#I've done all kinds of hours and days over multiple jobs

[avvocarlo]

the way it's practically impossible to get anything done that you can't do yourself if you work monday to friday. what do you mean I have to apply for leave so I can get my car serviced? are you insane?

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA for locking my bedroom door at my mother's house?

I (18 M) still live with my mom (45 F), and probably will be for a while as I try to finish up my last month and a half of high school and settle into college. At our house, my mom has a habit of just walking into my room unannounced. She also encourages me to not shut it at all because "we're the only ones in the house there's no need for that".

I'm the kind of person who likes having privacy- especially when it comes to her. While she isn't super strict anymore about what I spend my time doing now that I'm an adult, she can be (unintentionally) judgmental. Sometimes she'll walk in and look at what I'm watching and give me this amused look like she finds it funny that I would be watching that. I wouldn't say it's mean, but it is embarrassing and makes me feel bad about my own interests sometimes. And every time I've brought it up she just brushes it off. It's gotten to the point where I have an extra tab as backup or click to my home screen on my computer as soon as I hear her walking towards my room so I don't have to deal with that.

On top of that, I take daily naps. I have chronic fatigue because I have a condition that causes my knees to not bend correctly, which causes a lot of pain, and by extent makes me tired very quickly. It can be fixed over time through physical therapy, but I haven't gotten very far with that both because my fatigue makes it harder for me to exercise and because I have terrible memory and sometimes just forget to do my daily exercises. The pain is slowly getting better though, although the fatigue hasn't and I'm not sure why, as I can't think of any other underlying cause to it (I've already done a sleep study, the results came back normal, so I know I don't also have a sleep disorder).

So while I have this problem, which I have for several years now, I have to take naps to make it through the day. If I don't, even on days I'm not very physically active like weekends, I end up either collapsing and falling asleep that way, or I spend all day too focused on how tired I am to do anything else.

The problem is, when I take these naps at home in my room, and my mom comes in, she makes me get up. She says the naps will ruin my sleep schedule (they don't, no amount of napping has made me have a harder time sleeping at night. Because even if I nap, I'm tired again in an hour or two minimum). She suggests I just get up and exercise- which doesn't help, it just makes my knees hurt more which makes me even more exhausted for the entire rest of the day. I've tried to explain these things to her multiple times but she just won't listen. It's like she thinks that because I've started to do physical therapy that means my knees are perfectly fine now, the pain is gone, and so is my fatigue, even though I've explained the physical therapy hasn't really improved my fatigue levels yet.

So I've thought about just locking her out of my room at the very least when the fatigue starts hitting hard enough I know I'm about to need a nap. I'm tired of her coming in my room whenever she wants as if I'm still a child and not really letting me have much privacy, but I'm especially tired of her not letting me nap when I need it. But considering how against me even closing the door during the day she is, I'm worried it'll just upset her. And she is the one paying the bills- I'm a full time student with no job so far. By all means it's her house more than it is mine.

WIBTA?

What are these acronyms?

[animeyanderelover]

Yandere tamaki, bakugou,kirishima,shinsuo(separate)

Taking care their unwilling kidnapped sick darling

It's been too long since I've writen for My Hero...

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationhip, possessive behavior, obsession, clinginess, overprotective behavior, mentions of abduction, sickness

Unwilling kidnapped darling is sick

Katsuki Bakugou

💥 Katsuki keeps that frowning scowl on his face as he forces you into not one but three blankets and just tells you to rest and do as he tells you. Is he angry at you? Probably, he blames you a little bit for getting yourself sick like this. You should have done this and that like he told you too but you just had to play the rebel which is, admittedly his doing. Kidnapping you was a wrong choice but a choice the hero made nevertheless. Your rebellious attitude had to be expected but it's incredibly hard for Katsuki to hold back his temper at times. He won't succumb to his anger and scream at you and scare you like some sort of asshole. He isn't the violent bad guy you might write him off as and he is adament to prove that to you. So maybe he's partially responsible for your sickness now too, he should have taken better care of you.

💥 Despite what his darling might think, Bakugou is actually disturbingly good in nursing them back to health. He's informed and knows how to use that knowledge practically too. He cooks the food that will benefit your health, knows how much you need to take from which medicine per day to feel less like shit and still respects the fact that you need rest. Sure, he checks still multiple times a day for your temperature or to see if you have no problems whilst sleeping but otherwise he just lets you rest. Katsuki even acts like he wants the distance, tells you that he doesn't want to get sick too and luckily you never test him in this conviction since you despise him. He might want to cuddle up to you a bit but knows that you'd hate it and that would just mean scratching his ego. A hint of arrogance can't be helped though since he basks in the fact that you're more reliant on him now and he occasionally rubs that into your face although he doesn't push you to the point where you refuse said help.

Eijiro Kirishima

♦️ Kirishima makes an instant fuss over his darling when they start feeling sick and tired and is likely over the top enough to swoop them up in his arms and carry them into their bed. His poor baby got sick so it's obviously his job as their loving boyfriend to take care of them now that they'll need him. Everyone gets sick once in a while, don't worry. This will pass soon. I' say that he has less knowledge than Katsuki and whilst he might know the common folktales how to help with this and that, he has only vague ideas when it comes to the medicine. He's probably the type who'd actually try to nurse you back to health without relying on pills and medicine unless he realizes that it would seriously help you. Tries to make jokes in hopes of making you feel a bit better, he generally talks a lot unless he knows that you just need some silence right now.

♦️ Kirishima kind of glosses over the fact that you're still an unwilling participant in this all because this man has straight up kidnapped you, even if it was in a risky situation. He's decided to put his delusional walls up in order to defend his actions and with your sickness in full work right now, you have not the energy to argue with him anymore. Eijiro grows even more clingy, tells you that he has a robust immune system so you won't have to worry about him getting infected by what you have. Affection and cuddles are good medicine too after all! Well, that's at least what he always tells you when he has you trapped in his grip. He spends hours like this with you where he dozes off a bit and you somehow manage to do too even if begrudgingly. He is a bit more clueless at times but refuses to let you help, reassures you that he'll figure out how much of this specific medicine you need. You just rest and get well soon.

Hitoshi Shinsou

💟 Hitoshi feels guilty after the abduction of his darling, especially since he used his quirk without any hesitation. Sure, you were in danger but it doesn't change that he feels like he just used you the way everyone else was always afraid he'd use his quirk when he was younger. This guilt only gets fed more when you fall ill because you vehemently won't listen to his pleads to be more careful and due to the increased stress of the situation you're in. He sort of panics at first since he hates to admit it but he doesn't really know what he is supposed to help you with in this situation. There is this lingering hope that he can change your opinion of him at least a bit though by taking care of you now and proving to you that he genuinely loves you. He just sends you to bed at first and spends hours in front of his laptop, reading online what he can do for you now.

💟 His approach is similar to that of Katsuki in that he also lets you rest enough. He knows that you're in a bad mood now that you've fallen sick and are forced to rely on him more and for that very reason he's afraid that you'll potentially snap at him and hurt his feelings if he acts too overbearing. It's already a relief enough that you accept the food he prepares you and the medicine he gives you to ease your symptoms. He never brags about it to you though, Hitoshi is just grateful that you comply with him right now instead of continuing to be angry and worsening your health even more by doing so. You might accept his help because you're worried that otherwise he might brainwash you again, he doesn't know and is too afraid to ask you that question. He doesn't speak much but there is some sort of pride bubbling up in his chest when he notices that his treatment helps you and the sickness you're enduring as of now.

Tamaki Amajiki

🌗 Tamaki is devastated by the cold shoulder his darling gives him and copes with it by thinking lowly about himself. He understands you, he's just a miserable person isn't he? Taking you away out of his anxiety to be left by you and ruining you like this, he really is a low piece of trash. When your health slowly deteriorates, the guy suffers a small panic attack and instantly blames himself as the reason. He must really make you sick. A part of his consciousness knows that he shouldn't overdo it but that part is muddled under all the panic that his brain produces as he can't help but turn overbearing now. His poor sweetheart is suffering so much right now, how couldn't he? Even if it's just your common cold, Tamaki will act really dramatic and make it look like something more serious as he starts acting like the worst mother hen you've ever met.

🌗 You're placed in a bed with multiple pillows and blankets and he even goes out to buy you more, occasionally even gets you a cute plushie to cheer you up a bit. He spends a lot of time in the kitchen or hunched over his mobile and reading articles how to help you. He gets you medicine and asks you in a jittery tone if you could take a bit since it should help you. He's still scared that you'll hiss at him, insult him even if he almost expects it because of what he has done. He lingers around you, often peeks into your room to see if nothing is bothering you. Deep down Tamaki really wants to lay cuddled up next to you though even if he might get sick too. His immune system should be strong though, right? You find him staring at you when he thinks like that although he looks embarrassed away the moment he snaps back to reality. If he's desperate enough to tip into his delusional side, you might wake up one day to his form holding you tightly against him, mumbling that you'll be fit soon.

[360degreesasthecrowflies]

Right sorry but I don't understand why some people, even people that seem otherwise reasonable, seem to have absolutely internalised corporate capitalism talk to the extent that it completely subsumes their own personality and (class) interests???

At work today we had what's supposed to be an evaluation where as a department we, about 40 people, talked about things that have been difficult this year and what we'd hope will improve next year.

So I talked about how this year I have worked a lot of cover, including for managers (2 pay bands above me) and for multiple colleagues at once who have been off, essentially doubling and at some times even tripling my workload - for extra stress and no extra money. I said (using corporate language to hint) that I wasn't always good at asking for help, meaning, undertone, none of you offered to help me out and just expected me to sit and take it because I need my existing salary.

So this was in small groups, in which the focus was firstly giving feedback, and secondly remembering to praise each other for our achievements.

Well the nominated speaker for our group comes on and immediately my story of struggling to do a large amount of extra tasks that are essentially literally taking advantage of someone in a position of little power, actively causing stress to myself at work, for no extra money or any kind of reward but 'helping out the team' is told to the group as "sometimes we had to take on extra responsibilities but that was good because it let us learn about our inner strength and learn more about the business, increasing our skills for the future".

Excuse me! That was not AT ALL what I was talking about!

I already work a valuable job in healthcare. I ALREADY have skills - HENCE I was able to cover for senior team members and keep everything running and going literally at the cost of my social life, mental and physical health. And you aren't even going to say thanks or well done?! In the meeting where that is meant to be the focus?? In fact you're actually going to remove my agency and reframe the story of my own struggle and sacrifice to help out that I told you into some kind of heartwarming Disney ending where the servant felt that the work was its own reward?!

No sorry, get to fuck with that.

Ironically as a result of the teambuilding, feedback, evaluation and celebrating success meeting, I've come out feeling absolutely disheartened. They were like robots. I wasn't the only one that's made sacrifices like this this year, but I was the only one who didn't try and reframe it into a positive, with a neat learning experience and lesson for the group at the end of it.

This is the same workplace that asked us what we would like to add to the workplace to improve our own wellbeing (I reiterate, working in a stressful healthcare provider) and then shot down everything we suggested, even those things that wouldn't involve paying us more or giving us more time off. We were told that we could work longer hours in order to be able to 'earn' a team 'lunch out' during the work day (that of course we would also pay for), or that we could do a 'wellbeing walk' while also having a meeting, so... not exactly an opportunity to de-stress during the work day!

