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#is this a weekly thing. yes. is this post queued. also yes
recurring-polynya · 10 months
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Are you joining the new bleach returns celebration next month? (Crossing my fingers and hoping the answer is yes because I can’t get enough of your fics!)
At the moment, I am working on one fic and one art project for the event. Both are progressing, but slowly. At this point, I have every expectation of finishing them in time. I don't have any additional ideas queued up in my brain, per se, but if I finish one or the other, I'll look back at the prompt list and see if I can't come up with another one (rinse and repeat until I run out of time).
I would like to do more, obviously I always want to do as much as possible, but I'm at a bit of creative low tide*, so if all I get done is the two things I've started, I'll still be happy with that. (*I say this in a very non-negative way! It's natural to have ebbs and flows in our creativity, and I also have a lot of other stuff demanding my attention right now, so I'm just leaning into keeping things low-key and not demanding too much of myself, for once).
If anyone else is just now hearing about the Bleach Returns Celebration, please check it out! You don't always see events that are really fandom-wide, and it's fun to have one with such broad appeal. There's a wide range of prompts to pick from, so if you're interested in participating, I'm sure there's something that you can work with!
Also, I never mind answering questions about what I am currently up to, but I do make a weekly post about what I've been up to, which you can also check out under my writing updates hashtag.
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r6s-trainer-mi · 2 years
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Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six : Siege v Trainer +7
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💾 ►►► DOWNLOAD FILE 🔥🔥🔥 Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege. I found one post on reddit on this but nothing here. When trying to solo queue training grounds, regardless of the difficulty level, of the time I wait or amount of times I disconnect and reconnect, I cannot get a game. No problem doing lone wolf though. I've verified the files and reinstalled battleEye. Next step would be to uninstall and reinstall the game but I thought I'd ask here first if anyone was having this problem and found a workaround. Sorry, to be more specific, I have no issues connecting or matchmaking in normal multiplayer, only specifically when attempting to do so on training grounds. And based on the timing of the Reddit post with the same issue but also looking at the lack of replies, my guess is there is a bug affecting a very small portion of players. There's supposed to be a patch coming out this week so we'll see if this somehow resolves the issue or not. Update: I have completely uninstalled and reinstalled the game and the issue persists. Again, the only problem is when matchmaking in training grounds. I can matchmake in other modes including Friendship is Magic from a few weeks ago and Golden Gun that's currently active as I write this. Only Training Grounds and only matchmaking. Lone wolf is fine. My Internet connection is fine. My drivers are up-to-date. I am not the only person having this issue. There's a bug somewhere in the game affecting a small subset of players. Yes, I created the twelve rules for port forwarding in my router and it didn't resolve the issue. I also connected to my phone's cellular service and again, I could play multiplayer in general but not in training grounds so the issue isn't with one specific connection. Update information: I installed the game on an old computer who's specs were well below the minimum requirements and managed to get training ground matches though it took well over five minutes to get a match even though the estimated wait time was around one minute and I only got a match less than half of the time I started queuing. Also, another thread showed up in the Rainbow 6 subreddit a few hours ago regarding this issue. New Nvidia drivers and new R6 update and the issue is still persisting. FYI, after several weeks, having tried the steps above, having tried other things, The Invitational coming and going, a few game updates, etc Meanwhile, I've seen plenty of other posts about people who can't get any matchmaking going on or having to wait 10 to 20 minutes for one match. Sometimes it connects me to the central servers, sometimes to eastern, happens whenever i play which is usually in the afternoon, evening or night. Again, I'm not having any other connection problems with this game or any other program, Ive done all the normal and abnormal troubleshooting and it isn't just me having the issue. There's plenty of posts on the ubi forums, subreddits and here asking if training grounds is dead because people can't get a match or have to wait 10 to 20 minutes to get one. And then there are plenty of others saying they have no issues. Also, UbiRaziel stated a month ago that "We've not yet experienced this issue on our side, however we will look into it and try to determine where the issue lies. It's not yet clear whether this is a game issue, or if perhaps there's another factor we've yet to consider. In fact, I suspect that this is a widespread issue as Ubisoft weekly challenges for training grounds have become more in-line with lone wolf sessions with "Get X kills with this gun" and "Reach a minimum score of " rather than the usual "Win three times with this op. On occasion, if you leave the training grounds queue on for minutes, you MIGHT get a match but it's completely random whether or not it will happen. So it is neither a problem with your connection or your computer. Now that it's been a year, I wonder if anyone from the Ubi team have a nice boiler plate comment ready about how they are working to resolve this known bug or if they're still standing by the "there's a problem with your connection" story. Any of the developers want to chime in? Bump this up. My friend and I have the same issue. We can play training grounds together but can never find a training grounds match with randoms. It started around when they changed it from terrorist hunt to training grounds, or the UI change a few seasons back. Minden jog fenntartva.
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firecrxtch · 1 month
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weekly tag wednesday!
tagged by @ian-galagher <3
How is your day going?
it's okay i guess i haven't done much besides uni today
are you okay?
damn we really getting into it, huh. i'm... mid lol i've been sick for the last two weeks so i could be better
what is your favourite shape of your favourite colour?
you know grass after it's been raining and has that kind of deep green colour? that
are you single?
yes
are you happy about that?
uhhhh i'm not sure. i like the idea of a relationship but i don't think i'd be very good at it
what age do you feel in your brain?
like 15 but also 78
do you feel like the good times are behind you or ahead of you?
i hope they are ahead of me otherwise i might just end it all
do you have a best friend?
yessss
did you have a childhood pet?
no we weren't allowed to have pets in the apartment, but my grandparents always had dogs and i kind of considered them my dogs aswell
do you sing or whistle around the house?
i can't whistle but i do sing!
do you light candles or incense?
incense is a bit much for me but i light candles
are you busy friday night?
i mean someone's gotta reblog posts, right?
if you were a circus performer which act would you be in?
idk i can't really do anything impressive, but i'd like to do something with a trapeze
what is your favourite outfit?
hmm i don't have a specific but i like funky pants
what is the last thing you created?
pasta lol
what is your favourite fic or book of all time?
this question is eviiiiilll. i have read so many good fic and regularly re-read them.
what are you looking forward to?
being done with this semester i'm kinda over it
do you like hugs?
yes! mostly from friends tho
what is something you wish people understood about you?
i really wanna be your friend i just don't know how to talk to people like a normal person
tagging some peeps!
@metalheadmickey @heymrspatel @suzy-queued @mikhailoisbaby @gallavichgeek @thisdivorce
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writingonjorvik · 3 years
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Can We Discuss Game Hiatuses?
I want to preface this enter post with the comment that I am absolutely not saying "Oh, if you're not enjoying SSO, you should just leave the community." That's a bad argument used against criticism that I do not promote. However, I am going to talk about how if you're not enjoying SSO, why you should take a pause from playing.
I'm going to generally credit @centeris2 on this topic, because while I'm not using direct quotes (because private convos aren't exactly the style I want to use for Can We Discuss), we had a long conversation about this topic and she made a lot of good points for this that I wanted to discuss. Some of these points are based on her opinions, a lot of out thoughts blurred together so it's hard to directly credit, and she gave me the ok to talk about it and use her thoughts.
In any case, let's start with the fact that it is perfectly normally to like something and still drop it for years at a time, or to not directly engage with it. For instance, I adore the Legend of Zelda franchise (were it not obvious from my recent to be rescheduled event), but I haven't personally picked up a LOZ game for a year-ish now when I replayed Minish Cap. That doesn't revoke my LOZ fan card, that's a perfectly normal thing to do. Most of you will have done this throughout your life, more and more recognizably as you get older.
This however can get blurred by fandom. It is very often that folks with hyperfixations on a thing, who may or may not engage with something more regularly than other media, will get involved in fandom and make a lot of content for that fandom. These people can produce loads of content on a piece of media and this can fuel a community, even if the rest of the community isn't actively engaging with that media. It also doesn't specifically mean that people with hyperfixations are constantly engaging with that media. Going back to that LOZ example, I wrote LOZ fanfic for years without actively playing more than one LOZ game maybe a year or two. Content can be queued, be entirely original outside of the media, and still last a long time and engage with the fandom at large.
The point is to say, even if you make content and enjoy a piece of media, you don't have to actually be playing/reading/listening/watching it constantly. In fact, normally modern fandom culture makes that pretty easy to do, though it can sometimes make us feel like we're still engaging directly with the media even if we're technically not. But it's good to take a step back and acknowledge that. A lot of younger fans in fandom have a hard time with this, which is why I'm taking the time to point it out. A lot of young fans will hyperengage in a fandom because they want to be involved in this fandom they love, only to burn themselves out and be turned away by their frustration. It's important then to acknowledge this scenario to encourage better, healthier involvement with fandom. Still, in this situation, you can easily bow out of a fandom if you need to take a break and then come back when something new happens in it, like a new release or update. This may feel like a fandom "dies" when a piece of media ends, but for active media, it's a normal and healthy thing to do.
SSO on the other hand does not encourage the ability for people to take a break, or at least it does it at the detriment of the player. Because of the weekly updates, players are constantly checking for the chance that there is something interesting coming out. This is somewhat addressed by the monthly roadmaps the team has been putting out, but that also just extends the period of time people are waiting for news and they're still staying in the release cycle for more clarification. For instance, we know Silverglade Village is getting an update at the end of the month, but knowing SSO's release cycle, are they going to tease some more of the changes? Are they going to reveal how wide the area of update is going to be? Will any NPCs get updates with it? This is still in the weekly cycle and it keeps players from building up actual suspense for updates if we know when content is coming out. It also takes away a lot of suspense when the content isn't main content, like new areas or story. While the suspense for the Fripp quests I would say were quite large, I wouldn't say that any of the other updates have shared the same attention. This is why most companies will release roadmaps for quarters or for a year.
