#I’ve been worked to the fucking bone and it’s literally day 1 of my internship

[southislandwren]

Once again have like 4 posts in my head so here they are all in one massive post. My boss is 100% taking advantage of me but it’s okay because I’m learning a lot and hanging out a bunch and also she’s cute. My legs are scratched up and I have scabs on both knees. I love playing like a kid again. These kids are feral tho I had to stop the 6yo from throwing a lawn chair at the 8yo. My aunt is gonna start paying me to watch my cousins and I feel like I’m gonna take all her money lmao since whenever I’m home I’m hanging out with them. I’ve met 4 cows so far and I’m trying really hard to remember their names and also boss said I was good at shoveling curds during cheesemaking today.

#I’ve been worked to the fucking bone and it’s literally day 1 of my internship #but BOY I’m having fun and learning a lot #my advisors gonna get a real earful in august when I tell him every single detail of my summer #also bonus post: the non-out transmasc in a male dominated field ‘us women can do whatever these men can do and we’re better at it too’ #I am not included in that but thank u. did the mullet and the general vibes not tip you off. but thanks #also an old guy said good girl to me when I carried a folding table by myself. for one. thanks for praising me I love praise. #2. that’s fucking creepy as hell we met 2 minutes ago #anyway good shit. I’m tired and I haven’t eaten much and I barely listened to my tunes today but I think it’ll be a good summer #diary post

[stillness-in-green]

When MVA/MLA Arc gets animated, what will you be looking forward to the most? What (canon-compliant) additions and/or changed do you want or think Bones should make, if any?

There’s--a lot.  Does that surprise anyone?  There’s a lot.

o  I have been foaming at the mouth for voice actor announcements for almost a year now, particularly for Trumpet, Geten and RD.           Trumpet’s superpower is literally his voice!  I mean, nothing about that statement requires that voice be particularly entrancing, but it certainly seems like it should be, right??             Geten is a boku-type in the manga, but that was literally the only hint foreshadowing his pretty boy face through 21 solid chapters of Pure Feral Gremlin.  Everyone was shocked by Geten’s face reveal!  How do you maintain that surprise value with an actual voice actor in the mix?  Do you not even try?  Do you play up the disparity--in which direction?  I can’t wait to see what they do.           And Re-Destro!  Re-Destro requires so much range!  From his peppy, silly businessman persona, to the urbane commander, from the overeager yes-man to the raving zealot--who on earth do you get to believably cover all that ground?  I can’t even begin to guess, but I am living in anticipation of that article going up on ANN or the official Twitter sources.

o  I’m also much looking forward to getting official coloring on Trumpet and Geten.  Skeptic seems pretty straightforward--black, black, more black--and RD and Curious, we have color art for, but I wonder if Trumpet will also be all black clothes, to go with that dignified politician image of his, or if he’ll get some color to pep him up a little.  What color are those tinted shades of his?  His eyes?  The wicked-cool Sevens Loud?           I assume Geten is all wintery shades, but it’ll be great to confirm which ones.  I mean, we all assume he’s white-haired to better annoy Dabi with family parallels, but what if he turns out to be platinum blond?  And are his eyes blue?  Gray?  White?  What color is that awful parka?           Also, Re-Destro’s stress powers.  Having been writing them as black since at least August--Rorschach test blots are generally black, after all, and they’re the clear inspiration--I would much like it if the anime would have my back on this.  They made Destro’s mask a dark cinnamon brown, though, so I’m prepared to be unpleasantly surprised in this matter.

o  Predictable MLA adaptational choices aside, I’m also eager/anxious about how they’ll handle Spinner’s narration.  What I really hope is that they actually straight-up hand him ALL the narration duties--not just the stuff he dictates directly in the manga, but also e.g. the name and quirk explanation material that Present Mic normally gets, or the previews that are always handled by Deku.           The opening and closing sequences are another big structural thing, of course--based on the flashed snippets of Hawks and Endeavor in both our current and the previous OP, I’m expecting we’ll see at least a bit of something referencing the upcoming internship arc (which I expect to close out the season), but I hope the villains just walk away with the closing entirely.  I want my slice of life villainy ED, dangit.

o  Another thing I’m eager/anxious about would be Kotarou, and the Shimura flashback generally.  There’s a brittle edge of to Kotarou that I really love, and I hope he manages to keep it in the anime, despite the anime being generally not so great at moments that I would describe as “delicate.”  For example, I’d like it if he doesn’t get a super deep voice, and if they could manage to keep his pretty face, and capture how deeply bitter and tired he looks in the scene where he’s reading the letter Nana left him.           Also, I hope they keep the little montage bits and, crucially, the changes of clothes the family goes through.  We see Tenko in no less than five, possibly as many as seven, different T-shirts through the course of that flashback.  It seems like a small thing, but it’s one of the factors that makes me skeptical that AFO gave Tenko Decay, when so many days clearly go by between the opening with the man at the door and the tragic end.  It’d be nice not to see too much resurgence on that just because the anime can’t be bothered to come up with more than one outfit for the Shimuras.

I have enough issues with the anime’s usual adaptation choices that I’m trying not to get my hopes up too high on the actual content of the episodes.  The staff is diverting too much of its major talent to the movies (BAH) these days for me to expect the whole season to look all that great, and it’s never been particularly creative or daring outside of its climactic sakuga-heavy fight scenes anyway.  I’ve also long had a bone to pick with its scoring decisions, and am already eyeballing the climax of the RD/Shigaraki fight and imagining the minor-keyed terrifying dirge I fear the anime will play there, at the moment that Re-Destro (and, shortly afterward, Spinner) are supposed to be experiencing something akin to religious awakenings.           There’s also the issue of the violence and gore--judging by how the anime handled the scene where Shigaraki and Compress maim Overhaul, I have some severe reservations about how much blood they’ll be allowed to get away with, particularly in the scene where the League brutally decimates that CRC group and, of course, Shigaraki’s backstory.  I’m looking at MVA to serve as a preview for how all the same issues will be addressed in the War Arc.

That bit of pessimism aside, as to what I’m hoping they’ll add or change?  Well, off the top of my head.....

o  I would love to get a full episode devoted to the time the League spends fighting Machia.  Not that first tussle, but the six grueling weeks in the mountains.  There’s so much you could add there for character building and atmosphere that Hori didn’t so much as montage through.  Where was their food coming from?  How’d they pick out places to pitch camp?  How much access to news from outside did they have, and how frequently?  What were the circumstances in which Gigantomachia “told them himself” about his great sense of smell??  Stuff like that!             I don’t think we’re at all likely to get this--honestly, the series of late has had enough of a problem with trimming bits and pieces that I’m as worried about what they might cut as I am hyped about things they might add--but the one thing that gives me some hope is the training camp arc.  Specifically, the moment 1-A first gets to the Pussycats’ forest, they get jumped by earth golems, a fight that the manga off-panels entirely, but the anime spends a modest amount of time on, giving the kids a little bit of time to show off their moves and such.  I’d love to get something equivalent for the League.

o  On a similar note, I wouldn’t turn it down if they fleshed out some of those running street fights a bit.  One obvious thing comes to mind: there’s a weird jump in the manga between Skeptic and a horde of his golems being all but on top of Twice at the beginning of 233 and then that fight just--doesn’t happen.  There’s no mention of it at all.  I think the suggestion is that either Machia’s appearance or the tower going down interrupted it--Skeptic breaks off from his fight the same way Geten and Trumpet do theirs, shifting focus to protecting Re-Destro--but it’d be nice to see the anime touch on it.

o  It’d be nice to get a bit of expansion on the nature of the bullying Spinner endured.  We’re told he was, but was it limited to verbal?  Did he get beaten up a lot?  Was there an online element?  Deku’s our only other reference point for “bullied kid,” and whatever one might think about the story’s development of Bakugou’s mentality, it’s been made clear in retrospect that there was a lot more too that than just the matter of Deku’s quirklessness.  I’d love to know how Spinner’s bullying looked in comparison (not least because of some of the theories about Spinner and Deku needing to come to some kind of accord to free Shigaraki from AFO).

o  Make the Villa (both here and during the War Arc) look more realistic.  By which I mean, I know Horikoshi is capable of drawing interesting and lived-in interior spaces--he has an entire chapter dedicated to it in the 1-A dorm room contest, after all--but he normally doesn’t bother much with it.  At UA, it’s not too distracting, because we know good and well that that whole building is probably maintained by Cementoss anyway.  Ditto places like Tartarus (intentionally, dehumanizingly barren) or the League’s post-Kamino hideouts (abandoned homes and industrial spaces).  But the Villa?            For heaven’s sake, it’s called a mountain villa.  It has a clear reception desk on the ground floor; it’s obviously some sort of high-end hotel, if not an outright resort or rentable retreat lodge.  Speaking as someone who’s worked in one, places like that don’t look as fuckin’ bare as the rooms we see there always seem to.  For fanfic purposes, I’m happy to go on telling myself that e.g. the pool and the bar and the restaurant(s) and the gym are in the building Cementoss doesn’t tear in half, but it’d be nice if the anime could class the whole place up a little, maybe put some real furniture and decor in the rooms that are in use.  (Yes, I know this is a ridiculous nitpick.)

o  This is less a change and more a correction, but for fuck’s sake, BONES, give us white-haired Shigaraki.  The climax of Deika is a solid time for it, given that it’s obvious in the manga that Shigaraki’s hair gets paler in Deika--you can see it in the way Horikoshi inks it (which is to say, the way he stops inking it)!  I think if we ever get white-haired Shigaraki in the anime, a somewhat better time as far as narrative justification goes would be when Shigaraki gets out of the tube in the War Arc; you could easily justify it as a side-effect of the surgery.  Still, I’d rather see it here.  I want white-haired Shigaraki, gleaming and brilliant through the scattering ash in that crater, a veritable angel of sacred destruction.           Honestly, more than anything, the crater sequence is the one I hope I love.  It’s probably my favorite single moment in the entire manga, as Shigaraki wins over Re-Destro, Spinner and Gigantomachia in the same moment, and finally comes into his own.  If they can at least nail that, I’ll consider myself pretty satisfied.

