#i'm all set until at least mid-'24

[stardustinthesky]

when you end up giffing two shows at the same time (b5 and jag) because you want to celebrate the most loving and healthy relationship of all time (john/delenn aka my beloved) while also having very strong emotions about the most frustrating ship you ever had (harm/mac aka i will start drinking because of them)

[felixdragonheartofficial]

TFA TEAM PRIME HUMAN REDESIGNS FINALLY

FUCK

+headcannons

Optimus: gotta stay focused

looks too old compared to his bot form.

I find it impossible for Optimus to be more than a million years old in this canon. In the least, he's older than 1000 years and since we have mfs that are canonically over 70 million years old(fagatron iykyk) compared to that, he feels like a dude in his early-to-mid-30's being the group parent.

---

-I made him more youthful, gave him curly hair, and tailored his clothing to actually look like his bot form.

-workaholic

-on the cusp of barley being able to hold his liquor

-doesn't own a pair of pajamas until Sari gets some for him

-usually forgets to put them on, but appreciates the gesture

-stays active for like, 3 days until he can't fight off sleep with work brain anymore, and unceremoniously passes out on the couch to sleep for a full 24 hours

-ratchet sighs and puts a blanket over him as per routine

-frequently checks security feed

-elf on the shelf despiser

-early morning talks with jazz and ratchet over coffee (they all wake up at 6 am)

-half thrives on caffeine and a vigorous training protocol

-is a dog person, loves German shepherds to death

David sama, pls forgive me ily very much

Ratchet: to old for this nonsense

doesn't match his body type in the slightest.

Ratchet is really old, he's got a sallow face and a gramp gut, how dare they square him. He's wayyy too angular and peachy looking.

-I gave him his luscious curves back, adding all the equipment id expect a field medic to have because he is a field medic, not a regular doctor. I changed his facial proportions, and also made his face gaunt, for that dead inside PTSD look.

---

-drinks his coffee black with brown sugar, literally drinks it piping hot

-is one of those old people who complains about noise

-confiscates bumblebee and Sari's toy cars, and puts them in a high up cabinet

-neither of them know how to bypass the child safety lock lmao

-casual clothes includes a lot- a l o t of plaid shirts, and 10 pairs of the same blue jeans

-tunes out bulkhead and prowls convos about birdwatching

-big fan of political satire dramas

-Sentinel doesn't approve

-Ratchet doesn't give a rats ass about what he thinks of course

Bumblebee: professional smart-ass

doesn't match his body type/age.

Bumblebees holoform is presented as a 10-12 year old child specifically for the fact that he's short, and the comedic relief. Total ass

I set his human age as 19-20 years old, making him more of a big brother to sari because that og model is disappointingly lackluster

---

-Bumblebee is a scrappy wisecracking punk, like an adhd kid who just got roller skates for Christmas.

-since he doesn't have wheels, I feel like he'd wear skates instead to emulate the feeling

-terrible at watching where he's going cuz he's too busy trying to show off, so ratchet makes him wear all that padding + training wheels

-legit despises the padding and training wheels

-Jealous of Blurr for mastering roller blades lmao.

-his favorite games are choose your fighter and fps

-saw ONE ancient ass assassins creed playthrough and begged ratchet to install hidden tasers in his arm bands (was denied)

-Sari used her key to do it instead

-self appointed "rizzler"

-Optimus has zero idea of what that means and thinks it's code for something dubious

-Ratchet knows what it means and thinks it's silly

-"I' was something of a rizzler myself back in my day, kid"

-bumblebee cringes

-loves summer and swimming

-wants to be the fastest thing in the sea because y'know, it's bumblebee

-is spooked from the beach for awhile cuz he saw sharks in Prowls nature documentary

-there are infact, no sharks in lake Erie

Bulkhead: big guy, bigger heart

doesn't match his body type/aspirations.

Jesus fuck he's so wide?? And his belly migrated to his shoulders?? I'm gonna be honest, I really hate this design. I feel like it contributed to the "brute strength = stupid" take that most in the fandom associates with him.

---

-Bulkhead is a SWEET. CARING. NERD YOU FOOLS. He's like the male version of a tall goth gf-

-a tall-nerdy-farm hand-physics bf, You got me fucked up.

-Its already shown that bulkhead really likes art in Addition to creating it. He hates being only seen as the "muscle" so it wouldn't make sense for him to lean into that.

-bunny slippers that him and sari made together(she provided the buttons)

-the slippers go missing sometimes (basically considered community property unless he's wearing them)

(ratchet and prowl are the main offenders)

-frequent art museum goer

-really likes watching cooking shows, but is too shy to make food himself

-Owns a ton of star maps

-Really wants a treehouse that he, bumblebee and sari can hang out in

-pillowfort enjoyer

-casually reads quantum physics at the beach

Prowl: draft dodger

Doesn't look like him at all.