And this isn't to say that SSE as a company shouldn't be releasing media content weekly, they should. That's good social media. But there are ways to engage with fans that don't drag out a reliance to engage weekly, things like community contests, highlighting fans, or promoting fanmade content. But when every update is super in the eyes of social media, fatigue and apathy are going to start to kill actual excitement unless it's something major.
I don't think it's a secret that I think the weekly updates aren't good for the game on the development side. I think it creates a pseudo-crunch culture on the developers so that they can't work on larger projects that players are asking for, like an engine overhaul (it took FFXIV two years to do theirs, when are the devs supposed to have time on SSO to switch now). But, I also don't think it's good for the players. Yes, there's something every week, but how are players actually engaging each week and how much time can we build up anticipation or get excited when each week that gets diffused by something that's not super exciting the majority of other weeks? Which doesn't mean that that content is bad, but it clearly builds frustration in the community to have "filler" content. When's the next story quests, when's the next map expansion, when's the next major mechanic being added, etc. We're constantly discussing the next big thing and then finding reasons to be excited in the meantime. This does not spark joy.
But in order to take a break, either you need to be on top of your Stable Care (likely to pull you back in), or just stop caring about your horses while you're away (unlikely considering the horse girl is strong in this community). The first requires Star Coins, which is arguably saying "You have to pay real money to take a break," and the second is actively punishing you mechanically for not being committed to playing. Neither of those allow the player to take healthy, normal breaks from the community to engage in other things. And that's an issue.
Yes, MMOs need regular engagement. Active servers and participation are a part of what makes them more marketable. But there are ways to do that without penalizing players. And I'm not suggesting that the care system needs to be entirely removed, but it does need to be entirely reworked so players can leave the game without coming back penalized. Things like the care system not affecting stats, but increasing your RNG for finding doubles of crafting items, or doubling your shilling rewards from dailies. WoW's inn system rewards players for taking breaks by double your exp gain longer depending on how long you were away. Others like Guild Wars 2 will give you log in rewards that build up to bigger prizes over time. There are ways to do this.
And I understand that a lot of folks like the current care system because it's realistic. But there has to be a line in game development where enjoyment in a game is prioritized over the realism of the game, not to mention the health of the player. Yes, the daily care system is more realistic, but if it is developing an obsessive habit of play to enjoy content that is, realistically, months to years down the line, that's not good for the player and should be changed so players can break from the game without coming back to punished controls. There are better systems that can still be realistic, things like crafting feed schedules to recover health boosts faster instead of having to see the vet, increasing how often the mood goes up so it doesn't take a whole week, changing it so when taking a horse for a ride the mood will increase every 10 or so minutes by engaging with a horse you like. Rewarding players for getting on and playing the game instead of making them dread missing when they should be coming back with excitement for the game.
All of that said, I want to encourage all of you to play more games where you can. I know there are system limitations, restricted budgets, and sometimes regional limits because of limited languages or just straight regionlocks. But in the same way reading makes you a better reader and writer, gaming makes you a better gamer (and developer/designer if you go that route). It helps you identify what you like in games and in the same way that reading other things makes coming back to your favorite all that much better, so does playing other games. I'm going to reblog this in a bit with some games I'd recommend with links to Steam and Epic and I'd encourage you all to do the same.
The takeaway I hope to give is that it's normal and healthy to take a break from games. You can still engage with media without directly engaging with it through fandom. SSE can do more to not penalize players for wanting to take a break, and should. And where you can, you should play more games and break for the health of your relationship with a piece of media you like.
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florencewellch · 3 years
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TUMBLR TAG GAME
Thanks for the tag, @natasharomanovf!
1) Why did you choose your url? Will is my fave and I wanted a canon url and this one was available.
2) Any sideblogs? One to save an old url and I'm also a member of 3 source blogs (stedits, dailyhpgifs and television).
3) How long have you been on Tumblr? Since late May/early June 2019
4) Do you have a queue tag? Does tagging your queued posts with #q counts?
5) Why did you start this blog? I was really into ST and It (and a bunch of other stuff), so I wanted to find ppl who were also interested in those things.
6) Why did you choose your icon? It tends to change on a weekly basis, but I'm using this one because I'm rewatching TUA and bc Allison is my favorite character on the show.
7) Why did you choose your header? Because the coloring matches the color of the font I picked for my description and bc purple is Will's color.
8) What's your post with the most notes? This HP set (it was before I switched to screencaps and it was a 1.5GB copy so it's kinda blurry)
9) How many mutuals do you have? At least 600.
10) How many followers do you have? 736 (love every single one of you)
11) How many people do you follow? 849
12) Have you ever made a shitpost? Yes, on a daily basis.
13) How often do you use Tumblr a day? At least like 4 hours a day.
14) Did you ever get into a fight with another blog? Once or twice, but usually I tend to just block ppl who try to start shit.
15) How do you feel about the "you need to reblog this" posts? I don't really mind them, but they get a little annoying.
16) Do you like tag games? Yes, but I usually forget to do them.
17) Do you like ask games? I do!
18) Which of your mutuals do you think it's Tumblr famous? I'm guessing @natasharomanovf and @andromedaa-tonks
19) Do you have a crush on a mutual? No, but I like and appreciate all of them
Tagging: @mikewheelerc, @bylerrights, @bowtiescarves, @thepragmaticrebel, @mickymilkovich and @samdeena
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overthedeadsea · 3 years
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music tag game + questions + phone photo meme game
i was tagged by @alysonwonderland​ tysm!! 💖
rules: we're snooping in your playlist. put your entire music library on shuffle and list the first 10 songs, then choose 10 victims
IVRY by miles from kinshasa
pynk by janelle monáe feat. grimes
lost by frank ocean
the middle of the world by nicholas britell
campus by vampire weekend
futile devices (doveman remix) by sufjan stevens
sounds like balloons by biffy clyro
plastic 100ºC by sampha
hurt less by julien baker
chesapeake by better oblivion community center
why did you choose your url?
because i love adrianne lenker and realised it somehow wasn’t taken
any side-blogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them
technically this is more of a sideblog for me (though i have two separate accounts), my main is @xavierdalon​ which is where i’m active more often and where i post gifs the most
how long have you been on tumblr?
since 2009 i think 🙃
do you have a queue tag?
#q but most of my posts are queued and i rarely actually use the tag
why did you start your blog in the first place?
basically i wanted a blog where i could just pop in once in a while and reblog/post whatever i wanted without much of a tagging system or anything really coherent lmao
why did you choose your icon/pfp and header?
this is a really boring answer but i wanted an adrianne lenker icon and i really liked that picture specifically, and then i wanted a boygenius-related header and i had that picture of phoebe i loved so i used it lol
whats your post with the most notes?
probably this old gifset i made of my mad fat diary jhdfbghjbsjd happy pride!
how many people do you follow?
113
have you ever made a shitpost?
sadly no
how often do you use tumblr?
daily but i only come on this blog every few days-weekly
did you ever have a fight/argument with a blog once? who won?
nope
how do you feel about 'you need to reblog this post'?
i immediately hate those posts when i see them no matter what, but whether i end up reblogging them or not depends on the actual post
do you like tag games?
yes!! it feels great to tag mutuals and be tagged in things and it’s fun to answer these and see other people’s answers
which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?
i have no idea but i would say none? jhbjgsdb
do you have a crush on a mutual?
absolutely not but also of course! no i will not elaborate on that
Phone Photo Meme Game
choose one picture from your camera roll without downloading to sum up your personality
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tagging: @shoot-a-hole-into-the-sun @ufoweather @idspendallnight @sunlysane @dionnes @juliens-bakery (if u feel like doing it 💖)
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thirteenisles · 4 years
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Can’t Say We’re Friends | 8
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A/N: So I switched to using Anthony’s name because it just makes things a lot cleaner, although I pepper in his nickame. I will be going back to old chapters and editing those this weekend (I actually have full weekends off now I could cry)! Anyway, I actually re-wrote this whole chapter and it turned out a whole lot better than it was originally. Also, I think you guys will be very happy with this part, but next weeks is the one to look out for, it’s one I’ve been working on for a while.
Warnings: feelings and confessions are made
Word Count: 2.6K
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As September begins, things slowly go back to normal for Evelyn and Anthony. They fall back into their daily routines and go back to having their weekly dinners and movie night, making up for the time the lost over the summer.
And with preseason coming closer and fall fashion week beginning in New York City, Evelyn and Anthony could focus on their careers. Anthony felt that perhaps this would their year for the cup and he felt more confident than ever that this would be a great season for him. Now that Derick had signed, he knew they had a capable player that would produce more goals for their team.
Speaking of Derick, he was going to be moving in and the only thing was, Evelyn wasn’t aware of this yet. Quick to volunteer, Anthony offered to house Derick for a few weeks until he had a place of his own, without consulting the opinion of his best friend.
When he arrived home from practice she was curled up on the couch in one of his sweatshirts, reading. She looked so peaceful, hair pulled away from her face, reading glasses perched on the edge of her nose. Anthony smiles as she looks up at him with a smile of her own.
“Hey, I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Yeah, just got home. No work today?”
“I did, FaceTimed a few clients, and queued up some blog posts.” She takes her glasses off and places them on the table, “Come sit down with me.”
Maneuvering herself on the couch so her feet now rest on the table, Anthony comes over and lays down, placing his head in her lap. His eyes immediately flutter shut as her fingers card through his hair. He had missed this, the comfortable domestic intimacy that they always shared, mostly though, he had missed being with her.
“I have something to tell you.”
“Hm?” She hums softly, “What’s that?”
“I invited Derick to come stay with us for a few weeks. I hope that’s ok with you.” He opens one eye, nervous about her reaction.
