#it's what everyone (incl the fictional characters) need

[floralkittygambler]

Based on the new signed work for hazbin

looks like shitty h/skerd/st may end up canon, even though once again husk looks uncomfortable and pissed off by angel, but you cant literally criticise angel without the whole fucking fandom and even staff get pissy with you. accept that not everyones gonna love him, and folks like me whove been victims to these sorts *really* dont fucking like him (to be clear, his predatory nature of not accepting husk saying no but magically accepting other's no, incl alastors. also he tried to force a kiss from husk, similar to how his boss does to him so theres no fucking excuses. its disgusting and male victims of sex crimes are fucking valid, so stop excusing angels actions. he didnt deserve to be a victim but hes not doing favours by making a victim out of husk. its clear harassment. not cute or tsundere either, vile fujoshis-). but most relate or love angel so validate this shit, much like viv and her staff and vas. revolting. he also gives sw a bad name when hes fucking harassing folks bc sw isnt like that - you dont just harass someone. nor is sex your entire identity.

ugh fed up man. im starting to enjoy this fandom so little yet the few characters i am attached to keep me around. hell ive said before ive been around husk like people and they often really dislike angel types, whereas angel types adore them rather shallowly tbh. yeah but honestly this fandom and the clowns running it will find an excuse for angel and avoid those actually affected as always. big surprise...

husk physically resembles angels brother, dad and client, and is similar to the first two. its this toxic bond of angel wanting that love he never got from them. basic science. plus both addicts and one being older than his fuckin dad means realistically it wouldnt work. love does not cure everything nor should be pushed to. ones uncomfortably forced into it, and his bonding moments makes husk ooc because hes portrayed totally different to how he would be. again, experience. overall we get enough of this toxic, forced shit in media. just stop.

angel needs to sort his own shit before being with a guy. and then he needs to be with a guy on his level, around his age and mentality whos in a healthy spot. someone similar to him. hell a male cherri bomb would suit. as for husk, he needs a lot more work thatll take far longer. he needs to love himself and work through his own shit and be like that for awhile first. seen it first hand kill so

before anyone goes 'its fiction' yeah? well then explain how shit like many toxic ideals in romcoms or hell, how male victims of sex crimes are treated as a fucking joke still when its not funny, or hey how about that the only chemistry is this bitter distaste and onesidedness thats shallow af. or how shit like 'killing stalking' and whatnot are seen as cute romances by fans very similar to the point its this sorta dumb shit people romanticise, fantasize and normalise - young people. hell adults too esp immature ones.

its not healthy.

its really not.

and being on the receiving end makes you sick to your stomach and paranoid on others intentions for you.

every glance or touch is an attack. every remark, a hidden message. thats what we're left with.

as for the blokes, they get the extra of being a 'joke' and not a 'real man', that they should 'enjoy' it.

fuck off

also to grow you need to accept not everyone will like or love you. angel irl and in fiction seems mostly adored whether its shallow or not. making a character that dislikes him be his lover is a shit cop out and bad writing just like helluva. we get it, he hates rejection. dont we all. but no one grows without it. hell angel wold benefit from a guy telling him no and sticking to that for him to just accept.

because media shows that fandoms and celebs are now littered full of spoilt folks getting their own ways, seeing any critique or disinterest as 'hate' and being the most entitled buncha twats going. not everyones going to love you or care and that doesnt mean theyre a hater. if viv actually wants a likeable character with flaws to grow, she'd actually show angel's bad as not just him being a fucking victim as its just a mix of victim blaming and entitlement to get what he wants for being a victim when life aint fair. show him with traits more widely despicable thatll shock fans. actually show him accepting people not liking him and being ok rather than forcing himself on them until they do. fucking disgusting. though everyone thinks thats cute. bloody weird-

just like his creator, he wont grow and improve. theyve hired a fucking r'pe fetisher for gods sake. the whole viv and hired folks are a mess...

#spindlehorse critical #hazbin critical #hazbin hotel critical #vivziepop critical #toxic fanbase #toxic romance #toxic ships #stans and antis dni #anti huskerdust #been there it aint pleasant #i dont like angel dust #myself and those close to me have been victims of those personalities #its not funny its traumatic yet we're to feel grateful and lucky #toxic fandom #the way angel is defended makes me concerned over the mindset of the staff and fans #to be venomously defended from critique in such a way isnt healthy #god this fandom genuinely makes me ill...