Honestly, I don't understand why these people don't pick up that they are becoming the architects of their own misery, constructing cages of their own making around themselves - and me! We don't have to play the game and turn everything into a positive. That isn't good for mental health OR morale overall either - it's just, ironically for the health background, putting a sticking plaster over a bigger wound. We need to grow up and actually address the issues we have as adults otherwise experienced and valuable staff are just going to end up burning out - which then increases the workload on everyone else and risks bringing the whole system back to square 1.

[glorious-imagines]

Nosedive

Sequel to Crushed

Jason had messaged her multiple times since their breakup. Mostly, he was blocked. He knew it was unfair of him to want to communicate with her. He just couldn't help himself. He, at least, hoped they could be friends again.

A cup of coffee was sat in front of him. "Girl, troubles?" His favorite waitress asked, light tone trying to hide her worry.

He gave her a sly smirk. "Are there any other kinds of trouble?"

"You alone make up half of them." She joked as she wrote down his usual order and handed it to a passing waiter.

"You wound me, Gabby." He feigned hurt, wrenching his shirt in one hand.

"So," she slid into the seat across from him. "Tell mama Gabs all about the girl that has you all up in your feelings."

Jason chuckled, "I'm not in my feelings."

She raised a brow, "Jay, you've been staring at your phone with that hit puppy look since you got here."

"Whats wro--"

"You've been here for over an hour." He finds he can't deny her claims. "If I didn't have a shift, you'd have been kicked out. You didn't even order anything."

He sips his coffee. "Thanks, Gabs..."

"Now, tell me what happened."

Jason huffed and sank further into his seat. "Her name is Y/n. She's the most amazing woman, I've ever met." He told her everything that happened.

"What the hell, Jay? Did you fucking cheat on her?!"

"What?" Jason sneered.

"I swear to fucking god, Jason, I will kick your ass--" she threated.

"Gabs, I would never cheat. You know me better than that." They stared each other down before she relented.

"Fine, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. But this timeline isn't making sense."

"Thats because it was supposed to be a one night stand. It was before Y/n and I even got together. She said she was on birth-control..."

Gabby nods along, piecing things together easily. "So you put your... gunk in her?"

Jason bursts with laughter at this. "Gunk?"

"Well, I don't like thinking of you like that. It's gross." She feigned a baby barf.

He shakes his head with a smile. "Anyway, she took it upon herself to keep said gunk swirling around in her." She throws a ketchup packet at him.

"Without talking to you?"

He shakes his head solemnly, fidgeting with the ketchup packet. "No, she did, but what was I supposed to say? 'Get an abortion?' That would make me a piece of shit. She even gave me an out."

"So, why didn't you take the out?"

His smile became dejected. "How could I, Gabs?"

"Even at the cost of losing the woman you truly love?"

"If I leave the kid, I know I'll regret it. Now, isn't the right time to have a kid. Especially not in my line of work. But I couldn't say that I'd stop. It would never be the right time. I can't abandon this kid. Leave them wondering what they did wrong..."

"Jay..." She said quietly when she noticed his eyes becoming misty.

He takes a moment to collect himself. "I love Y/n, but I'm not about to leave my kid high and dry. It'll be hard to balance work and home but I know I can do it."

His food arrives, interrupting the flow of the conversation. Gabby can tell when Jason is done talking. She leaves him to eat but keeps an eye on him until he leaves.

...

Y/n had thrown herself into work. Both hero and not. She took many extra missions and when she couldn't she worked overtime at her day job. There was hardly a moment to think. And she preferred this.

Currently, Y/n was on her way back to work from lunch. She sipped her favorite boba and scrolled through her phone. She immediately noticed when someone was following her. Their steps were light and shakey, unsure. They weren't there to harm her, apparently.

Before she knew it, the steps had retreated. Whoever it was, they weren't a threat. Maybe they just thought she was someone else.

Her phone vibrated in her hand, John Stewart's face showed on the caller ID. She debated if she wanted to answer or not. If she did she'd probably have to leave work. She sipped her boba.

"You were just going to let me go to voicemail?" Green Lantern floated down to her.

She sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes, exasperated. "Next time, just come thru with a whole ass blimp and some fireworks. That'll really get peoples attention."

He powered down his ring, choosing to ignore the sarcasm. "I heard about the breakup, Y/n."

Her face pulls into a scowl, "You're about three months late on that, G."

"Well, excuse me for having intergalactic duties." He puts a hand on her shoulder, "Do you wanna talk about it?"

"No. I'd rather forget it ever happened." He raises a brow. "Yeah, obviously I'm not gonna forget or use magic. So, I'm doing the next best thing."

"Keeping yourself so busy that you neglect your health?" He chided her. "Y/n, everyone is worried about you."

"For what?!" She snapped, "I'm fine! Just like when his ex showed up and they had a private conversation. Or when he told me that she was fucking carrying his seed. And even now that we're not together anymore… I'm. Doing. Just. Fine."

John pulls her into a hug. "Listen, kid, it's okay to not be okay. It's okay to be angry and hurt… and even to still wanna be with him." He gently stroked her hair. "Your feelings don't somehow make you less and no one gets to tell you how to deal with them."

"Even if I decide to kill them?" She mumbled against his chest.

He chuckles, "I could leave'em on a deserted planet if you want."

"As if his family would let that happen. It's a nice thought, though."

A woman cleared her throat behind Y/n. "E-excuse me, can I have a moment with Y/n?"

With the way Y/n went so rigid in his hold, John could guess who the woman was. "I don't think--"

"And let's keep it that way, G." Y/n interrupted, her frown finding its way back. "I'll contact you if I need anything." At his hesitancy, she made him a promise and he flew off.

Y/n stuffed her free hand in her pocket to keep from punching a pregnant woman. 'Her face isn't pregnant,' her thoughts retorted but she shut the impulse down.

"I sent a text, but…" Isabel trailed.

"If its one thing bitches gon' have it's the motherfucking audacity."

"Excuse me…?" She faltered.

"Obviously, you're blocked. What the hell gave you the idea that I wanted to talk to you?" She crushed the boba cup in her hand causing it to spill over and making Isabel jump a bit.

"I-I only came to apologize--"

"For what? Destoying my perfect relationship?"

"Jason deserved to know. It was his decision to be a father."

By now, Y/n was beyond pissed. This bitch was just asking to be smacked up. "You didn't come here to apologize. You came to absolve yourself of your guilt. And I am not going to help you with that."

"I was trying to be the bigger person but you're too childish. Jason choosing me was the best decision he's made."

"Bitch--!"

Y/n was about to tear into Isabel when a hand was on her shoulder. "You're making my friend angry. And that makes me angry. Leave before I forget you're pregnant."

"Fine but Jason will hear about this." She stomps off like a toddler denied candy.

"Ugh, I need a drink."

"Me too, I'll buy."

"Thanks, Shana. What are you doing here anyway?"

"Apparently, threatening pregnant women." Shana turns to her, brow raised. "Who the hell is that?"

"I'll explain on the way." Y/n tosses the destroyed boba in the trash.

At some random bar Y/n finishes explaining her life's current events. "Anyway, she sucks, he sucks, and I will never love again."

"Or, and hear me out, maybe you need someone to help with the process a little?" Shana smiles at her suggestively.

Y/n frowns, dread filling her stomach. "Oh no, what are you thinking?"

"The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else, duh." Shana rolls her eyes like Y/n should've known that. "I came to ask for help for a mission but shirking my responsibilities is more fun."

NEXT

[sydmarch]

realizing I'm probably depressed I haven't been hyperfixated on anything since literally last october I spend half my time when I'm on a walk shuffling through music trying to find something I enjoy & then listen to an album for a week at most before getting annoyed with it when I used to find something I really liked & listen to it for months &

every time I try & engage with something I think I'll meaningfully enjoy it's just like I never have the motivation for it bcus nothing sounds particularly interesting its all kind of just the same & I'd figured for a long time it was some kind of executive dysfunction or desicion fatigue type shit that I thought would go away once I finally was done trying different adhd med formulas & dosages to find what actually works but now that I feel like adhd is mostly under control it hasn't helped at all like

all throughout the day I have no problem getting my job tasks done & it's extremely easy for me to just do my chores & various little tasks & projects around the apartment but then once I'm done with that & the work day is over I feel like I can't do Anything & like I've tried restructuring my days & making it as easy as possible like I literally have separate lists of Fun Things I Could Do split into categories for if I want something more active like art projects or writing to finish or passive things like games to play or things to watch but literally it

hasn't helped at all for over a month ive literally just had this tab open of a ten minute short film I'd like to watch and simply have not done it & multiple nights the past few weeks when im not out or busy ive been like "ok I should at least spend an hour replaying some of an extremely low stakes game that I know I like. I already grabbed my headphones & my controller. steam is open on my laptop" & then just Not Feel Like Doing It but not feel like really doing anything else so I just go on my phone until it's time to go to bed.

[rose-tinted-kalopsia]

Holy shit!!! Holy shit holy shit holy shit!!!

Holy fuck!!! Your Kieran Don't Let Me Love You fic!!! Aaaaaaaaah!!! It's so good!!! It so so intoxicatingly delicious!! I'm apologizing in advance for what a wall of text this probably will be and purely consist of me yapping

I spent like easily 2??? 3??? 2 and a half??? Hours just to read the whole thing. It's just so incredibly overwhelming in the best way possible! The way you describe the actions. The descriptions. The emotions. The thoughts!!! I actually took multiple a few minutes break during the time reading it, because it felt like my soul was enveloped in the narrative and I needed to breathe for a second!!

I've been thirsting over the twins this whole day, and Luke is actually the more favorable one for me but gosh your fic turned me into a new woman, NOW I TRULY LOVE THEM BOTH EQUALLY. KIERAN!!! Can't possibly agree more that the premise was fitting to Kieran like it was meant to be. You did an incredible job.

Being the quiet of the two, I really felt the amount of conversations were minimal- but meaningful, every single one of them. It fits him so much, I love the flow of conversations you wrote between the two. You have such a refined way of writing!! It's the ultimate mix of both poetic but easy to swallow for the common folk, it's wonderful harmony.

The pet names were everything. Every single one of them!! But personally, there's just something about being called angel by this guy who wears devil horns as his daily outfit that stirs me up so much. S i g h. I'm whipped.

The sexual tension on the flashback of the first time???? HOOOOO BOY LORD HAVE MERCY. I WOULD NEVER NOT SUCCUMB TO THAT. Such a tease. Delicious tease. I'm in tears. Good tears. I just love how all the boys here definitely can effortlessly carry us around and definitely always make us look up with their tall height. I love how the mention of Sylus visibly stirs some kind of reaction to him and how quick but desperate the whole thing was. That commending voice??? Sign me the fuck up. Please. Pretty please. I'm a putty at this point

Rules are the best. Because rules are meant to be broken. That delicious conflicting feeling of doing something should not be done!! You describe it perfectly and beautifully.

I really love how you imagine him being the closer of the two to Sylus, and it just makes sense so much in my brain?? Like, that's why he's so unaware of most outside things, since he was satisfied to just dedicate and stayed loyal to the boss.