Evelyn laughs softly, “You really thought I’d be mad about that? He is your friend, isn’t he? And your teammate as well. It’s no problem, our house is big enough to host another guest.”
“I felt bad for not telling you first.”
“Last time I checked it's your house and-”
“-Ours.” He corrects her.
“Our house,” the corners of her mouth tick up, ”but I’ve grown up with you. I know how this goes. Besides, you have always been excited at the thought of housing players and luckily this one is already a friend.”
“So you’re ok with it?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? He’s a friend of yours so by default he is a friend of mine. I am looking forward to meeting him and getting to know him.” She taps his cheek with her fingers.
He takes her hand and brings it to his mouth, kissing it softly, “Thanks for being so understanding. This is why you’re the best Evee.” He misses the way her cheeks heat up as he lets go of her hand and her fingers start running through his hair again.
“Anything for you.”
-
Derick moves in a few days later and he’s a perfect addition to their small and dysfunctional family— and the best part was he knew how to use the washing machine without breaking it. He’s quiet a lot of the time, but he keeps good conversation once you get him talking, and he’s a mean cook in the kitchen as well. Between practices, he’d either be on his phone in his room or helping Evelyn with any projects around the house.
He’s observant though and that’s one thing that both Evelyn and Anthony miss — he doesn’t miss the way they look and act around each other though. Derick is quick to realize this is the girl that Anthony fretted over during the summer and from the bits and pieces of information he’s gathered from a few of his new teammates, that their relationship is a lot more complicated than it should be.
They acted way too much like a couple for two people who claimed they weren’t. Sure, best friends could be affectionate and cuddly with one another, but it was different when it came to them. Anthony would always be up first and immediately make a cup of tea for Evelyn while he was making coffee for himself. He’d periodically head into her office or would text her when he knew she was working to remind her to eat something. Evelyn would always pick out his game-day suits, in fact, Derick noticed how much Anthony valued her opinion when it came to his clothing and not just because his best friend was a stylist. She also always made sure that his bags were packed and he had everything he needed for his trips. It was small little things that seemed so minuscule, but those little things added up to the bigger picture — that there was a lot more to their friendship than what it seemed.
Their first pre-season game was scheduled in a few days and to celebrate, Anthony had suggested that they go out and explore the town, mostly for Derick’s sake so he could get familiar with the area.
Derick walks a few feet behind Evelyn and Anthony, they’re engrossed in their own conversation. The two of them start messing around, Anthony poking Evelyn in her side, and her shrieking and trying to get him back. It goes on for a few minutes before Evelyn jumps on Anthony’s back, burying her face in his neck, shaking with giggles. Anthony hoists her up higher, holding onto her thighs as they continue their walk down the street, carrying her with ease.
Eventually, they come across a small coffee shop and decide to stop in and get a little something.
With his arm around her waist and her arms wrapped around his middle, anyone would mistake them for a couple as they stand in line for coffee. Evelyn rattles off her order to Anthony, who bats her hand away when she tries to pay hand him money, he just kisses the top of her head and tells her to put it away.
At a corner table near the back, Lily writes up a case for a client when she notices them. She tilts her head in confusion as she sips at her coffee, last she had remembered, Evelyn and Anthony were no longer on good terms, clearly, that has changed as the two of them stand close and share a laugh. It was none of her business, but it was striking her curious. This was the girl that he claimed was his best friend, but his body language spoke volumes. He only had eyes for her, his hand on the small of her back, and occasionally he’d lean into her with a smile on his face.
Lily picks up her stuff, she is overthinking again and will be late for a meeting if she doesn’t leave now. As she’s leaving she thinks that perhaps she had misread things, but she wasn’t going to get upset over it, she had no reason to do so.
Over the top of Evelyn’s head, Anthony feels a pair of eyes on him, but as he turns and looks the only thing he spots is a familiar blonde leaving the coffee shop, but he can’t tell who it exactly was. It probably wasn’t anyone important anyway, he thinks as they leave, coffee in hand.
-
It’s none of his business, Derick thinks to himself, but he watches as Anthony kisses Evelyn’s cheek before he leaves for a morning run, he wants to know where she stands on this matter. So he waits a few minutes after the front door closes, he seizes his opportunity.
“You know I never got a chance to thank you for letting me stay here.”
“Oh, you’re welcome. We’re both happy to have you here.” She cracks a few eggs and starts mixing them, “Omelette?”
“Yes, please. How long and you and Beau known each other?”
“Since we were six, he was my next-door neighbor, we grew up together.”
He smiles, “Ah, so it must have been an easy transition from friends to lovers then.”
She chokes, face going bright red as she shakes her head, “Oh, no, no it’s nothing like that at all. He’s my best friend.”
Derick rests his head in his hand, “So you are single then?”
“Erm, yeah, pretty much. Why is someone asking?”
“I’m checking for a friend and you know I’m just surprised by that because from an outsider perspective you and Beau just seem to be way more than just best friends.”
“Well, …we are. Everyone reads way too much into things, we’re close as two people who’ve grown up together would be.”
He raises his eyebrows in disbelief, “Yet, I don’t miss the way you two look at one another. Come on Evelyn, it’s clear as day to anyone that there is something going on here. You know you can talk to me right? I am not going to run around telling your secrets.”
Laughing nervously, she waves him off, “Seriously, you’re like the rest of the team, reading into something that simply isn’t there, now do you want vegetables in yours or no? Beau won’t touch the mushrooms, so you’re welcome to have those if you want.”
“Mushrooms, please. But seriously, there’s nothing going on between the two of you?”
“Nope.” She pops the p, focusing on making breakfast now. “Now are we done with the questions?”
“I was only asking because I know how Beau feels about you.” Derick takes a sip of his orange juice watching for her reaction.
“How he….feels about me?”
“Yeah, I’m good at reading faces Evelyn and it’s pretty obvious. He doesn’t have to say a word, I can see he’s crazy about you.”
“He’s crazy about me? No, come on now, you’re just messing with me.” But Derick doesn’t miss the dusting of pink on her cheeks or the ways her eyes lit up with hope.
“Wish I was, but he really does look at you like you hung the moon like you’re his everything.”
She shakes her head, “You sound like everyone else, there is nothing going on between Beau and I. We’re best friends, that’s it.” She plates his food and hands it to him and busies herself with preparing another omelet.
“You can’t even look at me when you say that Evelyn, how can I believe you if you can’t look me dead in the eye and tell me “we’re just friends”? Because I think I know the answer, you love him.”
Evelyn pauses cutting the vegetables, looking out the window for a moment, “He doesn’t know.”
“And he doesn’t have to know right now, but you can talk to me about it.”
From the beginning, she lays out the truth. Their drunken Vegas wedding, them faking a relationship in front of their parents, her stupid drunk behavior, her jealousy, and her ex-boyfriend therapist who sat her down and opened her eyes to the truth that was in front of her the whole time. As she speaks her voice waivers and tears line her eyes, but she remains composed as she spills her heart out.
“I know this is a tough decision for you guys, but can I give some advice to you?” He waits till she nods before he continues, “You’ve probably heard this more than once, but you should come clean about how you feel. I’m pretty sure he feels the same and maybe the reason he’s never told you is because he’s afraid of how you’re going to react.”
“Beau sees me as a friend and that’s that.”
“Are you sure about that though?” The front door opens and Anthony calls out that he’s back.
“Yes.” And that’s the end of that conversation.
-
Now that pre-season was in full effect, Derick and Anthony were putting in all their attention into playing. Derick was already showing signs of having a successful season, scoring two goals and Anthony felt that he was performing better and clearly was a given since Trotz was letting him have more ice time. Despite the fact that they lived together now, Derick and Anthony haven’t hung out much on their own, until tonight. With Evelyn in the city attending to a client, the two boys had the house to themselves.
“Can I ask you something?”
Anthony turns and looks at Derick, “Yeah, shoot.”
“Did you ever tell Evelyn how you feel?” He pauses, gauging his reaction, “Judging by the look you’re giving me, I’m going to go no.”
Letting out a frustrated sigh, Anthony leans back against the couch, “It’s complicated, but we’re just friends.”
“Could have fooled me, I see the way she looks at you.”
This seems to pique his interest, “Looks at me? Looks at me how?”
Derick shrugs, sipping his beer, “She gets this sparkle in her eye and there is nothing but love and adoration when she looks at you.” He waits for Anthony to process that before he continues, “But you guys are just friends, right? Nothing more than best friends, so that probably doesn’t mean anything to you.
Groaning into his hands, he gives in, “that’s the thing, she is my best friend. Evelyn means everything to me. I don’t want to lose her by telling her how I feel. I’m pretty sure Evelyn is back together with Eric anyway. She’s been weird around me lately and I know she’s texting him. She probably doesn’t want to tell me because she knows I’m not his biggest fan.”
“I can assure you, she’s not dating Eric”
Surprised, Anthony looks at him, “how do you know that?”
“I asked her if she was seeing anyone. She flushed the brightest red color, it was adorable. But she’s single, but she has her eye on someone.” Derick takes a sip of his beer, eyeing Anthony. He watches as Anthony’s face screws up in displeasure at the information and it looks like he’s racking his brain to figure out who this person could be. Derick sighs and turns back to the movie, the poor kid really was clueless.
“Do you know who it is?”
“Who she has her eye on?” Derick nods slowly, choosing his next words carefully, “Yeah. She’s known him for a while now they’re quite close.”
“Fuck.” Anthony breathes out, “I should have known.” Derick wishes he could tell him the truth.
“You should say something to her then.”
“I wanna shout it from the rooftops how I feel about Evelyn, God, I am so in love with her and I want to be with her, but — “
“Why are you letting fear hold you back from something that would be great for both of you? We’ve had this conversation before. You can’t lose something that wasn’t yours in the first place. Don’t live the rest of your life in regret because you never told her.”