Prowls holoform being a mustachioed,white, police officer was an actual jumpscare for 7 y/o me, I kid you not

---

- I know this bitch would not wear a helmet (you can't force him to) que windswept hair

-Not as much as starscreams, for obvious reasons but yk

-prowl is like one of those "shoes are a prison for your feet"

-emo hipster

-has a pet cactus named "planty"

-bumblebee heckles him for it

-can and has brought his cactus with him on early evening motorcycle rides

-the helmet is reserved for his cactus, bring your own >:(

-salad consumer

-him and jazz share custody of the cactus

-repeat victim of the cat distribution system

-ratchet has probably spent hours telling him they can't keep any animals at base

-frequent midnight picnics with jazz

-and beachcombing

-and roaming around antique stores cuz jazz wants to know what vinyl records are

-got a mug with an attempted pink chibi cat with big round shiny eyes painted onto it, courtesy of bulkhead trying to find an artsyle

-cherishes this mug to death

-has a shrine dedicated to it

[lloydfrontera]

wait lmao what I didn't know there was such a skip. I'm sorry this is comedy to me. so you're telling me they have this crazy ass dimension-jumping shenanigans with Javier tearing up as he finally finds Lloyd, his best friend, the most important person in his life, while it's a mutual statement for the both of them, and then we get no dialogue. and skip to Lloyd getting shoved into a hetero romance with no build up. sorry I can't believe this is real. this sounds like a joke and I choose to treat is as such. this is the most hilarious ending and the marriage now feels even more out of place hdufiskaoa9o

OH MY FUCKING GOD RIGHT?!?!?!! it is weird isn't it???? i'm not being crazy for feeling like it's a weird ass choice??? i felt like i was going insane!! i swear to god i felt like i was being gaslighted when i read it!!! there was no way that was the ending!! there was no way that ch 401 ended with one of the most romantic and heartfelt scenes i have ever read and then the next chapter just????? did a time skip where none of that was acknowledged and lloyd was just fucking married off to alicia??? completely off-screen if i may add!

i made a post about it before but i simply need to rant all over again oh my god

general warning for spoilers because i'm about to dissect the entire novel through a llojavi lens

AGAIN. SPOILERS WARNING FOR THE ENDING OF TGED.

i literally cannot express how much of a mid fuck it is when you realize that lloyd and javier's relationship is very much Thee Slowburn of tged. like. this is an indisputable fact. even if you don't think there's anything romantic between them, which, holy fuck that's such a fucking reach one must be really be in denial to not see it but whatever, even then you simply cannot argue that their relationship isn't the most important one in the entire story.

javier is the very first person lloyd talks to in the first chapter. he's the first person that welcomes him into his new life. he's the one he has to work the hardest to endear himself to. he's the one he spends the most time with. he's the one that follows him around literally everywhere he goes.

from the very beginning their relationship is given a special attention that few other things get in the plot.

through the entire story we get constant moments of them getting to know each other as people and getting closer as a result. they're constantly in each other's thoughts, which is very natural as they're in each other's company almost 24/7. it is actually hard to find a chapter where they not talking to each other or at the very least together. i cannot emphasize enough how,,, enmeshed and entangled they are with one another as characters. i mean it when i say they are a set do not separate them.

it takes lloyd 222 chapters to even admit to himself that javier is his friend and that he wants to keep him safe not because he's the protagonist of the story or useful to him or anything like that but simply because he cares for him and doesn't want him to die. because, and i quote, 'he thought he'd always be with javier for the rest of his life. just like now, he thought they'd spend all their time together moving forward. and like they always did, they'd be by each other's side during hard times. happy moments. relaxed days. they'd share all these moments as they exchanged insults and corny jokes, growing old as a lazy lord of a fiefdom and his knight. lloyd always thought so. the thought just came naturally, without much effort from him, much like breathing. lloyd believed that javier would always remain by his side as that was how it had been until now.' (ch222) <- actual textual quote. btw. if you even care.

and then. it takes javier 320 chapters, a hundred chapters more, to realize that he cares about lloyd much more than a knight cares about his lord's son. because he, and once again i quote, 'is [his] true master in [his] heart. lloyd was his friend. and now, javier wanted to protect lloyd. he would sincerely protect him with everything he had.' <- this is, if i may add some context, said as javier is fighting against a goddamn angel, literally heaven's will, to protect lloyd. after figuring out lloyd is a fake. that he's been lying to javier for several years about almost everything including who he is. and yet. this is what javier feels for him.

they are the definition of a slowburn. it takes them this long to even admit they are friends. and this is with us getting to see them together almost every chapter of the way. we get to see every step of the way. we see their relationship develop with all manner of detail.

and then. when you think you cannot get even more dramatic about them. guess what the major conflict of the plot is. guess fucking what the last obstacle for the story to get a happy ending is.

let me set the scene for you:

lloyd has just finished the jewel of truth, the artifact that will get him the answer he seeks on how to stop the restoration of fate, how he can stop destiny from making the original events of the novel come true and destroy everything he has worked and kill everyone he loves. he has javier at his side, who rushed to join him underwater to make sure he was safe and sound while using it, and he can't help but fondly think how lucky he is to have javier, who is loyal and true and has never abandoned him.

a quote of lloyd's thoughts in this scene:

That’s why, you bastard. I’m going to take care of you until the very end. Once I, your wise and older friend, solve the restoration of destiny problem, you’re going to enjoy the rest of your life by my side in peace. [...] He smiled at Javier and thought to himself. You’re my only friend, Javier. I couldn’t have overcome all the obstacles in front of me without your help. So, my trustworthy and reliable comrade, stick with me until I become a lazy lord and you become my personal guard. I hope we will be able to grow old together… -ch 327

as you can see. he's once again planning on spending the rest of his life with javier. canonically. not even an interpretation this is straight up textual i cannot emphasize enough

and then. the jewel of truth gives him the answer. how to stop the restoration of fate. it's very easy. very simple solution in fact.

