. I am very impressed with you. Luckily, I did not cry in front of anybody in your family when I opened it but I felt like I could have.

matching handmade scarves!!! yes!!! i guess the thing here is just more thomas-being-an-honorary-ellis stuff but also showing how richard works within his own family... hannah, sister 3/3, worked with him on figuring out/applying what thomas likes, so that’s part one, and part two is that like, she was Expecting to see thomas and to give him his gift in person, whereas she mailed richard’s to get to him in time for christmas. and thomas is aware of that, and for him her waiting to see him and physically put the thing in his hands means a lot and so there’s some overwhelming emotions going on there, as he mentions. 

I don't know what you told May and John, but I had only been in the house five minutes when…

…

being sister & brother in law, respectively. i..... wanna get into the thing going on here elsewhere in the series so i’ll let it be for now. sorry !

…well, it is five minutes past. Knowing you I am assuming you'll be calling in the next 2-6 minutes, so here is as good a place as any to stop.

richard stops keeping track of time the second his majesty king george the 5th goes to bed at 11:10pm on the dot and so is pretty much always fashionably late, but thomas has figured out how to adjust and it is something they can tease each other about + share as an injoke. and not only is it teasing but it’s also Correct, in this case at least! :-)

I wish you had been there today. I am thinking of you.

Your loving,

T.B.

and this is just an emotional but understated letter closing from thomas, expressing the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth, etc. :-3 

i’m getting sleepy and now i’m kinda worried this isn’t gonna make sense / is too repetitive etc haha so if you’re dying to know smth else just lmk :’-)

#downton abbey tag #my fanfiction

[elizabethrobertajones]

(part 1) this is random but something im curious about is do you think the next few years will see a radical shift in more lead lgbt couples in shows? i feel like when supernatural started it was all about subtext/queerbating between characters we would never see canon (maybe), the last few years have seen an update in more side lgbt characters/couples and while not a lot, more main lgbt characters then we had before. I don't know if tumblr/twitter fandom translates to general audience...

Yeah, I mean, the only way is up. I feel lucky that I managed to encounter a fair amount of queer content in my formative years, whether targeted programming on TV, or taking the route of not really differentiating the perceived cultural value of independent media like webcomics and webnovels etc from the mass media as I was young enough to naturally grow up on the internet as the internet itself was growing up and web 2.0 was pretty much taking off alongside my use of the internet. And that I had liberal parents who didn’t regulate our internet, and lived in a community where culturally I didn’t really fear being discovered casually accessing all this like in particularly this terrifying seeming evangelical christian community in America.

Which really makes me feel like A: everyone should feel that comfortable in themselves via the media as I did as a mass accessible thing or B: that the world at large should be soaked in as much representation and more that I encountered as a curious teen because at the very least it did me no harm and at best helped handhold me through an awful lot. 

And then brings us to the problem that the world isn’t actually like that and for a lot of people their media is restricted one way or another, from everything such as the era of social media weirdly making us much LESS broadly travelled on the internet as I was back in the day (SO many bookmarks - I had like 100 that I would check either daily or on their weekly update schedule, with enough habit that I had pretty much memorised it all without using an RSS feed or just following everyone’s twitter and waiting for update announcements, never mind the vast pit of things which I occasionally checked to see if their sporadic but very worth it updates had occurred somewhere in the last month/year) to the vastly overwhelming amount of media accessible to us. It seems almost to flood the market and creates this panic about watching the worthiest shows and campaigning for them and raising awareness and the FOMO and how things slip by and zomg you have to watch this that and the other, when even just making this list on Netflix now contains more hours of TV than a human lifetime and also one liable to disappear from the service at some point or another without warning. 

And then on top of that you have the absolute cultural monoliths that if you’re not going to have a cohesive culture - which now includes the entire population of the world because of our connectivity on the internet and mass-joining of services - based around smaller shows and stuff, then at the very least everyone is going to watch anything under the main Disney umbrella, other superhero flicks, animated things, and all the really big studio franchises and remakes, as well as a few TV monoliths which manage to get enough people talking to make it seem like “everyone” (again - these days it seems like that’s presumed to be the entire western world plus everywhere else these things air) are watching, like Game of Thrones or whatever… THESE properties are the inescapable ones and on that basis they’re the things we have to lean on the most for representation and then again barely get any, when it comes to gender and sexuality, due to them shooting for such worldwide markets that they can’t imply gay people exist to censors in places such as China. And it exposes the cultural awfulness inherent just in getting a white female character in the lead role of some things, or the absolute garbage fire lurking underneath that if you dare have a black stormtrooper or make one of your female ghostbusters black when you’re already ruining the childhoods of so many how dare… 

