#I spent $200 to get my shit fixed

[hazardouscube]

My laptop was broken for most of November. It wouldn't even charge or turn on despite having battery. I took it to a guy last week who fixed my computer previously. He replaced a broken part that didn't allow charge to go through my laptop and that fixed the issue. Literally LITERALLY this morning, my laptop turned off and I have the same issue again! I'm going to take it back tomorrow and see what the problem is this time. If it's the exact same problem, he better fix my laptop properly and at a discounted price.

[knack4harlow]

“Don’t go over your budget”

“Are you still giving me the silent treatment?” 

“…”

“C'mon Y/N I said I’m sorry .”

“…”

Jack tilted his body against the wall in the doorway watching his girlfriend as she refused to even look at him. Wanting to be the bigger person, he slumped his shoulders and slowly walked over to the edge of the bed where you laid. 

“C'mon, baby it was just a joke I swear.” 

“Would it be just a joke if I said you need to start covering that 100 acres of forehead you got?” 

“Guess you aren’t so sad anymore huh?” He mumbled, quietly fixing his curly bangs.

“You know how insecure I am about my body hair Jack.” 

He sighed, “Your right baby I’m sorry, I took it too far and I apologize. You're gorgeous with or without body hair”

You silently smiled to yourself at that, but wouldn’t let it show of course.

He started to gently rub your back and give you slow kisses on your arm and shoulder. “What can I do to make it up to you sweet girl?” He pleaded in between kisses. You immediately sat up. 

“Makeup run?” you smiled.

He laughed, “Wow that was easy.” playfully rolling his eyes. 

He rubbed the back of his neck.

“Princess you know I like to spoil you but you spent over 2,000 dollars last time, we can do anything else. “

“How about no sex for a week?”

“I'll go get my shoes on”

15 minutes later both of you were finally ready and we're heading out the door and climbing into his jeep. The drive to the mall wasn't that far from your apartment and before you knew it you were pulling up to the parking lot. Before climbing out of the car your boyfriend grabbed your wrist.

“Y/N you have a budget of 400.”

“400?!” you yelled, a little bit too loudly. “After the way you treated me?”

“$450”

“$550”

“$500”

“$800” 

“$200”

“550 it is.” you smiled. 

“That's what I thought” he smirked. “Watch that attitude” you smiled back as you leaned into a kiss, rubbing his beard.

He grabbed your hand as you both walked into the store feeling the brush of air. 

“God damn it's cold in here,” he whispered to himself. 

“ Baby it's 90 degrees outside.” 

“And?”  

“Nevermind” you rolled your eyes. 

“Sassy ass” you mumbled to yourself. “Don’t start,” he replied. 

After a little bit of looking around with him following close behind, you both made your way to where you get your concealer. While looking for your shade you saw your boyfriend wander and go towards some other products. 

“God damn did everybody take my shade?” you uttered to yourself.

“Baby, what's up with these names?”, “Better than sex, better than sex foreplay, shit making me horny”. You giggled at his antics “Jack please put that down.” 

“Maybe we can go to the back of the store or something,” he said, wrapping his arms around you. 

“It's official, I’m never bringing you here again,” you said walking away from him as he smacked his lips together.

You made your way over to the skin care section and started piling your basket.

“Hey remember your budget,” Jack said furrowing his eyebrows. “It's $800 right?” you joked looking up at him. He didn't find it amusing though. 

“We should really get some of this stuff for you, especially something to help with those eyebrows.” your boyfriend jerked his head up at that, “What's wrong with my eyebrows?”

“Nothing” you smiled while walking away.

“Y/N wait!”

Truthfully there was nothing wrong with his eyebrows, or anything in his face for that matter. But since he wanted to tease you, you decided it would be best to tease him back.

After walking around more, soon you both had made it over to the fragrance section. 

“Jack smell this for me, baby,” you said, spraying some in the air. “It smells nice mama, but don't you already have a full shelf of perfumes already?”

“I'm sorry Jackman Thomas Harlow, are you judging me right now? Me? After you just disrespected and hurt my feelings?”

“Of course not, baby.” 

“That's what I thought, cause let me say something about your big ass box of Pokemon cards-” you started off

“You made your point”

“Mhm,” you smirked. 

Soon you were basically done with your shopping and you and your boyfriend were heading towards the register. While on your way you passed by a new collection by one of your favorite brands.  “OMG POOKS LOOK '' you yelped. He stood behind you watching you pick up every single product in pure enjoyment.

“I know I probably went over budget but baby please” you pleaded.

“Go ahead” he frowned jokingly.

You shoved everything into your basket and both of you headed towards the cashier. 

“Your total is $630.50, will you be doing cash or card sir?” the lady behind the counter smiled, handing her hand out.

You looked up at Jack ready for him to tell you to put some stuff back, but instead he smiled to himself and took his card out.  

“Thank you for shopping with us today!” the lady smiled(a little too hard in your opinion)

After getting settled in the car you looked up at him and frowned. 

“Pooks I went over my budget, why’d you still pay?” 

“You really thought you had a budget? Baby I would’ve bought the whole store for you if you had wanted it.” He laughed

“Wow so you really had your girlfriend in there doing calculations, knowing damn well I’m bad at math, trying to save your money?” You crossed your arms.

“Yes and it was adorable watching you.” He smiled teasing you.

“You're lucky, you're cute.” You smile, giving him a kiss on the cheek. 

“Thank you for spending your money on me though,” you mumbled in between kisses on his cheek. 