[riceball1759]

Reading Tips from your Hyper Librarian

"So many books, so little time", right? If anyone understands this, it's us bibliophiles and librarians (and publishers) -especially someone like me! My interests are super varied and many times, I'll start reading a few chapters in a book that REALLY REALLY interests me...but then, I have that ADHD SHINY moment and the poor thing is forgotten. Seriously, this is a constant struggle. Being a librarian makes this even more important that I know what I'm recommending. And I do! I just can't get the focus to actually read them>< I'm part of a committee that is assigned reading every year for 3 months (give or take) and -you guessed it- I get that done. Why? It's got a deadline and I churn through them like nobody's business. It also helps that I didn't choose them and they aren't always what I normally like to read. It gives me an edge when helping certain patrons look for something I normally don't read. Not that I don't have an idea already -it's just more cemented than usual since I actually read that particular book. Though I kinda gave you one of my tips in this blurb, I'll rehash later!

A little more on my SHINY moments and then we'll get to my tips! Like I said before, SHINY really takes a toll sometimes on my goals, but it also helps. How? Situation: I hear all this buzz about this upcoming book (debut author/fresh voice/intriguing plotline/etc.). I either miraculously get an ARC or I'm waiting with bated breath, for the dang thing to get shipped to my library so that I can "steal" it for the weekend before it gets catalogued (I tell everyone I'm borrowing it, so don't judge me!). If all goes according to plan, I DEVOUR it within a day and come back exclaiming all the virtues of reading said book. I might even write a glowing review (if I had the capacity at the time). This has happened with a few books in the past years: Stay Gold, Wicked Fox & Vicious Spirits, Ember in the Ashes, Invisible Differences, and a few others, but I can't remember right now. Point: it's super hard for me to get the reading I want done, actually done.

AND NOW, for the star of our show: The Hyper Librarian's Reading Tips!

Please remember, these are things I remind myself of when I'm having a hard time getting through my TBR (the library-books-out-that-are-due TBR). Some lead into or are extensions of others, but being specific is necessary for me. You can adapt them to your needs or or just copy/paste them into your life :)

1) It's ok to DNF. So you gave this book the 'old college try' and just can't do it -it's becoming torturous and you're at risk of going into the dreaded slump... Just stop already and save yourself more grief. Another reason is that you're just not in the mood to finish, so don't. Why torture yourself (again -I seem to like using this word, but it's so accurate at times!) by seeing a book lying close by that you wish was anywhere but? Some of us (incl. moi) have a shelf on Goodreads just for those pesky things. Let's cut the drama and move on! I find it therapeutic as well as final.

2) You are your own censorship committee. We all have that verbal content line where ~once toed/crossed~ our tolerance, belief, comfort level, etc., is compromised to the point where there's no enjoyment because of that one or more 'tidbits' giving you grief. Sometimes, I'll scan several reviews before starting because I want to make sure I don't get any 'surprises'. Most times, I get to that proverbial part that has me slamming the book closed, never to be opened again (dramatic, yes, but sometimes very true!). {{Point}}: you are the only person keeping you from reading something you don't like!

3) Be picky! You are as unique as your fingerprint. Why wouldn't your reading habits follow? If you get a rec that is absolutely not your thing, say no (thank you). It's not fair to you if you're just going to trudge through it anyway for the sake of being polite to friends/family/librarians/coworkers/etc (publishers, I'm sorry). If you like vampires, werewolves, and all things paranormal (like me) don't despair of the current books coming out -look back to the '90s and '00s! Reading is one of the most personal things we experience in our lives. {{Please, for the sake of your sanity}}: read reviews, look for trigger warnings (if that applies to you), verify that historically under-represented voices are portrayed correctly (misinformation is our greatest threat). For example: I won't buy a book about LGBT+ characters without verifying the plot as authentic (i.e. all fluff and no real problems vs real problems with a happy ending). I need to know that the book about that Transgender girl is written by someone who is either also Transgender or very well-informed.