either lloyd or javier have to die or otherwise vanish from existence.

that's it. there can only be one protagonist in the world and because of everything lloyd has done he's now being acknowledged by fate as the protagonist of the story along with javier. which cannot stand.

so that's the only thing stopping lloyd from getting his happy ending. he just,,, has to either kill his best friend or kill himself.

let me rephrase this from a narrative perspective: the major conflict of the story is now lloyd facing either the choice of letting everything he's achieved and everyone he loves be destroyed. losing his best friend, the person he cares the most about and has been developing an extremely close relationship through the entire plot. or dying himself.

lloyd of course then spends the rest of the plot trying to find a way to avoid having to die. that's literally what the rest of the novel is about. lloyd trying by all means possible seeking a way to not having to die. because at no point, does he ever consider letting javier die in his place even an option. he doesn't want to die of course, but he never saw javier sacrificing himself as the solution to that problem.

the entire conflict of the last part of the novel is lloyd finding a way for him and javier to be able to remain together without either of them having to sacrifice their lives for the other.

he doesn't succeed.

they end up in a battle down in hell where both of them try to give for one another leading to this absolutely delightful parallel

so fucking tasty oh my god i still go crazy when i see this set of illustrations actually

lloyd wins btw. he gets to sacrifice his life for javier. to javier's absolute heartbreak.

but lloyd doesn't die. he does end up stuck in korea tho, a place he would've rather died than go back to, so he has that going on for him. he's back in his goshiwon, absolutely heartbroken and without knowing what to do.

and then we end up with that scene. javier at his doorstep, having crossed dimensions, tearing up as he sees him and tells him how much he's missed him, looking at him with this face:

now. let's pause here. let's take a moment. take in everything i've just explained. everything that has happened to get to this point.

be honest with me. what would you say is the most natural way the story can progress from here.

take into account all that i have recounted and that i skipped so many other things of the same nature so we wouldn't be here all day.

what do you as a reader would expect to happen next

well, i'll tell you:

cut to black we're now an unspecified amount of time later lloyd has already had all the important conversations we've been waiting to see the entire time off screen and is now preparing himself for his wedding to alicia that we will also not get to see by the way

and you know what the funniest thing is. you know what is the cherry on top.

fucking guess who's the last person we see him talk with.

guess who's the person he ends the novel sharing a smile with.

yeah. Yeah.

i really don't know what else to say. i don't know how else to explain how insane this feels. how incredibly dissonant it comes across. i don't want to use the worse gaslighting like this but it's the closest word i can find to describe what it feels like. i feel like i'm being told something is happening when i can see with my own eyes it is not. or rather that i'm seeing something happen and i'm being told that no it is not and that i'm making it up.

i don't know what bk moon was going for. i really don't. especially when this is what he has to say about chapter 401 aka the chapter with javier coming to find lloyd in korea

clearly he feels very strongly about this scene too. it's the one he's been wanting to show the most, he must have analyzed it from every angle possible, must have put special care to get across what he wanted to convey with it.

so why does it feel like the last true chapter of the novel is meant to,,, undercut the feeling of it?? it almost feels as if the last chapter is telling us 'yeah yeah those two are extremely devoted to each other and would and have given their lives for one another and plan on growing old at each other's sides but don't worry :) it's nothing more than them being pals :) just two guys being really good friends :) see, lloyd is even getting married to a woman that's his real happy ending he's not gay or anything :)'

and this is not me saying that two friends cannot be devoted to each other. absolutely not of course friends can love each other platonically and that be more than enough to justify their devotion to one another.

but. it feels weird when the entire novel is dedicated to building up the relationship between lloyd and javier, taking so much time to make us really feel like their relationship is growing at a realistic pace, take almost 3/4 of the novel to even make them come to terms with how much they care for one another, spend actual years following their development,,, and then make lloyd just marry someone else. someone the novel really didn't spend enough time with to justify him developing feels for her.

this is not a diss against alicia i have nothing against her i just don't... buy that lloyd developed romantic feelings for her. much less that he acted on them that easily.

this is a man who took 222 chapters and several years in-universe to even accept that javier, the person he spent all day with, with whom he spoke almost every single day, who he had risked his life for and had been saved by several times at that point, was even his friend.

and now i'm expected to believe he's in love with someone else who, by comparison, he meets a couple of times and spends a little amount of time with.

well. i don't! it's not in character, it wasn't properly built up in the text and truthfully they don't have enough chemistry to make up for it.

i don't know what happened there. i don't know why bk moon decided to add a romance when the novel didn't need it. i don't know why he chose to make it happen between two characters that didn't have a relationship as deep as the one he spent the entire novel building up and promoting as the most important one. which may i add was between his two protagonists. y'know. the ones the novel is supposed to be centered around.

i don't know. i don't know what happened. i don't know if it was censorship, last minute panic, fear of opposition or rejection or actual obliviousness to what he had written looked like, i simply do not know.

i really hope it wasn't homophobia tho that would absolutely suck lmao

but uh. yeah. i do think the ending is very funny when you put it like that askhdsjkfds

[666writingcafe]

Knowledge is Power

Satan

I know I shouldn't have checked out this many books from the library, but I couldn't help myself. Being able to finally take whatever I want home with me is rather nice. It's not like the library's open 24/7, and I hate being interrupted mid-sentence simply because it's closing time.