Anthony just nods before he turns away and focuses on the movie that’s playing. He knows that Derick is right, fear IS holding him back from saying how he feels. Just before he could dive deeper into his thoughts, Evelyn walks in through the front door. Anthony makes eye contact with Derick, who gets up, “I think you know what to do.”
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bma-2020 · 4 years
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Okiedok here’s the delio. I have a list of all the blogs from the last six months who’s actively either responded to a meme i sent, responded to a message ive sent, replied to something regarding mally herself, has actually written with me, written a starter for me from my liking a starter call, has at least liked a starter i wrote for them to awknowedge it exists, all that jazz, i have a lot of open field so it’s not just a possible tumblr didnt let them no option anymore, because i send memes to everyone who posts them that i see. I reply to most peoples ooc posts. I like most starter calls I pass by. I try my darndest to actually interact bc i know how it feels to be ignored and its… i’ve been called one before so i’m using the word, thats fluffing cunty behavior, and honestly if you complain about not being interacted with but never even try when i try with you, ya being cunty, end of. I gotta list. That list only entails Mally because she’s who I care about the most. I’m probably gonna start instilling a new rule in all my blogs that if you ignore Mally and/or Darcy( @tasedandconfused ), since I would say they’re my two main blogs tho darcy gets ignored even more than mally does, probably bc i denied canon and left it entirely we know fandom hates that, if either of them is ignored then… Ya out of luck, I’m gonna unfollow you. I’m debating soft blocking everyone who ignored me on both of them but I don’t want to like be mean and deny the chance to eventually try again but at the same time i shouldnt feel bad for taking a stand and saying this is bullsheet, idk my anxiety says im awful for giving a fluff about myself but also i should give a fluff about myself probably, ive nearly died in the last three months, my brain almost exploded, i just had three root canals on one corner of my face, i have to potentially get surgery on my inner ear which i cant even afford, i dont got time to deal with only being used for like smut memes or like as a resource blog or utter bs like that, i dont got time for it. So new rules here. 1: If Mally or Darcy are not acknowledged, written with, responded to, viewed as more than just their fluffing bodies? ya dropped, im unfollowing, potentially soft blocking, which means blocking and unblocking for those not in the know, on all accounts I follow you on. Every single one. I know most of my muses are on sideblogs but despite not being able to send memes from sideblogs you can block people from sideblogs fun fact, i will do that if i have to. 2: I’m gonna be posting SCs, PCs, memes, etc. I like and respond to plotting calls, starter calls, i send memes, all of that. If I don’t get any response within.. I’m giving one week for people who don’t run on a queue and a month and a half to people on a queue based system, if i dont get anything within that time like at least an im being like ‘its posted’ or ‘its queued i wanted to let you know in case tumblrs a fluffbutt’ (i do this sometimes if i dont get even just a like on the starters i post so i at least know people saw it since i know tumblrs bs, i wait until the day they’re active to do so in case theyre busy yknow) basically i need acknowledgment at all. No you can’t claim this is abt follower count bc when you unfollow someone they inevitably unfollow you too, thats gonna drop my following, not as quickly as soft blocking would but i wanna be fair i guess, which leads to: 3: I’m basing this on your activity too, like if i like a think and you’re gone for a month after that its fine, im not gonna unfollow you unless you never come back or youre online and posting others just not mine because that tells me youre specifically ignoring me and im gonna drop you for that end of. I’m done with the bullsheet im done w the dillish behavior, i love friendship but if im giving and never receiving thats extremely one way and not gonna work. I check through my follow list weekly and i go back about five-10 pages on someones feed before i unfollow them to see their actual activity and see if theyre here or if its a q so. I’m thorough basically. 4: You dont have to be active with me on all your blogs, i mean i’d prefer it but thats hard as fluff so essentially if you have like five blogs and are just like trying w me on two or three thats fine. Ten blogs, four or five with at least a plot formed is cool. Multis just one muse is all I’d need. I’m not gonna unfollow the blogs youre not writing w me on if you at least write w me on some. Again, specifically Mally and/or Darcy. If you ignore both of them, we’re done. I havent been active on darcy because of being ignored and its a huge butt mess and im just tired i wanna use my babies, you don’t get to have my ‘better’ muses like i know a lot of ppl only follow me for my boys or my villains, you don’t get them if you ignore my baby. But, there is a limit there too. 5: If you never respond to a meme or thread even once with Mally or Darcy, or post a starter, i reply, its never replied to again after a month, I’m unfollowing and/or soft blocking for that too. Bc that means youre just raising my hopes to fluff with me or get someone else and honestly, youre even more cunty than than the people just flat out ignoring me if you do that. And this isnt a specific person, this is five of the people actually on my list. Yes, my list is also annotated with specifics again I was very thorough on this yesterday, I hyperfixated I’ll admit it, I’m in a fluffing depressionary bubble and being told to get over it because people want something they dont deserve to have to. I am a believer that people deserve good things but if youre purposefully being cunty… no you dont. 6: No I’m not releasing my list, maybe I will and I’ll omit the urls because I don’t want people being buttholes to each other too but otherwise, yall not seeing it im not giving a callout because… really thats just unnecessary here. I don’t think yall are toxic people or something i just think yall are unintentionally being cunty. And no I don’t mean everyone that follows me i mean the ppl that add up to what i’ve documented so far and fit the bill of butthat that i’ve shown, its behaviors yall gotta check before ya wreck. Yes there will be some people who have priority, everyone has those people, I write w kathryn on other platforms since she doesnt go on here as often but when Kathryn returns from war here (if she does cause she also agrees most ppl on this platform are cunty, i feel really bad saying that word so often but im gonna keep doing it i recently deleted an ask saying I was a huge cunt for not sending someone smut memes when I didn’t even follow them or know they existed so, again the travesty of this place is nutballers) same with owly, alex is here too, my most active partners are always going to be priority because theyre the ones who show the most interest and the most care. I understand that with others as well which is why I have the timeframe set up, because I want to be as open and shizz as possible while atill being firm i guess. I don’t want to have extreme double standards like its impossible for double standards not to exist at least a little bit but I want to avoid a golden chest full of them I guess. 7: I don’t have a seven rn, this was an even number and it bothered me. Seven is nust my warning that I’m bittery writing this on mobile so formatting is not real but i tried my dandest to make this look like something people might actually mind. I dont want to be butty, i dont want to be awful, i dont want to start drama or have drama but that shizz comes around anyways so i might as well make my space as okay for me as i can cause im supposed to avoid stress so my brain doesnt almost explode again, like again i almost fluffing died i dont need ppl fake being my friend or anything, i want stuff to be real and clear. I want to be happy to be on here again and have fun like i used to since my health is plummetting and I’m not allowed to go outside near plants by myself anymore because i welt up. I have plants outside my work place and im surrounded by chemicals all day long I’m welted from here to new york constantly and never comfortable in my own skin because of it and constantly see people online acting like these actual real problems are pretentious because ‘its an excuse’ when, im a fluffing sagittarius, do you know how much i want to magically be a millionaire so i can pay for friends and my own medical stuff and go on traveling and adventures, be outside probably not camping bc as a pagan i know thats a death sentence but like be outside, lay on grass, go back to swimming because i used to swim competitively and due to health reasons i can barely even go in a pool anymore because theres too much sunlight which, bit plot twist i know, im fluffing allergic to vitamin D and the rays of the sun, so go figure, attempts to be healthy kill me more, i also cant eat most plants and am constantly dying from just eating food, they dont know whats wrong with me. i cant fix it by going ve/gan for a month inf act i tried and it almost made my heart stop thanks society. These arent excuses these are the lives of disabled and diseased and to a lesser but still very real point, ethnic lives every fluffing day. This is real shit and its murder and online and gaming? It may be all I have soon since I can’t just go out and make new friends cause, again, I’d fluffing die. I get sick going to the mall or the movie theater, I miss theme parks so much but have to minimize it to weeks i dont have work so i dont get fired for having a welt while working in the beauty industry. I may have to get a degree online and change my field entirely because of my illness that nobody understands. People even make fun of it constantly online and I wish I could just drop online entirely because of how unbelievably ableist the entirety of the world is, i wish i could drop humans in general for their ableism, but i cant. I don’t have choices in most cases, but throwing away people who maybe purposefully maybe unintentionally thats why i’m giving you this warning and will be repeating this warning for awhile, this is where i have choice. I have to use what little choice I have in life while I can since everytime i go to movies or a concert or a theme park i almost die because of not having an immune system that functions or being in certain air qualities pr being near plants or unclean people, I may not have much time and I gotta do whats best for what little mental health I have, and if that means dropping people i care about and really want to write with and do things with but who ignore me then, i guess so be it.
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monsterkinkmeme · 5 years
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FAQ & Rules
Hello! Welcome to Monster Kink Meme!
This blog is a source for writing and art prompts for monsters & kinks. Pretty straightforward. Here’s a basic FAQ, mixed with our rules.
What is the point of this blog?
This blog is to generate writing and art prompts, similar to @write-it-motherfuckers and @writing-prompt-s, specifically for exophilia writers and artists.
Can we submit prompts?
Yes! Please do, either through the submission button or through asks. Asks are best for short prompts, or things that you want to keep anonymous. Submissions are best for longer prompts, and cannot be anonymous. We love getting prompts from folks. If you have a request for a story, please phrase it as a prompt. We aren’t a request blog, but a prompt blog. 
Who can participate?
Anyone over the age of 18.
How can we participate?
Other than submitting prompts, if you see a prompt that inspires you, write or draw something and reblog it with the original prompt. Also, tag liberally.
Art submitted cannot be anonymous and must be from either the artist who created it or posted with permission from the artist who created it. Do not repost someone else’s art without their permission. This includes using it in moodboards (those collages at the top of stories.) 
I see you suggest genders/monsters. Do I need to use those?