4) Own your reading preferences. Just own it. I read somewhere in a journal interview that the concept of "guilty pleasure" shouldn't exist. So you like SJM's ACOTAR and are all about that fan community life, but are afraid to talk about it even though it's basically a mainstream subculture now? {{Point}}: Stop feeling guilty for what makes you happy! If people judge, that's their problem. I read romance for stress relief and because I just happen to like happy endings. Seriously, people need to stop shaming romance readers and self-shame is a huge part! Don't shame yourself, "SHUN THE NON-BELIEVERS"! (Charlie the Unicorn, RIP in Youtube history)

5) It's ok to read more than one book at a time. If you're anything like me (the Attention Deficit part), you probably have up to 5 books going at the same time: that paperback at home, the ebook on your phone, audiobook in the car, hardcover in your office, etc. (I know that's not 5 -I ran out of ideas!). Point: it's only natural you're in the mood for something different at certain periods of the day, week, or whatever. They'll get finished eventually. Just spare a thought for the 1 or 2 that are a little extra "dusty" cuz that might mean you need to DNF...just a thought.

6) Book clubs are your friend! They can be your enemy, too; but here's what you do: choose one that reads almost everything you want to in a specific genre. I'm not talking the next bestseller (unless that's you). I'm talking genre-specific and something you researched before joining. Online or in-person, this is has the potential for changing your reading habits for the better because you'll actually want to interact and read the books! I decided to join a book club so I could finally talk about a niche genre that is one of my favorites: Christian fiction. No one around me reads this (anymore) and I have no one to talk to (regularly) and trade recs with, so I joined a Facebook group and it's really nice to chat about all these great books and authors I've recently read with others who do the same:)

7) Book journaling. Yes, you may have heard of these things. There are so many ways to journal about your reading: bullet journals, the blank ones where you can let loose your creativity, the ones like from Moleskin where you just fill in the pre-determined spaces (aka: reading log), lined journals for writing your heart out, themed reading planners and TBR journals... Just look it up, the interwebs has you covered. The key is to use them as a tool for expanding and enriching your enjoyment or education (nonfic). I don't journal for everything, but I do like to do it for the ones I know I'm going to review later or for general reflections as I read. I started doing it by chapters, but that doesn't cut it when something jumps out at me from a random page and I NEED to write about it immediately. So, I make note of the page # and we good! I'm very personal in my writing (if you can't tell) and it can turn into tangents, but that's how I roll. I don't do that artsy stuff because that takes away from the reason I'm doing this in the first place. I write about anything regarding my reading -incl my reading slumps. I love it.

Wishing you Happy Reading! Thank you for reading:)

#reading #reading tips #books #reading is life #booksarelife #happy reading #reading problems #reading slump #book journal #booklr #reading blog #book blog #book club #reading advice #bookblr #adhd

[phantomato]

I saw someone in the Harry Potter subreddit ask why everyone talked/joked about the same things all the time (e.g. why Fred and George didn't see Pettigrew on the map, why Voldemort didn't just stab Harry, etc.) and someone pointed out that the series is old, and so many things have been explored already. Do you think this is the same case for HP fan fiction? Or do you feel like there are still so many untapped areas and ideas for future stories?

Goodness, this is a great question. It hits all my favorite topics, so buckle up as we go on this ride together.

So, I think that there is a ton of untapped potential in the HP fandom, and I think we are unlikely to see it become well-explored.

There’s a post that goes around tumblr occasionally, and I’m going to badly paraphrase it: a reader of fic mentions that authors are often self-conscious about putting out the same story again and again, but the poster argues that they love this, because they want to read the same story again and again. It’s got tens of thousands of notes by now, I’m sure. People come to fic to spend more time with characters they already know and love, to revisit worlds that are already familiar, and to get the id-fulfilling tropes that they want without having to slog through buildup. And don’t cry to me about the popularity of slow-burns—that’s not the buildup I mean. Fanfic saves you from having to invest in new ideas.

And there comes our tension. If people come to fic largely to find stories that are easy to enjoy (for their definition of enjoy, incl. angsty or whumpy content, ‘hurt me so good,’ etc.), then ‘untapped potential’ asks them to put aside that goal. It’s contradictory to why many are in fandom.