Still, I should have at least grabbed a cart or something before I left the house this morning. I barely have enough hands to carry all these books, and my carefully constructed tower is starting to lean precariously in my arms.

"Would you like some help?" The voice briefly startles me, and I almost turn around to snap at them. But then I realize that it's merely Zephyr, and I try my best to calm down. Unlike a lot of people in this dump, their intentions are genuinely kind; I've never sensed any ulterior motives from them, which is a bit strange for a demon, but for some reason it doesn't bother me too much.

I suppose that's why I simply set the pile of books down on the nearest surface and allow Zephyr to grab some instead of accusing them of thinking that I'm weak and incapable of doing something on my own. They're just trying to do their job as our attendant, and I can't fault them too much for that.

Once we enter my bedroom and set everything down properly, I quietly thank them.

"I'm so glad we're finally allowed to use the library now," I tell them. "I mean, technically we already had access to it thanks to Diavolo, but no one would ever let me check out a book until now." I pause, becoming frustrated. "I suppose it's yet another perk of being named one of the Rulers of the Underworld."

"It irritates you, doesn't it?" Zephyr asks. "That people's opinions are as fickle as they are?"

They took the words right out of my mouth. How did they manage to do that?

"Absolutely. Like, why do I need a title to suddenly become good enough for them? It's ridiculous."

"I agree. Unless you need to do business with those people, I'd recommend keeping your distance from them. They showed their true colors before, and they'll do so again in a heartbeat." I sigh. The fact that they're right is irritating, but it's not their fault. It's simply the state of this fucked up society. They're probably still going to talk shit about us, but it'll be behind our backs now.

Which is honestly worse. At least I knew what people thought of me before.

"Still, what matters is that I have access to all their books now," I state.

"You certainly have a good chunk of them," Zephyr replies, glancing at some of the titles. "Interested in curses, are we?" I nod.

"I'm going to read every last one of these texts until I've mastered the most powerful of curses. I want to bring down that smug, arrogant bastard and make him beg me for mercy."

"What did he do this time?" Zephyr's holding back a smile. My tirades against Lucifer always seem to amuse them, and I'm not entirely sure why. It's not like they think I'm being silly; not only will they listen to me rant about him, but they actively ask me questions that take my feelings into account instead of merely brushing them off.

I've always been too scared to confront them about it, though. Something tells me that they're not one to be messed with, and I don't want to be at the end of their wrath if and when they finally snap.

"The other day, he chained me to my bed and spoon-fed me breakfast like I was a stupid baby unable to hold my own utensils. It was embarrassing."

"Did he say why he was doing it?" I have to remind myself that they're not asking because they're trying to justify his actions. It's the only thing that helps me remain calm.

"He said he didn't have a choice, that I'd end up destroying the whole house otherwise. But, if I promised to 'behave myself', he'd let me go."

"And you don't like him telling you what to do."

"Exactly! And then he was all like, 'come on, say aaah' and 'here comes the airplane' and shit! He even pinched my nose to force me to open my mouth! He treated the whole thing like it was a joke!" Zephyr takes a deep breath, appearing to hold back laughter.

"You'll have to forgive me, Satan. My sense of humor tends to go in that direction," they explain, clearly sensing my impending anger. "However, that doesn't excuse what he did to you. You're not a zoo animal, but a fully realized person. He needs to respect that."

I can't go off on them now. They're at least trying to take me seriously. Everyone else would have busted out laughing upon hearing that particular antidote.

"Do you have some spare paper?" Zephyr suddenly asks.

"You know, I'm not sure. Until recently, I've not been able to do much exploring. You can check inside that desk there." I point towards it, and MC walks over and begins opening up drawers. Once they find what they're looking for, they sit down, pull a pen out of their pocket, and start writing.

"What are you doing?"

"It's best to start out with something simple. Once you've mastered the fundamentals--which I'm sure you will in fairly short order--then you can move on to more complex topics."

At first, I'm confused as to what they're talking about. They can be annoyingly vague sometimes.

And then it hits me.

"Are you indulging me?" I ask. The smirk on Zephyr's face as they hand me the now-folded piece of paper answers my question.

"Don't tell anyone. I don't want a certain someone yelling at me about it for hours on end." I'm truly speechless.

"Practice it a few times first, preferably out of the house," they continue. "If any of your brothers get hit with this curse, Lucifer will know you're up to no good, and he'll chain you up faster than you can begin uttering the first few words of it to him." They briefly pause,

'To that effect, when you do finally use it on him, make sure it's when he least expects it. It's not going to work if he can see it coming from a mile away.

I know I look like a starstruck little kid at a candy store at the moment, because I certainly feel like one. I think this is the nicest thing anyone's done for me.

"If you need anything, I'm going to attempt to get in the shower," they call out as they walk out of my room, leaving me standing frozen in shock.