#stillness-answers #my villain academia #meta liberation army #boku no hero academia #bnha #hopes and dreams

[serendipitous-magic]

Question Game - AKA Oversharing Hour

I was tagged by @the-angry-pixie​! And I’m a chronic oversharer, so this was fun. I’ll put most of it under a read more line because there’s a LOT.

1. Do you prefer writing with a black pen or blue pen? 

Black. Dunno why.

2. Would you prefer to live in the country or city? 

City city city city city city city city. I’m already going fucking batshit as it is, trapped in suburbia. I want to be able to actually do things, anything. Anything other than just being around the house and / or work. (And I felt like this before the pandemic started.) If you live in the city you can walk out your door and be somewhere else within like 5 minutes. A city park, a cafe, a train/subway, a local attraction, a museum, an artist’s booth, an outdoor market, etc. etc. 

Living in suburbia is like, well, to go literally anywhere you have to get into your car first and drive like 10 minutes minimum to get out of the neighborhood, and then if you want to go anywhere that’s not the grocery store you have to drive 20 minutes to get to another area of town, and then once you get there that’s the only place you can be without getting into your car again and getting a nice shot of anxiety from having to drive in traffic and have aggressive drivers roar up on your ass because you’re going 5mph above the speed limit and they want to be going 15mph above, and god help you if you have to merge, and oh by the way this is your only option to get around because public transit doesn’t really exist in any useful way in Big Suburbia, and nothing in within walking distance of your house except like 2 playgrounds and maybe one (1) gas station. (I hate it here lmao)

If I was trapped in the country I’d probably be chill with it for about a week, and enjoy the break, and the on day 8 I’d snap and go on a murdering spree out of stir-craziness.

3. If you could learn a new skill what would it be? 

I want to learn German and eventually be fluent in it. But since I’ve already started trying to learn and I don’t know if that counts, I’ll say cinematography. As in the actual working of the camera and lighting and all that. I can dream up some pretty striking images but actually getting the camera to do the settings needed to capture them is another story entirely.

4. Do you drink your tea/coffee with sugar? 

Nope. I drink coffee and tea both, and I don’t put any kind of sweetener in either of them. I used to put a shitton of sugar in my coffee and honey in my tea, and then I had some mild eating disorder struggles in college and I never got back in the habit of putting stuff in my hot drinks after that. It just tastes wrong now, after being used to plain black coffee.

5. What was your favourite book as a child? 

Either the Harry Potter series or The Hobbit. My grandma would take care of me a lot when I was really little because my parents both worked full time to support us, and every single time I was at her house she’d sit us down at the dining room table and read something to me. Not Junie B. Jones or anything, either, but real, big, thick books. I loved the shit out of Harry Potter and The Hobbit; I would request them repeatedly. We pretty much went back and forth; we’d read Harry Potter, and then The Hobbit, and then when a new Harry Potter book came out we’d read that, and then The Hobbit again, and so on and so forth.

6. Do you prefer baths or showers? 

Showers. I love baths, they’re magical, but ain’t nobody got time for that unless it’s a special occasion. I got too much shit to do to spend an hour lying in the bathtub.

7. If you could be a mythical creature, which one would it be? 

Vampire. Purely on the basis that if I was immortal maybe I’d finally have time to get my to-do list done and accomplish things. I’d miss the sunlight though.

8. Paper or electronic books? 

Paper. Here’s the thing, I really want to enjoy ebooks, but they just don’t hold my attention at all. Maybe I’m too conditioned by the internet to have a short attention span when I’m looking at a screen, idk.

9. What is your favourite item of clothing? 

I have a dark gray hoodie from the Seattle Aquarium from when I went on a road trip across America with my BFF a few years ago. It’s still my absolute favorite thing. I also enjoy my hiking boots a lot. (I wear them all the time, really they should just be called “everyday boots” haha)

10. Do you like your name or would you like to change it?

I like my name and I would also like to start going by something different. Probably just because I’m a restless soul and I feel the best (and least trapped) when I’m on the move or when things are changing. The second I get somewhere I want to be somewhere else. That’s just how I am. Gwen is a cool name (I’ve personally met maybe 3 people in my whole life with the same name, face-to-face), but there’s a lot attached to that nickname that I don’t necessarily want to carry with me when I eventually escape my hometown and start down a new path.

11. Who is a mentor to you? 

A friend and former professor whom I usually refer to online as Producer Man. He’s a producer (as you may have guessed) who kind of took me under his wing after I was in one of his film classes in college. We work together on film projects now and he’s teaching me bit-by-bit (usually by way of long, rambling, tangential stories / lectures) about the industry. He’s a really good guy. Like, he for sure has a case of Old White Guy sometimes, but his heart is absolutely in the right place. “He’s a little confused, but he’s got the spirit.” He’s always leaving $10 tips at coffee places and working himself to the bone to get his students connected to jobs and internships that will help them with their careers. 

12. Would you like to be famous and if so, what for? 

Yes, my stories. Actually, “famous” is not the right word. It’s just that fame is so tightly associated with success in our society. I want to be successful. Whether I’m widely known or not is pretty inconsequential to me. I want to make stories and I want them to have an impact. Books, film, etc. It’s about as simple as that.

13. Are you a restless sleeper? 

Oh yeah. I have trouble  sleeping as much as I should because I usually kind of jerk awake in the morning with this vague feeling that I forgot something or that I’m late for something. Also I stay up later than I should because I’m a night owl, and yet I like being up early because early mornings are great. And usually if I dream at all it’s something kind of stressful, like I dream that I forgot something important or did something wrong. I’m a Stressed Bean. 

14. Do you consider yourself a romantic person? 

I think so, yeah. I’m pretty obsessed with the idea of romance (I mean look at my OTPs), but heteronormativity got me fucked up enough that I’m bad at actually navigating real romantic feelings or relationships because society never prepared me for The Gay.

15. Which element best represents you? 

Fire, probably.

16. Who do you want to be closer to? 

My mom. We fight a lot and there tends to be a lot of tension between us. It’s a long complicated story. It boils down to, she really hurt me when I came out as not-straight at 15 and she lost all of my trust and even though she’s working on being less homophobic we’re still kind of trying to repair that divide seven years later.

17. Do you miss someone at the moment? 

Dude, I miss everyone. I’m an introvert and I’d love to be at a big party right now. I miss socialization. (As does everyone.) 

18. Tell us about an early childhood memory. 

The first time I experienced deja vu, I was about eehhh 6? And I legitimately believed, for several years of my life, that I had future-predicting abilities. Like, supernatural-level future-predicting abilities. Because I didn’t really know what deja vu was, so I thought, every time it happened, that I had already ~seen~ that moment in my dreams or something. 🤣

19. What is the strangest thing you have eaten? 

Hm. (My immature ass brain yells “DICK.” No, brain. Those were dark heteronormative times. Also, grow up.) 

Probably some of the sushi in Seattle. I actually love sushi, it’s just that when it has full-on legs and eyeballs I start getting a little squeamish. I like the rolls and the kind where there’s some fish meat laid out on a nice little bed of rice, that’s delicious. But when they brought out the whole shrimp with legs still attached, I was like “How in the (redacted) am I going to chew / swallow that.”

20. What are you most thankful for? 

That I happened to be living with family when this pandemic hit. I was supposed to move out (and across the country, actually) as of... like 4 days ago, as it happens. That was the plan. Plane ticket was gonna be booked for 7/15/20. Obviously, things didn’t quite work out that way, because of the pandemic and a few other reasons. But I can’t imagine if I had been in an apartment living with roommates, or in an apartment on my own struggling to get by, when this happened. A lot of people couldn’t pay rent and lost their homes. I was very, very lucky to be where I was, when I was, and very lucky that I have family who let me stay in their house pretty much indefinitely while this clusterfuck of a year happens.

21. Do you like spicy food? 

Yes! I looooove spicy thai food especially. I miss the massaman curry from a local Thai place so much 😭

22. Have you ever met someone famous? 

Um. Maybe? I met Veronica Roth once at an author talk in the library where I work, although it was before I worked there. And I met some guy from New Zealand who’s famous for his sword fighting skills because my dad does sword fighting stuff. Don’t remember his name though.