“I’m always going to do  whatever I can to see those pretty dimples.” That made you smile even more. 

“And plus, I really do feel bad about what I said baby, I’ll do anything to make you happy honestly.” 

“Thank you pooks” you smiled showing your dimples. 

As he started driving you started rummaging through your 8 full bags sitting by your feet. 

“So when are you gonna apply some of that Nair though?”

That earned him a hard smack to the back of the head and a mean glare.

“Too early?”

[fuck-customers]

⭐ I work in a specialty hospital for pets. We take care of cats and dogs with issues like cancer, heart disease, and major injuries, to name a few. We're not a regular vet where you go for checkups. It isn't unusual to see bills costing thousands of dollars. The smallest bill I regularly see is still $200+, while the biggest I've ever seen was more than $20k (that was a single visit, not counting the thousands they spent before getting to that point). All that said, I still hear from clients that we're cheaper than our closest competitor. It's just an expensive business to be in.

As you can probably guess, there's a lot of heartache in this business. While most of our clients can afford the $200 first visit, many can't afford to follow through on their pet's treatment, regardless of how much they love them. Which means they have to make very difficult decisions, or, more realistically, those decisions are made for them based on their financial realities. So while it's painted as a choice, it really isn't.

And that's the worst part. The fact that they're here at all is proof that they deeply love their fur baby and want them to get better. And we're telling them it IS possible, but we need that $$$. And that sucks. That SUCKS.

That all brings us to today. A new client came over to pay his $1,500 bill (which I personally could not do, so he's clearly better off than I am) and starts complaining about the pricing. I don't set the prices, but I understand wanting to complain. But then he said "what happens when someone can't pay?"

And it's like. I mean. It's not some mystery. It's quite easy to figure out on your own. If someone can't pay, then their pet doesn't get treatment. If their pet doesn't get treatment..... well, that depends on the specific issue, but a lot of the time it means they die. Maybe not immediately, but they're on their way, y'know? If they can't pay, they go home.

So I'm trying to tastefully explain that, and he gets more upset and starts yelling that our prices are killing pets. That we could save more pets if we lowered our prices.

GOLLY GEE, WHY DIDN'T WE EVER THINK ABOUT LOWERING THE PRICES? IT MUST BE BECAUSE WE DON'T CARE ABOUT PETS. WE DON'T CARE ABOUT POOR PEOPLE. IT DEFINITELY ISN'T BECAUSE THIS IS THE REALITY UNDER CAPITALISM AND WE'RE DOING OUR BEST. AND OF COURSE OF COURSE OF COURSE, ALL OF THIS IS MY FAULT, SPECIFICALLY. CLEARLY I, AN ENTRY-LEVEL EMPLOYEE, AM THE ONE MAKING THESE DECISIONS, AND IF YOU MAKE ME FEEL BAD ENOUGH, I'LL FIX IT.

Jfc man. Go yell at someone higher up. Go yell at your elected officials and demand universal healthcare for pets. But this shit is already hard enough, and yelling at me while also asking very emotional questions isn't remotely productive. Fuck you. I hope your dog is doing better.

Posted by admin Rodney

[textsfromhannibal]

My Panasonic RX-5031 - aka Deborah

I've seen some comments on my Peacefield clip video wondering about sourcing vintage audio equipment, so here's everything in my brain downloaded for educational purposes. :D

Last year around Christmas, I decided that I wanted to get into collecting physical media again. For the nostalgia and hobby factor, if nothing else. For some reason, my heart led me right past the vinyl and CD aisles and decided that I needed to make myself at home amidst the... fucking cassettes?

Examining my motivations, two factors influenced this decision. One is that I am privileged to live close to an amazing independent record store that has hundreds of vintage cassettes sitting there in bins, just ready for the picking, most priced between $1-$5. They also sell or can order all the recent physical releases, so I could pick up Brat and Short n' Sweet on cassette if I wanted.

(Tender mother, aka Deborah. Yes, that is Impera inside, and yes it sounds phenomenal.)

The other factor is that I stumbled upon... this darling. This glorious, almost physically immaculate Panasonic RX-5031 was waiting for me at the Goodwill auction website, which is a resource I find not a lot of people know about. Your local Goodwill might sell all the good shit via auction right here, folks. When it comes to electronics and bulk craft supplies such as vintage sewing patterns, I find this website is often worth a look.

I couldn't find much information about the Panasonic RX-5031 (I'm still in the market for a user manual). I have yet to pinpoint an exact production run for it this model, but I'm assuming early 80s due to the lack of Dolby noise cancellation and the analog cassette timer. However, by searching for the model number on YouTube I was able to find a video of a gentleman test-running his own recent acquisition, and the audio quality of his unit blew me away. For that reason, I decided to bid. Competition was fierce, people were on my ass all the way to the end, and at first I wasn't even sure I'd won her.

But I did. I won the auction, she was now mine to love and cherish.

She arrived still in fair working condition, with full radio capabilities (even shortwave!). All controls and readouts working, and zero corrosion. No one ever thought of putting batteries in this baby. The only thing wrong with the unit was the fact that the left audio channel wasn't working for tapes--both through the speakers and through the headset jack.

(Deborah has many buttons and dials, because she is a lady of class and elegance. Also, it is SO FUN to get that heavy kinetic feedback. All the clicks and ka-thunks really add to the experience.)