Taglist: @lost-in-time-wanderer, @fuzztacular, @dianedancer18, @sweetbrier2908, @flare-love, @completelyshatteredbrokenmschf, @thunderlightning351, @l3v1chan, @anxious-chick, @5mary5, @expressionless-fr

[s0lar-ch3ri]

Paranomally Hotline #1: Introduction

Many people have their own beliefs. They follow in their own superstitions, read about all kinds of monsters, and we hear about new creations of creatures and places daily. Inspired from already set up and built legends, or entirely original myth, you may have made some ideas yourself. At the very least, you've heard of one. However, to the average person, a myth is all they remain.

Sometimes though, the average person isn't so lucky, and stumble apon a truth: these "tall tales" are fact, not fiction, and could come for you at anytime. With the knowledge that these creatures exist, surviving them can be difficult when nobody you turn to has an idea of what you're facing.

Not, unless, you're calling the Paranomally Hotline.

Specialized in dealing with all entities and creatures of out this world, the Paranomally Hotline believes those who call and will help guide you to safety. Available whenever you need (some places may have more or less then 24 hours available), someone skilled and trained for your kind of situation is there to talk to.

If you don't know who to call, ring the numbers-

"God damn, they play whatever on these fuckin things." A man, appearing about mid 30s, turns the TV off. He gets ready for work, brushing his teeth and getting food to eat. He waves goodbye to his wife, a woman with black hair, and walks into the busy sidewalks. Walking among the people, bag on his side, he keeps going until he reaches a corner.

The scene has changed. As he turns this corner, he runs, panicked, running out of breath. He can't run forever, and hiding feels like a death trap. A creature roars out behind him, and all he wants is to go home, back before this happened.

"Someone please come save me, Lord I beg of you now, spare my soul of this fate just a bit longer," he mutters to himself as he slips into an alleyway. Through his panicked thoughts, something slips into his mind, a crystal clear one: a phone number. As he turns on his phone, which he wasn't even aware still had battery, already has a number put in. Not in a state to question it, he hurriedly rings it.

"Hello, you've reached the Paranominally Hotline, here to help with all entities and paranormals, what's got your ghost?"

"Y-you gotta help me! Th-there's a- a thing! And it's chasing me! And- and- I just want to go home, see my wife again!"

"That's what we're going to do. Now, to help figure out how I can assist you, I'll need you to answer a couple questions. First, do you believe you are still in our world, or does it seem home to somewhere else?"

"Wha-what are y- Yeah, no, it- it's all red- the sky- and it's bleeding- oh my god I didn't notice, it's fucking bleeding- I gotta get out of here-"

"Alright, let's keep a level head sir. When did you get here, and if you remember, how?"

He jumped, hearing a loud roar from this creature. "T-today, maybe 3-30 minutes, 25, gi-give or take. I went into the closet at my job and- look, can we hurry this up? There's s-something ch-ch-chasing me, and I think it's going to k-kill me."

"Alright. This is a very necessary procress, but I have an idea on how to help. Can you make it back to where this closet was?"

"Th-that's the way the monster i- you're trying to fucking kill me!"

"Sir, please. I'm trying to get you home. If you can make it over, and I'm thinking of the right thing, grab the string of the lamp above and pull it to turn off the light."

"No- why should I fucking trust yo-"

Another roar plays out. It's closer.

"...Are-"

"If I’m fucking killed, call my wife and tell her I love her."

"Of course."

The man breaks into a sprint and heads out. His legs are aching, but he has to make it, he has to. Looking straight ahead, he goes straight past the beast, about 30 feet tall and blurry as it roars again, following behind. The man begins to silently sob as he sees the building he exited from up ahead. Running inside, he closes the door of the strange building and locks it as best as he can. He runs down a hallway, where a brown closet door awaits him. It's a dingy closet, brown shelves and a blue school chair. Nothing more or less. He slams the door shut as he hears breakage outside and the loud stomps of feet. Muttering a prayer, he grabs the string of the closet's lightbulb and yanks it down as hard as he can.

Everything goes black, but he finds himself on the floor of the closet. It's a storage one, filled with boxes and shelf racks, the same one he walked into, although one of the shelves has been knocked over just inches from where he once laid unconscious. As he questions what just happened, the reality of what he just faced, he hears his phone hang up, the caller name showing.

The Paranominally Hotline.

[dipperscavern]

Who up pondering they orb rn? Dipper, that's who!

It's me, chonky, and I hereby request your finest 🔮 reading, please and thank you. Also, sorry for the oncoming wall of text.

As my self-proclaimed title suggests, I am chonky. I'd say I'm probably mid-sized actually but that's only really because I lost some weight when covid happened and the depression rolled in. Anyway, I think I'm 5'5/5'6 but I actually don't know so that's just an estimate based on how tall I am compared to my mom who's 5'11.

I'm biracial but my father's irish-italian genes colonized me so hard, my only afro-centric features I inherited from my mom is my nose, lips, and curly hair, textured around the 3a-3c mark depending on how agreeable my hair is.

I also used to speak spanish when I was way younger because I grew up around my mom's family and she's half puerto rican on her dad's side. Unfortunately, that got whitewashed too when me and my parents moved and I know longer know the language.

I'm from New Jersey but was primarily raised in the New England area of America. I'm (almost) 19 and unlike Jared, I did learn how to read and I enjoy it very much.

I love music of all kinds except country and k-pop is on really thin ice. I'm self-diagnosed autistic and incredibly socially awkward. I make a lot of race jokes but in the "white people can't season their damn food" way instead of the "racist remarks and racial slurs I can't reclaim" way. I'm here, I'm queer, and I really, really need a beer because these damn politicians are going to turn me into an alcoholic, I swear.