Okay now this part is completely my delusion from your fic, and you might skip this if you don't like the thoughts of someone expanding the premise by themselves which I'll completely respect, but I imagined that- at least Luke had noticed before that fated day. Being twins and seemingly inseparable since little, I don't think there's any way either of them could keep a complete secret to each other. The other will notice. So! My personal delusion for this bit is, that Luke had noticed for a while. How Kieran gazes at her was always a second too long, the little things and gestures he believes his brother usually doesn't do for a single girl, and how sometimes his brother was just a little too immersed with whatever he was thinking, and how it felt different than any time before. But he kept quiet about it, obviously. Since Kieran wants to hide it, and Kieran might've got the feeling his brother had already realized from who knows when as well. But out of respect for each other, neither of them ever brought that up. Buuuuuut, Luke noticed the feelings and affection has grown, unbearably big. So he decided to finally confront Kieran about it, maybe saying a piece or two of his thoughts about it. Warning him, or something. And that's what spurs Kieran desperation and conflict that day. He had been mulling it over ever since his brother actually says something verbally to him about it, and at that point he must've tried to deny how fucked he is by then.

Aaaaaaand I also imagined depending whether both Sylus or only Luke have known, Luke would back them up about that day. Coming up with excuses and such, naturally. Either that, or both Sylus and Luke agrees that 'it took them long enough' (s i g h this'll be delicious angst as well depending if Sylus and Luke actually also have feelings for her) with or without this part of my delusion though, I loved the fic as a whole so so so much!

Okay, back to the actual fic. Let me just say i have a thing about good girl and it ascended me to heavens. Your Kieran has driven me crazy-- The depictions of how different he was acting that day was so good!!! And I really loved the repeating narratives, like Quiet, obedient, dutiful Kieran or Don't let me love you or There's no going back. Each one of them are so lovingly beautiful!!

His pleas! The urgency in his voice!! In his action!! The desperation!! Aaah you wrote all of them so well, I actually kept scrolling back up and rereading the lines and description while still reading it because it's just so so so good. And let's not forget the domineering overpowering attitude.... I'm melting...

I really love the switch between the frantic desperation of the first part to the soft loving gentle need after we finally saw Kieran's face. And may I mention I think the fact you're able to describe him and all his emotions and expression so well while deliberately opting out any actual description of his visual is???? Such?? A genius?? Move?? His action, his touch, his face, his expression, I can imagine it all clearly thanks to your amazing writing, and yet I can freely imagine the actual face according to my own imagination! I think that was such a skillful bit.

I really love the moment of vulnerability between the two, how both of them had each of their own time where they finally broke down in tears. Aaaaah such a good narrative.

AND THE PART WHERE HE CALLED OUR NAME???? AAAAAAAAH DELICIOUS!! BEAUTIFUL!!! BRAVO!!!! I love it so much!! I always favor 2nd person pov fics where there never was actual dialogue calling out the name with Y/N- not that there's anything wrong with it other than my preference, but description of it always appeal me more. So thank you for feeding me in that aspect! Aaah! I'm in love!

The bits of how slow the walls slowly crumble, how even after meeting eye to eye he tried so hard to restrain himself, I love it so much. It felt necessary and shows just how much thin the ice they were threading were. I'm s o l d.

The cockiness of his tease on the Miss Hunter shenanigans??? And yet followed suit with his genuine apology afterward??? Have I said I'm melting?? Because ugh it's such a good pacing.

When all restraints finally let loose and the fervent intense adoration came back into action!! It's so beautiful!! And gosh the confession. The confession. Couldn't have worded it any better... I like that he was the one to confess first and how we broke down from him, as it was always ambiguous more on our side than him- because he had always been able to see us through, but he always put on a mask- literally and figuratively. And I think it's just so so so beautiful.

I loved the ending line!!! As well as the little ramble you wrote afterward <3 can't agree more!! I'm definitely interested to read luke x kieran recommendation you linked at the end... But for now I've got things to do so I'll keep it for now!

Phew, it's really a lot of text. TLDR, I'm in love with your Kieran fic thank you so much I love your writing style so much. Thank you!

AHHH ANONIE 😭😭😭😭😭 i have reread this so many times bc this is so so so so incredibly sweet i'm so floored 🥺 and so honired 🥺 that you could have this much thoughts on something ive written... aaahh my heart's fluttering fr, anonie you've made me so happy 😭 esp knowing that you were able to picture kieran's face without the descriptors? that was super challenging to me but i'm sososososososo happy it came across well 😭🤍

FUN FACT i actually had part of this draft cut out! an entire scene where reader runs into luke while looking for kieran, and then subsequently realizes that luke knows ... so he's like, the push that gets both of them to realize they're not just fuck buddies (a la "we're just friends..." "sure, and friends do that" vibes) HAJDKAKFJA IT WAS A WHOLE THING. THE FIC REALLY COULD'VE BEEN LONGER. but i decided 7k words was enough 😭🤲

but overall i agree with you!!!! i was def biased towards luke at first, but writing this totally had me leaning more towards kieran <3 desperation and conflic with internal emotions or othereise co flict between duty and emotions is my FAVORITE to write, and kieran's character is SO fun to play with, esp with him being the younger of the two! he's surprisingly complex and i loved getting into the intricacies, i'm so glad that was conveyed hehe 🥰 you might be interested in the little analysis i had on kieran's character here !!! <3

THANK YOU again anonie 🥺 i wish i had the words to actually say how grateful i am for this because it's just so incredibly sweet 😭 know that i'm cradling you in my arms!!!

[hezuart]

Why did you switch from animation to reviews? Also, do you still plan on doing CGI like you mentioned multiple times?

oH BOY..... you may need to sit down for this one

So it all started back in 2012. I was around 14 years old and just saw Rise of the Guardians and Wreck it Ralph. The stories, the characters, the world-building, the animation... now I never really went to movie theaters as a kid, but as a teen I started going and I instantly fell in love.

I went to community college for a few years and made some amazing friends. Loved some of my teachers and we participated in fun events like the 24-hour challenge and Campus Movie Fest. I had gotten in the top picks for Campus Movie Fest at some point and was supposed to go to the Cannes Film Festival in France to showcase my short film, but then the pandemic hit and it got canceled indefinitely.

So get this, for community college, I got a certification in 3D Animation and Video Game development. It's basically an AA degree but without general ed. (Why do you need general ed to get a degree in something? Math and PE have nothing to do with Animation. College is ridiculous. People have to pay you more simply because you were forced to spend more money in college. Wild.) Out of the 20 classes I had taken to get this certification, only 3 of those courses were hands-on 3D animation. And only one of those courses was hands-on video game development and I dropped out of that class because it was PC only and I only had a Mac at the time. I applied to the class without realizing it was accommodating only to PCs. So even my certification is barely reaching the basics for the title of it, but I did take another online course or two for 3D animation which I have a different certification for.

Now even with my 3D animation, I was never taught the physics engine. I was never taught hair or cloth simulation, but I do have modeling, rigging, animating, and texturing experience. For gaming, I have very little experience. I've only modeled things and found my way around Unity, but otherwise, I suck at coding. I hate coding with a passion. Making a video game without coding isn't really possible.

Now, when the pandemic hit, a lot of things were shutting down. I had no idea where I wanted to go next. People kept asking me where I was going for my higher education, but I kept getting warned not to waste money on college if you're trying to become an artist, especially at University. It's a money pit, and competition is so high, you're not guaranteed a job, you're just gonna be in debt. Even colleges like Cal Arts, who charge over $1K per class, I've been told are a "Pay to get in" kind of place. Where the money is used to nab professionals from their work to teach students or talk about their company or programs, and through that, you get a bigger chance to get your foot in the door because you know someone. I've unfortunately been told that's the more realistic way to get into animation: networking. If you're a shy introvert who doesn't know any famous people, you need to be extremely talented and unique to stand out to get the chance of being noticed. I don't really want to suck up to people nor do I want to waste thousands of dollars and 5 more years on college that I may not even need (let alone be able to afford) especially if there are online classes that may be even more valuable.

Now after I got out of college and started applying a few places, I discovered a LOT of unfortunate information.

Most animation these days is done overseas. South Korea, India, Japan, and Canada are the big ones.

Invader Zim, Steven Universe, Miraculous Ladybug, The Simpsons, OK KO, Star vs the Forces of Evil, Kipo and the Age of the Wonder Beasts, Adventure Time, Twelve Forever, and the Powerpuff Girls Reboot were animated in South Korea. The Ghost and Molly Mcgee is animated in Canada.

(The first four seasons of the Simpsons were animated in America until it switched to South Korea and India.)

2D traditional animation is no longer viable. Puppetry is the industry standard because it's the cheapest. Luckily, Toon Boom Harmony has allowed us to push the boundaries of 2D puppetry. Puppetry these days, if done well, can look really great, like Tangled the Series, but if you don't have Toon Boom Harmony, you're probably not gonna be hired.

Not even all 3D is made in the USA. If it's Disney, Dreamworks, or Pixar, then it's usually USA. But streaming service movies, like Sea Beast, Kid Cosmic, The Willoughbys, and Klaus, while they claim to be a "Netflix Original" that "Netflix Animation" animated, that's a lie. Klaus was animated by Yowza! Animation in Canada. The Willoughbys: Bron Animation, Canada. Kid Cosmic: Mercury Filmworks, Canada. Sea Beast: Sony Pictures Image Works, Canada. (X)

Go Go Cory Carson is written and storyboarded in America, but the animation is shipped out to be done in France. Sonic Boom is also French Animated.

Even Sony Pictures? Open Season, Surf's Up, Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, SMurfs, Hotel Transylvania, Over the Moon, The Angry Birds Movie, Sea Beast? Sony Pictures Imageworks is based in Canada. They're doing all the animation for them. It's not animated in America, it's merely funded by them.

I should also clarify: I only want to participate in stylized animated media. I don't want to do CGI for hyper-realistic films, which eliminates most of the animation jobs out there these days. It's just not my thing. The insane amount of details and uncanny valley are just so unappealing, I can't do it.

The closest animation studios are still far away. Most companies are located in LA. I'm over 7+ hours away from there. LA also has a high poverty rate, terrible air quality, is overcrowded, and is just generally not a good place to live, especially if you're low middle class. You're not gonna survive there.

Pixar is located in Emeryville, a few minutes north of San Fransisco city. Emeryville is the most crime-ridden city in that area. They tell you not to walk home alone at night. You're more likely to get robbed there than anywhere else according to the population ratio there. There are a lot of gangs that hide up there, and there's a lot of poverty there, even outside of San Fransisco. It's basically a trash pit. Not an ideal place to live, and commuting through 3-hour SF city traffic is also not gonna work. (X)

I have also been informed some people who work at Pixar are petty that the interns use their facility. Pixar has a heated pool, soccer field, gymnasium, and a few other nice things on their property. I was informed there was a person or two who got mad that an intern was using their basketball court.... when the intern was on break. As though they weren't part of Pixar, as though they had no right to touch the property. Apparently, they also used to make the interns push around little tea carts to serve refreshments as a way to "talk to the fellow animators" to probably get them interacting, but hearing that the interns were basically chored with butler duty to bother the animators hard at work seems like such a forced thing. That makes me uncomfortable. Of course, the person who told me these stories has been working with Pixar for over a decade or two now, so things could be very different as the years went on. Pixar itself on the inside of the animator building is gorgeous. They all decorate their office spaces in crazy ways, it looks like a movie set. But they have a bar and "whiskey club". They're apparently allowed to drink at work and have often had parties that got a little out of hand. There's also an old chain smoker room where the founders used to play poker and spy on people outside of their room with hidden cameras; I've even been inside. I don't think they use it anymore, though I'm not totally sure. Some of this info was fascinating, but the drinking made me uncomfortable. I kinda want to work with sober people here.