23. Do you keep a diary or journal? 

Yep. I have to write down everything or I forget. (I often say I have the memory of a goldfish.) Also, I have this compulsion to record and preserve my experiences in life, because I feel like our time on Earth is so fleeting and if I don’t write down what’s important to me, I’ll forget it and lose it.

24. Do you prefer to use a pen or a pencil? 

Pen. Pencil gets smudged.

25. What is your star sign? 

Scorpio, which is ironic because they’re supposed to be ~hyper sexual~ I guess, and I’m like gray-ace or something in that zone.

26. Do you like your cereal soggy or crunchy? 

Crunchy. Who eats soggy cereal? Are you okay? Do you need help? This is an intervention. 

27. What would you want your legacy to be? 

My stories. Life and sentience, as we experience it, is made up of just that: experience. And I read somewhere that, on some level, the human brain doesn’t differentiate that much between real life experiences and fictional experiences. I think that’s true. If you read or watch or hear the right story, it can really touch you and change the way you see life, or even change the way you live life. Stories have an incredible amount of power, both in individual people’s lives and in larger society. A huge amount of power. I want to be able to give people experiences that will Enrich Their Lives (do I sound like a lifestyle coach yet? 🤦🏼‍♀️), but also stories that actively do good in society. Positive representation, body positivity/neutrality, diversity, healthy relationships (Hollywood has a real problem with that). Hope. It’s the best thing I can think to give society, and storytelling is what I love to do.

28. Do you like reading, what was the last book you read? 

I love reading. I wish I did it more. Part of my problem is that I get caught up in the hectic Rat Race of modern society and I never feel like I have time to sit down with a book for hours. Another problem of mine is that I start too many things at once, meaning I currently have like 5-10 (I lost count) books that I started reading, and I want to finish all of them, which means no progress ever gets done on any of them.

I last finished The Goldfinch, and I am currently working on The Secret History, Good Omens, Dune, a book my dad wrote, Directing Actors, Shot by Shot, The Way of Kings and I forget what else.

29. How do you show someone you love them? 

Physical affection, acts of service, words of affirmation, quality time, and gifts, in that order. If I’m close to someone, whether romantically or not, I want all the affection. And I’m kind of dying in quarantine. 

30. Do you like ice in your drinks? 

Depends. I usually don’t put any in, because it’s just gonna water down the drink and get in the way of drinking it (you know when the ice attacks your face?), but I don’t really mind ice in my drinks.

31. What are you afraid of? 

Helplessness. I Have Control Issues. ✌️ Also stagnation.

32. What is your favourite scent? 

Amber. Or any scent that’s kind of autumn-y. You know what I mean. Some other examples include dryer sheets, wood smoke, cigarette smoke (my big sister used to smoke a long long time ago, and although I never saw her do it, I still associate the scent with her), pine resin, rain, that Mahogany Woods scent from Bath and Bodyworks.

33. Do you address older people by their name or surname? 

If they introduce themselves as Pam I call them Pam. If they introduce themselves as Mr. Brown I call them Mr. Brown.

34. If money was not a factor, how would you live your life? 

 If “money is not a factor” means I have an infinite amount of money to spend as I wish, then: buy land, build film studio complex on land, found company, hire fellow creatives, make movies.

If “money is not a factor” just means that I don’t have to work 40 hours a week to afford rent, then: move to Chicago, rent a nice studio apartment, write stories, maybe work 15 hours a week at a used bookstore or coffee shop to get me out of the house and socialize. Go to museums, go to the park, walk along Lake Michigan, go to gay bars, ride the train, brave the Illinois winters, own a cat, paint, play guitar. Build my actual career on writing / storytelling. Probably also do some filmmaking.

Alternatively: buy an RV (not like an American Trailer Park shitty RV, I’m talking the NOICE ones), buy good film equipment, be a freelancer, live in RV driving around to wherever the next filming location is. Life is a road trip and I’m doing what I love. Writing, storytelling, filmmaking. My home would travel with me. Writing in cafes; roadside attractions; early mornings on the road with coffee in the cup holder as the sun comes up; being able to go anywhere to film; always experiencing something new.

35. Do you prefer swimming in pools or the ocean? 

I’ve lived in a landlocked state my whole life, so I guess swimming pools. And, listen, I CANNOT get water in my mouth at the beach without wondering exactly how many kids have peed (or worse) in that water. (I know that’s a thing with pools too, but pools get cleaned.)

36. What would you do if you found £50 on the ground? 

Wonder what some poor European is doing in America right now. But if it was $50, I’d probably yell “DID ANYONE DROP THIS?” and then take it if no one speaks up.

37. Have you ever seen a shooting star? 

A few times, yeah.

38. What is the one thing you would want to teach your children? 

Grades are not the end-all-be-all. Skip some homework assignments to spend time with friends. Skip class sometimes. I’m serious. If you make school your top priority, even over your own personal life, you will come away with good grades and a lot of regret and missed opportunities. Learning is HELLA important, and very very little of it happens inside a school building. Get a 15 hour weekend or after-school job in high school, befriend your coworkers, and have fun with it. Use your paychecks however you want. Join a school club - one that you’re actually interested in. Do stupid shit. Light your textbooks on fire after graduation or go to the 24 hour Wendy’s at 2am with your friends or kiss that person you met at summer camp or sleep on the porch because it’s too hot to sleep inside. Be smart and safe, but follow your whims. If you let yourself fall into routine, apathy will poison you.

39. If you had to have a tattoo, what would it be and where would you get it? 

I already have a couple small ones, but the one I want next is a four-leaf clover. Don’t know where. Maybe my right inner wrist or maybe an ankle. Or like behind my ear. Luck has saved me so many times. (See above, with how I happened to be living with family when COVID hit.)

40. What can you hear now? 

Swamp cooler downstairs, the clock ticking in my office, cars outside, people moving around the house. I’m surprised the neighbor kids aren’t shrieking their absolute heads off as per the usual. 

41. Where do you feel the safest? 

When I’m alone and unobserved. 

42. What is the one thing you want to overcome/conquer? 

TMI warning, but I absolutely despise public bathrooms. How am I expected to pee when there’s somebody sitting like three (3) feet away, with only a partial wall between us, hearing everything that’s going on? My fight or flight response simply will not allow it. It’s too awkward and therefore Not Safe. Either that public restroom has to be empty except for me, or it has to be so loud and bustling that ain’t nobody hearing anything. Anything in-between and I’m in hell.

43. If you could travel back to any era, what would it be? 

The ‘80s. Let’s be honest, even that far back makes my life (as a woman, and as a gay person) hella difficult. But, consider this: it’s the ‘80s. Furthermore, consider this: a part-time job might have actually supported me and paid rent back then 😱 Holy fucking shit. Sign me up. I just wouldn’t want to go any further than than like 1980, because again: lesbian. Being a woman in the past = even harder than it is today, being gay in the past = even harder than it is today, being a gay woman in the past = oh no.

44. What is your most used emoji? 

In order of descending frequency:

😂🙄😊😁🤦🏼‍♀️👀😬🌈🤷🏼‍♀️😙

45. Describe yourself using one word. 

Creative

46. What do you regret the most?

Wasting my entire teenage experience. (See #38.) I did quite literally nothing with my life except homework for like 18 years. If I had taken even a tenth as much time for myself as I did for school, I would be so much farther along as a person today.

47. Last movie you saw? 

In the theaters? ........ uh. Shit, I don’t actually remember. It’s been like 5 months. (As it has for everyone.) But the last movie I watched was Lights Out, because I’ve been watching the director’s youtube channel. You could tell it was low-budget and that the director was still kind of finding his stride, but it had a lot of heart behind it and the creators clearly gave a fuck, which made it enjoyable. I am firmly in the camp of “not everything has to be a Magnum Opus or have a multi-billion dollar budget to be a good movie.” If I engaged with it and got some sort of emotional experience out of it, and if it had a good message, I consider it a good movie.

48. Last tv show you watched? 

I don’t usually watch a whole lot of TV shows (who has the time?) but I think the last thing I watched was either The Witcher or that new Unsolved Mysteries miniseries on Netflix. Oh and I was watching Dead to Me because I just love Linda Cardellini’s face and I want to wrap Judy up in a blanket and cuddle the shit out of her and protect her from all things 🥺 My precious beautiful unstable sweet murder baby.

49. Invent a word and it’s meaning. 

Apapanic. It’s where you’re so stressed about things that half of your brain is panicking but the other half is so overwhelmed that it circled all the way back around to being calm to the point of apathy, so you just kind of sit there like

#about me #tag game #except as usual i'm not gonna tag people because I don't have to social energy to ask people to do things #sorry i know that's kind of cheating #if you wanna overshare just say I tagged you lol #personal #tmi

[sharkfish]

ps i loved this one

(rereading bookmarks edition part 2)

(part 1)

i’ve been rereading stories from my bookmarks as a comfort thing. i’m getting real deep in there to stuff i haven’t (re)read for years, and damn do i have good taste. the ones i’ve read recently that you should, too:

(under the cut so i’m not that asshole that makes you scroll past an endless post)

Best Laid Plans by Persephoneshadow

Things are going well for Dean: he's landed the biggest design job of his architectural career and is about to get final approval on the project despite how difficult the development company, personified by Castiel Novak, has made it. It's not bad for a moody omega...except things are also going terribly for Dean because he has to get in a plane and fly to a meeting, and course ends up in heat a few hours before. Luckily, Castiel is there to help and both men discover the good that can come when nothing goes quite as intended.

i don’t know why i’m such a ho for stories where dean thinks cas hates him, but cas secretly adores him and is just a little “rusty” on his “people skills.” i’m also a ho for stories where dean is a gd skilled genius but his dumb ass still thinks his work sucks and/or anything good is due to other people instead of himself. and also, heat boning. 