I'm a switch but I prefer to dom. Or at least I would. Unfortunately, I get no bitches for I have no rizz. I also have questionable taste in men and women because best believe, you put me in a room alone with Cersei Lannister, her brother (or her lover), Aegon Targaryen II, Aemond Targaryen, Alicent Hightower, or Criston Cole, all them bitches walking out pregnant and I will not apologize for that.

I think that's it. Sorry for the yapfest. All that not talking to people irl manifests into being a blabbermouth online.

-chonky anon

who up pondering they orb rn (me), ANYWAYS, come, dear chonky, and let my crystal friend tell us which man will you love until your timely end 🔮

hm… i see… who is that? no, seriously, who the hell in my orb rn?? OH A PARTRIDGE IN A PEAR TREE— excuse my french, that’s your brother jared. *i outstretch my hand, and a nearby unseen hamster gladly walks on it. i flip it, using its back to rub my eyes clean. you watch in horror as i finish my business, setting the hamster down, and returning my gaze to my crystal ball*

ah, that’s more like it. yes yes… i gaze upon (the first) king in the north, robb stark. the thing that solidified that for me was the race jokes 😭 he’d think you’re sooooo funny, and you remind him a lot of theon (whether or not that hurts his heart after theons betrayal, we’ll never know). and your attitude about politicians is exactly how robb feels 24/7. he’s a great battle strategist, but politics make his head hurt, and he’d love being able to complain with you. the part about being socially awkward and preferring not to speak with people much would tickle robb’s fancy at times, because he feels like he gets you allll to himself. and don’t even worry about the rizz!! robb is a-okay being the charming one, and relishes in being able to tease you all he likes <3

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

1.0, Big Brother (0% technophobic)

These are tech bros and billionaire executives, the kind of people who push for AI facial recognition, data tracking, and mind reading technology (metaphorically, until actual mind reading technology becomes viable, in which case, literally). If you give them an email address you haven't touched since 2006, in less than a day they'd have a file full of your personal information thicker than the FBI's and NSA's combined. Down here, you have guys like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and most politicians (especially after 9/11. Can you say USA PATRIOT Act?)

1.1 - 3.2

Here, you'll find the fanboys of the above. Guys who are really into NFTs and crypto. Influencers and blue checks who crave attention and show off all their 4 figure phones, 5 figure workout equipment, and 6 or 7 figure cars. The kind of rich assholes who think they're tech savvy because every appliance in their home connects to the internet and requires a subscription service in order to not vent deadly neurotoxin through their air ducts. These are all small fish who aspire to be big fish; the 1.Xs will throw themselves under the bus to protect the 1.0s, while the 2.Xs will get thrown under the bus involuntarily.

3.2, True Neutral (50%)

Because this is a log scale, the actual center is 3.16227766 (the square root of 10). 3.2 represents Average Joe American, the type of guy who doesn't care about the state of technology one way or the other. He probably doesn't own an Alexa or Ring camera, only because he's never thought of buying one (3.1) or thinks it would be too much of a hassle to set up (3.3). If facebook asked him for a 3d scan of his head to try out a new memoji, he'd upload it without hesitation. He thinks cops shouldn't need a warrant to spy on the Bad Guys™, and recently voted for politicians who wrote the Let Cops Decide Who is Good and Who is Bad With Impunity Bill (though he will never connect dots between his actions and their consequences). "Why should you care if you have nothing to hide?" This guy buys his friends and family $100 send-in-your-spit DNA tests for Christmas.

3.2 - 5.0

I'd say most of the people reading this fall somewhere around here, though they think they're much higher. Hell, I'm probably a mid-4, but until I actually started plotting out this scale I would have guessed I was a 6 or a 7. High 5 at least! 3.Xs don't know how to pirate things and begrudgingly subscribe to some or all the major streaming services. 4.Xs don't use facebook anymore, but are still on twitter because that's where all the people they follow post from. These people are vaguely aware of how bad things could potentially be, but have no clue how bad they really are; if you suspect you're in this range, please know that every single service you've ever given your email address to is connected to your name in a database somewhere, even if you faked all the rest of the info you gave out. If you signed up to a grocery store value card, advertisers immediately know every single item you've ever purchased, and can even make assumptions based on the purchases of people you are in close proximity to every day (your phone is close to this other person's phone from 9 to 5, so you're probably co-workers, or they're close from 6pm to 6am, so you live together, etc.)

5.0 - 6.0

A little healthy skepticism to help shield your brain from the fact that you live in an Orwellian surveillance state. You use adblocker and VPNs, you don't carry your phone with you 24/7, you use burner emails for every different website (though it won't make much difference because they're all being accessed from the same device, so it wouldn't take any government entity more than a couple seconds to figure out they all belong to the same person). If 3.2 is blissfully ignorant, 5.2 is in living hell because they KNOW what's up and are powerless to do anything about it.

6.0 - 8.0

These are the REAL tech savvy people who don't use social media, have zero smart appliances in their homes, and rely heavily on physical media. We should all strive to be here. In the upper 7s you get privacy activists who know deep down that the system will never be able to fix itself but still hope against hope that it will.