Luckily, again, I am privileged to live in a city where music is a big deal. Within half an hour's drive from my house are wizards who know the deep magic, who can service almost anything as long as it's not a modern flatscreen TV. (They've told me to my face to throw those out if they break, they're not worth repairing.) If you've got a cabinet tube TV from 1982, though, they can fix that right up for you. Any turntable or cassette radio, bring it on down.

So, for about $95, I got a full tune-up and restored cassette audio on the left channel. I'll admit, between purchasing such a high-quality vintage unit and the servicing, we're looking at a few hundred dollars in startup costs for this hobby. However, I'm looking at a new budget turntable right now that starts at $200, and a new portable cassette player that starts at $110; the best quality factory-new CD/cassette unit you can purchase, according to Techmoan, is this baby and it starts at $167.

For the fact that the Panasonic RX-5031 is vintage and has such great sound, I'm content with what I've spent. The fact that other bidders were RIGHT ON MY ASS until the very end of the auction tells me that other people were willing to spend even more than I did; I think I won by sheer luck of the auction timing out.

So now I'm having a lot of fun collecting new and vintage tapes. I've learned a lot, including how to fix some common tape issues (replacing pressure pads, etc.) and some pitfalls to avoid (mold is an issue in old tapes, if the cassette casing doesn't let you see that the tape is entirely devoid of mold, I wouldn't purchase it). I'd like to learn more about servicing the actual unit.

(A selection of the vintage tapes I've sourced -- pretty sure that George Michael one was purchased and never used, it sounds incredible.)

More groups are releasing to cassette for the novelty factor, and since the price point is lower than vinyl, I'm hoping that evolves into a steady cassette release scene. There are some gorgeous designs out there, and limited-edition runs that sell out very quickly (I dithered for a full day before I decided which version of Skeletá to preorder). Honestly, I've found myself enjoying the static, hum, grunge and warmth that comes through when I play music on tape. It's not the ideal format for longevity, but it's what I grew up with, so it still feels special to me.

[king-lyrebird]

My backlit camera lens experience was my worst event experience in project sekai history and it exposed my biggest issue with this game.

Project sekai's gacha system is one of the biggest scams in all of gacha.

Absolutely ridiculous that there's no way to guarantee a card beyond knowing you can spark it. You shouldn't have to make 300 pulls to use the shop when you literally have a pity system. Except the pity system is literally meaningless. 100 pulls to get a 4 star guaranteed?? Bullshit. The 100 threshold should be the banner guarantee, and the 200 threshold should be a chosen card guarantee.

At least in a game like Star Rail, I know I'm guaranteed what I want at the end of the work. If I can make enough pulls and build my pity, I know I can get the one I want. But in project sekai I'll never know I can get the one I want, because of my second issue with the pity system. It doesn't carry over. So if you want your shit, it's 200 pulls minimum That Specific Banner to get it. You can't pity build across different permanent banners, and it's predatory behaviour for a game that appeals mostly to teens and young adults. Having every permanent banner carry over pity might simplify things a bit too much, so what if group events and mixed events had their own pity carry over, since most people only wish for the groups they like most anyway.

Implementing both would trivialise the game too much, whatever, I'm not saying both of these fixes need to be made. But one of them would life easier for free to play players. I've been free to play for years, after I spent almost 300 on a kaito card. And I finally dipped my hand into my pocket for cyberpunk rui, because I'm so desperate for the game to give me a single card I want. And I got a stupid fucking vocaloid who I Do Not Like or Want. I didn't even get Rin with my paid gems. My paid gems got me a 3 star. I want to drain my account to have the gems and get Rui, but knowing this disgusting predatory system, I'll spend another 300 like I did for Kaito just so I can buy him from the gacha shop. Fucking disgusting. Again, in other gacha games, I could pay less and guarantee the character I wanted. Far less.

Not to mention it's really funny for Sega to rerun a rui limited card right before a focus event. Almost like a punishment to his fans, you can only have one or the other if you spend enough gems. I spent 180 pulls between wedding rui and cyberpunk rui, and got neither. I got wedding Toya and cyberpunk Rin, and I've never felt more cheated. It's predatory. It's making me wish I never found this stupid game. I love Rui, but Sega hates him and his fans just the same.

On the other half of my worst event experience, I saved bonus energy since the end of A Sad Farwell At The Curtain Call in preparation for Ruis fourth focus event. I didn't even know what it would be at the time, since it wasn't out on JP yet. I waited for a year. My final ranking in Curtain Call was 580, a disappointing loss for top 500. I wanted to get top 500 this time and prepared for it. Thanks to being an adult, I ended up having no time or energy to play, and I've come 1895 place. Not even top 1000. It sounds stupid, but I cared about this so much, and it's a repeated punch to the skull that I couldn't have a single wish fulfilled for this event. Maybe I should lower my expectations, or maybe this game should pretend it cares about it playerbase and fix its awful fucking gacha system.

Whatever Rui 5 is, I'm not sure if I even care at this point. I feel gutted and soul crushed over all of this horseshit. Even reading the event story did nothing for me, it's just another event where the lead deals with 'I need to get better st this thing I'm exceptionally good at because I'll never achieve my dreams if I dont'. I can only hope his next focus is better, but is worth my time and mental health to give a shit anymore?

