#I'm sure there's stuff I forgot to mention

[its-no-biggie]

"if it's for you, i don't mind being trapped in this endless maze for all eternity" i can't fucking do this anymore

[sysig]

DAX is just so expressive ♥ (Patreon)

[skrunksthatwunk]

stole this chart from @asubakaa and spent wayyy too much time making my own so. yeah. also i did 6 instead of 5 bc i know no restraint

[toukasspouse]

What are some of Mira's and Milo's healthy and unhealthy habits?

ooooo thank u for the question! i'll give three for each piece but there may be more parts that aren't as obvious

Mira

Healthy:

Art in general! They have a bunch of different things they can be working on at one time and it helps distract when they keep obsessing over things.

They get outside a lot to explore. Are they good with directions? Debatable but not important in this context!

They know better than anyone that self-isolating does not help, so they more than likely to be hanging out with someone when they have low moods/intense stressors so they don't engage in their unhealthy habits.

Unhealthy:

Emotional regulation comes in changing up their appearance. New hair style, hair color(s), later on piercings and tattoos.

Skin picking. They will do it until they bleed and leave scabs, and since they heal faster, it means they can be on a repeated cycle until they find something else to fiddle with.

Biting also helps self-regulate. They have an accessory they sometimes wear when they're more stressed to assist them, otherwise they will bite their fingers to the point of breaking skin.

Milo

Healthy:

He tends to focus on self-care. A lot. He focuses on making sure his hair is nice and pretty, his skin is soft, and that he's in his relaxed zone with a good book (it's Bram Stoker's Dracula usually, but he will occasionally read his terrible condition Interview with the Vampire).

An open book on how he feels, he will not hesitate to tell you he likes or doesn't like something. He's also not afraid to communicate such at any given opportunity. The only time he's ever vague or passive aggressive is if he's communicated this want/need several times and has felt unheard.

Because he cares about his physical form, he workouts frequently. Not that it's easy to see under his attire (and that is on purpose), but he's got a good muscle build that he makes sure to maintain and does not skip leg day.

Unhealthy:

He will ghost people... For weeks. Months if the situation is that bad. Self-isolation and him are besties at this point.

Because he's open with his emotions, he will be nasty and mean to someone he doesn't like, willing to burn bridges before a connection can be made. He doesn't care if that comes to bite him later, he reasons it'll save him from suffering if he's upfront about it.

Don't put money in front of his face, he will spend it all within an afternoon. Worst idea one could have.

[fairytalesandfandoms]

from a discussion in writing group, here are three of my favourite fictional romances, in no particular order:

Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth, Persuasion by Jane Austen

Red and Blue, This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Jane Fleming (nee Bell) and [redacted] Bett, All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye by Christopher Brookmyre

[keeps-ache]

everyday there's somethin goin on. like the day. or somethin like that

[bad0mens]

Yesterday was an emotional day for me and not in a good way.

Under the cut because I need it out.

I'm not sure what the 'inciting' incident was, or if there even was one. I think it was honestly just a build up of working retail during the holidays where I'm inundated with people who are rude and impatient and it's been getting to me. My situation at home isn't a bad one. But I constantly feel the 'quiet older middle child syndrome' as well as 'high masking autistic adult who is largely self sufficient disorder'. So I feel like in some ways, I fall through the cracks in the minds of my family. They don't feel they need to worry about me because I'm usually good at taking care of myself.

The problem arises here. In a lot of ways, especially yesterday, I felt like an after thought to my own family. Allow me to explain.

Three of the specific things that got me yesterday, and maybe they sound petty, were:

1. We drove three hours there, expecting a short event packed with lots of people but it was instead a long event packed with people and my social battery is all but dead on my off days because it has to work on my on days. I was able to keep myself mostly sane by working on fics and keeping my earplugs in because my family, especially my younger sister, is very loud. I want to spend time with my family on the holidays, but I also want to relax and be comfortable when the tense of working this time of year is finally starting to ebb.

2. There was a lot of food to go around... But only about 3 things I could actually eat. Mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, and stuffing. You may notice there is no protein or real vegetables in any of those options. I've been a vegetarian for going on 20 years. This isn't something new for my family. My mother and younger sister did the cooking and thought to make the stuffing safe for me to eat. But that was it. The worst part of this is, I also forgot to even bring myself something like that to cook, so it's really on me as well (which is a part of the problem I'll get to in a moment).

3. I had two presents to unwrap. I know how ungrateful this sounds. But it's not about the number of presents. It's really not. I got things I asked for and I am grateful for them! It's a chunk of the larger problem, though. There was lots of presentation and fun in other people's gifts. One of mine was thrown haphazardly in a bag with nothing to cover it. The other was a wrapped cardboard box with the item inside.