The sex ratio in the animation industry is also interesting and unfavorable. 70% of the animation and art school ratio is women, but only 34% of the actual animation workforce is women. 34% female to 66% male. More women study animation than men, but more men get hired and hold positions than women. Animation, ironically, has always been a male-dominated workplace. This unfortunately contributes to the "you have to know someone" or "be rich" to get-in situation. Men know a lot more men and not as many women. So the 30 to 40-year-old guys hire the other guys they know rather than a young poor girl with a passion. This makes it even more difficult for me to get in. (X)

20th Century, Netflix Animation, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Bento Box, Vanguard Animation, Universal Studios, Titmouse, 6 Point Harness, ShadowMachine- all LA / South California.

There are a few places I could apply to, but what they do, I just don't care for. Niantic(Pokemon Go), Lucasfilm(Effects), Whiteboard Animation(Marketing), Sharpeyeanimation (Marketing), EA games (Mass Effect, Battlefield, Dragon Age 2, all those hyper-realistic war, sports, or fantasy games.)

So whether it's outside of the USA or within the USA, I need to move. I don't have the money for that yet.

Just find a company that does remote work, right? It should be easy, especially in pandemic times! Wrong. Most animation companies don't permit remote work. It's probably a security issue. But I've done research on this. The only big animation company I've found (so far) that allows remote work (or is HIRING for remote work) is Mainframe Studios in Canada. They have a 3D animation job list, and I guess they focus on animating Barbie movies(???). (X) But that's about it. And even if you're a remote worker, there's a high likely hood you still need a Visa to be allowed to work for a company belonging to another country. So that's a whole other legal process to deal with.

Disney is becoming a huge corporate monopoly over American animation. They bought Blue Sky only to kill them off. (Disney also just recently laid off 7,000 people due to their stock price drop and failed movies they released the past year with deliberately bad marketing for political reasons. (X) Disney also bought Pixar and is pushing for sequels because weird or bad, sequels and terrible live actions make them a LOT of money. Did you know Disney's terrible Lion King CGI remake is amongst the top 10 highest-grossing movies ever made? It's criminal. (X)

Because Disney is such a big name in the USA, there's a huge association of animation = children's media, which is not true. Animation at the Oscars also has its own category, when it's not a genre, is a medium. Disney often wins at the Oscars too because no one sees the other animations. Granted, Disney has an insane marketing budget in comparison, but it's clear no one cares to seek out animation outside of heavy CGI live-action these days. No small-time studios, no limited releases, no anime. The fact that Disney also now OWNS the Oscars is SUS as hell. (The fact that Disney-owned ABC threatened the Oscars, forcing them to cut 8 categories or else there wouldn't be a show that year is wild. There isn't even an oscar for stuntmen. What the fuck, Hollywood?) (X)

Dreamworks nearly went bankrupt and sold itself to Comcast back in 2013. Comcast also owns Illumination. Dreamworks has been focusing on making bad tv show adaptions of their IPs. So yes people, Jack would sooner meet the Minions than meet Elsa. Disney is the biggest corporate monopoly, but it's definitely not the only one. The animation industry in America is snuffing out its competition by buying it out for itself. It's insane the kind of power they have.

Competition is HIGH. Because of this, the only ways to get in? If you're rich or you know someone. Pixar gets over 3,000 intern applications every summer. Less than 100 are seen by actual hiring managers. The most interns Pixar has ever taken in a single year were 12. The least they ever took in a single year was two. A 12 to 3,000 ratio is not favorable. That's a 3% chance to get into a big-shot animation company.

And again, because remote work isn't permissible to new hires, you need to live in the area to commute to the campuses. This is one of the reasons why LA is so crowded.

If you get into an animation company purely remote and maybe even for a different country? You are the luckiest person alive.

Programs are expensive. The animation industry is very strict on what programs they use. The industry standard for 2D puppetry is Toon Boom Harmony; the industry standard for 3D animation is Maya, and the industry standard for video game development isn't as clear but Unity is one of them.

Some of these programs are free, as long as you are a student. If you are attending college or a certain online program, you can use your school-issued email through them to apply to get the program for free for about a year. Otherwise, if you're using it to make your own animations solo?

Autodesk Maya: $225 a month or $1,785 a year (X)

and guess what? Maya removed its free render service. Arnold is now built in by default, however, if you want to BATCH render (Meaning render a full scene or several slides) it will slap it's ugly watermark over it.

Fun fact, this very rendered watermark can be seen accidentally in a single frame for the Kingdom Hearts Frozen cutscene

Well, you need to batch render if you're trying to animate so let's see what Arnold costs- $50 monthly to $380 annually.... are you kidding me?! The rendering PLUG-IN BUNDLED TO MAYA COSTS MORE TO USE THAN THE OWN PROGRAM?! (X)

Now, there are other rendering plug-ins you can probably use with Maya. But they all have their ups and downs and their own costs as well. (X) Pixar's Renderman is $595 per license. I can't seem to get info on Octane. V-ray solo is $39 monthly while premium is around $60 monthly.

Now there IS Blender, an alternative to Maya. It is free and I have it. That is ideal to work in for people like me. I tried it a while back, but I hated the interface windows. It was hard to work on it when you can't close them properly. It's possible they've fixed this in an update, but I haven't touched the program in over three years so I wouldn't know. It's different from Maya a little, so it has ups and downs in comparison too. But Blender is a savior to 3D artists everywhere.

Toon Boom Harmony isn't as bad but still high: Lowest price is $27 monthly / $220 annual and the highest is $124 monthly / $1,100 annual (X)

Unity has a basic version that is free, but Unity Plus is $399 yearly while Unity Pro is $2,040 (X)

So some programs are clearly more viable than others. But imagine you're trying to model, texture, rig, animate, simulate, and render a short film all by yourself in Maya. That's gonna take you over a year or two, and you'll have several thousand dollars out of your pocket by the time your free trial ends. And might I say, for an industry-standard program, Maya sucks. It's almost unusable without those plug-ins for not only rendering but also for the models to even be able to SELECT their BONE rigs.

Do you want to practice on your own when school is out of session? Fuck you! Fuck subscription services! Welcome to capitalist hell, baby!

Again, using Blender is more viable, but you're still going to be basically doing everything yourself. That's gonna take years. Do you have the patience for that? Do I?

Because of the pandemic, movies aren't even hitting theaters anymore. They're going straight to streaming services. Streaming services of which, gain sole rights to and can take media off their platforms at any time without warning. Thanks, Discovery+ ! Does everyone remember the HBO Max Animation & DC purge? It could happen to other streaming services too. Piracy will save the future of animation at this point. (X)

And again, Streaming services like Netflix will purchase films and claim they made them by slapping their logo over it; but no, they either bought the distribution rights or produced them through funding and maybe storyboarding. Often times from a Canadian film studio. (Link again X)

Even stop motion companies like LAIKA are losing money and may have to shut down or be bought out in the future, especially considering how much work and money they put into their films vs. how much money they actually make. (X)

All of this? Naturally made me fall into a depression. My god, the layers of hopelessness. My animation and modeling is pretty average too. I'm decent. I can maybe make a good shot. But I can't blow people away like James Baxter can. I mean, I shouldn't compare myself to people. If I worked really hard, maybe I could get into a good company. But again, I have to move! A part of me gave up. I don't really do 3D animation anymore, though part of me misses it.

I still 2D animate. I'm trying to make a short film and though my college friends who were working on it with me have given up, I have done my best to keep going. Even if it has been produced at a snail's pace for the past three years, I still intend to finish this animation. It's gonna be beautiful when it comes out, and it will be a wonderful portfolio piece regardless.

So with nothing else to do and no other kind of job experience really under my belt(plus my family is prone to covid so getting a job in the pandemic was just kind of out of the question) I decided to go to youtube. I heard some people can make a little money on there, but the truth is I had actually wanted to become a youtuber for a few years prior. I've always looked up to animators and reviewers on youtube, I've loved the stories they tell and their incredibly detailed analysis essays on movies, tv series, books, etc. I wanted to be one of them. I wasn't sure exactly what I'd do, so I just followed the Youtube Partnership program set up which took a few months, and then jumped in! I found I only had the time to upload once every month or two. I had a ton of audio issues and I'm not outputting at the proper 1920 x 1080 quality that I should be doing either. It's a huge learning process that I still haven't perfected, but I'm taking notes to try and get better.

Even though Youtube is fun, I only make $300 a month, and that isn't even consistent. With patreon, I make maybe another $80 or $100 on top of that, so overall $400 a month average. That's really nice and pretty cool! But it's not enough to survive.

Now I work part-time at a coffee shop. My mental health is a lot better and I love my coworkers. I make roughly $400 a week in comparison to the $400 a month. It's still not enough to live off of (the cheapest rent around is over $1,000 a month, not ) and it's still a temporary job in the long run. I intend to work here for maybe another two years to save up money.

But what do I do now?

Am I welcome in animation spaces anymore?

As a critic of popular media, it could be likely that they could fire me or deny my application because of my critique of their past films or tv series. They could see my youtube persona and assume I'm a raging untrustworthy nitpick instead of a passionate, kind person.

Vivziepop's Spindlehorse company? What Viv was doing was a dream. I was so inspired by her. She made her own company, made a super successful pilot, and was even creating more jobs for traditional, high-quality animation. However, for Hazbin Hotel, she required more funding, which is why she sold it off to A24, who now has corporate say in the show. A24 is known for letting creators be more lenient, but otherwise, Viv won't have full control over it anymore unless she managed to get them to sign something over to her; but with the rumors of her being kicked off season 1? I don't know anymore.

Her own company Spindlehorse; they rely on youtube revenue and/or merch sales to fund Helluva Boss. That's a tricky business practice, but it's kept them afloat so far.

However, Spindlehorse is hiring a lot of people as of late. This could be a bad sign; that people might be leaving the company due to potential mistreatment or unhappiness. With the way the show is going, I don't really want to be part of that company regardless, but maybe before season 2 of Helluva Boss, I would have considered applying. Had I made any critique videos prior, there's no way they'd accept me. "Aren't you that one YouTuber that said my writing is bad for season 2 episode 2?" And you expect me to hire you?" Like yeah, that application process would go down well. Not. By critiquing artists' work, some of them are very sensitive. I'd be kicked out for a lot of things, when really, we artists should be critiquing each other all the time, trying to improve. That's how the writer's room always is, ahaha... hours of fighting goes down in those meetings. It's intense, but fun.

But yeah, it's such a shame. Even small companies need to sell out to corporate to survive. Either that or be HEAVILY crowd-funded, which again, can be a slippery slope.

