#Excel date time

[weepynymph]

Do not write fanfiction. One second you're normal and the next you're downloading a calendar from 2004 and tearing your hair out over what specific date every event in your fic happens

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2025: OVERGROWTH by Mira Grant.

Plant-astically delighted to report that I received an ARC via Tor (Nightfire) and Goodreads! I love Seanan McGuire's writing, and my first foray into her work as Mira Grant was INTO THE DROWNING DEEP, which was phenomenal (think all the best parts of Michael Crichton--the Science, the Speculation, the Consequences--but women and queer people are Entire Characters)(we love a good sci-fi horror paced like a thriller in this house).

The premise of OVERGROWTH is basically "the pod people are coming, they've been warning you about it for decades, and no one has been listening." Stasia, our main character and (first person, past tense) narrator, has spent her whole life telling people that she's "the vanguard of an invading species of intelligent alien plants," which is confirmed via a broadcast from space.

And the chapters are time-stamped "X days pre-invasion."

Yeah.

This book was an absolute delight and all around a lot of fun--the tone was the perfect balance of funny and heartfelt and relatable and dread-inducing, and it very much read like a love letter to the genre with lots of cross-pollinated references (Seymour? Little Shop of Horrors? War of the Worlds? Jurassic Park? Hello????).

It was also very much a book about the distinction between being human and being a person, and about alienation and belief and trust and friendship, and about queerness and neurodivergence and belonging. And, y'know, mimetic plant aliens, in myriad shades of green.

I was initially surprised by the choice to tell this story in past tense and first person (because DROWNING DEEP was patently not that, and most of what I've read of McGuire hasn't been either), but it turns out that was The Only Correct Way To Do It: For most of the book, Stasia didn't have the full picture of what was going on, but her partial understanding + our readerly perspective from inside her head carried both the relatability and the horror. It was a really interesting and cool way to do an alien invasion book (from the perspective of the invader's plant)(ahaha, botanical pun). Also, the narrative frame made me pterodactyl Hunter shriek my way through the last two pages, which. OOF. WHAT A RIDE!!! I'll be rotisserie-ing over the late-game twist (page 396/465 in my copy) and the ending for a long time.

I loved that the aliens felt alien and all too much like people; I loved Toni and Hunter; I loved the biology and worldbuilding; I loved the botanical quips ("salad bar" is, in fact, the best possible term of address to an alien invader, no notes); I loved the shady government agencies and unethical experimentation; I loved the "we are the monsters you have made". I stayed up way past my bedtime several times for this, and it was worth every second. Do recommend, check this out in May!!

Half-assed spoilery content warnings under the cut (I'm not good at these because I have a weird concept of what necessitates a warning, so please do NOT consider these complete in any way shape or form):

on-page toddler death (graphic, in prologue, signposted with "look away"); transphobia (toward beloved trans character); spider (alien); bug-adjacent (alien); vampirism/blood drinking; other usual horror/alien invasion type tropes etc. (body horror? do people tag body horror?? i was an animorphs kid i'm sorry i don't know what a normal amount of body horror is but i love it all)

[deoidesign]

For my birthday... read my webcomic! It's literally free! (Unless you want books. Those are not free)

It's beautiful, it's gentle, it's funny, they're canonically t4t and gay... And it's about time traveling vampires solving supernatural mysteries!

I've spent thousands of hours writing and drawing it, and it's really good! I'm not biased!

It's on hiatus right now and coming back in 2 months, so it's the perfect time to get caught up

[sainz100]

📸 by Martin Trenkler

[cillyscribbles]

here's to many more for mr gruber himself!!!!! >:D

[twotailednekomata]

You know, playing Date Everything has made me completely understand the desire and appeal of self-insert fanfic/self-shipping.

Re: MAC!!! I love you so much and I will miss you heavily. I hope you will be alright ˚‧º·(˃̣̣̥o˂̣̣̥)‧º· !

[tacosaysroar]

Three different boys like Adelaide right now and they all play on the same basketball team together.

Boy drama.

[blatantprinterpropaganda]

i love television <3

[strawberrystepmom]

i love u family man hajime umemiya

[pancakeke]

using a sql or excel mindset overcomplicates things soooo much in power bi. i keep finding myself trying to do all kind of setup to prep data so it'll cooperate with how I want to use it and then I realize i just gotta drag one value onto another to connect em or something else easy

i have somewhat of a tough time pivoting between programs. it reminds me of how i can only really remember how to knit OR how crochet. just one at a time, not both. when I switch from one to the other I gotta hunker down and really focus to remember the basics again lol

[leefi]

umineko friday beers invite list

[fernisfat]

just found out a couple i’m friends with has opened their relationship and i think?? i might shoot my shot??? maybe????

[teruthecreator]

i found it pretty funny that we got two different flavours of "claw teru destroys shou" for shou's birthday

comparing tfs teru and @shigayokagayama ‘s smtwo teru is so fucking funny to me. like smtwo shou is in a personal hell of teru’s design. tfs shou is just like. sad his birthday got forgotten

[louderfade]

i don't trust anyone that had a good time in middle school. it's a hellish first encounter of what's on the other side of childhood and designed to be a period of adjustment; it's not supposed to be comfortable. if you enjoyed being in seventh grade something is fundamentally wrong with you, and i'm like an animal sensing another animal has rabies or something. don't come any closer or i'll attack.

[ackermental]

I honestly think that all of us as a society should go back to learning how to use torrents. Most of the problems I hear people throwing around for justifying why they still want to watch the show/movie/play a game, could be resolved by pirating.

I'm subscribed to literally one platform (Viki), the last time I visited cinema was for Dune, and still I miss nothing, because my generation looks at paid content on the internet like its a rotten potato and pirates this shit.

We have to wait literally from few hours to three months (at most!) and can get all of it for free, in high definition, with no pauses from the lack of wifi, no commercials, no geographic restrictions.

There are people out there, at the age of 19/20, who have no idea how to use torrents and I find that to be terrifying.

"im going to see lilo and stitch tomorrow at the cinema so i can see how bad it is and laugh at it"

YOU ARE STILL GIVING THEM MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!