Confessions of a Cam Boy by MsCaptainWinchester (rons_pigwidgeon)

Dean runs a cam show to pay his way through marketing school, but he's about to start an internship that he doesn't know will change his life. Watching Dean's show is Castiel's favorite way to wind down after a stressful day at Sandover Bridge & Iron. When Cas comes to work one day and finds his favorite cam boy setting coffee on his desk, he is completely thrown. Will Dean finish his internship without knowing his favorite viewer is his new boss, or will he be able to see through Cas' non-existent poker face and figure it out?

omg poor cas is soooo awkward and dean is weirded out about how much his new boss seems to dislike him and then it’s super sexy >:) 

For Science by shiphitsthefan

“Think of it like an experiment," says Dean. "You’re testing a hypothesis as to whether or not a desirable response can be achieved through the stimulation of the anus via the application of a willing volunteer’s muscular hydrostat.”

Cas raises an eyebrow. “Are you actually trying to use the scientific method to talk me into letting you lick my asshole?”

everyone is such adorable nerds in this one. it’s a fic about rimming, but it’s also about love and discovering yourself and acceptance. it explores cas’s realization through his connection with dean that he’s not straight up ace but more grey/demi - and that doesn’t mean he was “faking” being ace up until he met dean. 

Friends with Benefits with Tentacles by andimeantittosting (Saylee)

Dean's never been embarrassed about his porn collection before, but that was before he found Cas holding his prized copy of Sweet Princess Asuka and the Tentacles of Pleasure. Dean finds himself sweating bullets—because this is Cas, sweet, nerdy Cas. Cas, his friend. Cas, his roommate. Cas, his—only slightly out-of-control—crush.

Cas, with his big, blue eyes and muscular arms and perpetual sex hair.

Cas, with his tentacles.

The last thing he expects is for Cas to suggest they experiment together.

there are not enough tentacle fics out there and i 100000% approve of this addition to the tag. i love that dean is out there legitimately studying porn, and the tentacles are obviously super fun, and there were parts where my heart hurt so bad, all around a damn fine fic. 

Grown-Ups Making Grown-Up Choices by Carrieosity

Dean is a grown-ass man - he can take perfectly good care of himself, thank you very much. Except that sometimes the easier or more fun choices aren't always the right or best ones, and, all right, maybe thinking ahead and working the long game isn't his strongest suit. It's fine! He's fine.

When he meets Castiel, he realizes that flying by the seat of his pants may not be the best way to attract the super-serious (gorgeous, funny, genius) Alpha. Dean's shrink has been telling him he needs to start making "grown-up choices," and if that's what he has to think about in order to make Cas fall for him, then he'll give it a whirl.

i LOVE this fic (series). i feel so hard for dean feeling like he’s too old for his life to still be a mess, but i also felt sad for him that he thought he had to make all these hardcore changes - basically turn himself into a different person - to be worthy of cas’s attentions. i fucking adore cas in this, and i nearly cried just thinking about all the damn peppers they eat, and i want to read it again right now. 

If I Run by Anonymous

"Dean Winchester is a red-blooded American male. He lifts all the things. He aims for functional strength. He counts his macros and makes fun of curlbros. He is not a member of the Tarahumara tribe and he will not read Born to Run, no matter how many times Sam tells him to, because Starting Strength is the only book Dean will ever fucking need."

***

Wherein a friendly competition with the mysterious ThursdaysAngel turns into a sexy selfie-trading spree that motivates Dean Winchester to train for his first marathon.

i really really love this fic and reread it pretty often tbh. it only became “anonymous” pretty recently and i’m so curious about why!! regardless, this fic is a really great time!!! 

It's Always More Than Once (Before It Takes) by squeemonster

The first time it happens, it's because of boredom. Or, at least that's what Dean tells himself to justify it. Boredom and Dean Winchester are a dangerous combination, especially when you factor in beer, a raging libido, and laziness.

dean: my dudes, is it gay to do sexy stuff with your male bff? cuz i’m totally straight. but also, having sex with my male bff. 

I Wanna Get Outside (Of Me) by emwebb17

Dean is a novice in the dom/sub world asked by his employer as a desperate last resort to be a sub for his recluse of a brother, Castiel. Castiel is a diagnosed OCD suffering from PTSD and agoraphobia, mysophobia, and dystychiphobia. Needless to say—he’s a mess who hasn’t stepped out of his home in literally seven years. The only times Gabriel can see traces of the way his brother used to be is when he feels in control—specifically when he has control over a sub. However, due to his idiosyncrasies and paranoia, keeping a sub around has been impossible. Enter Dean, who’s not a very traditional submissive, to try his hand at subbing for the hermit.

you know how sometimes you read a fic, and it takes ages to get yourself out of that world? even though you’re finished, you’re still right there with him? this is one of those fics. i reread it a couple weeks ago and fell asleep thinking about it last night. i cry a lot reading this one. 

Living in Agony by ChasingRabbits

Dean Winchester's life is... well, it's not great. He's a gym teacher, he's in his thirties, and he can't seem to keep any part of his life straight. When the aftermath of a one-night stand goes awry, Dean is dragged kicking and screaming out of his cozy little closet and into the harsh light of reality.

Enter: Castiel Novak, the new history teacher, who knows full well that life gets crappy when you don't allow yourself to live it in the way it needs to be lived.

there aren’t a lot of stories that deal with themes of mental illness, and a lot of them read like an episode of degrassi where everything wraps up in 30min to never be discussed again. this story is honest in that there’s no easy out. there’s medication and therapy and supportive people, but that’s not always enough. it’s a story about how you don’t have to be mentally ill to be fucked up, and while people can’t fix each other, they can help each other. content note: references to a pre-story suicide attempt. 

Oddly Shaped Empty by jemariel

Dean grew up thinking -- knowing -- he'd be an alpha.

Until he failed to present. As a beta, he has no mating cycle, no noticeable pheromones, none of the physical markers that are so important in a world of alphas and omegas. He's out of place. How is he supposed to navigate his relationships and find love when he doesn't fit into the neatly-defined boxes he's used to?

By the time he meets his new roommate, Castiel, he's more or less given up on finding a mate. He wears his secondary gender like a chip on his shoulder. But you never know what the future holds, who will come into your life, and how they might change it forever.....

Queer themes, finding identity, reconciling the past, and a whole lot of smut.

y’all know @jemariel is a gd genius, but i’m particularly obsessed with their fics that use abo to explore queer identify & experiences. i hold my breath reading most of this fic and also cry. 

Steal my Breath by Sincestiel

“Tighter, Dean, please,” Cas urges throwing his head back to rest on Dean’s shoulder. Dean squeezes. He doesn’t know why Cas wants this or even what the appeal is, but he always comes harder when he’s struggling to breathe.

what’s on the tin. a quick lil breathplay fic that is thoroughly enjoyable. 

Unsolicited by Dangerousnotbroken

In which Dean Winchester gets an unsolicited dick pic from an unknown sender which is both totally not disappointing in that it's a really nice dick pic, and incredibly disappointing in that it's clearly a downloaded picture of his favorite porn star.

There's absolutely no way it's actually this porn star sending it to him, right?

Right?

this is a destiel classic and i feel like anyone who isn’t new here has probably read it. but here’s your reminder that this is a great fic and you should (re)read it. 