I think that the subtext of that redditor’s argument is very valid: the low- and medium-hanging fruit has largely been picked. On a personal note, I see this regularly when posts about Tom Riddle/Voldemort come up and someone realizes, all over again, that his portrayal in canon is inconsistent, his history suggests motivations other than mindless purism for his power quest, he was maltreated by Dumbledore, etc. It’s a common urge, upon realizing this stuff for the first time, to want to talk about it—it is not as common an urge to look around for past conversations on the same topic. This is a feature of human nature and will not end anytime soon.

But I’m not really interested in the starting point for someone’s entry into HP fandom, because I think almost every one of us starts on well-trodden ground, and I find no fault in that. I’m interested in where people go from there.

There are well-worn paths. Slashers might begin at Wolfstar or Drarry or Snarry and, if they decide to move outwards, likely end up in Snupin or Tomarry. A few will get into rarer pairings, maybe Harry/Male Weasley, or Draco/Snape, what-have-you, but it’s likely that a very large portion of this group never goes more than one step from that entry pairing, i.e. they end up on ships that feature Harry, Draco, Snape, Remus, or Sirius. There’s equivalent ideas for the het shippers, except with more Hermione in the mix. (Idk what gen people do. What is popular gen fic? I strictly enjoy unpopular gen fic. And femslash just isn’t popular in this fandom, sad to say.)

But the HP fandom is so goddamn big that even ships like Tomarry or Snupin have thousands of fics. They are big enough to be their own fandom. “Rare” Harry pairings might have anywhere from high hundreds to thousands of fics, again, fandom-sized in their own right. “Rare” pairings of secondary characters from the main series era often also have hundreds of fics. Not all of this work is a thorough investigation of the ship, plenty are background pairings, but it’s not unexplored. To get to unexplored, in this fandom, you need to go deeper. You need to look outside of Harry’s era, even outside of the Marauders.

There’s so much room to play out here. It’s where I’ve made my home, in the in-between decades. The issue with this is that you’re more reliant on characters who have few biographical details in canon, whose life stories are completely unknown, and so you’re making it all up. When I publish a new Nottmort, I am asking a reader to (a) recall who the fuck Nott Sr. even is, and (b) put in the effort to learn my version of him, since there is no external guide for the character. Even a nearly-nothing character like Blaise Zabini has more to ground him in the public imagination, between the context of his age and the fanon surrounding him. If an author wants to do Nott Sr., Antonin Dolohov, Griselda Marchbanks, or Amelia Bones, they’re asking audiences to invest much more of their attention. That is a huge ask, given everything I said above about readers’ goals within fandom.

So we have plenty of room for new stories, but the barrier to entry for either a reader or an author is extremely high. Occasionally, something breaks through: maybe a group of authors all take on a character or rare ship around the same time (see: Flintwood c. 2016) and catapult it to attention. Maybe this works well enough that it becomes self-sustaining (see: Snape/Riddle), though likely not; likely, it will die out if those authors leave (see: Snape/Black). Concerted effort to build community and generate new content can prop up a ship (see: Tomione smutfest), but only so long as it’s well-supported; community efforts without enough buy-in tend not to generate interest (see: Voldiefest).

This leaves us with truly, brilliantly novel ideas languishing in obscurity because the only people who find them to read them are people who were already invested in that author’s work or who were invested in the small fest that generated the content. And authors don’t make a name for themselves by writing this sort of thing—the only reason to forge ahead with it is because you enjoy the writing of it that much. I do wildly well for an author who invented and is the only writer for my main pairing, and ‘wildly well’ means that I hit between 10 and 20 kudos on a fic featuring only them… most of the time. Sometimes, I don’t even reach 10 kudos in the first week. It takes a huge amount of resilience to keep going in the HP fandom with so little feedback/such a small community for my writing, given that I know I could be writing for a bigger ship and engaging with so many more people.

And it’s not as though it’s easy for readers who actively seek this out, either. Finding rare content takes work, because there often aren’t codified tropes with AO3 tags to help you sort. How would anyone know to search for my Andromeda/Hooch fic, given there’s only one of that pairing on the site? A reader can put in the work and turn up nothing but prompt-fill drabble collections, which is dispiriting. It is easier to return to the big ships and just be picky about the quality/themes of what you read.

Novelty is largely unrewarded. Sometimes, something new breaks through to the mainstream. That process is not fully predictable, however; an author can’t engineer it and guarantee success. It helps for the author to already have a large reader base, which, again, one will not accrue if ‘new ground’ is their primary writing interest. And very few people actually click through a reader’s recommendation post for a fic with a ship they’ve never heard of or featuring characters they don’t know.