In those respects, having side characters who aren’t even major well-known superheroes or jedis or ghostbusters or whatever also be gay (because even well-known lesbian Kate McKinnon didn’t manage to get her ghostbuster to be canonically gay even if we All Knew) would be absolutely groundbreaking, even if it was, like, a role that could be snipped out for the Chinese market or something. And that’s probably exactly what would happen, and cue ensuing riot from whichever fandom, along with everyone rightly pointing out that even for us who got to watch it it was still a tiny side character… I mean Disney is still at the stage of what they did with Beauty and the Beast’s ~canonical gay character~ 

So yeah… that’s thrown back to TV and smaller movies to lead the way and because the generations showing most likely the real global percentages but actually just the young western world stats on queerness in any form (like… 25% instead of 1% or whatever and that’s STILL probably too low) are still teens to young adults. The previous gayest generation above them are still just arriving in power and settling in, and the excellent changes we already have from the generation before that is what we are seeing now... But given THEIR cultural context, even their best can still seem to younger eyes, moderate and not generally placing queer characters in lead roles except in niche or indie or otherwise “acceptable” places to take those risks. I think change is always coming and culturally each generation being more open and accepting that the last is really making changes and so on, hopefully things WILL change rapidly and what was the common state of affairs in the sort of indie media I consumed as a teen will be the mainstream soon because a lot of those creators 10 years later are kicking off… 

All that said, TV in the mainstream is still controlled by Mark Pedowitz types exercising their power over the Bobos who have their Wayward Sisters pitches with the clearly labelled main character for the main teen demographic being queer. The culture is very much that we’re now pretty open and can happily have queer characters, but the main characters are still largely held separate. A good example is Riverdale, which is on the CW, a newer show with writers such as Britta Lundin, who is young, queer, and wrote a novel blatantly based on being a Destiel shipper and fan interacting with the cast and crew in fandom spaces, and whose first solo episode of Riverdale featured a looooot of the gay stuff (yay). 

But while she’s a story editor and writer for the show and can use it as a platform for writing stories for its audience using a whole range of canonically queer characters, the show still keeps all 4 of its mains at a strict remove from this. Cheryl can come out as a lesbian in the second season after a lil ho yay in the first but no clearly marked storyline about her identity, but even though Betty and Veronica kissed in the first episode it was blatant fan service (for Cheryl in-story, lol) and mostly just set the tone that they are the sort of seemingly straight girls kissing for attention while having strong romantic or physical attraction to guys. In the second season the kiss comes up again in joking that Jughead and Archie are the only ones of the main 4 who haven’t kissed, Archie gets one planted on him by a dude as a “judas kiss” moment of betrayal in season 3 and he and Jug are teased that they were expected to get together because they were close but in the same sort of homophobic undercurrent tones as early Destiel snarking from side characters, seemingly less about their relationship and more to unsettle them with implications… I mean it was a complicated moment but in the long run it didn’t seem entirely pleasant to me, especially given the overall emotional state they were in and later plot etc etc. (My mum is 1000% invested in Riverdale now as a former Archie Comics reader as a kid so this is now my life too as I was in the room when my brother callously exposed her to it, hi :P) 

Anyway that’s just one case study but aside from SPN it’s probably the most mainstream teen demographic thing I watch… Other examples would be things like B99 which had Rosa come out as bi and that’s awesome, and made us all cry a lot, but Jake, the clear main character even in a very strong and well-treated ensemble, has a great deal of bi subtext, there’s no way given Andy Samberg’s apparent habit of ad-libbing MORE progressive jokes that he’d ever be intentionally harming people if that’s how his brain works (you know, like other people quick-fire offensive stuff from their mouth working faster than brain sense of humour :P). But at the same time for all Jake’s quipping about crushes and such and the fact the show clearly knows how to be sensitive to bisexuality with Stephanie Beatriz being a strong advocate, just because Jake’s the main character and adorably married to Amy. In NO WAY can that be threatened because they’re SO GOOD, so there’s STILL uncertainty that this will pay off in the same special episode “I love my wife but I am bi” kinda way that seems obvious that could just be said. We all carry on without it affecting anything because obviously Jake’s found his soulmate so we don’t mess with that but they should know it’s important to clarify it… Even with B99′s track record, I’m nervous solely because Jake’s the main character and main characters tend not to get self-exploratory arcs about latent queerness and ESPECIALLY not if they’re happily married. If ANY show was going to do it right and trailblaze in this exact era it would be them, but… gyah :P 