Wordplay by Dangerousnotbroken @dangerousnotbroken​

“I don’t understand why talking dirty is such a big deal for you humans,” Cas complains, apropos of nothing.

it’s a “cas learning about sex” and also dirty talk, which are both things i’m really into!! and DNB is a genius so that’s even better. 

if you enjoy these fics (and you should), please give the writer some love via kudos and/or comments. <3

ps - as always, if i didn’t tag the writer and you know their tumblr, please tag in the comments. i don’t think there’s a writer alive who wouldn’t be happy to be on a rec list. :)

#sharklist #sharkrecs

[sumastudies]

so, this is how it’s going (for me)

it’s currently day 20 of my self-isolation journey. my department in uni had us do one last day (friday the 13th) of normal classes because i had 2 labs and quizzes that, so we did those and then the isolation began. and now im losing my mind.

a little background: i got sick the week the government here came out with the announcement that uni is gonna be off for 3 weeks (now extended for the rest of the semester being online). that decision didn’t come out until thursday the 12th. the thing is, i usually dont get too sick? like, it’s pretty normal for me to start feeling sick, have a bit of a scratchy throat and maybe a headache, stuffy nose too, but my immune system always always manages to fight it off in a couple of days. so since it’s pretty rare for me to get sick enough to want to stay home. in the beginning of that week, i thought that was what was gonna happen too, but by wednesday, it seemed that yeah, im sick and my body is too tired to fight it off. see, i sort of didn’t consciously think about going to uni - it was a given that i had to. i had a lab midterm i HAD to do on tuesday, and then i couldnt afford to miss my classes for the rest of the week (for the sake of material and i didnt want to go over my nonattendance allowance), but then on thursday afternoon at like 2pm, after a full day of classes since 9am, i fell asleep in class out of pure exhaustion, and that’s when i knew that i absolutely HAD to stay home. imagine the frustration. if i’d stayed home that morning, or at least skipped 1 class, i’d have felt marginally better, at the least.

but i couldnt. my classes wouldnt end til 7.30 that evening, and i had the 2 labs and quizzes to prepare for and go to the next day from 9am-6pm - only then could i let my body rest.

so i got through both classes that day, and got back home so tired all i could do was lay in bed so tired i didnt even change out of my clothes, with guilt weighing down on me because i wasnt studying for the next day’s labs. by 12am, i was so frustrated and bone-achingly tired that i just gave up and texted a friend to ask the TAs in the morning lab if i could do anything to compensate what i’d miss if she didnt see me in the morning. then i took finally go to sleep with alarms for 6am that i would get up to if i heard in the morning to study. here’s when the sobbing starts out of nowhere.

in hindsight, i dont know if it was just a normal flu that my body couldnt fight off due to physical exhaustion, or if it was something else. (bear in mind, that was the week when only the first case of covid19 was reported here, so logically it couldnt have been but the paranoia was definitely there and definitely scary as hell)

fast foward to now: it’s been 2 weeks of online classes, and one more before that of netflix only, and im just about losing my mind. i came to stay over at my friends’ after only the first weekend and now idk if i wanna go back to my apartment alone or if it’s just because my mind is generally restless and i just wanna go back to be with my family. (that’s a whole other story tho)

even worse, i cant bring myself to focus on my classes, even though i wanted them to start so bad that first week i had to do absolutely nothing, for the sake of some structure. my uni plans to give some projects/homeworks to replace midterms at least, the fate of finals is still undecided, and labs might be done in the summer, and i cant get myself to study even for myself and my own growth. the way i’ve been wanting to since winter break in jan.

this unmotivation is killing me, and i know im not the only one feeling this way, i know that literally the whole world is in this situation and mindstate right now, but i feel like i want to explode. i cant help but blame myself and my own fucked up brain for not being productive and being good for myself, just like i always do.

i want to do more with my life with all the time that i have now, work towards my future career somehow. even the internship i was supposed to start planning for this summer is probably gonna be suspended or whatever.

i study both pharmacy and business admin, and i feel like it’s more accessible to try and do something with my business degree in some way, but my brain has never been trained to be of the entrepreneurial type.

im just. so sick of being in limbo like this.

i havent even been able to get myself to write (anything, of any sort) in MONTHS

i dont even know when i can get back home to my family, since no one’s accepting any incoming flights and im not even a permanent resident so. fuck all this shit.

#suma talks #suma rants #personal #long post #mine #im sorry this is so long i just needed to get it out somewhere

[youswiminmywater]

reflections on past jobs, for no particular reason

for the past few days, i’ve been trying to shake off a funk, a slump, one of those holes you can fall into if you’re the depressed type. where you spend entire days in bed, or crawl out at 2pm to eat a pile of leftover mashed potatoes between a mindless barrage of youtube videos or sudoku puzzles. just drowning yourself in distractions until you finally get fed up with it and start down that familiar path of Self-Care, which is probably a little different for everybody. for me, it involves leaving the house (which i’m convinced has some paranormal draining effect on my soul, or perhaps just dust, mold, cat pee, dandruff around the house intensifies my doldrums on a base physical level), going out to eat or sitting around in a coffee shop to read. reading is always my touchstone for “getting better,” like i’m flexing some intellectual muscles that i’d been neglecting for the past few weeks, or even months. i’ve said before that i’m a terrible english major, and have a lot of trouble starting books let alone finishing them, but i just think it’s a habit that needs developing, a habit that can replace the easier, mindless ones like scrolling through tumblr or playing through a game i’ve played through a thousand times. 

a friend of mine suggested the other day that reading is equally a waste of time as playing a video game, though, a comment that really kind of fucked me up and made me feel embarrassed for trying to use it to cheer myself up. i think i’ve come to a point now where i can disagree, heartily, with that comment. no video game inspires this much thought in myself, or makes me want to write. maybe it has to do with the TV screen itself. i’ve read that the blue light TVs have sort of a trance effect on you, like how the fluorescents at the supermarket make you want to browse around and lose focus, or how phone screens trick your brain into staying awake because it’s the same kind of light that comes from the sun. it does feel like a trap sometimes, an addiction. and some video games really do manipulate you to play them as much as possible, some are just designed that way. i’m not ashamed to say i’d throw video games out of my life entirely if i could, they never have made me feel better about myself. they’ve never inspired me. maybe i’ve just had some poor experiences with them, skipping homework to play games, staying up too late, getting angry at certain levels, forgetting to eat or go to the bathroom. they just command too much attention and force me to forget about myself entirely, don’t allow me to think about anything other than the game itself. the only real positive influence they’ve had on my life is that it’s something to do with other people if i can’t physically be with them. like virtual worlds to hang out in with your friends. even then, though, it’s more about spending time with people i care about in a setting that’s comfortable for me, not about the games themselves. ANYWAY that’s my argument for THAT

like i was saying, shaking off a funk. i was at this coffee shop today, maybe been there three or four times. i don’t really drink coffee, and coffee shops have never really been my scene, but they’re great places to just sit for a couple of hours to read and write, and nobody even bats an eye at you. can’t really do that at a sit down restaurant, it’s too easy to feel self-conscious, especially if there’s a waitress depending on flipping your table as efficiently as possible. 

but the point of this story is to talk about the doughnuts they were selling at this particular coffee shop. big, fat doughnuts, a few with outlandish glazes, strawberry glaze, for example. one was just entirely purple. and when i say fat doughnuts, i mean like, when you see it, it’s golden brown on both sides, and then it has that pale ring around the outside that the oil just never got to when they flipped ‘em in the fryer. that ring is the sexiest part of the doughnut, it’s like a stretch mark to show you how plump and decadent that particular doughnut is gonna be. not all doughnuts have those rings either; if you go to kroger or something, their old-fashioned doughnuts? just dry brown rings. probably a lot of factory doughnuts lack that pale ring, now that i’m thinking about it. it’s really a sign of some gourmet shit happening behind the scenes, somebody hand-cut that doughnut and fried it themselves. that’s how you know you’re eating something nice. probably worth the $3.50 i paid for it. well, maybe, that’s still kinda steep. 

my imagination was going like this the entire time i was at the coffee shop. i had seen them when i came in, and resolved to get out only on my way out, maybe two hours later. should i ask the cashier where they got those doughnuts from? would he even know? maybe they even made them in house, i thought. now THAT would be exciting! they did have a few food options on their menu. i think one lady next to me had some fried plantains or something. that would suggest they had a fryer, right? but then i figured, there’s no way, a coffee shop this size just wants to deal with a few baristas and that’s it, any fancy gourmet stuff would be brought in. it would be such a hassle to hire a pastry chef just to make doughnuts and scones, i don’t think the sales at a place this size would justify a batch of anything. i did daydream a little, however. made me want to work there so that i could figure out the secrets behind the counter. maybe there’s a real master doughnut-maker back there, and i could pick up at least that juicy little talent from working there, if nothing else.

this is what sent me down into a spiral. flipping through all of my past jobs, half regretful, wondering what exactly i took with me when i left. the job i have right now is the only one i’ve ever formally considered to be a real skill builder, a real job that actually means something. yet that doesn’t mean i’ve just been wasting all my career-building opportunities up until this point, does it? i always imagined that jobs through high school college were just, in general, real time wasters, real whatevers. you could literally have whatever job you wanted and not feel a tinge of regret about it, as long as it paid something. internships were for rich kids, kids that had their parents plan out their careers for them and finance it all the way through. retail jobs, cashier jobs, delivery jobs, these were there for kids who were gonna figure it all out later. normal people. looking back on it now, though, i really would do it differently. i would at least like, have a theme to the kinds of jobs i was going for, you know? jobs that logically led from one to the other, building up tips and tricks that would make you way more impressive to your coworkers down the line. this is probably also a false regret too, because there are those people that change their career paths like, really late in their lives. like they were a nurse for 30 years and now they wanna learn how to be a real estate agent, just from scratch. it’s brave, and i’m sure they sometimes wish they could have gone back and done things differently too, just started with the thing they loved before they knew they loved it. or maybe not, maybe they needed to hate something before they learned what they love...who knows.

what did i learn from my jobs then? i just wanted to go down the list and put together little stories, or sketches, rather. i know this isn’t exactly the most readable thing, and i don’t really expect anybody to read it. it’s entirely biographical and probably entirely boring, but it’s a fun exercise for me, at any rate. if you’re the kind of person that enjoys this sort of thing, i’m beaming on the inside for the both of us. anyway, here we go!