[furorsopher]

(semi-) realistic respawned AHam:

in the beginning, there was darkness

OK this is an incredibly rough draft just to let my thoughts out :3 also H stands for Hamilton im not gonna write his name every time ive already spent too much time on this

H is “alive” and “well” in the complete darkness and claustrophobia inducing nature of his casket, and has been idly scratching and chipping away at the wood around him for half a century. when he finally makes a break through (literally) he discovers a layer of fucking stone.

with the help of the wood from his slowly rotting casket and the metal buttons of the coat and suit he was buried in he works on the corners of his tomb to maybe free himself at some point, his adapted ears roughly picking up on the changing world surrounding him. when finally the short hand side panel gives in and falls from its spot, freeing Hamilton finally. his legs are near to numb from 1: not having been used for over two centuries, and 2: having had splinters in them for roughly 150 years now.

the sudden surge of cold winter air, the blinding light of NY night time and the newly not rotting smell may threaten to overwhelm H, but adrenalines a funny thing, so he drags himself out of his tomb and even manages to put the (unrealistically but conveniently still whole) slab back where it belongs.

so, what does one do when you free yourself from 200 years of being confined in your grave and you have no idea where to go in a world your senses aren’t adapted to anymore? YA GO TO CHURCH!

so H breaks into Trinity Church (don’t ask me how he did it with the snow, his rotted clothes and non-existent muscle mass working against him… tbh weirder shit will go down as we progress)

THATS AS FAR AS IM WILLING TO REVEAL RN LMK IF I SHOULD CONTINUE THIS?? i’m thinking about actually writing it properly and not just a draft

idk :3 but i want weirdly alive-undying-zombie-time-is-just-a-concept-we-made-tf-up-get-ready-for-non-time-fixed-hamilton ok?

[cloama]

I missed something about the housing crisis.

Credit scores serve as indicators for rent hikes now. They no longer only indicate if you can handle the housing costs now. They’re meant to see if you can afford the rent increases they want to beat you with after 12 months.

That is why I am getting rejected left and right. I can always tread water but they’re looking for a golden goose. Someone who is just going to fork it over.

If I was moving into a 1br with a partner they would approve us bc they know together we’re not going to want to move and will eat that 200 dollar increase in twelve months.

But a singlular school teacher who has other bills to pay. They know I’m going to pack my shit and go. They know they can’t take money that’s meant to pay off my loan out of my mouth and give it to themselves so they won’t even bother. Interesting.

Fixed income and working people are homeless because they know they can’t squeeze any more blood from that stone. Wages stagnate so they can’t take from us so their solution is to literally squeeze out an entire demographic of people leaving them homeless. We should have spent the 80s and 90s building more public housing but no. Austerity for one decade and crime bills the next.

[shotmrmiller]

I asked him one time why he spent so much money on me and he said it's bc he gets bored and doesn't know how else to spend his money. I've surrounded myself in rich friends and idk how I managed it, I just get shit thrown at me. like, 200 dollar pair of shoes that don't fit anymore? give them to the broke autistic we adopted into the friend group. I'm just charity at this point tbh

ITMUHBENAHHH having no fucking clue how to spend money. i'm one of those i wouldn't cry if i had a yacht type of fella.

like majority of my problems could be fixed with money

[sprites-writing]

Chapter 14: Castles Crumbling

Freya POV, 1350 words kinda all over the place because this is a filler chapter, shit's going down next chapter ;)

heads up that there's kinda graphic descriptions of injuries throughout, especially concerning blood, tldr if you need it at the bottom :) also heavy talk of insecurities/self-worth issues

chapter 1 chapter 13

By the time the rain stopped, we were down on the beach, the stars shining in the sky as if twelve lives hadn’t just been destroyed. I stood a few feet away from the others, their distrust in me breaking my heart into a thousand little pieces.

Now that the adrenaline had worn off, the pain from my wounds was making it hard to stand up straight. I had a bullet still lodged in my left shoulder, my right hand was sprained, if not broken from how hard I had landed on it while trying to save Enoch and I had easily a dozen deep cuts from the glass. Blood was slowly seeping onto my dress, staining the green a reddish-brown.

“I’m sorry, Jake,” Fiona said, “What do we do now?”

Jacob looked lost, leadership obviously not being something he was used to. “I-is there any sign of Miss Peregrine and that Wight?”

“Gone. They must have had a boat.” I shook my head, the motion sending more blood out of my shoulder and I clamped my most definitely broken hand over it.

“We need to go after them,” Jacob said, stating the obvious. “We know he’s taking her to Blackpool.”

“But Blackpool is miles away! The next ferry doesn’t go for hours. We’ll never make it in time,” said Millard.

“Not unless we go by boat too.”

I snorted, “Where the fuck are we gonna find a boat?”

Turns out there was a boat. Mind, it was easily 200 metres underwater, but there was a boat. Slowly, we swam down, Emma blowing air bubbles for us to be able to breathe. Every stroke of my arms sent agony flaring up my shoulder and down my back, the bullet had done more damage than I thought.

While Emma worked on filling the rest of the boat up with air once one room was sufficiently dry enough for us to breathe, the rest of us slowly moved room by room through the ship, finding enough bedrooms for each peculiar to have two, the engine room and a room full of skeletons.

Before long, we all ended up in the bridge. The angle that the ship had taken to get out of the water resulting in most of us falling against a wall. Once we were out of the sea, Enoch came and stood beside me as we all looked out at the island. There was no guarantee we would ever come back, let alone live past tomorrow.

I did my best to avoid everyone, including Enoch, for the next few hours. The betrayal in their eyes was too much for me to handle, especially while we rushed to Blackpool.

It was like every single good thing I had done in the last nearly seventy years had been erased in a matter of an hour. Every night spent drinking in the village with Olive and Emma meant nothing. Every time I took care of Wyn and Claire meant nothing. Every afternoon I soothed Fiona when she lost control because of Hugh, they meant nothing.