It would take a radical shift of the HP fandom community to begin to prioritize the untapped potential in our series over established ideas, and that shift goes contrary to human nature and the goals of most people engaging in fandom, so I highly doubt anything will ever change. However, over time, small numbers of fics for new pairings, new ideas, new themes will be written, and we can do our best to value those as they appear, to promote them, to prompt for them in fests, to write them as they occur to us, and to generally preserve some tiny space for novelty. That will require effort, and a willingness to read and write outside of our main preferences.

#ask #fandom #fandom meta #harry potter meta

[toujourspur13]

What’s so interesting about Sirius Black... apart from the obvious?

Well…I feel obliged to jump into this discussion about Sirius and his family.

I actually think that canon Sirius Black is a good example of multidimensional character with a complex personality (rare thing in hp series)…at least the way JKR wrote him implies some psychological depth (hp is mainly teen literature about friendship - the marauders friendship, the golden trio are all great examples of it - but let’s face it - this literature has a tendency to a very specific narrative - maybe that’s the reason for popular Sirius fanon - I mean…Sirius being part of the Harry’s story is seen through the lens of Harry’s problems). The thing is that usually Sirius is greatly simplified when, in fact, he’s one of the most interesting and complex character in the whole series.

OOTP is the longest hp book - it contains huge amount of text about Sirius’s family incl. RAB who’s indeed very important to the story; and it also contains excessive amount of Walburga Black content. Why excessive? Well because she is not even important to the plot…I mean, at all. Harry (and the whole 7-books journey is Harry’s POV) doesn’t even care about her. But she is important. To Sirius. To the extent that he can barely shut up about her.

And as Sirius’s important to Harry we got all those extra pages about The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

When he’s showing Harry the family tree, he keeps going back to her - she did this and she did that, she removed him, she removed Andromeda, Uncle Alphard…

I saw how he managed to squeeze her in one passage in two different contexts. She’s clearly weighing heavily on his mind. Grunted, he is very angry about everything she did - but can you really disagree that he is super fixated on her.  Frankly speaking, you could’ve expected that he’d be talking so much about James (in Flitwick’s words ‘You’d have thought Black and Potter were brothers’) - but in fact he doesn’t talk a lot about James - it’s his family he seems unable to shut up about. Cross out all his rant and the book becomes significantly shorter. Sirius shows Harry all of his relatives because he wants to.

Remember Araminta Meliflua…his mother’s second cousin?! Is it of any interest to Harry - I doubt it. Harry’s more interested in the Malfoys at the tapestry - but then again Sirius pays little attention to them - and only answers the direct questions. The only one about who he truly doesn’t want to talk in that scene is Bellatrix.

Btw if I remember correctly, he’s even distantly related to the Potters…but for some reason he chose to ignore this. So let’s just say that his thoughts in that scene are clearly one-sided and family-centered.

Even in POA Sirius is mirrored to his mother (we can only understand this after reading the 5th book though) - Sirius slashes the Fat Lady portrait when she refuses him the entry to the Gryffindor Tower - Walburga burns holes in the family tree. Angry management is what they both clearly need. They are so extremely alike that I am almost sure it’s all deliberate and JKR used her as a way to show deeper levels of Sirius’s personality (and not the abusive nature of his childhood).  Loud, high-strung, passionate and very emotional.

Sirius says that he ‘hated the whole lot of them’ and that’s why he ran away and instead of saying something like ‘I got so fed up with my parents lecturing me how I should avoid mudbloods at all the cost/ hate them/ whatever fits the profile of pure-blood maniac’ he says in the next sentence that he was constantly reminded that Regulus was a better son. This is a very jealous remark. It’s pretty obvious that what he wanted is unconditional love - ‘either you take me with all my extreme political views or I’m gone’. The things Sirius says are often contradictory and half-truths and sometimes he just chooses to withdraw certain information at all.

I sometimes come across the strange ideas that JKR tried to parallel Harry’s life with the Dursleys to Sirius’s childhood - I mean, do we really need to go there? You’d be better off trying to parallel him to Big D rather than to Harry. It’s fairly obvious that the odd ideas about Sirius’s abusive childhood are used for the sole purpose of helping him to bond with Remus (in terms of being subjected to physical pain) where he wouldn’t be able to relate to James (you know what popular phenomenon I mean).