Normally, any of these one things by themselves is fine, but emotions were running high after a season of working retail (not to mention I got in an argument with my boomer father who started the "no one wants to work these days" that I had to shut down pretty hard").

The problem was that, even on this day about family, I was an after thought. And the problem stems from my own behavior. I'm a helper, I care about other people, I put other people first, constantly. So constantly that I almost never put myself first. So no one else thinks to either. I'm not asking to be the specialist girl at Christmas. I'm asking to feel like I'm cared about as more than a "oh shit we can't forget about--".

I don't put myself first, so why should anyone else? I brush off this behavior in myself and others as fine. I pick pieces of myself apart to try and help other people feel whole when I've never felt whole in my entire life. And the worst part, the most painful part, is that I've ultimately done this to myself.

I sat at the dinner table, feeling alien and broken and alone surrounded by my own family, simultaneously dissociating and trying not to cry. It was my college graduation all over again, when weeks before my father reminded me that art degrees were functionally useless and I was wasting my time and money after a lifetime of hearing the lie that I could be whatever I wanted to be if I worked hard enough. It was that moment all over again. But amplified. It felt like everyone was in on the joke now.

And I still played to other people's comfort. I did not cry about it no matter how increasingly painful it became until 4 hours later when I was finally at home and my older sister asked me what was wrong. And I finally said something. I told her I felt like an after thought.

But it isn't until this moment, nearly 10 hours later, that I'm realizing the truth of it.

Who's going to put me first when I never put me first? Why would anyone bother? I don't. And after what feels like a lifetime of putting other people before myself, I'm left with the fact that my family can't be blamed. I did this to myself.

[jtownraindancer]

So what's up with Burn playing all these spies then?

[lilypucks]

favorite cat breed and/or pattern/color?

CALICO CATS!!! definitely calicos they r my dearly beloved

and then as far as cat breeds go i'm a fan of ragdolls, abyssinians, and turkish angoras that's as far as i'm able to narrow it down </3

[randomfandoms153]

20 hours into frontiers this game is so so good

i still really hate the grind rail noise though. not good for my brain

[askethandothers]

Why aren't your enderman species open species?

Because mainly I haven't gotten enough time or energy to make a species ref, especially during this time because school is energy draining. q_q

I am actually trying to work on it (starting with royal endermen bc they need a update), for now tho it's not a whole lot.

[the-busy-ghost]

The pandemic isn’t over but even if it were, I am not enjoying being reminded of how close people used to get before the 2020s

[dewitty1]

Saturday Six (Stuff)

Wowwww it's been a while. Can't say that much has been going on, but also it feels like a lot has been going on... That's life, though right?(。-ω-)ﾉ

I've been trying to work, but so far only had on project this month. It seems like I may have to resort to begging on FB A-Fricking-gain, which sometimes works, but not always. Instagram posts don't seem to do anything.(⑅ ‘﹃’ )

Speaking of Instagram, my food posts seem to do OK, but I'm not really gaining followers. Idk how to do that except to do action videos, and yeahhhh, that's just not my style.（’-’*)

Mainly what I've been doing is getting ready for the lesbian wedding in Wales that I'm going to in a few weeks! Much excite. I'm fixing to be very Sapphire aka Pantsuit Sapphic gay mom!“ψ(｀∇´)ψ

My parents are being wicked douchers again. So what's new? Only they're going out in public (dad with no mask) with full on Covid. Ughhhh. So gross. They're just lucky they didn't get us sick. Especially with my trip coming up. s(・｀ヘ´・;)ゞ

The rodeo is in town this weekend. And as usual there was the parade out in front of the house this morning. Yee frickin haw. (；-◞౪◟-)

[teethcore]

whyyy do i botherrrrr

[chemicalarospec]

jumpscared by The O.C. in the first line of this Dead Boy Detectives semi-review/determinism of its cultural meaning. everywhere I go I see The O.C.....

[victorluvsalice]

We've hit Summer Saturday in the Chill Valicer Save, and since we just had a wedding (and none of the participants are busy with college this time around), it's time to have a honeymoon -- but first, would you like to see JUST how overboard I went on the in-game wedding photos from last week's Valice Vow Renewal and Van Alton Wedding?