I see a ton of small projects on Twitter looking to hire people, or looking to become a big studio to release a pilot or game. I've joined a few of them, but most are unpaid because of COURSE they are, and then these projects?? Just don't go anywhere. Because it's unpaid. Because we can't afford to work on a project for free. IRL comes first. Some of these projects seem so great but they don't go anywhere, and it's hard to have faith in start-up studios anymore. (Game creators might have a chance, but tv series or films? Good luck, folks.)

At that point, should I just make my own company? I don't have the money or knowledge for such a thing! It's insanely expensive to start a business and get licensing. So much paperwork, so much everything! And the USA Government is so behind in understanding technology. If you want to create a remote business and/or copyright something, you're still required to put an advertisement in a local newspaper about it, even if your business isn't selling to locals. 💀 The number of fees and ridiculous legal hoops you need to jump through... it's a ridiculous waste of time and money. But you need to do it. The question is, am I willing to do it? Am I willing to tackle such an insane thing by myself?

I want to keep my internet persona and IRL persona separate, but can I? I value having a private, quieter life away from the screen. I worry about getting doxxed one day because of the nature of the internet. I worry about people finding my IRL resumes or profiles for work I want to do outside of youtube for security's sake. My art style is unique and very recognizable. I don't have a lot of private art that is worthy of being in a portfolio. But for absolute safety, I'd need to password-protect my websites or portfolios so the public doesn't have free access to them; only companies I'm applying to. But at that point, does password-protecting my resume and portfolio make it less likely I'd be hired due to the inconvenience? Due to the private, hard-to-find nature of my work? Being a YouTuber with great story skills and art skills with a fanbase could be a big plus to getting hired somewhere, but it could also be a horrible disadvantage that would get me fired. It's a double-edged sword that I cannot work around and I don't know what to do.

I've considered the video game industry, but even that isn't ideal. A lot of the indie ones I adore aren't made in the USA. Gris and Monster Camp were made in Spain. Ori and the Blind Forest: Austria. Hollow Knight: Australia. Little Nightmares and Raft: Sweden. LIMBO & INSIDE: Denmark. Outlast, Don't Starve, Spirit Farer, Bendy and the Ink Machine: Canada.

SuperGiant Games did Hades, Transistor and Bastion and is located in SF, but they're not hiring. Janimation, a multi-media company located in Texas isn't hiring. Frederator in New York isn't hiring.

I don't want to work for a studio that does nothing but first-person shooters or sports games. If I want to get into the gaming industry, I probably need to crowdfund and make a company to make a game myself.

If I make my own game, which I've wanted to do for a long time now and still want to... I can't code. I guess I could try to hire someone that could? But a game to the extent I want... I'd need to start small. I'd need to practice. It's several years of work. Will it even be worth it? I don't think I can do it alone. I'd need crowdfunding and workers; which again, here comes the "make my own studio" issue...

Do I even want to animate anymore? I prefer traditional animation in comparison to puppetry. I prefer 2D animation to 3D animation simply because it is more accessible. But even then, I'm finding myself drawn more and more to writing, storyboarding, and character design. If I were a 3D animator, this is mostly what I'd be working with all day: Naked models in an empty room. I'd do none of the physics simulation or texturing or lighting.

Animating naked & bald people all day... I don't know... 3D Animation kind of lost its appeal. You only work on such a small portion of a film, you almost never have the bigger picture. You won't see the final result until the film is done. As an animator, you're almost kept in the dark. Maybe that's how they want it anyway, since leaks are a huge issue they keep quiet under strict NDA.

But yeah, anyway... I'm an artistic digital generalist. I can do almost anything. 3D animation, storyboarding, writing, photo editing, illustration, rendering, modeling and so much more. It's hard to choose what you really want to be in this industry. I feel like Barry Benson dfklgjdflkjg

I don't know what I'm gonna do anymore. There's gotta be a solution to this but I just can't figure it out. I don't want to give up my youtube channel so I can be an animator. I don't want to give up a safer, quiet countryside house to be able to survive financially. Am I even willing or able to move countries? Is my career more important than friends and family?

I think I'm thinking too much about everything. I should start small. Move less than an hour away first and move in with roommates to get a feel for independence instead of jumping into it immediately. Get a job at a small time company, maybe not for what I want at first, but it'll get me some experience and maybe I'll learn some things along the way to understand where I can go next. Take it slow and don't panic too much over trying to be a young big shot. Take things one day at a time? That's my current goal, I suppose.

So you know... to answer your question... why did I switch to youtube for a current career? Because of a classic existential & career crisis in my 20s. Will I ever go back to 3D animation? Maybe. Maybe one day.

[bakurapika]

My boss has been awesome but I got in trouble for overlooking something several weeks ago that, real talk, I think is probably heavily due to how I've had some big memory issues lately which I think is related to my lack of med management. But I'm sure as hell not gonna say that for multiple reasons (1 of which being, I think she has similar issues herself and would think it's BS, and 2, if she DID believe me then she'd question my ability to do my job to a point where it'd be worse than believing I was intentionally a little negligent).

And right after that, I was late for a meeting because of 1) those same memory issues, and 2) some tech issues. Where it looked like I was being intentionally negligent again.

And I'd just recently asked if she would still be a good reference for me if I had to get another job becuase of financial issues she was already fully aware of (and she's been the kind of person who I trusted to be supportive with this information despite being a boss), so it's been pretty transparent that she thinks I'm slacking off on purpose.

I thought that all got settled but now she's been interpreting normal situations that would usually be like "oh yeah, we'll clean this up no problem" or even not have any identified issue at all, where it would just require a little paperwork on my end to fix - and seems to just be looking for evidence that I don't take my job seriously. I'm really on edge whenever she talks to me now, because this situation has played out before at the same job with a really bad boss, and things got reeeeally shitty right afterward.

I feel inclined to be like "lol! it's just my anxiety! i'm projecting!" but I genuinely don't think I am, and so far my instincts have been pretty spot on about this kind of thing.

And it fully sucks because she became my boss specifically to get me out of that situation of a sucky boss who interprets everything I do in the worst faith possible.

But anyway, so I've been having breakdowns at work whatever. But everyone gets a day off on the day of the week we normally have a private boss-employee meeting. I was really relieved about that. But literally last minute of today, she rescheduled it to be at the end of the day tomorrow, right before the long weekend, and it's gonna suck and I'm not sure if it's better to dread it all day or to have "gotten it over with" and have a sucky conversation that made the entire day awful again. Not that I have a choice.

So basically I need to go into this conversation and lie like a rug. Because being honest and taking accountability for my actions has gotten me treated with suspicion because she thought I was lying and admitting to anything that's "off" before it becomes a problem for other people (though it may not have been pointed out as an issue I caused - or a problem at all - if I let it lie) has itself become a chance to evaluate what I've done as laziness or doing bad work. Even if the actual thing being discussed took place ages before I was applying for other jobs.

Hence lying like a rug. I just need to be polite and accept any blame she gives me without taking it personally or letting it affect my actions (since yesterday at work, I got next to nothing done because I was crying all day, compared to today, where I decided Fuck It and chilled most of the day and was able to focus on my work like a normal person afterwards, without needing to text anyone for my own safety or anything at all). And basically I need to roleplay someone who's not emotionally invested in my job at all but is distantly professional.

But I'm really shitty at lying in that kind of situation so it'll probably take about 45 seconds to break me, and I'll wind up being like "I WAS SOBBING IN THE OFFICE ON WEDNESDAY BECAUSE OF AN OFFHAND REMARK YOU MADE" which would be taken as utter manipulative, lying horseshit. And it's a half hour meeting and she's definitely gonna confront me about stuff that, real talk? Was at least as much her fault as mine, if they're even situations that you feel like you need to identify anyone being at fault in at all - and again if I even hint at that being the truth, I'm f u c k e d.

God someone please like this post to tell me I'm not alone even if you just skimmed it because I'm struggling. Maybe send me a message about the worksona I need to develop and how I should be able to keep it together for like 2 full minutes.

Like if she hates me at a personal level now, she won't want to talk for long either, right??

[tabbyclaw]

I gave myself a home haircut at 2 AM and it was the best decision I've made in a while.

Look, it's my blog and I get to post a clickbait-y title sometimes, as a treat. I also get to talk about myself sometimes, also as a treat, but I don't have any interest in making a regular thing of it. But this haircut actually happened two months ago and I'm still super happy about it, so it gets a blog entry that sort of turns into a tortured analogy at the end.

My hair has always been A Problem. I was blessed with the kind of thick, curly hair that makes strangers come up behind you in the salon and tell you how jealous they are. I was not, however, blessed with the kind of patience and willingness that maintaining thick, curly hair requires. Especially when it's also dry and brittle. (Was that related to the lack of maintenance? It can't have helped, at the very least.) When it's long it's a sad mess of frizz and it's heavy enough to fall into my face constantly, but when it's short and not pulled down by its own weight it turns into a dandelion clock without careful styling. So a sad mess of frizz it's been for the last couple decades, down to not quite the small of my back because that's where it gives up the ghost on its own, because that at least I can pull back and get it out of the way and out of my sight. Well, except the bits at my temples that are an eternal scraggly halo of broken hairs because I have the audacity to sleep on my sides, and the little bit at the nape of my neck that I buzz every once in a while to get rid of some of the volume without being too noticeable and to get a little more cool air on my neck. I'll be honest and say that most days until recently it didn't even get properly combed, just finger-combed as briefly as possible in between the braid I slept in and the severe twist I wore during the day, because anything more than that would be trying to sort through the tangles and breakage and just cause more frizz and more frustration. Washing it was done as rarely as possible, again because of the tangles and breakage, and the whole process took over an hour and then several more to dry. (This wasn't the worst thing, because I've had multiple stylists tell me that I should only wash my hair about once a week, but there were many times when it was... a lot longer than that in between them.) Basically, I hated it on multiple axes, but if I did something different then it might be absolutely awful, and even if it came out okay I'd have to get used to it, and while I was getting used to it people at work would comment on it and remind me that I was still getting used to it and make it harder for me to do so (because I have a public-facing job and the public doesn't mind its own business), so I knew it wasn't going to be worth trying. Until the day after my birthday, when I finally said screw it and rode into battle.

Any part that was mostly fuzz and tangles and breakage was gone. Last six inches or so? Hacked off with all-purpose scissors, and who cares if it's uneven at the ends because it curls up enough that no one will ever actually notice. Scraggly temples? #2 trimmer blade, same as the back, and let's sweep around the sides to join those temples to the back while we're at it. Any part of my hair that was more trouble than it was worth ended up in the bathroom trash can, or in the corners of the room where I'm still trying to sweep it all up. It took over an hour -- don't worry; my sleep schedule was already complete nonsense before this -- and by the end of it I had probably about half the hair I had before I started, and that hair already looked healthier without its worst parts. I ended up with a style that's in the undercut family but is more of a horseshoe shape of buzz cut around the bulk of my hair, which is still pretty long even after the drastic trim. And the next day the only regret I had was that I should have done it when someone else was awake to tell me if I'd missed any spots because now I was going to have to haul the trimmer out all over again.