Another popular idea - that the 1st year fiasco with Sirius’s Sorting was a big deal. I admit we have very little info about this BUT the fact that he put Gryffindor banners and pictures of  bikini-clad Muggle girls into his room makes me think that the parents were clearly disturbed and disappointed but not to the extent that it became something crucial in their relationship. Clearly Sirius used that as a means to annoy them. To tell you the truth, I find this attempt to go against fanatical blood purists quite feeble and certainly below Sirius Black’s level - it feels more like «hey, mum, look I stick posters of barely-clothed girls on the wall in my room - let’s see what you can do about this».

Btw the interesting thing is that it somehow feels that Sirius’s relationship with his mother (unlike the ones with his father or brother) was the relationship of equals which is odd because she was older and his mother. The explanation for this can be that they were very much alike and she in fact allowed it…maybe (well here I agree that it’s vague and can be just because it’s only the portrait and not the real person but still there is something about this).  And they have this you-hurt-me-now-I’ll-hurt-you-back attitude that implies equality and a certain degree of exclusivity. They both very clearly are not careful with words and actions.

And thus we’ve come to the very touchy subject - her psychotic portrait - her little ‘welcome home’ present. I grant her that - very impressive and colorful vocabulary.

She definitely wanted to be sure that in case Sirius had come home he would never have a moment free from her. Very dramatic.

“Yoooou!” she howled, her eyes popping at the sight of the man.

“Blood traitor, abomination, shame of my flesh!”

“I said — shut — UP!” roared the man, and with a stupendous effort he and Lupin managed to force the curtains closed again.

They match each other really well. (All the drama aside, if we consider this matter seriously - it’s just a portrait of hers and she was insane and alone for years after she lost everyone. But yeah - pretty nasty thing to do - I agree).

Frankly speaking, her personality isn’t really that significant in this case - it’s more important how Sirius feels about her, the way he can’t let her go. He’s relatively okay in the 4th book while on the run in the cave eating rats and arguing about Crouch, Bertha Jorkins, Karkaroff, Snape etc. But his severe depression in the OOTP clearly has everything to do that he’s locked up in ‘the house of a dying person’ (the very last one from their family) - like in the case of his mother’s true personality we’ll never know for sure what’s that about - Sirius’s real feelings are impossible to decipher - he says one thing - does another - feels maybe something completely different - for all I know, it could be about plenty of things one of which is that seeing her awful portrait, sitting in the rooms where they used to be together is a constant reminder that his family is gone and no matter what he feels and wants, he can’t fix anything about that - it’s all lost for good.

Of course, Sirius wouldn’t like to be there - a man of action trapped in his own past without any hope to ever overcome his unresolved issues with his family. The way he’s fixated on his mother is so intense that it’s almost unhealthy but I guess it’s just the visible (most explicit) tip of the iceberg.

Sirius with his hidden and repressed feelings is a great and very interesting character - he’s so much bigger than just James Potter’s best mate with a cool leather jacket. His relationships with his family is what makes him such a deep character (and not those ideas about how fluffy little angle was magically born in the family of twisted and deranged warlocks - well, it’s a little bit naive). After all it’s an internal conflict that sells the character.

Upd 2020

I think it is worth mentioning that since we’re discussing fictional world and fictional characters it only makes sence what the author implied and what the author did not. Yes, there is no absolute truth because it is all not real but the way character is written usually allows us to make certain assumtions about his or her inner world and motivation. So called ‘canonical evidence’ only matter in terms of what the author wanted to show us. I’ve never had any problems with fanon and headcanon - the only thing that bothers me is saying some things were in the main text when it is explicitly implied that there was nothing of that sort.

#araminta meliflua #sirius black #harry potter #the noble and most ancient house of black #harry potter meta #walburga black #regulus black #hp #sirius black meta #moony wormtail padfoot and prongs #the marauders #black family #hp fanart

[beingmyownhxro]

tagged by: @alexdanvers-rp​, thank you! ^-^ tagging: @leadershiipskills​ / @fossilis​​, @marsdin​, @i-am-diana-of-themyscira​, @emblemofxfeminism​, and anyone else who wants to~ RULES:  answer the questions & tag some blogs you wanna get to know better !