If I had to see my family look at me like I was a monster one more time…

In a way, they were confirming all the fears I’d had since I was thirteen. No one could ever fully accept that someone they loved could kill them and anyone else in seconds if their control slipped for only a moment.

I will always be on my own. I will never have anyone for long.

Maybe it was a gift of sorts to have seventy years of being loved, even if I had to hide such a big portion of myself to get it.

My spiral of self-pity was interrupted as I turned down the hallway that led to the room I’d claimed for the night. It was a good few hallways away from both where the younger and older wards were sleeping. Enoch was leaning on the wall next to the door.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing, everything’s fine,” I said, trying to push past him to open the door.

“Sure, that’s why there’s blood all over you.”

I half-turned to him, “I can fix it.” I didn’t like being shitty to him but it would keep him safe and I’ll be damned if that wasn’t my top priority.

He raised an eyebrow, he knew damn well I was bullshitting, “You can fix a bullet wound with one hand?”

I sighed in defeat and let him follow me in. While he found a first aid kit in the bathroom, I pulled off my dress and my cami underneath, leaving me in a soft bralette and bloomers.

I had just sat on the bed when Enoch turned around with bandages and tweezers in hand. At the sight of me, his jaw dropped slightly, “I didn’t realize it was so bad, I would’ve annoyed you into letting me help earlier if I knew.”

To be fair, I was looked a mess. I had rebraided my hair after getting to the ship but the water had wreaked havoc on my curls and had left them in a mat of tangles. My shoulder had stopped bleeding, but there was still blood crusted from my collarbone to my bicep. There wasn’t too much blood from the glass but that was only because they were still embedded in my skin.

“Where do you want to start?” he said, sitting down gently next to me.

“Bullet. Probably not good for it to stay in there long.” He nodded and I twisted so that he could see where it entered. 

He unscrewed a bottle of whiskey and poured some on a cloth. “This is going to hurt like hell but we can’t risk infection, not right now.” Enoch wiped the cloth over my bloodstained skin and I hissed through my teeth at the sting. To say it hurt would’ve been the understatement of the century. It felt like it was burning through my raw skin.

After what felt like far too long, he had me lie on my back so that he could find the bullet. The tweezers were freezing as he dug through the muscle and flesh of my arm. There was a slight tugging feeling before the bullet was out.

“Here’s the little fucker,” he said, dropping it into my waiting hand. It was only a few minutes longer before I was stitched and bandaged up.

“Glass next?”

“Yeah,” I sighed, knowing that this was going to be a long process. Thankfully, it had been mostly big shards of glass that got stuck, the majority of the small pieces bouncing off me.

After another twenty minutes he asked “Is there anything else?”

“I might have, possibly, definitely broken my hand when I was trying to grab the hollow,” I said, scrunching my face up as I waited for his reaction.

Noch blinked twice, “What?”

I held up my hand. Two of my finger were at an unnatural angle and you could just barely see where one of my bones poked into my skin slightly. It was a miracle I could move my hand at all right now.

“Oh shit. That-that is definitely broken. I don’t know what to do with that.”

“Me neither. Maybe we could bandage it? So that it doesn’t get worse?”

“Alright, we can do that.” He gently wrapped my hand then redid the bandages on my arm and thigh from when Claire spilt her hot chocolate. 

God, I thought, that couldn’t have been just three days ago.

There we sat in silence, Enoch cradling my fucked over hand in his like it was something to be protected, like I was something to be protected, and I suddenly realized what was going to happen. We were finally going to talk about the elephant in the room that we’d been ignoring for sixty years.

“Frey—” he started and I snatched my hand back.

I shook my head, clutching my broken hand to my chest as I stood up. “I-I can’t,” I said backing away until I reached the door.

And then I ran.

TLDR if the injury talk was not for you: Freya begins to distance herself from the others because she thinks she's worthless after how the others (minus Enoch) reacted to the death-touch part of her peculiarity. They go down to the Augusta. General talk of how they confirmed the fears she had for years about not being accepted for her peculiarity and maybe it was a gift that she got nearly 70 years of them not knowing. Enoch fixes up all her injuries even tho she's been trying to avoid him. Enoch tries to get her to talk about their feelings but she panics and runs off.

chapter 15

[kitty-bandit]

Animal sickness under the cut.

My cats have been various levels of sick for the past 2 months. The kind of sick where I’m cleaning up stinky messes and washing blankets multiple times a day due to messes/accidents. I’m pretty sure I’ve spent at least $1k on various treatments and other things to fix their issues. 5 cats passing parasites and worms between each other takes a while to get under control—especially when the diagnosis took forever to get as well.

But we figured out where and why/how they kept getting sick (drinking stagnant water from a broken sump pump like a bunch of idiots—a second one which we didn’t know we even had—which also cost $200 to fix) and finally—FINALLY—for the first time since we got Jelly Bean in late October, he had a goddamn solid bowel movement.

I feel so old and so ridiculous being this excited and happy about cat shit. But the relief is overwhelming. After all the bullshit from that shelter we adopted him from—when they didn’t properly treat him for his parasites or vaccinate him right!—and his poor ear infection, he’s finally better. He’s healthy! His little body can finally properly digest food and get all his nutrients so he will get big and strong!

And Shiro is better—no longer screaming in pain from his poor sore butt because he caught worms from his brother. And the other boys also having the same issues (though Shiro had it worst of all)—they’re all on the mend. They took their meds and are getting their little gut biomes back to normal.