Anyway I guess the conclusion right now is that the more mainstream you are the more uncertain it feels, but we are right at that cliff edge, especially with shows putting in SOME of the work. If B99 doesn’t get us there (or the Good Place where they’ll happily confirm Eleanor is bi in interviews but I believe she hasn’t said it outright on the show despite clearly showing attraction to female characters, again, the denials we know so well in SPN fandom reflect a wider audience view of dismissing this stuff as jokes and not reflective of character feeling and identification without a Special Episode dedicated to confirming it >.>) then we’re very clearly on the cusp of SOME mainstream or massively well-known show doing it at least once in a meaningful way that has an Ellen-style cultural impact on TV writing. 

Let’s make it a goal for 2019 or 2020, and hope that a NEW show with a canonically queer main from the start is pitched and becomes a mainstream hit in the next 5… Still got a ways to go before Disney level mainstream but again there IS work going pushing the envelope, especially if we get a movie of a franchise such as idk Further Legends of Korra, or Steven Universe or something else that’s massively pushed the envelope with sexuality or gender for their main character on the small screen in the experimental petri dish they’ve had there for children’s TV. Something that would force Disney to blink about a lesbian princess or Star Wars to let Finn and Poe kiss or Marvel to let Steve and Bucky hold hands or something in order to remain relevant.

Once the Big Cultural Monoliths get in on it, I expect culture as a whole to first of all react quickly on the small screen, but honestly I’ve been waiting for them to snap pretty much my whole life since adolescence and they’re taking such wee tiny baby steps, and some factors are enormous geopolitical awfulness, that the story as a whole is unpredictable and we can only really hope that things don’t slow down. 

(Where this affects SPN is just impossible to say right now, given its almost unique position in this mess due to longevity vs fandom vs almost entirely new generation of writers’ room) 

#Asks

[life-love-and-sports]

When I became single in 2016 I was so excited. I had the opportunity to meet someone new, and for some reason I thought it would be easy. I went on Plenty of Fish and boom! a girl who was everything I was looking for, short, pretty, with a wonderfully written profile that said everything I could possibly want a girl to write... I messaged her and nothing. That was the start of the struggle. 6 years later and I am still single.

It is rare that I match someone on any of the dating apps and when I do, it is even rarer for that person to be capable of communicating beyond one word responses. It has been extremely frustrating. This was especially bad in 2018, I was very down due to loneliness from the holidays through February it was really bad but no one knew it except me. But in 2019 I had made some positive changes and changed my mindset. I really grew as a person and learned to enjoy my own company more. And the following holiday season in 2019, I just really embraced what I did have.

But that is still a very long time without affection, with out someone to care for and have care for me. In 2018 I did meet a girl and it went well but she lived an hour and a half away and due to her anxiety wasn't able to cover any of the drive, so I would of had to fight traffic and get a hotel any time I wanted to see her, plus I had some other concerns about her so I decided not to continue seeing her. Another time, later in 2018 or 2019 who knows, time flies, I met a girl through work and asked her out and she said yes. Well we never actually ended up going out but we got along really well...she stopped talking to me(ghosted) and I saw she had a guy and her set as her Facebook picture, I see they now have a kid together. So I feel like I just missed out there, maybe they were already talking when we met and already had something about to start.

Here recently, I got back on POF(it is mostly trash), I met a girl and things were going well... she gave me her number and I texted her the next day and nothing... She had mentioned she was going to her sister-in-law's birthday party that weekend and the following weekend we were supposed to do something. I saw that the text I sent was read about 10 hours after I sent it. So I sent another message on POF but she never logged back on. So a few days later, I just sent one last text message that basically said "hey, not sure if you got my first text but if you don't respond to this one I'll take the hint lol" and no response but it was read about 3 hours after I sent it. Did she meet someone that weekend? Did she die and her family was looking at her phone? Who the hell knows but these are the kind of things that happen.