Mod prompts will sometimes have suggested genders & monsters. Those are totally optional and can be ignored if something else inspires you.
Submitted prompts that include requested monsters or genders should be considered mandatory, since people submitting those are setting up specific situations they’d hope to see.
Do I need to use a specific tense or point of view? [x]
No! The exophilia community does a lot of writing from second person present tense as a stylistic thing, but that doesn’t mean you should limit yourself to that. Write what feels comfortable to you. If that’s third person, write that! If it’s past tense, then that’s fine, too!
Can I write about sexy stuff? Kinky stuff? Polyamory?
Yes! We leave our prompts open, but if something you write takes a sexy turn, or features extra kinks, or multiple partners, that’s totally fine by us. (As long as it abides by the rules below re: what we don’t allow.) We love that stuff, it’s just that a lot of what we’ve gotten so far has been sweet rather than spicy.
Just make sure you TAG APPROPRIATELY. Use the citrus scale, tag for content (anything that people may want to know about before choosing to read your story), and follow the content rules. (We want consent, no incest, no underage sex, and no bestiality. Beyond that, it’s fair game.)
Where do I find monster inspiration?
We’ve got a post here. The short version? Everywhere! Pop culture. Cryptids. Mythology. Dungeons & Dragons. Video Games. Movies. Your Imagination.
I need writing help. Do you have advice?
We have a post here. It’s got advice from a bunch of us about how to start, how to continue. How to do the thing. The biggest thing is just to go for it. You’ll never get better without doing.
If a prompt has already been “filled,” can someone else write about the same prompt with a different story?
Yep! We’d love to see as many iterations as you guys can think of! (Someone asked Aelia about it, there’s a post.)
Are there any format expectations/requirements for stories?
Generally we like to see something that lists Characters, Content, and Rating, and a Read More link when appropriate. 
Characters tells people who/what is in your story. Reader & monster genders would be listed here. 
Content would be where you put any tags (see the next question) and warn people about anything that may squick or trigger, as well as any acts or situations that they may be interested in, or which they may wish to avoid. This allows people to make good choices for themselves. 
Rating is based on our Citrus Scale. 
If your story is more than about 6 paragraphs, or it’s explicit or potentially triggering, we love to see you use a Read More/Keep Reading tag  after the first paragraph or two so when we reblog it people don’t have to scroll forever.
How should I tag?
There’s two spots we love to see tags!
1: Ahead of your story. If you put tags before your story, your readers can make informed choices about what you’ve written, and whether it’s a good/safe choice for them. This is where we want to see tags about any kinks, sex acts, or content warnings for readers.
2: In the tumblr tags. This is where you put things to make your story searchable, so DO NOT put NSFW or “sexual” tags here, as it will make the post inaccessible by searching. This is where all the tags about citrus scale, monster types, reader & monster genders, pairings, and fandoms that apply should go. Here’s a post about unsearchable tags. Using these tags will make your post “disappear” and we’d hate to see that happen.
We have a handy guide to how we want to see the citrus scale used for stories that people hope to see on our blog.
Overall, USE CONTENT WARNINGS. We cannot stress this enough. We want readers to be able to make informed choices about what they read to avoid “squicks” and triggers.
Should we use the “teratophilia” tag?
We would prefer you didn’t for two reasons: A: teratophilia is no longer a searchable tag, and B: given the original definition of the word (sexual attraction to deformed, disfigured, or monstrous people and a form of paraphilia, I.E. attraction to the disabled), the moderators of this blog feel it is both inaccurate and insensitive.
Most (not all, but most) monster-lover writers now use the much more accurate term exophilia (the love of extraterrestrial, robotic, supernatural, or otherwise non-human life-forms) to describe our work. Robophilia (sexual attraction to robots) and xenophilia (sexual attraction to aliens) is still permissible.
Topics we don’t allow/won’t post/reblog:
Real people (like actors, musicians, and other celebrities)
Incest (including step/adopted family members)
Non-con/dub-con (including rape-play)
Whump (”Hurt/Comfort” fics that focus more on the hurt and less on the comfort. Not to be confused with standard Hurt/Comfort or BDSM)
Bestiality (creatures that don’t possess the mental capacity to consent)
Under-aged/pedophilia (with the minimum age being 18)
Everything else it totally fine.
If you plan on writing anything along these lines using our prompts, please make it a separate post, and do not tag us in it. This is because we want our notes to be relatively safe for people to look through, but also because we don’t want to be associated with things that violate our policies.
We would also like to point out once more that this is a prompt/prompt fill blog, not a request or roleplay blog. If your story/submission does not meet our rules and is NOT a prompt/prompt fill, we will not be posting it on our blog.
Do not plagiarize books/movies/video games for your prompts. 
We’ve seen this cropping up a lot recently. We will not post them if we spot them, and if we miss it and someone points it out, it’ll be deleted. [x]
General Expectation for Respect/Sensitivity
We didn’t want to phrase this one as a question necessarily but we wanted to make it clear that on the whole, not only do all of the mods of this blog embrace the idea of an open community, but we endorse appreciation over appropriation, as well as sensitivity and respect when working with creatures from races and cultures that are not your own, or sexualities, or genders which you do not identify with. We love representation, we just want to see it done well.
Mod Traveler has a post on her blog that sums it up well and includes links to educational resources for people looking for more info, but you should be able to reach out to any of us for more information about what we mean.
What are “theme days”?
We (sometimes) have two theme days a week where we request prompts that fit a specific theme. Prompts that come in on those days which fit those themes get posted immediately instead of getting queued.
Trope Tuesday is all about our favorite tropes with monsters mixed in. First Date Friday is about the trials and tribulations of first dates. We currently do them weekly, but that’s subject to change.
What are tropes?
We’ve had a few questions come in about this! We’ve answered it here, and here. But the short version is; storytelling shorthand. Common “cliche” situations that readers recognize, and may have set expectations for. (”Oh no someone is getting married and I need a date!” etc.) 
I saw you reblog something from [other prompt page]. Why?
So, we reblog from other prompt pages because we are trying to keep enough prompts in the queue to have stuff posting with consistency. We’ve been trying to share relevant prompt posts from other places (with permission from the other blogs, in every case) to ensure there’s enough content.
I wrote a story but you didn’t reblog it!
If it didn’t violate any of our rules, we just might have missed it in the notes, or it wasn’t about monsters. Please feel free to tag us, or message a member of the mod team directly. :)
Will you post a story I submit to you?
Only if it’s a direct response to one of our prompts, and/or it involves monsters. We’re a monster prompt blog. :) 
Do you have a masterlist?
We do! We have one for Fills and one for Prompts.
I don’t like something I saw posted, what do I do?
We can’t control what people post in response to prompts posted here, but we won’t ever reblog something that doesn’t fit the spirit of our blog, and we’ll never post prompts that go against our rules.
With the exception of our explicitly not allowed list, we abide by the “your kink doesn’t have to be my kink, and that’s okay” rule. The tl;dr version of this is “if it doesn’t violate the rules, but you don’t like it, just keep scrolling.”
If you feel it does violate our rules but it slipped through the cracks somehow, please send one of the mods a message, and we will help you out with it.
That’s it! We’ll update as needed! Have fun and get creating!
- Team Kink (AKA: @aelia-likes-monsters, @elizabethtarington, @hufflesmonsters, @monstersandmaw, @cozycryptidcorner, @demonsigh, & @thetravelerwrites)
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himluv · 5 years
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It’s Monday, Blogland. And I really feel it today. The weekend was less restorative than it was just… catatonic. And now the sunshine is gone, replaced with cooler temps and clouds. All I want to do is sleep and play Assassin’s Creed: Origins. Is that so wrong?
Last Week
Publish two blog posts
Finish Tavi rough draft
How’d I do?
Publish two blog posts
Yarp. Double that actually, including a book review!
Finish Tavi rough draft
YES. AFFIRMATIVE. INDEED. YARP. YAAAAAAS. YEP. BOY-HOWDY. I’VE BEEN SCREAMING (oops, still screaming) about it all weekend.
Weekly Word Count: 11,360
Inspired by the Write Here, Write Now event a couple weekends ago, on Friday I hosted a Write-a-thon in the Writer’s Discord I’m a member of. I wanted to finish the book on Friday, plus I’d set a goal — a deadline — and I was determined to keep it. With only a couple chapters to go, I figured that I might be able to eke it out.
I was correct. I wrote 5400+ words on Friday, which more or less melted my brain. I have no idea if what I wrote made sense, but it seemed to at the time. The last few chapters came very differently than the rest of the book, which will probably be a whole post of its own once I’ve sat on the realization that I finished my book’s rough draft a bit longer. There are thoughts swirling in my brain about the experience of writing this book over the last six months and I’ll want to write them all down somewhere. Might as well be here.
I also started another 500 word story for my patrons, but I’m not sold on it yet. It’s a rehashing of a very old scene I wrote for an exercise in a Creative Writing class. I can’t find the original scene, but I remember it pretty clearly. I want to readdress some of the themes and see if I can’t do it better now, eight years or so later.
I didn’t read much last week because I was writing so much. So that’s a bummer. But, I spent the weekend bingeing Assassin’s Creed, playing Overcooked with the husbando, and generally avoiding the world. Due to Mother’s Day festivities on Saturday, I did not go on my hike to Cape Falcon, which was disappointing. After Friday’s marathon I could have really used the peace and solitude of the coast.
What’s Next?
Enjoy a week off
I’m taking a mini-vacation y’all. No writing this week. No looking at the book, no deciding what to write next. I need to air out my brain and take a well deserved break. Tomorrow night is the Snow Patrol concert, Wednesday is the Willamette Writer’s meeting, Thursday night is Trivia, and then Friday-Sunday I’m out of town on a hiking trip!