1. Goodwill Associate. Cashier, stock guy, master of all trades. Or at least the shitty ones this was my first ever job, I guess when I was 18 the summer out of high school. I had a couple of school-sanctioned volunteer roles when I was younger, but I don’t really consider those as anything in a career sense. Just an extension of school. My first actual job was here in retail, and kind of like really on the bottom of the totem pole, retail-wise. It was minimum wage. There wasn’t any real structure to the product, no departments, no red tape, no security wires on the expensive stuff. It was just bare bones, donated stuff, a little bit of a Wild West vibe, if i’m being honest. prices were determined by managers in the back. they’d just write the prices on everything in marker. anything without a price tag like that, like most of the clothing, the cashiers would just guess at what products were being handed to them and ring them up like that. looks like a unisex shirt, 1.99. pants with women’s sizes on the back tag, 3.99. customers sometimes would try to haggle, and sometimes they’d succeed! you can’t do that at sears. people would just buy fake stuff knowing it was fake and not be bothered by it. the main purpose of the employees was just to clean up the mess, and make everything look somewhat organized, keep stuff off the floor.

there were a couple of roles you could take working at a place like this. first off, everybody was a cashier, but you weren’t supposed to linger at the cash register. the primary thing you’d do is run clothes, which meant, rolling out a rack from the back full of clothes that had been already “processed” and just transfer them onto the racks out on the store floor. basically until the racks on the floor were jam-packed and you couldn’t do anymore. this was my least favorite thing, and to be honest i don’t remember doing it much. the rolling racks in the back were called “z-racks,” because the bottoms of them were held together with metal  shaped like z’s. probably my first brush with industry-specific terminology. they have z-racks in culinary too, but they’re something different, still with the same z-shape on the top and bottom holding them together. 

then there was “housewares,” which meant basically that you wandered around the housewares department all day, making an attempt to organize everything within reason. put everything upright with the price clearly visible. this was a real nightmare job, but a relatively stress-free one. sometimes a haitian family would stroll through and ruin your entire day’s work. the kids really just did whatever they wanted and left every toy in the middle of the floor, the parents paying absolutely no attention. it was a real thankless job, akin to hanging out in tartarus rolling rocks up a hill over and over again just to see it roll back down the next day.

cashier was the most rewarding part, i think, just because it’s the only aspect that forced interaction with the customers. that’s still my favorite part of most jobs i’ve had, i think, the opportunity to meet people and interact with someone new. of course, at a place like goodwill, you weren’t really all that excited about most of the clientele, but you could definitely walk out of there with a few stories. i was pretty young back then too, so i was prone to developing crushes on a few regulars, even attempting to flirt now and then, which became mostly nonexistent in my later jobs because it’s just, i don’t know. inappropriate, i guess. crass. unprofessional. and, in this day and age, a little creepy. but cashiering was an easy way to pick up at least a few social skills, whether you’re arguing your way through a stubborn customer who’s trying to save a dollar on some kid shoes, or shooing away a 35 year old gay man who, for whatever reason, has the hots for you. it was a nice exposure, though certainly removed from most retail experiences, just given the nature of the place. 

i never worked retail behind the counter again after that, especially after i started working in a couple of malls, because ACTUAL retail cashiers, the ones who make commission on their sales and have quotas for how many credit cards they get people to sign up for, they always seemed like real prisoners to the system. that notion always scared me, and kept me looking towards the background areas, the stock rooms and employee-only hallways. when you got into REAL retail, i didn’t want to be a part of it.

2. Von Maur, “Stock and Housekeeping,” stay in my department? this whole damn place is my department!

this job was a nice one, i stayed for a whole year before moving on. that doesn’t sound like much, but i’m pretty sure it’s my second or third longest running job out of all the ones i’ve had. von maur was a department store at one of the malls around here, a store they call an “anchor” because it’s on the edge of the mall complex. malls are usually designed to have multiple anchors, big stores for general shopping like macy’s and sears, with a bunch of little stores all scattered throughout, stores with more specialized targets. you often have to walk through the anchor stores to get in and out of the mall to one of the parking lots, so they’re usually stores with multiple departments, something for everybody.

von maur is considered kind of a high-end store, more expensive than macy’s, more upscale brands, but it’s not like walking straight into a coach store. it has a very old-fashioned customer service feel to it. the cashiers are all required to dress in formal wear, suits and dresses, clean-shaven. very strict dress code. the customer service section is a long desk in the back of the store with multiple ladies there to help, tables right behind them for gift-wrapping, especially during the holiday season. the clothing racks are all shoulder height or lower, you can see every department from any part of the store, and each department has gilded gold lettering above each register area, with different colors of carpets indicating when you were leaving one section from the other. and each department had a special name too, not just “men’s” or “women’s.” it was Juniors. Traditional. Contemporary. Gifts. very classy categorizations that made you feel a certain way just standing there, albeit sometimes they were kind of arbitrary.

it seems silly to even point out these kinds of things, but i’ve grown an immense fondness for this clean kind of layout now that i’ve spent some time in a few other department stores. most places make no fucking sense whatsoever, they’re designed like mazes to get lost in. pillars everywhere, obstructions going all the way up to the ceiling, no way to determine exactly how big the entire store is or where your next stop should be. pay attention next time you go to a jc penny. it’s a real shitshow. even the employees seem like they’re just stranded and forgotten about on little islands, and only the real savvy ones know their way back to the stock rooms without getting lost. at von maur, you could wave to your pal in the “Better Sportswear” department without having to step a foot outside of your designated carpet area (which you actually weren’t allowed to do, unless you were going to the bathroom).

i did not work in any of these departments. i was in charge of cleaning the place, bathrooms and dock areas, sweeping the vast floors, spot removal, light bulbs. you name it. all the custodial stuff. i worked nights, so i had minimal involvement with the trucks, but i did collect transfers to other stores at the end of the night, and pack up trucks with this product. it was the first job i had where you could really get in hurt, or in trouble, if you didn’t follow procedures properly. had to lock up the truck a certain way. had to fill out the paperwork just right. had to get the million pound brick of cardboard out of the bale machine without getting crushed. had to make sure the trash compactor didn’t get all fucked up, had to make sure you were using the right chemicals on the carpets, had to learn the most efficient ways to clean all four bathrooms before any customer even noticed you closed them down. it was a very self-reliant, self-sufficient job. managers stayed out of your face because they didn’t really know what all it was you were responsible for. you carried a radio because you could be anywhere in the store at any given time, even on the roof. you were completely unfettered, you could run errands for the feeble sales associates who couldn’t leave their sections, but only if you really liked them that day. 

it was great, and the organization of the store itself helped shape your own daily routines. i worked with a few assholes, and the pay was still minimum wage, but i had a couple of pals that i looked forward to seeing every day. it was behind the scenes, but not too behind the scenes. you didn’t have to be responsible for any of the customers because your uniform said hey, i just clean the toilets lady, buzz off. the only areas of the store that really interested me were the areas i wasn’t allowed to access, which would irk anybody who has almost complete access to any room, see rooms that most managers wouldn’t even ever see. the “other” behind the scenes groups. the alterations department. the loss prevention room. there was one room called like “display” or something, which just had all of the various props and baubles they used to decorate the store with year round. they even had an entire staff dedicated to that job, but i’d see them around pretty rarely. it fascinated me seeing people who were even more hidden away than i was, and i was the guy doing shit people just took for granted. like polishing the water fountains, or cleaning the employee lunchroom microwaves.

in the end, though, it was basically a dead-end job, i mean there’s only so much you can learn about glass cleaner before you feel like it’s time to move on. some people stay at those jobs for years, whole lives, and that just doesn’t make sense to me.

3. Pizza Delivery Guy, the famous Two-Dayer

there isn’t a whole lot to say about this one. this was when i was “between colleges,” and the first time i ever tried to have a job on college campus, a school that i was not going to and had no familiarity with. it was also my only ever “spite job.” here’s the scenario leading up to it:

i was probably like twenty years old, or 19. i was involved with this high school girl i had met through??? facebook maybe, she was a quick friend of mine. her family was a real Business Starter type family, her dad and uncle had a string of restaurants that they had tried to start up here and there, with varying success. i met her around the same time i started first cooking for myself, and it was something that brought me enjoyment, so the prospect of going to business with these guys was something that began to grow on me. her uncle had just started up a new place on campus, i think it was called Fito’s, named after her grandpa. this peruvian joint with authentic peruvian street food. the first place i had ever eaten yuca fries, and i think they had an award winning salsa at some point. anyway, the plan was for me to work there as one of the cooks, which was exciting to me! because i would have a mentor and i’d be getting into a new field that i was at least partly interested in, and i’d be developing a skill that i could apply to everyday life. i was gonna be a cook. i would pop in here and there all the time, before they actually got the place up and running, having small meetings with her dad, her uncle. i wasn’t really as involved as all that, i mean, i was still just a kid.

long story short, they hired this other guy to be the cook. whatever. i didn’t have experience anyway. they wanted me to do delivery instead. i said fine, at least i get to be involved with a place i actually kind of care about. walked me through where the delivery area was going to begin and end. hadn’t quite worked out all the kinks. come back for another meeting. i’d show up for another meeting, they weren’t there, come back tomorrow. not there again, having work done. come back later. the restaurant opens. still working on setting up the whole delivery thing, just wait on it. at some point, i got really frustrated with getting yanked around by the dick all the time, so after one failed meeting, i walked two doors down the street and landed a job as a driver at this place called New York Pizza Department the very same day. job search done, you can always find an easy job in the city. i think i even started work that very same day.