8.0 - 9.9

These people scare me, not because they actually get shit done but because they have delusions of grandeur and TALK about how much shit they'll get done. Most libertarians think they're up here, but really they're down in the 4s and 5s with the rest of us. Real 8s and 9s are batshit Tyler Durden wannabes who think they can change the world by planning terror attacks "in minecraft." They never do anything because they either get caught or chicken out because it's more fun to plan for the singularity or the collapse of the grid than to actually carry out said plans. These are doomsday preppers and dude-bros who are little different than qanon nutjobs (except that qanon supports Big Brother)

10.0, Full Kaczynski (100%)

You are Theodore John Kaczynski, you live in a shack in the woods and you mail bombs to universities. NEVER GO FULL KACZYNSKI. You'll never succeed in hurting any substantial 1s or 2s, just innocent 3s and 4s. In reality, Ted cared more about industrialization and the environment than computers and the police state, but the internet didn't exist in the 70s. The modern world is built upon man made horrors beyond his imagination.

I guess I subscribe to a lopsided horseshoe theory; instead of both sides being equally bad at the extremes, the lower end is worse because it is much more powerful and influential. There are more 1.Xs than 9.Xs, but you'll hear about the 9s in the news a lot more often. You're more likely to be killed by a cow than a shark, or by a cop than an undocumented immigrant, but we all know that quantity isn't what gets reported on, now is it?

I dunno, take this scale with a grain of salt. It's all subjective.

[readingloveswounds]

as you're writing your dissertation, how focused are you on publishing and how do you balance it all?

aHHH great question.

So, I'm in the helpful position where I was able to publish an article prior to starting the dissertation. It grew out of a final paper for a class I'd been taking and was published summer '23 if I remember correctly. This essentially means my advisor wasn't worried about pushing me to publish, so it's been on the backburner.

The publishing ventures so far:

published! Written for a fall '21 class, sent to the journal in spring '22, heard back very quickly, went through a million edits, published spring/summer '23

I essentially got lucky, but yay publication! This also introduced me to some people in the extremely small subfield (the reviewer revealed themself and a guest in a class talked with me about it as well). Horrid little philology paper, but I loved every moment of it.

The edits took place while I was taking classes and teaching, but not when I was writing my prospectus. There were some significant ones, but largely the revisions were minor. I was able to set aside time on certain days to work on these.

rejected! written for a spring '23 class, sent to the journal spring '24 (whoops lol, i meant to send it fall '23), very much rejected.

This was a poorly put-together paper that I was very tired of the whole time. I could and should have done better on it. I'm presenting something based on it in November, but depending on exactly what I talk about at that conference, I may try to do some massive revisions and publish the original paper. (i.e., how the conference paper is looking right now is quite different than my original focus in the article paper, so I think I may just want to try again with a different journal).

In hell!

I've been trying to adapt part of my first chapter into an article, but it's going, shall we say, very slowly. I wanted to send something to my advisor by the end of this month but lol. lmao, even. We'll see. I've still got time. I'm also entertaining this fantasy that the weird paper I wrote to try to figure out my thoughts on a passage will be publishable, but I am being realistic that my mad ramblings are probably not.

--

All this to say, that in terms of juggling, I am doing very poorly at it. My advisor didn't bring doing other things up until I was at the end of chapter 2, and he doesn't seem overly concerned about it, so I am trying to remain calm, even if I absolutely feel inexperienced and like I should be doing more. But we persist.

What I am doing right now (or attempting to) is to plan/write 3 conference papers. At least one of these events might have published proceedings, so that one needs to be very coherent from the get-go if possible.

The way I handle this is that I have designated days for working on different things. Sometimes I can change gears mid-day, but I like to have a full day dedicated to each project. The dissertation currently takes priority, so most days I'm focusing on that, but I will plan for certain days to be dedicated to work on the conference papers or other things like that.

I'm a big fan of scheduling blocks for doing particular things, whether that be days or hours - it's what helped me from having crippling anxiety during finals periods because I'd be pulled in so many directions without knowing where to go.

In really busy periods where I start to feel caught in stasis and unable to do anything except think about how much I need to do, I will go hour by hour and schedule myself. That means meals, commute, 'work on specific thing', etc. It helps me visualize AND it helps me move on if one block doesn't work out. If I said 'okay work on 17th century paper from 10-12' and I get nothing done, I don't need to wallow in that, I just need to look at my list and go 'okay, it's lunch and then I'll start fresh with the 19th century paper'

[roo-bastmoon]

The truth is...

The truth is, I have a tender heart.

I see people hate on Jimin (or Tae or any BTS member), using slurs, making up lies, canonizing misinformation, deliberately sabotaging projects, attacking other fans... and it hurts me more deeply than is probably normal. My heart grows so weary watching it unfold.

But more than my own feelings--because my spiral is my spiral, it's not anyone else's responsibility to fix my feelings--there is a steadily increasing toxicity taking over ARMY. And I'm at a real loss as to how to stop it.

The cult is ramping up. Antis and akgaes are getting more extreme. Sasaengs are getting too close and too bold--and their content is becoming normalized, even, and shared out in the open. This is going to change things.

The thing I loved most about BTS (besides their music and art) was how genuine and authentic and vulnerable they were with us. They would come to us, and initial personas aside, I felt they rapidly started to show us who they really are--what worried them, delighted them, their ambitions, their heartaches.