Then I matched with a girl on Bumble and she could actually write in complete sentences... then she said she has been seeing someone for 4 months and he suggested he get on there to talk to other men since she missed him so much when they weren't together... really, really, just stupid.

Bumble, Tinder, Hinge, POF... it gets me no where. And it doesn't help that I've lived a life full of loneliness and have missed out on so much already. I feel cursed to be alone, I can't meet anyone who is a decent person. And I see other people in relationships for years and then they break up and both are instantaneously with another person and end up getting married to that person... how does that happen for people???

Anyways just venting to myself basically as no one will read this. Do you know who I could send a text message to right now and convey any of this to? No one.

#dating #single #dating apps #loneliness #frustrated

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hey Lovely! I was wondering how you first became a part of the fandom? When did you start watching the show, at what point did you feel John and Sherlock might be(come) a thing, what made you start a blog on these two? I just want to know it all ^^ Hope you don't mind sharing a bit :) Thank you for everything you do for this fandom, love you lots!

Hi Lovely!

Oh gosh, what a nice question! I think I’ve talked about this in snippets in various posts, this post being the one talking the most about it, but never as a whole! Apologies if this turns into a long ramble, hah hah!

So I remember exactly when I got into the show SO CLEARLY. It was July of 2013, just a few months before S3 was to air in January 2014. I was over at my friends’ place, and they suggested the show to watch, since we always watch movies together whenever I visit. I remember asking, “Is that the show with Martin Freeman and that Khan actor from Star Trek 2?”. We finished Season one all in one go, and immediately fell in love with Ben and Martin’s portrayals and their chemistry. And then I had to head back home. I was ANGRY because OMG WHAT HAPPENS NEXT and my friends just laughed.

So as soon as I got home, I downloaded S1 and S2 and watched them ALL the way through. I needed more. So, because I already had a Tumblr and knew it was for fandoms, I decided to see what it had to offer. 

Oh boy what did I get into???

So I lurked for a bit, and then I discovered something called “meta”, back when the TRF theories were the prominent meta in the fandom. So while I was getting deep into meta, I started switching my fanart from Ninja Turtles to Sherlock, because I was warming up to Ben’s ethereal face and I wanted to draw it. And I wanted to be a Sherlock fanartist. I briefly shipped Sher1011ie for a week or so, until I rewatched the series again and it just didn’t jive like it did the first few watch-throughs. I was too invested in John and Sherlock’s friendship – I saw them as bestest friends ever, too devoted to each other.

Now, at this point, y’all need to remember this: I was naïve, have never been exposed at length nor ever heard of subtext, was and am not part of the LGBT community (I grew up in a different time and in a conservative city, so being “gay” just wasn’t a thing), had a very heteronormative view on my life, and I just had always just insisted that in all of my fandoms, when I liked two male characters together, it was because “bestest friends ever!!”. I didn’t know I was ace and I’d never read smut up until 3 years ago (yes hi hello I’m so old and so innocent LOL).

Okay, so I was just lurking for a bit, learning my way around fandom, reading meta and just generally dipping my toes quietly into the fandom.

Then came Season 3. 

As many of my followers know, a lot of my fondness for season 3 stems from this being the season that LITERALLY opened my eyes to EVERYTHING: subtext, Johnlock, my own sexuality, and my meta-writing career. 

So, season 3 aired and I decided to dip my toes into “reviewing” the episodes as my first “meta”. They were posted onto my multi-fandom blog here, here and here. I was so proud of them, because it reinvigorated my love for writing (I used to be a pretty prominent Sonic fan-fic author back in the 90′s… I never finished my stories because my interest in the fandom died before I finished them), despite how laughably bad they were, haha. I got a couple compliments on them, but nothing beyond that, especially since I sat down and wrote them for HOURS after each episode aired.

Sometime between TSo3 and HLV, I discovered loudest-subtext-in-television (aka LSiT) and deducingbbcsherlock completely by accident and I was FASCINATED. I ate up everything they wrote. The first time I watched TSo3, something was niggling at my brain but I couldn’t quite place it. It was one of LSiT’s meta that twigged at it. That’s when I learned about subtext, heteronormativity and the queer community. And suddenly, just like that, something in my brain clicked.