*points upward* THAT overboard. Yeah, there are wedding photos all over the house now -- plus I took the opportunity to move around a few other pictures and paintings that I thought would look better in different places. In order, we have --

Living Room: One of my favorite large wedding shots made it behind the phonograph (after I'd adjusted the other painting slightly), and the trio of the best wedding selfies went between the two windows, over the side table with the bunny statue. After struggling to fit another wedding photo on the wall between the window and the phonograph and not liking the look, I realized I could put Alice's surreal painting from the trip to the Celebration Center (the one with the apple-faced llama and the cat in a bowler hat) in that spot, so I did. Looks good, right? :) And one final wedding snap went on the table between the two chairs in front of the fireplace, along with Victor and Smiler's wedding centerpiece flowers (recolored purple, because purple is a Smiler color and also I love it too).

Art & Music Studio Room: While no wedding shots made it into this room, I ended up moving the painting of Victor at the piano and the photograph that Victor took of Alice at the easel at their old house (sized back down to its original small size) in here from the attic chill-out room -- obviously, the painting of Victor went by the piano (with me moving Victor's little illustrative painting above said piano, between the Bramblewood snaps), while the photo of Alice went by her easel, right under her picture of Rory. I also moved the Poppy MySim that was on Victor and Alice's desk in their bedroom atop Victor's piano to go with the other two up there. Maybe I should find them their own display, but for now, this works. :)

Bedrooms: Smiler of course got a shot of themselves and Victor in front of the backdrop for their wall, going between their two windows by the video creation station, and the silliest shot of the trio for their desk (I moved the old college acceptance letter that was there to the decor spot on the video station). Alice and Victor, meanwhile, got their dresser area turned into wedding central, with the two wedding certificates on the wall (Alice and Victor's is the light-wood-framed "wreath" one; Victor and Smiler's is the dark-wood-framed "pillars" one) and a trio of wedding pictures on the dresser itself, with the big kiss moment for both Victor and Alice and Victor and Smiler underneath their respective certificates (with frames recolored to match said certificates), and another silly trio shot tying it all together in the middle.

Smiler's Party Barn Room: Look, I had two GIANT photos of the big kisses as well, and I wanted to put them somewhere! So after moving the posters on the far wall closer to the karaoke machine in the middle, I set up a Valice Vow Renewal collage featuring the giant Valice kiss picture and two other shots of the actual ceremony on the left, and a Van Alton Wedding collage featuring the giant Van Alton kiss picture, a shot of the actual ceremony, and a shot of them in front of the backdrop (I didn't like the other shot I'd gotten of the ceremony, too zoomed in) on the right! I think they look pretty good. :)

The Attic Chill-Out Room: After a little rearranging, I discovered that I could indeed put all the shots of the Plumbite Pier Love Day date on the side table there if I put the two photobooth shots in the middle, and the two ride shots on either end. That freed up the wall above it for one last large snap of the trio looking their wedding best. :) Then, on the other side behind the bubble blower, I ended up making a colorful collage of the selfies of them on their Granite Falls vacation (moved from Victor and Alice's dresser), the shots they got of each other at the Humor & Hijinks festival, and the shots they got of each other at Geekcon. Though, after looking at it, I was like "wait, these are a little unbalanced, because the shots of them at the festivals are all solo shots, while the Granite Falls selfies each have two of them in them...also, not sure I like those Humor & Hijinks shots that much, they don't really show anything of the festival." Made a promise to myself then and there to get some good "dual selfies" on their honeymoon and rearrange this to be a little more balanced! And later get some better shots of them at a future Humor & Hijinks festival.

Miscellaneous: And while I was hanging all of those pictures, a couple of other things got moved -- namely:

1. I ended up putting the snow globes that were on Victor & Alice's and Smiler's desks respectively out on the suitcase shelves in the upstairs hall (because in Smiler's case I needed the room for photos, and then was like "hey, actually...")

2. While I sold the appliances that Victor and Smiler got from their wedding (they did not need another fridge), and quickly found a home for the wedding pillar outside by the fence between the chicken coop and cow pen, I wasn't sure what to do with the decorative tea set that had also ended up in the household inventory. I didn't want to sell it, I liked it, but there wasn't a heck of lot of counter space left for it in the kitchen...after a little thought and some careful rearranging, though, I found that the best thing to do was to put the tea set on the counter where the pet treats used to go; put the pet treats on the counter next to it where the fruit bowl used to go; put the fruit bowl on the side buffet table with the candy dish and the picnic basket where the VIP bucket used to go; and then move the VIP bucket out to the back porch onto its own little table by the couch. Because, honestly, it does actually look better out there (or in the bedroom, but there's not a lot of space for it THERE either).

So yeah, that's the current state of the house. Lotta pictures.

I may have a bit of a problem. XD