The lack of regret is something I really want to lean on while I'm talking about this, because it's so common to look at someone who's done something radical with their hair and go, "Oh, they're Going Through It." And I don't want to suggest that I'm not in a constant state of lowkey Going Through It, but it's the lack of quite as much It to be Going Through that made me do something radical with my hair. I've been wanting to find some way to deal with it for ages, but I was held back by that fear of being noticed and judged by people I don't care about and also that feeling of 'why bother because I know it won't be any better.' And then the antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication started working their magic and gave me the ability to say, "You know what? It's going to be fine. It's going to look fine and who cares if someone else thinks it doesn't, and even if it's not the best thing ever it can't be worse than what I have now." And it does, in fact, look very cool, and the only people who've said anything about it are coworkers who've been universally positive about it.

And then something really neat happened. Because the worst of my hair is gone, suddenly I have the patience and willingness to maintain the rest of it. Combing it out (and adding a little product if necessary for the dryness) is no longer an exercise in misery, which means it's easy to integrate into my daily routine. And having an immediate and visible result for the smaller amount of work it requires means that I'm motivated to stick with it and keep it looking and feeling nice. And that's where the tortured analogy comes in, because that's just the way taking care of yourself -- or anything else -- works. You have to find the thing that makes you want to do it, or at least not mind it enough to stop you, and sometimes that means giving yourself less to do. So cut those corners where you can, figuratively or literally, and let the lack of them improve what's left.

It's possible I'm not making any sense here. In fact, it's likely. But I'm 41 years old and I like my hair for the first time in my adult life, and that deserves a celebration.

[moonlitlex]

ok. final thoughts on doctor who season 14 (2024) (because maybe if i say all of this i will finally stop thinking about how much i hate this season)

short version: i'm this season's biggest hater. if this season has a million haters im one of them. if this season has 1000 haters i'm still one of them. if this season has one hater it's me. if this season has no haters it means i have left this world. if the world is against this season i am with the world

long & nuanced version (under the cut)

i'm just really, really, really disappointed. i've always said that good writing can redeem any project, and it kind of feels like they just took it in the exact opposite direction this time. there's so much that went wrong and like 99% of it is down to the writing. i did a rant on my youtube channel (which i'm not gonna link here because i want to keep these accounts separate) and it was like an hour long so i'm not gonna go into detail but i'll just go over my main issues with this season

fifteen lacks depth. i think he's a very generic doctor lacking his own eccentricities. after the first season the doctor usually has quite a distinct personality, but i don't think we got that with fifteen. just compare the kind of characterization fifteen has at this point to like... eleven in his first season. he was a lot more fleshed out. we got to see multiple facets of his personality. it seems like they tried this with fifteen but everything we got to see ended up being really surface level. the susan thing just kind of happens. the rogue thing just kind of happens. he faces racism and he's just kind of incredulous and then the episode ends. it's not explored. the show just moves on to the next thing and we don't get to see how he deals with it.

ruby lacks depth. similarly, i think ruby is a very generic companion. she's a young woman from present day london which isn't in and of itself a bad thing but it's not backed up by much. like, what do we actually know about ruby? she's adopted? she was left on a church doorstep by her biomom? she loves her mom but is still disappointed she can't find her bio parents? these are all plot relevant things. what do we know about her outside of the stuff that is necessary for the plot? job? friends? life before the doctor? there are a few tiny glimpses, but not enough to make her a developed character.

fifteen and ruby's relationship is boring. they never fight. they never disagree. they never argue. they're never angry with each other. they never challenge each other on anything. they're shown to have this amazing best-friend rapport but it's never developed or fleshed out. it just kind of happens. one second they're meeting and the next second they're bffs who never disagree about anything and are always on the same page. it's just not an interesting dynamic.

i found ten and donna to be a very compelling dynamic but that's because they actually have a real friendship and have to deal with conflict and challenges and disagreements. times when the doctor and companion challenge each other are interesting. this is a feature of some really beloved doctor who stories for a reason. dalek wouldn't be so well loved if rose just agreed with nine the entire time. the conflict makes the story more compelling. meanwhile ruby can't even muster an ounce of discontentment with fifteen for the entire season.

season finale payoffs were not compelling and are in my opinion a result of prioritizing shock and surprise and social media buzz at time of release over telling an interesting story.

sutekh is not automatically a compelling villain and the way that arc is written is so... bland. he appears and kills everyone and the next episode they just hit the reset button. fine, doctor who has done this before, but there was interesting character writing back then to distract you from the baffling story decisions.

the season 3 finale had flying jesus ten but it also had interesting character dynamics. this one had sutekh defeated in the most confusing way possible (if he got his power from the time vortex why is it killing him now....) but there's barely anything going on in the character department. it's rtd so i expected hamfisted deus ex machinas, but i didn't expect the lack of care on the character front.

the susan thing was just... it came out of nowhere, didn't really make much sense, and then it immediately disappeared. the doctor thinking it's his susan was just confusing for me and it didn't land. like why would susan.... do that? why would she be basically following him around the universe by weaving herself into the scenery everywhere he landed? this is never even addressed. they just get the tardis anagram and he immediately jumps to it being his susan and you're not really sure why he's so convinced and it's never really explained.

ruby's mom being a normal woman literally just doesn't make any sense. it's never explained. "we thought she was really important" doesn't just do all the inexplicable things. why and how is ruby able to make it snow if her mom is just a normal person? why does the song in his soul scare maestro so much? why is sutekh of all people unable to figure out who her mother is? the reveal is played as a criticism of the audience for building up ruby's mom to be this huge mystery, but it wasn't the audience doing this - it was the writers. these are the clues they laid out and they're never explained. "doctor who is more fantastical now" also doesn't make any sense. fantasy has rules too. you can't just do whatever you want. the world still has to be internally consistent. the reveal by itself is a nice moment but it's just disappointing that they decided to laugh at the audience for taking their show seriously.

i've seen a lot of people compare ruby's mom thing with clara's impossible girl thing. i would like to point out 2 differences that make clara's impossible girl arc superior. first - clara's impossible girl arc never tries to weasel its way out of the mystery. the point is that who clara is is more important than the mystery surrounding her. ruby's mom mystery tries to erase the mystery entirely. second - clara's impossible girl arc is resolved the way it is because of clara. clara is a person who takes an action because of who she is. it shows courage and selflessness and care for her friend. ruby's mom mystery is solved by ruby and the doctor finding a database where they can match ruby's dna to her mom's. it doesn't say anything about her character. her character is irrelevant to the resolution.

i've also seen it compared to the hybrid thing from season 9, but with the hybrid there was never anything unexplainable happening in the first place so "it was just the characters obsessing about it all along" makes sense because it literally is just the characters bringing up the hybrid all the time.

the individual episodes are not... good. here are my opinions on each of them

church on ruby road - ok introduction, weird pacing, the goblin song was just tonally off compared to the rest of the episode

space babies - genuinely makes the doctor seem like a sadistic asshole at times like he keeps laughing at the literal babies for being scared of the monster and this is played for laughs (???), boogeyman reveal thing literally came out of nowhere there was no setup and it made no sense and was never really explained, a lot of tonal whiplash in this episode, poor exposition choices at the start

devils chord - maestro was a fun performance but nothing else about this episode is interesting, there are no beatles, the 4th wall breaks are tonally inconsistent with the rest of the season

boom - ruby gets sidelined but making ncuti act without being able to move any of his body slaps as a concept and while it was too on the nose, the thematic messaging aspects of this episode are coherent and don't talk down to the audience, some side characters get to be relevant to the story and moderately developed (mundy, splice, the dad), splice's actor was far too old to be delivering those lines and it didn't land well, the dad ai defeating the ambulance ai was a bit too much but was in line with the power of love and faith theme so i'm conflicted on how i feel about that

73 yards - did nothing right. there are a few minutes of good welsh folk horror at the start before that aspect of the story is undermined by those people in the pub. ruby gets no character development. the horror atmosphere is abandoned at the start and the horror concept is abandoned entirely partway through the story in favour of the political stuff with roger ap gwilliam, which is kind of resolved in a really anticlimactic scene which doesn't matter anyway because everything just gets undone at the end of the episode. there are no answers.

it's not a good horror story because 90% of it isn't horror. it's not a good political drama because nothing happens. it's not a good character study because we don't get to know anything about ruby's character. i genuinely think rtd has forgotten the kind of stuff he's written because he called this the best thing he's ever written and it's literally not even in the top 10 doctor who episodes he's ever written. like midnight is right there. the waters of mars is RIGHT THERE. this episode is all setup and no payoff.

also - i might just be autistic, but the "can i pay with my phone" joke doesn't land because not everyone can actually accept digital payments yet! it's like... an extremely normal question to ask. i literally ask all the time unless i see an "apple pay accepted" sign because sometimes the answer is "no, we only take cash or card". i know it was supposed to be something about how ruby thinks she's in the past or welsh people getting wrongly stereotyped for being backward but maybe rtd should've come up with a line that would actually be offensive and not just a completely normal thing to ask in 2024.

dot and bubble - this is probably my most controversial take. i hate this episode. i think it's a poorly written bad episode. and furthermore i think only people who are disconnected from all discussion around racism think it's got genuinely good commentary. for MOST of this episode, it's a "kids be on they damn phones" thing. like, genuinely. lindy can't even WALK without her phone. there's nothing in the episode to tip us as the audience off to the idea that the dots hate them because they're racist. everything in the episode is pointing at "the dots hate them because they're stupid as fuck because they're always on that damn phone".

lindy at first seems like a flawed but sympathetic character, and this could genuinely have worked with the racism commentary. if it's about them being racist cause they're sooooooo fucking stupid, maybe don't have lindy be an irredeemable extremely racist character who kills someone. maybe she's repeating all the rhetoric she's heard her entire life without ever thinking about it. maybe trying to convince her racist friends to give the doctor a chance gets her socially isolated. maybe it's about echo chambers and social bubbles. maybe lindy as an individual has no malicious intent either way but she still behaves in a racist way and still ends up siding with the racists because they're her friends and she wants to fit in and be part of the in group and trying to not be racist because the doctor seemed kinda nice got her socially ostracized so she perpetuates racism regardless. but none of this is what happens. this is a reading you can get out of it if you're really dedicated to reading into a story written by a guy who doesn't give a shit about racism.

lindy and all her friends are stupid and bad and racist and the doctor is still desperate to save them for some fucking reason and he doesn't even get to SAY anything to them, he just laughs incredulously and that's his entire reaction. the commentary in this episode is baby's first lesson on racism. it's a message of "racism is bad and stupid" tacked onto an episode with a message of "being on your phone is bad and stupid".

it's shallow. it has nothing to say. it's very clearly a story about racism written by a white man who has never had to even think about racism. the entire writer's room for this season was white as well. rtd didn't even think he should maybe consider giving the racism episode to a black writer. he just wrote a full episode where the message is "racism is bad you guys" and patted himself on the back for his social commentary. i think it's embarrassing that people praise this episode for opening their eyes to racism in the real world and helping them understand it better. literally all that tells me is they've been closing their eyes and covering their ears every time a person of colour talks about racism. like black fans have literally been talking about racism in doctor who for decades and clearly none of you listened to any of them because you're here watching an episode with an "omg racism is bad guys" message going "wow, i never though about it like that!" that's because you're an asshole.