the trick to the story? never trust a place that hires you the same day they meet you. if they’re that desperate to fill the role, the role probably sucks ass. and it did. my first day was on saint patrick’s day, and i did a 12 hour shift from 6pm to 6am. i was expected to learn register and some minimal oven work, but mostly do garbage work like sweeping the floors, folding boxes, yada yada. it was all kind of vague. nobody in particular trained me. i was told to just stand over somebody’s shoulder and learn how the ordering works, which didn’t do anything for me. nobody explained a damn thing. i spilled ice all over the floor trying to refill the machine, nobody had taught me the trick to it. it was a really frustrating experience because i expected to like, shadow someone, at least for like an hour or something, but there was no guidance whatsoever. i mostly sat out by the back door and pretended like i smoked. i was never introduced to the chefs, they were all mexicans that didn’t really speak english, as far as i could tell, yet i was expected to ask them for stuff. my car was parked in a mud pit in the back, and i would ruin my pants every time i climbed in. i got two parking tickets. i used my gps for everything (the days before i had a smartphone), which was unreliable, especially when some asshole student wanted a pizza in one of the address-less school buildings. it was a real mess.

i felt kinda ashamed, especially after my second day when i delivered a pizza like 2 hours late because i couldn’t find the damn place. my dad had been a delivery guy for years, and it felt really dumb that i couldn’t pick up the job for myself. it felt like i was really, really wasting my time, and the dumb place was not worth it to begin with. i only got the job to make the other guys jealous, i think. my third shift was supposed to be a 19-hour day, so i skedaddled with my sub 100 buck paycheck, where my name was misspelled. both the peruvian place and that pizza place are gone now, replaced by something else.

honorable mention: Graeter’s Ice Cream, stealing jobs from children

barely even remember this one, but i did do an ice cream kiosk at the mall for like two weeks. i quit because scooping ice cream was making my wrist hurt pretty severely, and i wasn’t aware at the time that eventually the pain stops if you just keep at it. all of my coworkers were high school kids, even the two or three people that outranked me, and it was half humiliating, half hilarious. a lot of people there were very specific with training me properly, i think teenagers love telling older people what to do, but they all said different things. i don’t think any of them actually knew the exact details of their job duties, they were all just kind of winging it. they gossiped a lot about boys at their school, which i’m pretty sure was some isolated suburb school outside of the city proper. i was 22 or 23 at the time and had very little to contribute. i don’t think i ever took the job that seriously, and pretty much quit on a whim. it was a little bittersweet, though; the day before i left, they were just about to get a real hardass old lady manager that was about to whip the place back into shape. i regret not being around for that so that i could actually figure out what i was meant to be doing, but you can’t pretend to be a kid forever, no matter how cute and young you look with your little hat and name tag.

4. Macy’s fulfillment center, dissociation at it’s finest

this job was during a kind of sad point in my life, and it was largely a desperation move on my part. i think i had just graduated college, sent out hundreds of applications for jobs “in my field,” and heard back from none of them. i had bills piling up, from somewhere, and i really needed to get back in the saddle. malls are always reliable places to get jobs, if you ever need one quick and easy, and i just wanted to get back out into the world again. i wasn’t meeting new people anymore, didn’t have any classes to look forward to, and my education was proving to be rather useless. getting back into the mall system was kind of an eye roll at this point, but i knew it was something i could do, back of the store stock work.

this time around, i was exclusively a morning man, which comes with its own requirements and adaptions. we unloaded trucks three days a week, processed damages and transfers and returns and whatnot all the other days. broke down cardboard. the entire job was basically opening up boxes, removing plastic from copies of the same coat in multiple sizes, tearing styrofoam off of handbags, clipping security rings on the expensive stuff, and calling it a day. separate everything by department and run it out onto the floor before the store opens. usually by the time the store opens, it’s time to go home. michael kors was a bad word to us stock guys, because all of his handbags had like seventeen separate pieces of plastic, tape, and styrofoam around all the various pieces of each purse, protecting every part of the bag’s anatomy from damage, dust, whatever. it was ridiculous. there were mummification jokes somewhere in there. in any case, it was a job any idiot could do. i think i was marked as a “seasonal” employee too, so i really wasn’t given a whole lot to do, or very many hours. i did eventually get a few more duties as time went on and the dock manager grew more trustworthy of me. he was this big bald guy that listened to a lot of rock music, and didn’t put up with bullshit. he had me go around the store changing the lightbulbs a few times, which is not something you just let a dummy do. at von maur, i had to maneuver this massive industrial ladder and bring a dozen different bulbs with me, know how to mark lights that had bulbs changed and needed new ballasts, knew how to remove things from various sockets, open up skylights and reach through ceiling tiles, all while not falling to my death or getting shocked. that’s how i knew this guy trusted me.

this coincided with what i would consider a mini “internship” with the duties on the second floor, where the fulfillment offices were located. fulfillment means dealing with online orders, pulling specific products and getting them processed for delivery. and by “office” i mean a room with two computers, scanners, printers a shit ton of different sized boxes and bags, bubble wrap, packing tape, and apparently a whole lot of stress. there was a single dude working up there, and during christmas time, he was overwhelmed like crazy. i think he was actually going kind of crazy, to be honest. he knew the system pretty well, but still struggled with a lot of stuff, complained like a motherfucker, sang along to the radio but made up his own lyrics because he thought it was funnier. he was annoying but i liked having him around because he knew all the secrets to this job. like a gatekeeper. i could go to any other manager in the store and they wouldn’t really know what the fuck was going on in that office, couldn’t make sense of how or why orders showed up on those computers, couldn’t navigate them without calling another store to guide them through it, which they never did. it was really weird seeing what i thought was a polished corporate system so damn shaky beneath the foundation.

anyway, the dude quit that job before things really ramped up for the season. i was the only one in the department for a long time after that, and i barely knew what i was doing. he was the gatekeeper, and he left go back to his job at the waffle house pretty much overnight. i struggled for a while. most things got sent out ok, but i had a few “express” and “two day priority” packages that sat around for a few weeks through christmas because they required some special wizardry to get those specific labels to print off the computers. basically at the beginning of each day, you’d have a list of items to collect, and would spend the rest of the time hunting for those pieces out on the store floor, bring them back to the office, bag and box them up, and process the correct labels and gift cards for each and every one. and it was a real ball ache sometimes because certain items were just impossible to find, especially if they were returns that we didn’t normally carry in the store, clearance items, fucking women’s shoes, comforters with specific thread counts, dresses with the wrong picture, or no picture at all...

i took charge, though. i stuck around, i made uncomfortable phone calls to post offices, i got down a technique for folding and packaging shirts and dresses and all kinds of random stuff, got better at finding items that would normally be lost to the void. i could find shit in departments that people who actually worked those departments could not find. i became the epitome of efficiency. i was the new gatekeeper. at the end of every day, i’d have a blank order list, because everything would be accounted for, or passed on to another store. no bullshit. definitely the most involved i had ever been at any job. nobody at that store knew how that system worked better than me.

long story short, i was still the “seasonal” guy, and i think my bosses expected i didn’t plan on working there very long. they kept replacing the fulfillment manager with other people who barely knew what they were doing, essentially requiring me, the gatekeeper, to train my bosses, which to me was just absurd. after a few months, outraged, i quit to work at a cafe, and told my manager why i was upset that i was being shafted, not given the responsibility, the hours, the sweet sweet full-time position. she was surprised, apparently, and told me she absolutely would have given it to me if she knew i was interested. a missed communication. it was too late.

i’m glad i didn’t get promoted there, anyway, or else i would probably still be stuck there. i think that position got phased out of the system (along with the entire store, eventually), replaced by having the department managers coming in like, an hour early to pick all the orders out of their separate departments. probably more efficient. and in the end, i was really only interested in the complete and total power, not in the job itself. it’s still only retail

5. The Cornerstone Cafe, welcome to the family

this was my first actual job in the food service industry, at a cafe that i frequented pretty regularly, and this was also the first place where i properly ascended “through the ranks,” as they say. my longest lasting job to date, spanned about two and a half years, i think. it was owned by this married couple from indonesia, and i was hired on to replace one of their drivers. obviously i had to fudge the details of my previous driving gig to get this one, and i still kind of lacked confidence that i was really up to the task, but at least it was in a neighborhood that i was vaguely familiar with. i was also finally working at a place where i really cared whether or not they were successful. at someplace like macy’s, graeter’s, you’re just a cog, and not a very special one. at this place, they had maybe 5 or 6 employees in total on any given day, including one or both of the owners, and each of you had to be versatile, knowledgeable, and basically on top of your shit at all times. 