A  -  AGE:  22 B  -  BIRTHPLACE:   US C  -  CURRENT TIME:  1:04am D  -  DRINK YOU HAD LAST:  pepsi E  -  EASIEST PERSON ( OR PEOPLE ) TO TALK TO:  offline i don’t really have a “can tell them anything” person at this time. online there are and ofc here’s where i get super duper shy since they’ll actually see this. but I have a really easy time talking to ashleigh, elysian, ren, sam, robin, and val. i really love this rp community everyone is so nice ; w; F  -  FAVORITE SONG:  i’m having trouble deciding, but i think i’m gonna go with demi lovato’s “let it go.” (the other contenders are idina menzel’s “let it go” and “libérée, délivrée” [movie version] by anaïs delva YES THAT’S LET IT GO IN FRENCH DON’T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT) G  -  GROSSEST MEMORY:  it’s really fricking gross so i’m gonna put it under a cut at the end to save those of you who understandably do not want to see it. it’s from when i was working in the care field and involves a lot of feces. H  -  HORROR YES OR HORROR NO:  horror no. I  -    IN LOVE?:  does my crush on katie mcgrath count lol J  -  JEALOUS OF PEOPLE:  occasionally i get a little bit jealous of my sister, who’s always gotten really spoiled since she’s the baby. sometimes she gets jealous of me too since i’ve always been given more independence, so it’s just normal sibling stuff. K  -  KILLED SOMEONE:  do bugs count L  -  LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT OR SHOULD I WALK BACK BY AGAIN?: i think you can get a crush on someone right away, but i don’t think it’s LOVE when you know nothing about them. M  -  MIDDLE NAME:  rose N  -  NUMBER OF SIBLINGS:  1 O  -  ONE WISH:  i really really really wanna be a good therapist. P  -  PERSON YOU CALLED LAST:  my mom Q  -  QUESTION YOU’RE ALWAYS ASKED:  it’s not exactly one consistent question, but people regularly mistake me for 14. like when i ask about jobs in person and the person tells me i need to be at least 16 to work there. or when i saw atomic blonde yesterday (r-rated so 17+) and the ticket cashier looked skeptically at my ID for like a solid minute searching for signs that it was fake. and i say 14 specifically because i’ve been told multiple times “you look like you’re 14″ or had my coworkers asked “is she old enough to work here she looks 14.” R  -  REASON TO SMILE:  lena and my awesome threads and friends on here. :> S  -  SONG YOU SANG LAST:  “happy” by marina and the diamonds T  -  TOP 3 FICTIONAL CHARACTERS:  elsa from frozen, lena luthor, and maria torres from trama team U  -  UNDERWEAR COLOR:  ummm white with pandas on it V  -  VACATION:  my trip there was a research project more than a vacation (though i still got to do tons of fun stuff), so i hope someday i can go back to japan as a proper vacation. and i wanna go to disney world sometime. definitely disney world. W -  WHEN’S YOUR BIRTHDAY:  december 17 X  -  XRAYS:  i got a ct scan a few years ago as they were trying to figure out what was causing the sudden horrid pain in my side/back. that was “fun.” it wasn’t anything serious though. (though i had 3 separate men ask me if i was sure it wasn’t period cramps like jfc) Y  -  YOUR FAVORITE FOOD:  it’s a family recipe so nobody’s gonna know what i’m talking about lol. i guess the closest thing to it would be lasagna. it’s made in a casserole dish, and the top layer is ground beef mixed with tomato sauce, then cream cheese + sour cream + cottage cheese + green onion mixed, then egg noodles on the bottom, put in the oven for an hour at 350 F. but we almost never have it because there are so many steps and it makes so many dishes to wash. Z  -  ZODIAC SIGN:  sagittarius

okay my grossest story under the cut, as promised. you’ve been warned.

so this was at my old job, like i said. it involves one of the residents, who was occasionally incontinent (both types -- but it normally wasn’t an issue as she wore adult diapers) to begin with, getting a stomach bug and having diarrhea. she was also blind, so while she was mobile, she wasn’t able to see to clean things up. and her developmental disability was such that she didn’t have a very clear understanding of a lot of things. so you can already guess how fun this day was.