Oh. My god. This show is gay, and I actually SHIP these idiots like I did in the Mother Ship (ie. The X-Files Mulder / Scully). That’s why I was SO ANNOYED with Irene. Why Molly was slowly grating on me. Why Mary’s introduction kind of annoyed me but okay I guess I can deal with it. Why everything seemed really romantic but it just couldn’t be, could it? 

I rewatched the series. And it was gay. Y’all, those rainbow-coloured glasses were suddenly GLUED to my head, and I saw gay EVERYWHERE.

So, after HLV, I discovered The Johnlock Conspiracy and I was eating up all the meta about Johnlock I could. Around this time, I also was learning a lot about the LGBT community, its history and sexual fluidity from wsswatson. It was also around this time I discovered asexuality, and I started reading a lot about it. 

In February of 2014, I started this blog because I wanted a place to reblog Johnlock meta. This was the first post I made on this blog, and looking back at it now, I am DYING because wow I never imagined I was going to be this deep into the fandom the day I wrote that. I don’t even remember writing it, to be very honest. I just shake my head, HAH. I think I really started understanding Johnlock because of this post here. It’s still one of my favourites and is one of the ones I credit for helping me understand what I was watching was actually a romance, not a “crime show”. 

Anyway, after learning how to read subtext from mostly LSiT (they wrote a meta about how to read subtext and it was super informative) and other Johnlock bloggers, I wanted to try my hand at my own little Johnlock meta. It was more of an observational post, as my way of trying to interact with the fandom. I am a terribly nervous and shy person, so I never tagged anyone in anything. It was an overwhelming fandom, and it was terrifying to interact. A few bigger bloggers noticed me and were nice enough to comment on a couple of my posts, but I mostly stayed in my little corner, and interacted with my small little group of other smaller fans. I dabbled in both fanart and writing, just plopping my thoughts and art into the aether, hoping something would interest someone enough to start a discussion. 

I started getting braver, and I was “moderating” some of my favourite posts that weren’t mine, but had my additions to it. Mostly, the Phones and Hearts post. I didn’t want to impede, but it was one of my favourite posts, so I went and copied all of the comments in the notes and put them onto one post. I don’t honestly remember HOW I ended up moderating it, but I just did because I was FASCINATED with symbolism, and I was excited because I could finally read subtext and understand it. I still had a small following, and a few people I regularly interacted with on my blog.

So, during the hiatus between S3 and TAB, somewhere along the way I suddenly had a sexuality crisis, when I suddenly realized I wasn’t broken and there was absolutely nothing wrong with me, and damn it, there’s such thing as split attraction model and asexuality?? Mind was BLOWN. I was also slowly becoming obsessed with Mary’s character, and at the time I couldn’t understand why (inevitably, it was because of events happening in my own life and me trying to understand them), but I really enjoyed just psychoanalyzing her. It’s something I’ve ALWAYS loved doing – character studies; I’ve done it in EVERY fandom I’ve been in – and I was doing it for her, Sherlock and John’s characters. 

So yeah, nothing much really happened to me during the S3 hiatus, except my entire world view flipped on its head and I was completely Johnlocked beyond repair. I became known for some painful posts and some lovely revelations and writing a lot of character study posts on both John and Sherlock. I’m very proud of some of my earlier meta, just sad they never really got seen (some of my earliest meta can be seen on my Ao3).

Then came the announcement for TAB in 2015, and the start of my “Tumblr Career”. I put a lot of my energy into my fandom life. I was OBSESSED with TAB, and became known for it. I put my moderation skills to use and created the TAB Starter Pack, which started gaining me some followers because OMG some loser is taking the time out of their day to compile all the news about this new series! AWESOME. I remember, it was around this time I was excited because I got to 1895 followers and it was one of those milestones all Johnlockers like having, hahah. 

In October of 2015, I lost my job and was unemployed. Conveniently, this is also the time when the promo season for TAB started, because we now had a name and airdate. I devoted a LOT of my time, when I wasn’t job hunting, to working on this blog. I was just writing a lot, and obsessing about the upcoming episode.

Then the trailer aired.

And immediately after that trailer dropped on October 24, 2015, I made this post here, which, some would probably say, was the beginning of everything for me. As I was writing that post, with a cracking headache, something clicked in my head, and several hours later, I had written and posted the original Mind Palace Theories of TAB at 2AM-ish, and went to bed.