I’ll be busy, but not with writing, which will make for a refreshing change of pace. Hopefully it’ll have me back in action for the week after when it’s time to write some short stories!
I’m still (slowly) making my way through the Wayward Children series, and have The Murderbot Diaries queued up for after that. I’m still reading short stories. I’m still doing all of these things, just letting my brain take a bit of a nap before we move on to the next project. And since I don’t have any reviews to share, and no writing news either, I probably won’t be back on the blog this week.
Next week you can expect lots of pictures from the hikes, and maybe even a few from the concert tomorrow.
Until then, Bloggarts.
  BZ
Goals Summary 2019 – Wk #19 It's Monday, Blogland. And I really feel it today. The weekend was less restorative than it was just...
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#1yrago Global trumpism: how India's brutal leader manufactures reality with trumped-up "polls"
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an authoritarian war criminal who is part of the worldwide surge of trumpist leaders and hopefuls, including Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte; Hungary's Viktor Orbán; Russia's Vladimir Putin; South Korea's Park Geun-hye; France's Marine Le Pen; the UK's Nigel Farage, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and others -- bound together by xenophobia, a lack of transparency, violent suppression of opposition, and savvy use of the internet.
We don't yet have a name for these powers yet, in the same way that the early 1930s didn't have a name for the "Axis powers" and even today it's hard to pin down exactly what the Axis was -- a military alliance, an ideological fraternity, a marriage of convenience -- and who was and wasn't a part of the Axis.
But they are starting to cohere into a movement whose shared characteristics are increasingly visible. One element of this is "post-truth," which has been part of the ruling class's playbook for decades (think of Iran-Contra, the complacency regarding the credit bubble, and, of course, the WMD lie that led to the Iraq invasion).
But the new world of post-truth has a different character; as Masha "Autocracy: Rules for Survival" Gessen points out in this important On the Media segment, the autocratic version of post-truth doesn't really make a pretense to being truthful: when Trump says there were millions of fraudulent votes, he is really saying two things: first, for the lowest of low-information voters, he's saying "hey, there are millions of fraudulent voters"; but for everyone else who knows, on some level, that this isn't true, he is saying, "I can say whatever the fuck I want and you egghead liberal pussies can't do shit about it," which serves the dual purpose of demoralizing his opponents and making him seem more godlike to the worshipers in his cult of personality.
When Brexiteer Michael Gove said that "people in this country have had enough of experts," he was acting out this playbook, asserting his faction's right to manufacture a new reality to counter the well-known liberal bias of reality.
The Brexit project is built around this reality-manufacture enterprise. That's why when the best-respected nonpartisan experts released a dismal economic forecast for post-Brexit Britain, right wing politicians slammed them for daring to defy their manufactured world. As Karl Rove said in the early days of this political moment, "[you are] in what we call the reality-based community, [you] believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
Which brings me to Modi, who presides over "the world's largest democracy." Modi recently surprised his 1.25B citizens with an announcement that all bills worth more than about $7.50 would be taken out of circulation in 50 days, and that old notes had to be exchanged by queuing up at banks and changing no more than about $150 at a time, with a weekly per-person maximum of about $350. The rubric for this "demonetisation" is to fight corruption, money laundering and terrorism (India is consistently at the bottom of the World Corruptions Perception Index).
However, the move has been controversial (to say the least) -- so widely deplored across all ranks of Indian society that it threatens Modi's reality-manufacture enterprise.
To reassert his trumpian reality, Modi used his app to "poll" the Indian public on demonetisation (like Trump, Modi uses online tools to communicate directly with his base, bypassing the press).
The demonetisation poll is a literal national joke in India, as it is so fantastically biased in its use of leading questions ("Do you think the evil of corruption and black money needs to be fought and eliminated?" is the second question on the survey) and its obvious sampling deficits -- the Modi app can only be accessed by the minority of Hindi/English speaking Indians who also own smartphones, and is most likely to be installed by Modi supporters.
The push-poll methodology is well understood. It featured in a classic -- and now revived -- episode of the UK political sitcom Yes, Minister that is tearing up the charts among Indian internet users.
But also familiar is the use of polls that disproportionately survey a trumpist's political base as a way of proving that the trumpist leader's policies are broadly supported -- this was something Trump himself did frequently in the runup to the election, and is making even more recourse to now that he is struggling to reconcile the ego-bruising reality of having to govern for the next four years as America's worst-performing minority president of all time.
The always-outstanding More or Less podcast (MP3) features the Modi poll in this week's episode as a teaching exercise for understanding the abuse of statistics and polls as a means to political ends.
But as important as it is to understand the statistical incoherence of using your followers' answers to leading questions as a proxy for the entire country's opinion, it's even more important to put this move into its wider context as a post-truth, Rovean, trumpist tactic used to create "new reality."
Reality is real. As Peter Watts points out, there is no negotiating with the climate, despite what Trump thinks: "Okay, we’ll cut our bitumen production by 15%, but then you have to increase your joules/kelvin by at least 5" is not a scientific proposition. But reality assertion can be delayed until the people who denied it have made their exit.
The world's super-rich are engaged in what can only be described as secession. As the world's real economy has been eclipsed by the shadow economy of offshore tax-avoidance, as climate has been forced out of the Overton window and the window is slammed shut behind it, it seems like the plan for the future is to fly from mountaintop to mountaintop, high above the rising sea, interbreeding a race of weak-chinned, entitled, murderous idiots who are brought into contact via Harrier jet for scheduled mating visits.
They don't need to prevent climate change or global economic collapse, they merely need to (literally) rise above it. Just as the criminals behind the 2008 collapse cashed out and walked away free and wealthy, just as CEOs can hollow out their companies, collect bonuses, and deploy their golden parachutes before the crash, so too do the trumpists and their courtiers expect to saunter away from the wreck whistling while the rest of us dig through the rubble for canned goods and drink our own urine.
In ten or twenty years, we'll know what trumpism is really called, and who it applies to. In the meantime, there's another political movement in potentia that we have no name for, the group that Rove sneered at and called "the reality-based community." If you are as worried as I am about Trump, you are fighting the same thing that the Turks who are fighting Erdoğan, the Filippinos who are fighting Duterte, the French who are fighting Le Pen, the Russians who are fighting Putin, the Syrians who took to the streets against Assad, the Occupiers, the Idle No Mores, the Arab Springers, are fighting. We don't have a name yet, and we're not entirely sure what to call the other side, either, but these are the sides, and they are forming.
https://boingboing.net/2016/12/03/trumpisms-global-playbook-h.html
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Sorry again
So I am high again and doing replies and so I’m very sorry if any of my replies were weird as fuck (I’m pretty sure I’m queuing most of them.)
Also, it is really fucking trippy to watch Supernatural while high. All of these episodes are blending together and I don’t actually know what the fuck is going on. And everything goes  so much not right. Likewe watched thepisode where they go  back to 1860 and the next episod eI expected them to go back to the fututre but they were already in the future cause it was a different episode. And I could have sworn Cas was talking to me in the beginning of this episode. And when they showed Cas exploding,, it looked like it was slowing down and zooming in on a prat of the blood instead of coming right at you . and holy fuck do Crowley and Cas have a strange love affair eye sex shit going on when I’m high. Like Cas called him with the Jerrfefson Starships wong, it wounded like a differen tsong. So like one of those weird romcoms where they’ve got theold Jukebox stuff and there’s like this slow walk up and no one else is conventiently in the diner. And holy shit atht hunter really looked like Bobby and when did Bobby get possessed again. Wait its not Bobyand Cas just fucking shoved that demon right back in his body and killed him. He can just fucking gripped the smoke and shoved it back in. Why can’t he just fucking grab each demonn out of the sky and kill them there.And holy shit there’s suddenly more suits and why are all the angels in fucking suits .They anin’t gotta be busineess all the time. Like have you seen Gabriel and Luci and even Anna? They just ggotta get out more, live a little. SNRK. And Casiteil is talking but his lips aren’t moving and the was the actuall fuck. 
“You never look like your joiking.” Like why the fuck are angels so stoic. Do they know how to smile? Like i understand they don’t feel emotions, but come on. Also isn’t Balthy and what’s face stlll in Heaven? Why aren’t they in businessy like attire. And I’m sorry, but Dean is fucking in love with Cas. And Netflix spells it Cass and it bugs me. Also, why were they mad at Cas?Is this where he offres him a sandwich and Dean or sam refuses it? This episode keeps doing freeze frames and what the fuck. I miss badass Casiel. Bobby just picked up his hat from the Glass without even shaking it out like won’t he get glass in his head. Doesn’t Cas work with Crowley at some point? Did he just say Superman turned to the Darks Side?
And also my bones feel weird. Like you know the wooden snakes that have the slits for joingts. Like when you move them they do the clicking thing like they have to stay in place? That’s how my bones feel, especlliain my neck. When was Dean raking leaves? Is he with Lisa at this point? Why would they other raking the leaves near Bobby’s housee? Isn’t it in the middle of the junkyard. Where the fuck are they. 
What if someone broke whatever the thing is in Hell where they have to stand in he line and just fucking WENT down the line. Where the fuck would they go then.
“Kick the candy out of each and every angel”
My auditory processing is shit when I’m sofer. This is fucking weird. 
Also Crowley like talkING LIKE THIS WHERE he starts to scream in the middle of a sentence or word anD I LOVE IT.
Did he just call Cas Ducky? What season is this? 6? Did they realy talk about Purgaotory that early. How does this season end...next on is the Dick season I think but how the fuck does this one end.
No shnk just Thunderfist. RAPHAEL VS CASTIEL FIGHT!
BUM BUM BUMMMMJ! CASTIEL’S INT A CIRCLE OF HOLYL FIRE WHOA. Shit Casitle only knew the reference because they were talking bout the reference and he was watching then. 
SON OF A BITCh, Dean is upset that Cas is chillin with Crowleey like no, that’s my Cas. What was happening in this episode?