"wow i didn't even notice that everyone in this episode is white!" that's because that's not out of the ordinary for doctor who. or for television in general. this isn't revolutionary commentary. it's an indictment of the season 14 writer's room that they thought they could write this episode without even taking a look around their own writer's room and thinking "huh, everyone here is white too. maybe we should try to change that." this show has been predominantly white for MOST of its history. i'm a huge critic of the chibnall era but at least that guy hired poc to write for the show. at least the bad racism commentary in rosa (which was, to remind you, "the future racist is wrong. racism is bad. also the entire civil rights movement was basically a happy accident") was written by a black woman. at least the weird british empire glorifying shit in the partition episode was written by an indian man (to be clear, stuff written by poc also deserves to be criticized. my point is just that at least chibnall had the basic common sense to hire people who knew more than him to write these stories). rtd didn't even consider this. not even a cowriter.

it's just embarrassing to watch white fans falling over themselves analyzing how this episode is soooo deep when it's simply not. racism isn't silly goofy stupid. it's dangerous. it gets people killed every day. it's even more ridiculous that the racism is addressed in the future episode but not anywhere else! fifteen goes to 60s england and... nothing. he goes to 1800s england and nothing. sure, future people are racist. whatever. are we seriously sanitizing the real, actual, real life racist past of britain? and then patting ourselves on the back for it? and ricky september being considered not racist? like, reading a book doesn't suddenly make you not racist. racist people aren't necessarily idiots. plenty of highly educated people are racist. making ricky explicitly racist while also a clearly smart character would have added nuance to this episode, but rtd didn't do that. watching a black man beg and plead with rich racist white kids to please let him save their lives is just... ridiculous.

there are countless (and i do mean countless) works by actual people of colour that discuss racism in a far more nuanced way. that go beyond "racism is bad and racist people are stupid". there are specifically black british shows you can watch that actually address racism and have real commentary on it outside of what you would expect a toddler who has just learnt about prejudice to say. shows that aren't about coddling while people. watch shows made by and for people who aren't white. read books written by and for people who aren't white. and don't just watch and read this stuff to "educate yourself" on other people's experiences. watch it because it's art. because it's entertaining or funny or interesting or dramatic, just like stories that are about white people are allowed to be. and stop praising an episode with a racism is bad message for being good racism commentary. seriously. we already know racism is bad. this is embarrassing for you.

dot and bubble was a "kids be on they damn phones episode" with "racism is so bad guys" tacked onto it and white fans fell over themselves explaining how it opened their eyes and it was so deep and meaningful and powerful and it was none of those things. it was bland and shallow and honestly really boring they spend WAY too long hitting us over the head with how the kids are so stupid cause they're on their damn phones. you should be embarrassed. if this episode was the first thing that made me realize racism exists and is bad you couldn't waterboard that out of me. grow up.

rogue - rogue was an underdeveloped jack harkness ripoff, there's no development of the relationship between him and the doctor, ruby got nothing to do, the proposal came out of nowhere, the chuldurs were an interesting concept but they literally didn't even do any of the larping they were there for apart from the one who was lady emily. murder is not a prominent part of bridgerton or similar regency era romances that they were supposedly there to cosplay

legend of ruby sunday - this episode is literally 99% exposition. like i'm not joking. there's exposition and exposition and exposition for the whole episode and at the end sutekh appears and kills everyone. also "i will kill everyone" is like. not a compelling motivation. doctor who is full of guys who want to kill everyone. there's nothing making sutekh particularly scary or compelling apart from the fact that he thanos snapped the whole universe and that's also not particularly scary or compelling because he spares the main characters AND because you know they're gonna hit the comic book reset button next episode. sutekh being attached to the tardis since pyramids of mars is unconvincing personally (it would've made more sense if it was since wild blue yonder)

empire of death - ??????? ruby's mom is just a normal woman. they leash sutekh like a dog and drag him through the time vortex which kills him for some reason and also hits reset on his kill switch for the whole universe and that just fixes everything. ruby calls her biomom her real mom instead of carla which just really rubbed me the wrong way. she exits the tardis to stay with her family and it's... fine. you never see why ruby and the doctor were attached to each other so them saying goodbye doesn't hit home. nothing happens and then suddenly everything happens. the fact that the reveal is unconvincing makes the whole thing worse.

conclusion: i think rtd ran out of ideas for doctor who. i think he shouldn't have come back. i think the 60th specials were season 4 fanfiction. i think they should've given the showrunner position to a different writer entirely. i think 8 episodes is far too short for a doctor who season (flux being an exception because it was one ongoing story). i think the bigger budget and better production value can't save a show with poor writing. i think gatwa and gibson are acting their hearts out and i wish they had better material because i really like both of them in these roles. i'm also kind of sick of murray gold's music at this point. he won't let emotional moments just sit and it's really annoying how every time anything happens there's a swell of music. i think rtd should give up on racism commentary and just hire someone else who can do it justice if he really wants it to be in his show. i think rtd should shift focus back to the characters and their interpersonal relationships because that's what he's good at and his plot resolutions have always been underwhelming deus ex machinas. i think they should give this show more episodes. i think they should change the broadcasting times to be a better slot in the uk and the episode should go up on streaming at the same time or after it airs. this season has little glimpses of potential (some of boom, first few minutes of 73 yards, episode concepts in general are quite interesting, more fantasy in doctor who is a fun concept) but squanders all of it with flat characters. i started dreading watching the next episode after a while because i kept hoping it would be good and then i would hate it.

but i still care too much about doctor who to not watch the show so i guess i'll be here this time next year picking season 15 apart. woo.

[alirhi]

life rant. feel free to skip

I know this will be a big ol' pot of "well, duh" to anyone who's been dealing with disability in the US longer than I have, but I just need to get this shit out of my head...

Sometimes, it's not ONE THING that's kicking your ass. The government wants you to point to ONE diagnosis, with lots and lots of documentation from doctors clearly spelling out that you are Disabled Because of This One Thing, but that's not always how shit works, and the rigid flat-out refusal to introduce any kind of nuance into their system makes me want to burn it to the fucking ground.

And then there's the hoops we have to jump through just to GET a diagnosis, and even then no one will actually fucking SAY that this condition, that they diagnosed you with, that is recognized as a disability by the ADA, actually disables you.

I have multiple things wrong with me. Multi system failure, if you will. One system was buggy at best from the start, but everything else was working okay and managed to compensate. Then the other systems started glitching one by one, and now everything is shit. I would LOVE to be at work, even one of the shitty, soul-crushing dead-end jobs I've been complaining about since I was 16. I'm back in the town I know like the back of my hand that I used to walk for hours and hours just because. I'm lucky to make it out my front door now.

I'm autistic. I need a routine in order to function. I can't have a routine anymore because I never know from one day to the next if I'll even have the energy to get out of bed that day or not. I'm diabetic, which means I need to eat a certain way (and on a schedule because I need to take my meds with food) that I can't afford to maintain because food is expensive, healthy food is way more expensive, and I haven't been able to work in over a year. I have fibromyalgia, and the doctor who diagnosed it and just increased my med dose for it refuses to say whether or not he thinks it's a disability. Depression, anxiety, OCD, c-PTSD... multi system failure. all needing different things to deal with them, all working against each other and kicking my ass in the process. I'm in therapy, I'm on meds, I'm doing what can be done but I am still disabled. But since no one will acknowledge this, I'm a burden on everyone around me with no way to contribute that doesn't make everything I'm dealing with even worse.

[ethaninthewilde]

my experience with top surgery

with Dr. Lisa Friederich in Sydney, Australia

because i needed to write about this beautiful, ethereal experience, even though I do not think I can do it justice in words.

so i had pedicle top surgery with dr. lisa friederich at hunters' hill hospital three days ago and it went as amazing as I ever could have hoped. incredibly beautiful results that have me made me cry with happiness multiple times.

I went in at 8am, the surgery lasted about 4 hours and I woke up about two hours after. i was pretty wiped but my boyfriend was there when i woke up and he just kissed me and i went back to sleep. i woke up again about seven hours later, probably with a 2/10 pain, but that's as bad as my pain has been this whole time and i've been prescribed oxycodone to take as needed (no more than one per four hours) with panadol and that's worked wonders. the drains were attached and there was a little more fluid than i was expecting but that was okay. the nurse came in to take my blood pressure, temperature, oxygen levels, and check my drains. i took some oxycodone and was asleep again in the next hour or so. woke up again around 4am feeling much more myself. managed to walk myself to the bathroom (a big thing for me post-major surgery since I really struggle to walk sometimes) and I saw my chest in the compression binder for the first time. i was so so happy with it being flat and i couldn't stop running my hands over the flat (flat! flat!!!!) surface and i took a lil video of myself and i truly think i will remember that moment forever as the most confident i have ever felt in my body--and i hadn't even seen my actual chest yet.

as euphoric as I was, I was still pretty tired so I went back to bed and called the nurse for some more endone bc I could feel the pain starting to come back. all the nurses that came in the two days I was in the hospital were truly so kind, and so competent and lovely. I did get deadnamed a few times, but I haven't legally changed my name yet so that's what was on my documents, and the nurses who did it all apologised and fixed it so that was wonderful. the nurse took my levels again--everything was fine--and i called my friends who were in different timezones and i cannot describe how it felt to sit with my friends who I'd been talking about getting top surgery with for nearly eight years and now it was just done and my god everything felt so beautiful and it's cliche but everything in life was worth it for these last few days post-op. i had been working toward this surgery for so so long, moved across the country for it, worked four jobs at 15 for it, been homeless for it, had the thought of eventually being able to get this surgery keep me alive for so long when i was alone, depressed, suicidal and self-loathing--and i had finally made it. i finally fucking made it. i was fucking beautiful and i had made it and i finally felt loveable. i finally felt like myself. trans joy is godhood. trans joy is lifesaving. i truly believe this surgery saved my life.

anyways!! i was awake for a few hours until about seven am when i went back to sleep until about 11. my boyfriend was coming to pick me up around 12 after he finished work so i called the nurse in to let her know and she gave me some more endone and removed my first drain. this felt very weird, like a tube was being pulled from the top of my chest through the side, almost alien-like, and i felt a little dizzy and lightheaded so the nurse put an oxygen mask on me and laid the bed down for about five - ten minutes until i felt better. she was really patient which was lovely because i get regular seizures and whenever i get dizzy I always get scared one is coming since it's a regular warning sign, but she just let me lie there with my eyes closed and focus on my breathing. at this point my boyfriend had turned up, and he held my hand whilst she took the other drain out, which had considerably less fluid in it.

i saw the surgeon again before I was discharged--and Dr. Lisa is genuinely one of the kindest, well-conducted doctors I have ever dealt with (and I have been in hospital over 35 times in the last 7 months or so). she replaced the top layer of clear dressing over my nipples, and worked a needle through them to de-congest some of the blood, which turned them back to the more-typical pink. she then gave me a fresh binder and gauze pads to take home, along with a box of oxycodone for the pain and told me to book a follow-up appointment with her in the next seven days. she also told me to do regular compressions of the nipple area to continue decongesting the blood over the next few days, which would help with the colour. now this was the moment because i got to take the binder off to do these compressions and i saw my chest for the first time. and truly, truly, truly--the innate, inherent holy shit, that's me feeling that fucking swept through was overwhelming i teared up and almost hugged my surgeon. i didn't have a lot of time to contemplate bc I had to put the binder back on and the nurse came back in with the paperwork and suddenly I was packing up (though they were very kind and said i could stay for as long as I wanted to, if I had any more questions, etc.)