When I woke up, my post had suddenly gone viral and I couldn’t figure out why. Then it just kept expanding from there, and I made sure to include everything I could onto it, because WOW something I wrote was gaining traction, and interaction, and I just wanted us all to have a good time with it. And as the time for TAB drew closer, suddenly I was gaining followers, and more people interested in what I had to write. I welcomed everyone to continue to predict the outcome with me.

January 1st. Was a complete and total mind fuck. I was liveblogging the episode, and inadvertently created another viral post with my Mycroft’s Death post because FUCK ARE THEY KILLING MYCROFT OFF?? kind of freaked people out (sorry loves!), which gained me some more followers, and at the time, my top post was my December 31st reblog of my Mind Palace Theories post, so anyone who came to my blog, it would have been on the first page of it.

After the episode aired, suddenly, EVERYONE had questions for me, about EVERYTHING, but mostly to scream at me that I was a mind reader, LOL. No, I’m not, I was just a sad, unemployed twat with too much time on my hands and was avoiding job hunting. But good god, all DAY on Jan 1, I was replying to asks, gaining followers like crazy, and pretty much just stating my opinion on anything that someone wanted to know. 

I became known as the unofficial TAB blog, and the one to come to with questions about my interpretation of the episode. I was SO obsessed with TAB, studied every nuance and narrative structure I could. 2016 was “my heyday”, and it was fun. I found my niche, and meta-writing is what I became known for. And until I got a job in April of that year, I was a pretty solid presence in the fandom, if I understand some of what I’ve been told correctly. I still ran my blog as full-time as I could having a full-time job, and still do in some ways, but yeah, 2016 is when I produced a LOT of meta, mostly Mary meta because, as I said above, I was and am obsessed with her character arc. I was learning about myself a lot more by writing meta, and my “original” meta turned into “asks” meta, which was fine by me, because I do like a good prompt to get me going.

Somewhere in there I also somehow became the blog new bloggers came to, which I didn’t and don’t mind at all, because being new in a fandom is scary and I wanted to be a friendly face because I like meeting new people. 

Then we got an announcement for S4, and like TAB I also kept track of anything and everything S4-related, so once again I was sort of the “go-to” place for everything S4 because I compiled all the stuff from setlock bloggers and listed them all for easy-access. I kept track of everything promotional, and I reblogged some of my favourite pre-S4 meta here.

Essentially, I LOVE organizing things, and people liked that I LOVED doing it, so that’s sort of how I kept my following when I wasn’t posting as much new meta. I did make a few original meta before S4, and I made a 68 day video countdown to the series which is cringy AF and I’m not linking it (lol you can find it if you look hard enough). 

We all know what happened in S4. I took a bit of heat after S4 aired, because I got people’s hopes up. I was discouraged for a bit, but then I started receiving asks that weren’t really asks, but “I need advice” and “I need support”. 

And I started answering life questions, and realized people LIKED my responses, liked my little personal anecdotes in each of my replies, and felt comforted by it. So, after S4 aired, I became an eclectic mix of life advice, meta, fics, music and TJLC / tinhatting blog. I have a “no judgement” approach to my blogging, and I think that’s why I’m still gaining a steady dozen or so followers every couple weeks, rather than losing. The only time I took a big hit was the Tumblr Feedpocalypse, where they fucked up the algorithm and I’m not getting nearly as many hits on my posts as I used to, but that could also be because we lost so many people to S4, especially after Jan 1, 2018 when people were hoping for another episode.

I personally don’t think I’m popular, but I suppose I am by Tumblr standards. I dunno, I think we all have that “starry eyed” view of popular bloggers, and I just can’t picture myself as someone anyone would fawn over. I’m just me, and you can take it or leave it.

I think where I’m at now and what I’m known for is a good place to be, to be honest, despite how S4 turned out. I’m not certain, but I FEEL like I have a positive reputation here, but don’t quote me. I know I have people in this fandom who hate me, and quite frankly it saddens me that they feel they need to expel energy on me that way when they deserve to just be happy and forget about me. 

ANYWAY, sorry that got long and rambly, but it’s something I’ve wanted to talk about for awhile, but I was waiting for the prompt to come because *shrugs* I dunno, self esteem thing, makes me think no one REALLY cares until someone actually asks, hah.

And if you made it all the way to the end here, Love ya Nonny, and thank you for asking and thank you for being a follower of my blog

#steph replies #about me #fandom life #steph's storytime #fandom history #Anonymous #long post #my blog