I am the one who raised you from perdition. But he didn’t grip you tight hmmm???
I keep seeing my cats where my cats arn’t.  
ALSO
THIS FACE
“Artfully tousled hair”
They’re standing awfully closeand Getout of my sight. Where are his demon wingmen? They ain’t swirling arougn outside anymore. Did thye just up and bolt when Crowley when to have a spat with his boyfrind?
I don’t know why I started laughing but I can’t stop
BUT YES THAT FACE tHE super frown thing. You know where they like push their chin up to their nose? That thing? Howthe fuck do you describe that thing in words with the words
I don’t know man. But I’ve got a bunch in my drafts and like 7 qqueued up that I’m so sorry for because I’m sure they’re completely incoherent. 
Thank you for joining us on the ramblings of and ADHD stoned man. This is essentially my inner monologue aside from all the “breathe in” “look up” “why oes your neck feel weird” That’s essentially my brain while making this pst. So AWESOME if you could understand any of it and feel free to talk to me when I’m sober tomoorrow. 
Also, do you guys wanna see my face? I can post weekly Sam’s and stuff on Munday if you guys want.
TL;DR
And ADHD stoned man livestreamed/thought while watching Supernatural and it probably makes no fucking sense and I’m sorry for and the people I repliped to and the people reading this. I probably should have posted a thing if people wanted to talk to me while stone. Though I’m sure it would be more fun  to skype. HMU if you want my skype. I’ll try to get it workkgin for that.
This TLDR became to long and people probably didn’t even get this far, but I’m sorry
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mafiabosstsuna · 7 years
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this blog is coming to an end
Hey guys! 
Admin Tsuna here! I started this blog 1.5 years ago because I was really interested in exploring the dark side of mostly, well, Tsuna. I didn’t expect the blog to be popular. I mean it was taking one fandom-declared “uke” character and turning him into a completely out-of-character Mafia Don. I didn’t expect it to get this big. We have around 1500 scenarios/headcanons, 10+ admins who contributed to it and more than 1600 followers! We also ended up having fanart! It has been a spectacular journey and I’ve gotten so much joy from managing this blog and writing it for it! 
Unfortunately, I think it’s time for me to step down as Chief Admin. I take great pride in the fact that we were able to dish out a scenario/headcanon every single day for the last 1.5 years (and we still have 130+ scenarios/headcanons queued up!) but it has also been incredibly exhausting. Weekly deadlines, recruitment, management... I no longer have the self-discipline or energy to guide this blog. So far, none of the other admins want to take the responsibility of Chief so without leadership the blog will have to come to an end.
If you are interested in taking over the role of Chief Admin:
Sometimes, the end is a new beginning. If any of my followers is interested in taking over my role, please contact me here (this is my main blog).
If you want to be Chief Admin, you need to keep a few things in mind:
It’s basically starting from scratch, like I did, but, unlike me, you’ll have 1600+ followers and 1500+ posts to use as a reference for your works.
You’ll need to find new admins and you’ll need to be a good judge of quality. For a while, you might be the only admin who is writing until you find other admins.
You’ll need to be self-disciplined. You need to make deadlines and follow them through and you need to make sure your other admins do it as well.
Self-discipline is key.
If you are interested in being an admin:
Once again, please contact me here. I am stepping down and there might be no leadership but it’s still possible to be an admin here.
Things you will have to keep in mind:
You will need to turn in a minimum of 4 prompts/asks per week by 11:59PM of Sunday for as many weeks as you wish.
I will not remind you of the deadlines but if you miss it even once you will have to step down as admin.
You can choose your own prompts or you can open the ask box to get prompts.
I encourage anyone interested in being a writer to use this opportunity because this blog is an excellent way to practice self-discipline while still having an audience to share with it.
If you want to write but not willing to make the commitment, our submit box is always open for your works:
So, what’s the submit box? The simple answer: it’s for you guys.
Things you can submit to us:
Headcanons
Scenarios
Mini-drabble series: For this, don’t make it more than 4 parts and turn them all in together. This helps us keep track of all your work.
Art
“What characters can I write for?”
Any KHR character is up for grabs! Be it minor characters (Kokuyo Gang) or major characters (the Vongola). Your take on them is welcome here!
“When will you post them?
Within 24 hours and that’s the maximum time we’ll take. (Just in case we need to edit some grammar and spellings.)
“Can I submit mine anonymously?”
Absolutely! (Keep in mind that you need to log out to submit anonymously.)
“Does it have to be dark and mafia (like the works in this blog)?”
Yes. We have a high-preference for works that have a darker, more mafia take on KHR.
If you have anymore questions, feel free to message me.
Important Upcoming Dates:
September 16-17th, 2017: Our last event. Please prepare any last headcanons/questions you have for us. 
January 31st, 2018: Our second anniversary and the last day we make any posts (if no other admin/chief admin takes over) We might be gone but our queue is still long and will last until then.
Now that I am done with the info-dump 😄
To all of my admins (there’s so many of you, hopefully I didn’t mess any):
@neo-harmonia (admin reborn)
@onadragonsback (admin dino)
@our-brightest-stars (admin shoichi)
@puffin-for-president (admin squalo)
@wndergrl (currently deactivated blog, admin kyoko)
@x120091 (admin adelheid)
@me-kado (admin chrome)
@noisy-otter (admin haru)
@asianfrustration13 (admin enma)
@itishebihime-samaforyou (admin lambo)
@fantasticwastelandfestival (admin yamamoto)
Thank you so much for your contributions ❤️  This blog would not be the same without any of you. I know I have often been pretty strict/harsh with you guys due to deadlines and I’m really grateful for your patience with me. Writing brings a great deal of joy but happiness is not real unless shared. All of you are unmatched writers and I hope one day all of you have books with your names on them. Thank you, thank you for being a part of this journey. 
To our followers: 
Thank you for enjoying and sharing our work! For supporting us and loving us! I know that due to my professional behaviour the blog seemed a little cold and unfriendly. I don’t like blogs that go off tangents or make posts that are irrelevant to the theme of the blog. I did my best to ensure that posts and events were 100% related to the theme of dark!KHR writings. But, unfortunately, that meant that none of you guys got to really know us or interact with us. I wasn’t able to convey it but I hope all of you know that I love you guys from the bottom of my heart and thank you so much for sticking around! Thank you for giving dark!Tsuna a chance!
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arabellaflynn · 7 years
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Weekly Watch: Brian Molko Interview
Yes, I can be obsessive. Hush.
youtube
I thought this was a particularly interesting watch, because it's by far the most relaxed interview I've ever seen Molko do. The lady doing the interview, Emma Blackery, isn't a journalist -- she's a YouTube face. She has a lifestyle channel and a personal vlog, and has had some minor success as a musician. I have no idea how she ended up talking with them, but given that she's a screaming fan of theirs and her accent is local to the studio where the broadcast they're promoting is being filmed, it was probably a matter of being in the right place at the right time, and remembering to answer her email. Blackery's lack of experience is relevant here because it means she doesn't actually know what her job is. She's so new, she thinks she's supposed to go have a conversation with the famous person. You can get away with that if you're interviewing someone for a magazine -- you can go down the pub and have a couple of drinks and chat, because you have the luxury of editing the piece later. You can snip out any weird tangents and make sure nothing you think or say gets in the way of the artist profile you're supposed to be doing. And, indeed, writers have gotten some pretty decent stuff out of Molko in the past, probably by doing just that. I can't see his reactions in print, mind, but he at least says interesting things to print journos sometimes. Interviewing someone on camera is different. Especially if you're not Barbara Walters, with the advantage of a multi-camera setup that can facilitate some selective jump cuts when you snip for time and content. Most of the on-camera interviews Molko does for TV are brief affairs that happen backstage or on the red carpet on the way to some sort of public appearance, either one of their shows or some kind of awards thing. He tends to sort of ramble aimlessly, especially so when he's alone or his bandmates don't really have any comments of their own, and he's the only one who's been handed a mic. I suspect I know why: It's because professional entertainment journalists know their job is to read a question off their card and then stand there like a human channel bug while the artist talks. It's difficult to tell with a lot of the typical camera angles, but I have a feeling they just sit there, staring at him with a sort of blankly-attentive look while he makes noises. Molko has a habit of slowing like he might be winding down a bit, but then picking back up and adding another clause, which is not how he sounds when he has an actual long and complex thought that he wants to complete -- I think what's happening is that he's trying to read the interviewer's reaction ("Is that good? Is it the answer you wanted? Am I done now?") and they're giving him nothing to go on. It drives him bonkers. Blackery has absolutely no idea what she's doing and really just wants to have a chat with someone whose work she likes very much. She's got cards with questions on them, but she seems to only use them as prompts, to keep things from getting sidetracked. The whole thing is done in a very conversational cadence -- you'll notice she's not afraid to interject when she has something else she wants to say or ask. It's a perfectly normal turn-taking strategy in ordinary conversations, but it's almost never used in formal on-camera interviews. She also doesn't simply stare at him while he answers things. He's one of those people whose eyes flicker all over the place when he's trying to get words together, and there's tremendous pressure not to do that when someone else is boring holes in you with their gaze. (I wouldn't be surprised if that's one of the reasons he often does these things with his sunglasses on. It takes a remarkable amount of effort to police your eyelines, and it's less awkward to give up on it if no one can tell where you're looking.) Being a fan, she also isn't taken aback when his mind goes for a couple of brief splashes in the gutter -- as far as I can tell, that's just how his brain works and he never means anything personal by it, but other people are occasionally unprepared. Molko actually asks her a couple of questions about vlogging in the middle, which she answers with great aplomb, after teasing him about turning the interview around on her. They talk over each other when getting nostalgic over the various entertaining failure modes of cassette tapes. He's smiling through most of it. Genuinely. He almost never does that. Not that Molko's bad about press -- he learned his lesson young, after his 25-year-old loudmouth self made a couple of wiseass comments that he will never live down -- but for the most part it's pretty clear that he considers these things to be polite but distant interaction with a stranger. Not so here. You get a much better idea of how he can be engaging with an audience in real life. She seems to be something of a friend now. I'm not entirely sure who has control of the official Twitter account; undoubtedly there is an intern queuing up all of the posts about tickets going on sale, but the occasional raw comment slips through, so there must be a human with an iPhone in the signal chain somewhere. (Molko claims to not use social media, although he does occasionally prod a public Spotify playlist. Olsdal seems to have a Twitter/Instagram.) But whoever it is still knows and recognizes Emma Blackery's name, and retweets her @-mentions regularly. from Blogger http://ift.tt/2k3xRWM via IFTTT -------------------- Enjoy my writing? Consider becoming a Patron, subscribing via Kindle, or just toss a little something in my tip jar. Thanks!