And maybe—just maybe—they will no longer have those atomic, room-clearing farts.

My goddamn life has been nothing but literal shit for months and I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Sweet, sweet freedom. OTL

[6ad6ro]

maybe i shouldnt complain but

my steam deck broke, weird gpu issues. idk why but any game that was 3d and came out less than like 15 years ago (graphical complexity i guess) would have it's polygons like explode (instability) and deck would crash. this was the second deck i had, the first already had been replaced for other reasons. valve had me spend like a month (it felt like a full time job) in testing dif things to figure out what was wrong. in the end, they wanted me to send it in for repairs.

first annoying thing, they waited until AFTER we tested everything to check if i was still under warranty. even tho it'd been i think less than a year since i got my replacement deck, i don't think that refreshed my orig warranty. so they told me to send it in and then they would send it to their official repair partner (united radio) and estimated it'd cost like 200. i sent it, and then got an email from ur.

this was the second annoying thing, because the person at ur asked me "so what's the problem with the device" as if they had no idea. like i'd tested dif things for a month and there were so many logs of conversations with valve, and they didn't look? nobody gave them that information?? well anyways i copied and pasted my entire log i had with valve tech support, because that would have alllll of the info including pics and videos. all ur said in their reply email was "thank you". idk why but i got vibes that nobody over there would be readin what i sent to them.

they got back to me and said it'd cost 200 and they would be fixing control boards and buttons and the battery. they were vague, i couldn't find info online about the boards, was confused why they were fixing things that weren't broken, but assumed i was ignorant of the part names and how they'd relate to the issue. so i decided to trust that valves repair partner would know what they were doing.

i got my deck back, and it took about 10 minutes of testing to experience the same exact issues as before. they obviously didn't test shit. i spent way more time lookin up what was actually replaced. for a purely graphical issue, they decided to replace the r1 button, the boards that affected controller input, and the battery (that was already tested by valve tech support to not be broken). it was like if you brought your car in for engine trouble and they replaced the windshield wipers and gave it back like "here you go!". fuckin morons. so third annoying thing, turns out they were just absolutely incompetent.

i sent valve an annoyed (but prob still too poilte) email trying to find what the fuck went wrong, and told em i wasn't all that happy. and they quickly got back to me and said to send it in to rma (for free this time). later i got an email sayin they were sending out a brand new deck. FINALLY. and so i waited. it was supposed to arrive today. i waited by the door all day bc my first deck got stolen. it was takin longer than estimated to arrive, so i checked tracking. ups was all like "hey the address is wrong, correct it to get package".

after some legit obnoxious hoops to do that, i found out whatever dipshit sent my package had just fucked up so bad lol? like number was wrong, but also they included my phone number after the street address so ups thought it was an apartment number. on top of that, valve restricts address changes so it's not like i could fix it anyhow. that's at least four super obnoxious things.

honestly i'm startin to think they should send me an oled switch instead for all the dogshit they've put me through. because what the fuck.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Technical Difficulties

There's always something.

The good news is that it appears that the work deluge is finally slowing down. Not enough for me to not need to do overtime yet, but we actually got to under 200 reports today! Only briefly, but still, we're only in the 220 range, which is good given we've been at 300+ for weeks. Am I still pissed that everyone moved to the short documents dictated today and left me the long complicated shit (including a mastectomy specimen done buy a junior doctor who has no clue how to structure a report)? Yes, obviously, but I was getting it done and going, "Hey, great! I may be able to do less overtime this week, and maybe no overtime at all next week, depending on who comes in on the weekend!"

And then, I'm taking a break from the long shit by doing a short-ish dermatology specimen by another minor pain in the backside ... and my little macro snippets are suddenly not working. I am a little confused by this, but I figure I'll check when I'm done typing that report. So I finish without my little macro snippets, hit Save... And it hangs. And hangs. And hangs.

And then... "503 Service Temporarily Unavailable".

Now, my internet is fine. I know this. I can verify it on my phone, to say nothing of Spotify. Also work email is functional, as I find out when I email Scruffman to ask if there's anything wrong with the system.

Yep. Reporting site server's down. It's been escalated to IT and I don't know how long it'll take to fix.

Now, keep in mind: the transcription software does not run on the same server. And the doctors are largely going from actual hard copy request forms. So they're not going to stop working. And since we literally can't work right now, we can't keep up with it. So it's going to pile up.

Two and a half hours I spent getting us to the 200 mark last night, and now that's getting binned because a server decided to shit the bed. Greeeeeeeeeeeat.

Still, it was probably about time for a break and it's not every day I can be paid for hanging out on Tumblr and poking video games while occasionally hitting the F5 key on another machine.

[youaresimplycomplex]

"So as it turns out, Little house I bought and fixed up in the middle of nowhere had the fountain of youth as the well. 10 years of my life was spent in blissful wonderful ignorance as the restorative waters of the fountain of youth fueled my life. I drank it, bathed in it, washed my clothes and cooked with it. That is until it dried up. I had to call to get it fixed and well the rest is pretty quick after that. Plumber worried about the historical significance, turns to appraisers coming to my house, and all too quickly my well has been identified as the fountain of youth. Or it was, but apparently if you have too much immortality water it just kind of radiates off you. As soon as they figured that little tidbit out I was essentially kidnapped by my own government. That was quite the miserable part of my life. Couldn't tell you how long I was trapped there. The only good thing about sterile places like that is that there's plenty of glass. Once shattered, I took a long slender piece and pried open my throat. Unfortunately that was a long and painful death. Gargling and choking on my own blood. I was finally at peace, it didn't last though. I don't know if you've ever crawled out of a well before. It isn't fun. Naked and muddy I made it out of my old well and I just ran. I had a couple of close calls but overall I think I've adapted pretty well to hiding. Florida ain't ideal but, no one else wants to come out here. Lost a leg to a gator once. Oh don't worry a grew back."