even as a delivery driver, i was informed and trained on at least 3 or 4 different roles. here’s how to be a cashier. here’s how to wash the dishes in a 3 compartment sink. here’s how i need you to sweep the floors, run food to the customers, here’s how to make this drink and that drink, here’s the size of the small salad, here’s the size of the regular salad, and when you fuck up, you can be sure as hell we’re gonna get on you for it until you do it the right way. no funny business. it was the kind of direction i enjoyed, something that makes you feel secure and stable when you get it down. i memorized the menu fully in maybe two weeks, which was no small feat. on the driving side, i picked up a lot of info about how streets are laid out, which ways were east and west, which side of the street certain numbers were on, which houses tipped and which houses didn’t, which addresses were businesses, which were apartments, etc etc. every customer has a different expectation and the job trains you to adapt. think quickly. work quickly. multitask and do a dozen jobs at once. this was not a slow restaurant, folks, and if you spent too long trying to learn something, you were dead weight. a lot of dead weight got fired. a lot of dumbasses got hired, snorted coke in the bathroom, and got fired because they weren’t paying attention. even people who had been there for a few years struggled sometimes, or at least got flustered. it was hard work and really shaped my work ethic, moreso than all the nothing jobs i had before.

also the most money i’d ever made up to that point, and i felt like i was almost making like, a living? of course, i wasn’t, i just happened to be in possession of a lot of cash, like some drug dealer. delivery drivers carry a lot of cash, tips mostly, or ways to break twenties and stuff like that, and that’s what makes delivery driving one of the most dangerous jobs out there! that’s what i read, anyway. i never got mugged or anything, but i’m pretty sure i was working in a pretty pussy neighborhood. driving was the easiest part, it was easy money compared to the madness of the dish room, the front counter, the kitchen line.

it was also an intensely intimate work relationship. it was a family business. i knew every single person that worked there. i was pals with all of them. i was out of school so i could work any shift, every shift, every position. i got trained to work in the kitchen, picked it up quick. learned a lot of prep work, picked up a few dozen different ways to cut an onion or a pepper. cooked batches of hard boiled eggs like they were nothing. made sandwiches like a madman, smacked people on the hands for trying to steal a french fry, threw cashiers out of the kitchen if they were getting in my way, and made my mark as a pillar of the establishment. they really grew to depend on me, which had its positives and negatives. 

the relationships grew very personal too, which also had positives and negatives. sometimes people really grated on me, personality-wise, and i endured them the same way you would an annoying uncle. others trusted me with stuff they really shouldn’t have, became incredibly comfortable giving me their secrets. i gave rides to people. took people grocery shopping, to do their laundry, mailed packages for people, made phone calls for people who weren’t confident with their english. more than once, i’ve had to drive home the guy who makes the chinese food because he would come into work mad drunk, and he only spoke spanish, so i would have to drop him off at a kroger nearby where i thought he lived. i knew a few people pretty personally, even the owners who still cheer and recognize me to this day, still let me go in the back and make my own food if there are no objections. i’m permanently a part of that family, and i worked my way into it fair and square. they still ask me to come back and work a weekend every now and then, and i always refuse.

it was one of those jobs where eventually, you just learn how to do everything, because at some point, you gotta do everything. there were days when i would both be the sandwich chef and the driver, a really sketchy balance. days when i would be covering three people at once. there is such a thing as being too dependable, too good at your job, because then people start taking advantage of you. people calling off for nothing knowing you could probably cover for them. your boss asking you to work an extra 5 hours on any given day. the head cook quitting for a month, forcing you to do his job when you really had no interest in firing fifteen dozen bagels at six in the morning, seven days a week. and being in a position like that makes it a lot harder to leave, even when you know you have to move on to bigger and better things, when you’ve learned everything and don’t want to be stuck in one place. that was really the hard part about that place, leaving your family to figure it out for themselves. in the end, though, it’s not really your family, it’s only business. i was starting to get this idea in my head about becoming a pastry chef at the time, and i was getting antsy about being stuck there.

i quit the job on the excuse that i was going back to school to study culinary, came back a few months later anyway to work 20 hour weeks. eventually made a connection or two in college that landed me a job on the pastry team at the convention center downtown, where i work now. but i think those stories are best saved for a time when i’m not like, employed by them. i’m still looking ahead, though, and again growing anxious about moving on to develop more skills.

probably why i was thinking about those damn doughnuts at that coffee place. i feel like there’s still a lot of pastry-related stuff i need to learn, stuff that i could have picked up on along the way before getting into The Big Leagues. bakeries and cafes and grocery stores i could have worked in. tricks of the trade i missed out on. granted, i am getting a lot of that now, but the job i’m currently holding is much more suited for somebody who already had a wealth of knowledge to build off of. maybe that’s why i’m taking this weird sojourn into “well, what have i actually learned so far?” trying to work at a bakery at this point feels like i’m going backwards, settling for less money to pick up skills i should already know. the next logical would be, i don’t know, a country club i guess? people always ask about starting my own bakery, and i know i’m not ready for that. sometimes i feel like i still don’t know a damn thing about food creation, how flavors go together. the more difficult techniques, decorating cakes and sugar work. even with simple techniques i’m sure i could use some refinement. and i’m always worthless when my boss comes to me for help with writing a menu. i don’t have tricks in my back pocket beyond what i’ve learned there, and i’m not as studious as i should be with trying new recipes in my personal time. depression gets in the way of that pretty regularly.

anyway, that’s all i can think to write for now. i know it’s a pretty worthless read, but sometimes you just gotta write for writing’s sake.

#blog #personal

[lailadermctt-moved]

thank u @frxnkenstein for the tag !! ♡

1) what’s your favorite smell? i’m. very in love w peaches right now it’s so pleasant i love it. i love it a lot

2) what do you think decides your hogwarts house (both objectively and how you personally fit in your house)? fuck u know i haven’t read the books uhhh i think??? your mentality??? like outlook on life and how you go about solving problems and the things you strive for and enjoy. the most fundamental pieces of you

3) what’s your safe haven, the place you go to sit and be alone? my room. always. just. door closed, lights plugged in, quiet music. it’s the one place i’ve got that’s mine and i’ve put so much time into making it something safe and happy and warm

4) what’s bothering you? rant about something, get something off your chest. i couldn’t use the staple remover with my right hand all day today because i’ve apparently injured it by removing so many staples in the past few days with having to scan everything and i hate this job so much??? where’s august 11 i wanna be done with it i wanna get enough sleep again so i stop getting exhaustion headaches, i want time to spend doing things i love and seeing the people i love again, to write all the stuff i get so excited talking about with ri.  i want to not be so tired that i dread having to go to the library, which i usually love working at, but when i’m also working this internship?? i hate going in and i hate that i hate it, i miss feeling happy to walk in

5) what song makes you feel connected to people? i ?? don’t know, i guess something like. bohemian rhapsody or chelsea dagger that like. everyone knows, that every time it comes on, there’s no one that doesn’t get excited about it. songs everyone relates to loving

6) do you have a favorite piece of art (if so, what is it)? listen i have this absolutely wicked space mountain postcard hanging on my wall that’s got this really amazing retro design. i don’t wanna get up to take a picture of it right now bc my head is killing me but believe me when i say it’s wonderful

7) what’s a weird family tradition you have? i don’t think?? there are any?? i’ve been thinking about this for so long i. straight-up don’t think there’s literally anything

8) what did you want to be when you grew up when you were in kindergarten? listen i was so set on being a dolphin trainer. like. i was completely obsessed with the idea of it and now i generally hate going in oceans/pools/anything that has anything/anyone else swimming in it the irony

9) what’s the first tv show you binge watched? i think bones. sometime in middle school, i started just cranking through every episode, and i distinctly remember doing it all out of order. like. i just started with which episodes sounded most interesting and then worked my way through until i got through the least intriguing episode description. i. i have no explanation for this why did i do that

10) tell me about the most memorable stranger you’ve ever seen. there was this woman who came into the library once, and i happened to pass her while i was shelving books, and she was just. sitting at one of the chairs in the YA section and very calmly and carefully coloring in one of the coloring pages we’d set out, and she just. seemed so content and so focused on this drawing and there was just something about her that stuck in my mind

11) why did you choose to study what you’re going to school for/why did you choose to work where you do (if you’re not in school)? english was actually a very last-minute major choice.  like. i literally changed what i wanted to study a week before registering for classes. i was going to study graphic design, because it’s something i love and find interesting, but then i realized i definitely didn’t want to do it as a career. i just. it hit me that i didn’t want to do that, really, and instead i thought back on a conversation i had with my mom about editing?? that it’s a job i would actually enjoy??? and so yeah long story short, i decided i wanted to go into writing and editing and such, and that graphic design was much better left as a hobby. so now i’m an english major it’s wonderful i only cry like eight times a week

my questions for @andrewjsten​ @sirandking​ @sentient-forest-boy and @nickyklose​:

1) what’s something you can’t go anywhere without?

2) space or the ocean?

3) what is currently your favorite thing that you have in your room?

4) is there a movie/show/episode that functions as a comfort blanket, that you go to on a bad day?

5) stargazing or cloudgazing?

6) what about a book generally grabs your attention first (title/cover/etc)?

7) what do you love most about your favorite song?

8) if you were going to paint your room, what color(s) would you choose?

9) hardcover or paperback?

10) what’s something you’re really excited for?

11) what’s something nice that happened to you today?

#feel free to ignore this!!! #thank u v much for tagging b i hope u saw some really cool clouds today #tagged