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omgkalyppso · 3 years
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I was tagged by @sevarix-writes. Thank you for thinking of me! I may have done this tag game before but not recently. So.
why did you choose your url?
When I started playing World Of Warcraft sometime in 2007, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End had just come out, and I named my first character / oc Kalyppso because Calypso was taken, and she was named after the Tia Dalma character. I later also named a Hawke from Dragon Age 2 this, and it was the name of my character in Animal Crossing New Leaf.
any sideblogs?
I've tried starting two but never stuck with them. It's easier just to pile everything together and hope for the best.
how long have you been on tumblr?
Since 2013. I joined when you could still use your 3DS to upload photos directly from Animal Crossing New Leaf to a tumblr blog.
do you have a queue tag?
There was a time when I queued things, but even then I didn't have a queue tag.
why did you start your blog in the first place?
To share patterns for outfits I made in Animal Crossing.
why did you choose your icon?
My friend @crxwes was making emoji style art and I asked for my oc Fae (who looked more like Byleth at the time) to have a Thinking Emoji style piece and then I slapped some pride flags in the background that apply to both me and them, and here we are.
why did you choose your header?
More art from crxwes! I was really sick for a while and he made me a series of four very cute art pieces of Claude lazily waking and said he was looking over me while I was sick. ;w; It was amazingly sweet. He added color to one and I used it for a while and then he painted over it a final time and that's still what I'm using.
what's your post with the most notes?
I used this note counter to find out my top four original posts:
McHanzo art from 2016.
A shitpost of a tumblr ad from 2020.
A screenshot of Astarion from Baldur's Gate 3 from 2020.
A Hilorenz commission from crxwes from 2020.
how many followers do you have?
407. I wish all of you well, even though I'm sure like half of you are inactive after the titty ban.
how many people do you follow?
1400. I'd guess about 80 are active on a weekly basis. Some of you are here every day. Most are completely dead. But I also like following artists who only post once every year or two even when they apologize every time, lol.
have you ever made a shitpost?
Yes. (:
how often do you use tumblr every day?
A lot.
did you have a fight/argument with a blog once?
Not really. If someone says something rude I MIGHT MAYBE — if i'm in the mood — engage once, but then I'll block and move on.
how do you feel about "you need to reblog this" posts?
I take them on a case by case basis, but I think most people have moved on to saying "please reblog this" and that has an entirely different energy.
do you like tag/ask games?
I do! For the most part. Some get really personal for no reason.
which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?
When is a blog tumblr famous? Many of my mutuals have like a single post with a thousand notes. Some of the artists have a few pieces in the hundreds, but I'd still be surprised if people knew them outside of their own circles.
do you have a crush on a mutual?
In the sense that I'm a little in love with most people I meet? Sure. In the sense that I want to be in a relationship with anyone in particular? No, not really.
And then I remember that my spouse is one of my mutuals: LMFAO. UH. YES! Absolutely.
I'm not going to tag anyone. If you see this and would like to, tag me so I don't miss it! <333
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anneedmonds · 4 years
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This is Not #CottageCore
Here I am, wafting about underneath a canopy of wisteria. It all looks very serene and idyllic, but don’t let appearances fool you! Just out of shot: a cockapoo eating the remains of a small dead bird, a three year-old trying to touch the remains of the aforementioned small dead bird, Mr AMR shouting at both the dog and the three year-old in an attempt to get them to leave the dead bird alone and a four year-old crying because her empty blackbird eggshell has broken again.
(The egg is called Layla. Everything seems to be called Layla in this house, from dinosaur torches to “precious” stones that have been unearthed from the flower bed. But now we also have the remains of a tiny egg, called Layla – it’s the smallest slither of impossibly delicate, pale blue shell. It started off as roughly two-thirds of an empty shell, but four year-olds have no concept of the word “fragile” and so within two seconds it became half of an empty egg and half a day later the majority of that had disintegrated too.)
Anyway. I read an article at the weekend that discussed something called “cottagecore” which apparently is a sort of romanticised vision of what people think their lives would be like if they lived in the country. Possibly in a tiny, wisteria-hung, seventeenth-century thatch cottage, making pots of jam on the AGA and securing little squares of red and white gingham over the tops of the jars with bits of old string.
Now I’m not one to shatter people’s dreams (I also don’t live in a cottage, so perhaps I don’t even count) but if you’re living in the city and tinkering with the idea of finding a remote abode somewhere and replacing your daily London commute with Zoom meetings plus a weekly office trip then note that:
a) you will never make jam, or if you do then you will make it only once
b) you will want to take a sledgehammer to your AGA within a matter of weeks
c) your thatch will have a bazillion insects and small, crawling animals living in it – think of it like Mr Twit’s beard, but with more activity
Oh, it’s easy to see country life as one big romp around the haystacks in a smocked white dress, but the reality is is that you’ll spend 90% of the time wearing your oldest tracksuit bottoms and mud-caked wellies, standing on the roof of your car in an attempt to find some mobile phone signal. And if you’re doing that then you’re probably trying to phone the oil people to come and fill your oil tank or the sewerage people to come and empty your septic tank or a roofer to come and repair your ancient roof.
I jest, of course. I am the most susceptible person ever to romanticised visions of pastoral life – how do you think I ended up here? And country life has much going for it – a slower, less frenetic pace, clean air, lots of space and greenery and wildlife, gorgeous old stone houses and picturesque #cottages – but dear God don’t think that you’ll suddenly turn into the sort of person who has time to make jam. Unless, that is, you’ve already got the time to make jam.
One of the biggest things I’ve realised, since moving to the sticks, is that plopping yourself somewhere geographically different, especially somewhere more remote, will not in itself automatically change your life. We moved from the outskirts of London to the depths of Somerset with a two year-old and a six month-old baby and for some reason, perhaps because I was postpartum and slightly crazed, I thought that by escaping to the country we would also escape the overwhelming intensity of our everyday lives. But if anything it made life harder. People (the three that we knew in our new county!) were suddenly more spread out – there was no peering out of the window on the offchance that we’d get a friendly wave – and each trip to the shops or a cafe or a baby class involved an epic loading and offloading of small children into the car, so much so that eventually I just didn’t bother.
And you think you won’t miss the bright lights of the city (“I never use the theatres anyway! Why pay such a premium to live in a city when I don’t even use it?”) but once you’ve unpacked all of your boxes in your remote Herefordshire manor house/Devonshire bothy and you’ve knitted your hemp blanket to keep the vegetable patch warm, won’t you be itching for just a little bit of excitement?
Just playing devil’s advocate! Don’t shoot the messenger!
It has taken me the good part of three years to get used to living in the countryside. Granted, I did double-whammy and moved the whole way across the country as well as going remote (what can I say? The house sang to me like a wanton temptress) but still. There are things to consider – things that don’t seem important at the time of moving, but will gradually creep up on you after the three month Honeymoon period is over.
It starts with a general sense of unease – a niggling feeling of is this it? – and then it grows, daily, until winter sets in and you feel the full, bleak force of untempered weather. Because there are no distractions, really, if you’re out in the middle of nowhere; you wake up and look outside and it’s all about the weather. In winter that means rain, rain, wind and a lot of mud. In a town, or in the city, you notice the weather but I feel as though it’s more of an inconvenience if it’s bad – and a huge bonus if it’s good. Life still goes on, streets have Christmas lights and stalls have mulled wine; but if there are no buzzing cafes, bustling pavements and nice shops, and your immediate entertainment involves walking, tending to the garden and more walking then… It’s a different way of life.
I now feel at peace with it, but it’s taken a while and I’m not afraid to admit it. I’ll also come out and say: it can be lonely. There.
So, people lusting after the cottagecore life; if you’re feeling isolated now, in lockdown, then it’s a good time to consider how you would feel with the slightly different level of ongoing isolation that living remotely brings. True, outside of lockdown you are free to socialise and visit family and meet friends at the local organic (“all meat is raised and butchered on the estate!”) pub but everything is slightly more effort. You don’t just pop out for a donder to the shops if you live in a hamlet – you pop out to walk the dog and yes, you see the owls taking flight as the sun goes down and you get to appreciate the sound of absolute, definitive silence as you lay your head on your pillow at night, but you have to ask yourself, would you miss the sound of human life around you?
If the answer is no then go full steam ahead with your #cottagecore dream. Have chickens pecking at your doorstep and dry your boots on the top of the AGA and lomp down to the river with the dog instead of queuing to get into the tube station at Holborn at rush hour. For me, the benefits of living in lots of space and peacefulness vastly outweigh the perks of the city, but then I did live in London for over a decade, then a few more years within easy commuting reach, and I feel as though I got my fix.
So who am I to tell you what you want? If the #cottagecore life seduces you and you find yourself on Rightmove then the best of luck – maybe I should write a guide on what to consider! Just don’t expect to make jam…
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