"That's fascinating at all but that doesn't answer my question."

"Oh yes you'll have to forgive me in my old age I tend to go on tangents a lot."

"Old age!? You barely look 30! How old are you?"

"I think I'm pushing 200 it's hard to keep track."

"So will you do it?"

"Do what darling?"

"COME BACK WITH ME AND MAKE ME IMMORTAL!"

"No need to shout and no."

"Then why tell me all this? I could expose you and send you back to the government!"

"You could, but you'd have to make it out of this swamp alive."

"And who's going to kill me you!?"

"Oh no, did you know the gators never stop growing?"

"What?"

"Yeah nature is funny like that. Also if a gator consommes the flesh of an immortal it gets a shit ton of years added onto their life span. And even though you haven't had a ton of time added on to you you'll still smell like an immortal to every gator in a 3 mi radius."

The world has discovered that you are the fountain of youth. For every 1 hour someone spends with you 30 minutes get added to their life span. Unfortunately, you’re a hermit who just wants to stay at home by yourself.

[tottymatsuno]

The interesting thing is I've been collecting merch since sept 2019? So initially I'd buy lots/sets for sale, with a specific price range in mind for the amount of items. If it felt like a fair price, and I could swing it, I'd get it.

However I only typically would buy stuff if I were either manic or suicidal (rn im hypomanic and have suicidal ideation lol) so I'd buy shit w the idea "this is insurance to prevent me from doing something permanent" whenever I talk about buying merch in therapy my girlie asks me whats wrong bc its usually a yellow/red alert event

I'd say I've probably spent around 5k now since I first started collecting. My apartment isn't super decorated with stuff, mostly bc i share a LOT of my ososan collection w my toddler.

So i started with buttons, pins, acrylics, then moved onto clearfiles, paper goods, then the dubs came out, so I bought both of those, then I started moving onto clothes, and the books. It took maybe 2ish years to get a lot of the books. I still have a lot of the books I'd like to get, like the complete hesokuri book, but thats like 200$? And i cant in good consciousness buy that any time soon.

I also started getting the DVDs. Which is fun because theres extra content on there. I also joined the fanclub, and honestly i forgot what the point of this post was

But i think in general buying totty stuff has basically become one of my tenants for survival. Imo everyone has gotten either really good at, or amassed a lot of whatever subject that will keep them alive. For some people its art, or playing games (whether or not a specific one or in gen), a subject they're really knowledgeable about, a skill like fixing stuff, or being funny, some people get lots of mugs, or hoard data, or upgrade computers, or collect bugs. Idk!

What keeps me alive so far is: my kid, my resourceful administrative skills, collecting todo merch, my archivist nature, and my unrelenting optimism.

I think I'm pretty fortunate to have those abilities when life would be incredibly difficult for someone as stubborn as me otherwise. These past 2 years have been pretty crazy id say with everything ive dealt with, so honestly it's nice to have something effective to pull me out of a bad mood.

Anyways I'm just feeling fortunate.

[ghostofasecretary]

brain dump

- accounting catchup. (shit's dire.)

- finish outfit collages (not counting today *yet*)

- delete Google Gemini whatever

- dumb work survey

- dumb work email

- try perfume 5

- apply to a horrible job? please? APPLIED TO ONE. JUST THE ONE BUT STILL!!

- apply to another horrible job! fuck it! why not!

- [contingent] take SCREENSHOTS of your attendance records once you get a reply to the DWE

- FIND PRIMARY CARE DOC BEFORE MARCH THIS IS ACTUALLY GETTING GLARINGLY ALARMINGLY URGENT. only took an hour! a lot of it on hold but hey. appointment is now Scheduled!!

- [contingent] fill out + submit timecard after DWE reply

- lunch

- FIX COAT LINING AGAIN

- [unmoveable time block] call friend today 4:30

- maintenance request

- print papers at library; work in library 2-4?? ok that did not happen. you can go print at 7

- email re: poem choices

- dinner

- [contingent; call 8pm EST] DO THE STUPID FORM AAAAAAA. looks like i may need to call mom for this one

- Arabic hw

- handwash clothes

- Persian translation

- Persian typing in general, what needs to happen babey

- type Persian from last week

- catch up on calendar (paper, online)

- [not doable today, do it tomorrow] laundry (load, change, dry, put away)

- strategize re: not wasting food and eating enough on. the world's tiniest budget. i have 5 billion dried beans. surely i can live on 5 billion dried beans for. the. the rest of the month. it may be the 13th but there are only 28 days in February so it's basically halfway through. i still have plenty of produce. maybe not a full two weeks worth but. but. y'know. i have some frozen veggies also. i will definitely have enough to eat even if it's less nutritious or fun than ideal. and i'm a good cook so i can probably still make it be decent.