it started off with me doing all her laundry and cleaning the carpet of her bedroom. which wasn’t that bad. but then my coworker, who didn’t clean a single thing in that entire time, decided that this woman really needed to take a bath.           now, quick context. this woman, as i said, was incontinent sometimes to begin with. there had been an incident a couple of weeks ago where as she was taking a bath -- which she can do unassisted except for washing her hair (which she could probably do except she won’t, but she lets us) -- she had a bowel accident during her bath. and proceeded to continue with the bath as though nothing had happened. that wasn’t during one of my shifts so i don’t know why, but yeah, so that happened.          i told my coworker that it was a bad idea -- i thought we were going to have an even more horrid repeat of that incident. she said that no, the woman needed a bath, and i said, more emphatically, “if she tries to take a bath, she’s probably going to have an accident.” the woman tended to take long baths and on this day was having diarrhea bowel movements pretty often. my coworker insisted it would be fine and the woman really needed a bath. now the thing is, someone like my coworker or i could easily get out of the bath and to the toilet if that were us. but it was hard for the woman to get in and out of the tub and to find the toilet to begin with, and add to that the other factors......

sure enough, some time later i hear the woman calling for me from the bathroom. now, thank god she didn’t have an accident while she was in the tub, but she had one as soon as she got out. she felt super bad about it but obviously it wasn’t like she could help it. she said she needed help to get out of the bathroom because she didn’t want to step in it. so i helped her out and to her room and to get dressed, gave her some water, and she went back to sleep. the bathroom was shared with another woman, so i let that woman know that i needed to clean the bathroom and it might take a while so if she needed to use the bathroom she should use the other one. with that, i grabbed a roll of paper towel and cleaning supplies (incl rubber gloves obviously, and a trash bag) and went to see the extent of the damage and get cleaning. to be clear, my coworker did not help me at all. or even offer to help. or even bring me more paper towel when i asked mid-cleaning.

IT WAS HORRIBLE. the next paragraph will continue with the story, so stop reading this paragraph if you don’t want the details. for starters, it was more yellow than brown. actually it was roughly the color of puke. i have somewhat of a phobia of puke, so that was super fun. it was also liquid. i mean LIQUID. it clearly had fallen where she had been standing and splattered into an enormous puddle. virtually the entire surface of the floor was covered. it was on the cupboard under the sink. it was on the bathtub. it was on the wall. it was on the toilet paper. it was on the toilet seat. utterly nightmarish.

but the cleaning needed to be done. i put on some music from my phone -- normally my coworker plays her stuff on the radio and i don’t play my own stuff, but i was like, y’know what i’m cleaning this up by myself she can deal with my demi lovato playlist -- didn’t breathe through my nose, and tried not to think about it too much. i just held on to the fact that i was doing this to help the residents who depended on me and the other staff to take care of them, and hey at least it wasn’t vomit.

i’m a fast worker, especially at cleaning. it took me two hours.

bonus points that the other residents kept like asking me stuff and trying to talk to me while i was doing that cleaning??? which is fine normally -- they’re the first priority, so if i’m doing the dishes or something else that can wait, i didn’t mind pausing to talk to them; some of them have trouble understanding that if we’re in the middle of something and can’t talk at that time, we’re not ignoring them, so i tried to make the time when i could. but uh, this was a special set of circumstances. now you’d think my coworker could’ve handled those things, but no, she was busy playing candy crush or something on her phone.

the real kicker is that after i got done, my coworker left early for no reason (not for the first time) and had left everything from dinner on the table and counters, and told me like 5 other things that needed to be done by the end of my shift. i spent the time between then and my next shift trying to convince myself not to quit until i found a new job -- i’d already been looking for new jobs anyway. but guess what? my supervisor was there and chewed me out because my coworker told her that I made HER do all the work. because my coworker had to make dinner by herself. i hadn’t been going to tattle to our supervisor but since my coworker did that i flat out told my supervisor that she had made dinner alone because i was spending two hours cleaning up diarrhea in the bathroom by myself, and that every single bit of the diarrhea messes all shift i had cleaned up by myself with no help from my coworker.

my supervisor didn’t care and continued to scold me. i handed in my two weeks’ notice the next day. that was too much.

yes, i’m still hella pissed about that.

#about the mun