boyfriend made me food when we got home and insisted I go to bed despite feeling completely fine if a bit tired still, so I did and we watched an episode of drag race. we're staying at his parents' place whilst i'm recovering and both of his parents are/used to be nurses so this was a reassurance if anything were to go wrong. i had soup for dinner that night which hurt my throat a little but the main issue is was the massive bruise on the inside of my lip from when i was intubated in surgery (which should go away in the next few days, but to me has honestly been the most frustrating part of this whole recovery). took some panadol and endone and did my compressions. taking off the binder and being able to look at my chest properly for the first time was the most tender moment of my entire life, with ethan whispering "you're so beautiful" and "baby, you made it" and "look at you, love, holy shit" into my ear and into my shoulder as i sat there, completely exposed, completely vulnerable, bandaged, and completely myself for the first time in my life. i think i spent about 45 minutes just going back and forth between him and the mirror, laughing and crying and laughing and just being so indescribably euphoric and overcome with it all. i'd finally made it. here, right now, even with all my unresolved medical issues and trauma and fears, i had everything i had ever wanted and it was real. it was REAL. i do not think i will ever feel that strong of a sense of peace and contentness again in my life. in that moment i felt unbreakable. in that moment i felt invincible, indestructible, fucking untouchable. i fucking made it, and no one could take that away from me. no one, nothing, ever. i had saved my life. i had saved my own life. i was here and i was real and i was finally myself. how do i explain this? i cannot keep repeating this but it seems the only way. lord, if only you could feel the godhood i have been given. the power i have in my hands. the power this body has.

it took me too long to realise how beautiful this trans body of mine is. but i am here now. i am never letting go.

dr. lisa friederich: i think you saved my life. thank you for bringing me back. thank you. thank you. thank you. i finally made it.

[i will add to this over the next few days, but right now i need to go back to sleep. i love you all]

[kaeru-kobold]

Kaeru Kobold-Dear Tumblr #1

I finally decided what I'm going to do with this Tumblr Account! Aside from the typical reposts of my art, self-promotion and such, I'm going to use it primarily as a live, public diary of my adventure in Vtubing, streaming and content creation, so here goes my very first entry. I think I'm going to try to do this daily, at the very least I'll make one weekly and on big events.

Dear Tumblr,

it's currently 1:22 AM, 12/11/23. I've been interested in becoming a Vtuber for roughly a year now, and have slowly done tons of research, watched hours of Vtuber content for fun and advice, built up art and assets, came up with a new Sona design, customized models, and have spent hours upon hours of work making art and assets related to that goal. Boy they really don't tell you how much work it is to be a streamer/content creator, especially when you're broke and doing it all by yourself. Speaking of broke... I'm currently out of work, money is very low, and I'm very stressed out. I made the mistake of leaving my old job for a new one that I hoped would be a good opportunity, but I had to leave on day one for moral and public health reasons I won't get into. I have put in dozens of applications the last two weeks and have mainly only received automated emails; I have done 2 Zoom interviews for two different jobs, and then was never given a call or email back. My old job won't take me back for reasons beyond me. I admitted this in an OkayDonuts stream a day or so ago, and he said similar issues motivated him to start streaming. This gives me so much hope that I can have the great community and career success that he has that I so desire-If he could do it, so can I! Right? I just really like making stuff, I've always liked learning new techniques both physical and digital; crochet, clay sculpting, wood carving, painting, graphic design, 3D modelling/Texturing, game design. I wasn't good at much as a kid, but art was my passion, and the best part was seeing how happy it made other people. I just want to make cool things that make people happy and create a community of similarly creative people to share our passions and bring more kindness and cool creations into the world. I don't want to be an uber rich Mr. Beast level celebrity, I just want to make enough that I don't need a menial job I suffer at. Simply making a decent living in this world off my art would be a blessing, it would be so much better for my mental health. Speaking of which, if you're reading this....did you know I take commissions? Please commission me, I hungy :'( But seriously, as of writing this, I have $43.20 in my bank account. My phone bill alone is $45. My partner and I have family support, so we'll get by ok, but the struggle and having to ask for help is really getting to me. On the bright side, since we should count our blessings- I have a really nice microphone since my partner tried streaming a couple years ago and is letting me use it whenever I need! I have a really good laptop from my college days that can run everything I need without getting TOO overwhelmed. I have a really good drawing tablet that I bought a couple years ago when I was doing a little better financially (It's much easier to save money when you're living with your parents and work 40 hours a week for $13/hr and your parents pay for everything) Losing my job may be a blessing in disguise because In my stress I have gone into a manic state and began going crazy getting my custom stream Overlays done, fully animated Stream Opening, BRB and Closing Screens, stinger transition animation, a functioning PNGTuber, and multiple drawings/animations for alerts/emotes/rewards/etc. and yes that includes things I didn't know I needed to be a Twitch Affiliate to even use...lol...I'm currently working on an animated lore video for my debut that I will also record a voice-over for. Lastly, a more recent thing-My partner found a gamer chair in the dumpster at our apartment last week after I had spent a couple months trying to find one-the cheapest ones on Facebook Marketplace in our area were like $80-and it's in near perfect condition, only a bit of scuff/rip on the seat and arm rests. How crazy is that? I gave it a good scrub-down and its good to go. I choose to take that as a sign from the universe that I'm on the right path. Wish me luck! With lots of love, Kaeru Kobold

[flareflarerp]

Are you looking to be a writer or an actor?

(Sorry for the late & long answer Silvy I passed out last night after watching a movie with my girlfriend. I also apologize for my outburst I woke up from a nap and didn't let my logic brain take over.) Eventually.....Yes! I know others have the right to their own opinions but I can't let that rip away my dreams of achieving my goals I've been working since '15. I actually have a lot (like 10-15) of scripts in which a couple of them are MLP action movies that I would like to be in motion capture which is one of my favorite type of acting to see and would love to do (If they can turn doctor strange into a dragon in the hobbit, we definitely have the technology to make motion capture MLP). I've backlogged them because I lost interest for the last seven years to write anything. I go back to them every once in a while to show how shitty of a writer and amateur I was before college. I've even done acting for a while as well. Mostly stage acting back in middle school where I did Shakespeare (Othello, Hamlet, & yes Romeo & Juliet) and college (I got to do a scene from a good play called 'Red' where I got to show off my acting skills in front of people not even familiar or interested in acting and I raised a few eyebrows indeed. Yes a lot of movies seem lack of creativity but there are a lot of them that do like a movie that me and my partner @noxs-mun watched last night which was 'Nimona' which was the best. I'm not gonna say nothing. This is one that you will have to watch yourself. Now, I have been on a professional movie set back in May, it was a horror feature length film called, 'Skinwalkers' and in which I was brought on as a Camera Production Assistant and where I met my new best friend Gene Sung (the Director of Photography) and I was promoted to 2nd Assistant Cameraman now I am a Assistant Cameraman they are both different job roles. 1st A.C. works closely to the D.P. and does all the focus pulling to make sure the shot isn't too blurry and it's very sharp (unless the shot require it to be blurry). At the end of the shoot day (depends on the set and director and how they want each day to go which is the Assistant Director's job. They come up with a schedule each night to say what shots need to be done each day and some days go from 10-19 hours) the assistant cameraman what we call 'media dump' onto a laptop or PC and save it in a folder along our shooting process. I just wanted to added that last part to kind of teach you about some of the behind the scenes work on what happens on a professional set in movies. The process is similar in television but they work on multiple episodes instead of a long movie. I agree to your point yes movies are getting longer and longer but for some of my scripts I kind of need that amount of time to put more into my stories. I'd love to discuss more of this with you and have a nice conversation about movies cause we share a lot of movies we like in our long friendship going on almost 10 years (as of April 14th of next year) Ghostbusters 1&2 (Fuck 2016 one. Haven't seen Afterlife yet) Mad Max (All of them. I just love all of them) if your laptop ever decides not to fuck up I am on discord in which I hold movie nights with my girlfriend every Friday. We're clearing our backlogs right now and watching something new as well. Love ya Silvy, ~Flare Flare

[thessalian]

Thess vs The Longest Week

So, more work updates.

Scruffman hadn't put a Teams meeting in the diary like he said he was going to, so I dropped him an email to ask. He said he'd "give a bell" on Tuesday instead so he'd have a better idea of the shape of the rest of the week. I pray he decides that I don't need to actually go in. This week has been bad enough, and it's not technically over yet.

This week has seen me doing nearly ten hours total overtime over four days, and looks like I'll be putting in some work on Saturday too. Thing is, even with Scruffman in, not a whole lot of typing was getting done by anyone but me. Add to that a whole bunch of long complicated bullshit, not to mention a couple of them who fucked up their dictations beyond all recognition and obliged me to drop them an email going, "You forgot the block key, I couldn't hear this word because you were sitting several feet away from your microphone, you took your foot off the footpedal at an inopportune moment and cut out a whole bunch of measurements, please tell me this was meant to be 5mm or 0.5cm and not 0.5mm because you don't do slices that thin in these things..." and on and on and on... Also the ones who miss things and wind up having to go back to the macro three or four times in the middle of the block key without giving any indication of where in the macro report the new stuff has to go, and the ones whose sentence structure is abominable even when English is their first language (for those who don't have English as their first language, I tend to cut them some slack). In short, I'm having to clean up an awful lot of messes while still trying to do the job of multiple typists.

Part of the problem at this point is that we have so many more junior doctors, and everyone - junior doctors included - are in a massive hurry, and so they kind of foul things up. And of course, we're understaffed. When we had fewer doctors doing dictation and two extra people in, we were just a little bit overstaffed, and that was comfortable because if a lot of unexpected absences happened, we could still carry on well enough. But we had two people leave last year - one having moved on to greener pastures, one just having walked right out - and more doctors, so now we're massively understaffed and can barely keep our heads above water when we have everyone working, never mind when we have so many unexpected absences. Head Honcho really has got to get us a replacement for Sunshine at minimum, but it's been ages and it hasn't happened so I doubt it will.

Anyway, so that's why I've pulled a total of nearly ten hours of overtime this week, and why I'll be doing some work on Saturday as well. Because people come in and report on weekends on top of everything else, and there seems to be literally no one else to type things but me. I am so exhausted I can't even begin to tell you, but despite that, I haven't slept properly for most of the week, given pain and stress. Even my breaks were generally to get essentials done - trip to the corner shop, ordering the monthly grocery shop, stuffing something resembling dinner into my face, bath to hopefully soak out some of the aches, stuff like that.

I guess there's some good news, though. Today was payday, and there were things that required ordering. Like, for instance, a kitchen scale for those annoying times when recipe ingredients lists go by weight. And some cake tins. And some gluten-free self-raising flour that has good reviews and doesn't require me to know how much xanthan gum to put in the damn thing. I mean, bread is definitely on the list of things I want to make, but I also intend to make the absolute most out of Baking Yesteryear. So tomorrow, in between having to go out for a couple of errands and the never-ending overtime, I intend to make Admiral's Gingerbread. I will very much deserve a treat after this clusterfuck.