I NEED A SECOND JOB. living off a part time job with stable hours: cool in theory, in practice oh my god do not try to do this holy shit your hours can still apparently be cut and it suuuuuuuucks. i love my budget going from like $200 to $10, it's really exciting and enriching and not at all terrifying

financial instability feels bad actually. it feels really bad. i had relief when i got this job but now that i've lived off the income for a bit: turns out this is still just a less bad form of instability and i'm still in hell!!

it is really hard to prioritize today. yesterday it was harder because i wasn't writing anything down, i just fed my autism and cooked and yelled

but. augh oof ouwaaagh

(oh. hm. if the weather is bad i might make zero dollars next week. that would *suck.* fuck. shit. christ. ok. fuck.) (i do care about my job but more than that i care about HAVING ENOUGH MONEY TO LIVE.)

started throwing apps into the void. will probably have to do this for the next 50 years. so. good on me for doing it

i feel totally awful tho. food time??

actually spent an hour calling random people to get an appointment, then ate lunch and had a nice chat with my roommate, then laid on my bed being cold, then called a friend + fixed my coat + knit

and now i am getting ready to Print Stuff

[botched-lineart]

There's something that's been weighing on me.

I feel like the only reason I'm not seen as a notoriously narcissistic flaky failure is that I've never had a bigger following than 200 people who occasionally pay attention to what I do.

Because like. I disappoint people all the time. Daily, even. I'm selfish with my time, only make what I impulsively want to make, sit around being jobless on my parents' dime...

It's not cute. I feel like a vile creature trying to pretend to be a decent human being. And I can't even pretend all that well.

Some of my mutuals and discord acquaintances follow this blog and may even take the time out of their day to read this post and... There are so many things I could say. I'm sorry for being a chronic ghoster and for never following through on my promises. Sorry if I hurt your feelings by barely reacting to something you made or failing to pretend to be interested in a collaborative project because it wasn't exactly the way I wanted.

But I'm not sorry?

God, it feels horrible to say, but it's true.

"But Rocket, if it's sooo hard to say and you feel really bad, why are you vagueposting about it instead of working on yourself?" Because like I don't know what to tell you, man. I've been kind of an asshole my entire life. No matter how many years I've spent in therapy or obsessively dissecting every facet of myself, combing for flaws that I think other people might see in me, my actual pattern of behavior is iron clad.

When I look at myself on a deep, fundamental level, I know that I care more about what others think of me than about having real integrity.

I'm a fucking narcissist. It isn't cute, quirky, relatable, or something I can easily train myself out of or fix with the right meds. I have a deep, cloying pathological need to be seen as excellent. Cool. Admirable. But I know the truth about myself better than anyone else. If you cut me, I bleed green. I'm envious to my core.

I work hard, in my own way. The skills I have are things that I've been practicing my whole life. I started writing stories when I was four. I think I first drew fanart even earlier. I've never paid for attention or begged for exposure for my work. I've never intentionally posted ragebait or blindly chased viral trends just to feel important. Hell, I haven't even whined about how entitled I feel in public until now.

But that's the thing - I do feel entitled!! I want to reblog every single one of my drawings with a big fat PAY ATTENTION TO ME in the caption. Look at me!! I am being excellent over here!! I've been on this bitch of an internet since I was in first grade, so where the hell are my flowers??

I don't feel pride and joy when my peers get their big break. I feel disgusted at myself for not being good enough to be in their place. And I have to spend hours, days, weeks, months, years burying that feeling so deep that no one would notice how sweatily I'm typing out a simple "Nice job, dude. Happy for you."

I have no excuse for this. It's villain shit. But it's the emotional reality I live, and I hate pretending like I'm more passive and friendly than I am. It's fucking exhausting sitting by, politely toiling in my dark corner and occasionally looking up to see everyone around me living their best lives in the sun. I'm done pretending like that doesn't make my blood boil.

And I hate that I feel that way. I know that's not how a friend feels about friends. Right? Like, I've been learning about being supportive and courteous since before I knew how to talk, and yet it has never come naturally to me. I'm a bad friend. A sweaty, slimy, envious worm pretending to be something that I'm not.

And saying that out loud is terrifying. Because friends, if you read this and I've let you down and now openly admit that I only feel superficial remorse, like.... What more is there to say? You don't need someone hot and cold and fake like that in your life. And I wouldn't blame you for walking away and never looking back.

But God, it'd tear me apart. I think that's the thing that people don't understand about narcissists. You only glimpse us acting cocky, suave, confident, and cool because there are people to admire us while we crowd surf. Once we're alone, all of that ego is gone. No matter how authentically we worked to get that admiration, none of that is intrinsically valuable to us.

Your attention is all I care about in my heart of hearts. Not you. Not me. Your eyeballs as they watch me.

I don't want to sugarcoat it. By pretending to be better, I'm straight up being two-faced. It's better to just own being a full-on villain than sneak into people's lives as a covert friend.

"Rocket, who cares? You have maybe five friends on a good day and a microscopic following compared to most lousy assholes on the internet. You're being verbose and grandiose and showing your entire ass on camera for what?"

Attention. Duh. Narcissist, remember?

Like I can't even deny that while I write this for my own sanity's sake and the disillusionment for my friends, on some level I want someone to come pat my shoulder and say, "It's okay, Rocket. You may be an energy vampire to your social circles, but we forgive you. Please don't slink away, we love you!"

Uuuuuuugh.

Don't let my pathological need to be liked and called a good girl soften your opinions. Fucking tell me if I'm being a flaky bitch and it's hurting your feelings. It'll ruin my day and fuck my ego up so bad, but push on! Grab your sword and hold it to my neck!! Because I'm a fucking villain and violence is the only answer!!!