There is no incentive now for them to share anything personal. Everything they do is criticized and overanalyzed until it sucks the joy out of everything.

Jimin, who I think we can all agree is a lightning rod for the most hate, pretty much tapped out before 2022 even began.

Jungkook decided to go work-only by mid-2022.

Here we are in early 2023 and between a hot mess over photos and now attacks over Insta follows, I wonder how much longer Taehyung will keep his content personal.

Even Hobi is starting to only post things related to projects, brands, or awards.

Yoongi... lol... aside from that one cat photo that got through, Yoongi is and always has been a man of mystery. He apparently does like a good linoleum kitchen, though. Bless.

I'm SHOCKED that Namjoon posts as much as he does AND shared an entire episode detailing the layout of his entire house. For the most part, Joon stans seem really sane, and the crazies don't seem to target him much (any more). But even so...

I don't think our boys are gonna come back from military and be this open with us again. I don't think we will ever get back to the 2018-2019 level of insight and constant content we were once blessed with.

I HATE that ruiners ruin things. I am really searching for a way to NOT let assholes affect my mood but... it sometimes just feels like the whole world is being polluted by a few toxic people. I mean, take your pick: climate change, vaccines, politics, sports, the entertainment industry... there's no escape from a few assholes who just set out to ruin things.

I'm 43. I know the world has always sucked, but it never used to suck so much SO FAST. Things really truly used to be different. Most people had critical thinking skills. Most people unplugged from TV, news, and entertainment for whole hours if not days at a time. Most people believed in science. Most people had... if not a genuine kindness, at least a sense of shame... before they could hide behind a keyboard. Now I feel like I have to gird my loins any time I come onto the internet.

Is this my "the world is going to hell in a handbasket" lamentation post? No, not really.

I'm just so tired you guys. I'm tired and I need a good long hug.

You see, Jimin worked so hard on VIBE. He wrote part of it. This was his idol. He promoted his work for the first time on his social media. And he wasn't properly credited, it wasn't under Jimin's spotify or melon, it wasn't available in many countries, vipers boycotted it, little-7s won't promote or purchase it, there was a 27% filter rate in the first 24 hours because people wouldn't stream properly...

So now he is the first and only BTS member whose collab might not chart in Hot 100. And you KNOW ruiners will never let that die; they will drag him for it forever. It sometimes feels like he gets sabotaged the most.

And there's nothing to DO about it, except keep streaming and buying and voting and showing up for him. Which I always will. But I also gotta process my feelings around the way this all played out. I'm worried for PJM1.

Why do so many people hate someone so loving, hardworking, talented, and kind-hearted? I am truly baffled.

I thought about not posting this. Because really, who wants to listen to some rando on the internet feel her feels? But if you got this far, I'd gently encourage you to let yourself express whatever you're feeling too. After all:

So go ahead and grieve, rage, whatever you gotta do. And when you've let those feelings wash over and out of you, remember... there's a person in Seoul...

And finally, I will leave you with this. We cannot change the ruiners. We cannot stop them and their desire to ruin. It is important to take breaks, to recharge, to support one another. And then, we get back up, dust ourselves off, and work harder.

For Jimin. For BTS. For ARMY. Because in the end, we really are all they have.

FIGHTING.

[transition-with-the-torah]

I've been doing a little experiment with not using Tumblr on Shabbat, but I didn't want to rush making a post about it on Tumblr until I did a few weeks of tweaking the process.

I'm vaguely aware that some people avoid using the internet in its entirety during Shabbat, but I'm not aiming for that. I watch livestreamed Kabbalat Shabbat and Shabbat services, and I'm really trying to reduce unnecessary stress instead of jumping straight to no internet. So, I looked into a few website blockers of the anti-procrastination or productivity sort of tools with a focus on what I can try for free on my laptop [Windows].

I've been using LeechBlock NG (Firefox || Google Chrome), which allows up to 30 sets of websites to block with some of the usual features (customize your block list, whitelist, immediate lockdown option). [Predetermined block lists that include Youtube would not be helpful here, since I need to access Youtube for service livestreams.] I also liked the sound of the delay feature ("set a countdown to delay access to sites instead of completely blocking them"), since I was originally going to use a mix of delay and block. Scheduling is by the 24 hours of a particular day without overlapping, so a set doesn't get scheduled from, say, 1700 Friday to 1700 Saturday (you'd have one set for Friday and another one for Saturday).

I like that I have the ability to schedule, since some website blockers are more of a turn on/turn off button, but considering what I'm using LeechBlock NG for, I wish I could have more options around scheduling. (I imagine it's easier on the creating and maintaining side to not get too complicated in scheduling features, and I think some other website blockers paywall calendar syncing.) This isn't a deal-breaker right now, but I can't not mention that the only way to update the times for Shabbat starting [1] and ending [2] is manually updating that every week.

Originally, I started out with four sets: Friday (Delay), Saturday (Delay), Friday (Block), and Saturday (Block). The delay options used the default delay pages, had a countdown for an adjustable amount of seconds before allowing access, and were set for the winter Shabbat range for my location. The block options were narrower time ranges when I figured I was most likely to forget I had a delay, redirected to a page, and used the summer Shabbat range for my location.

Redirecting to a website page is what counts as having a custom block page:

Friday's redirect page: We Are Everywhere print, which is the starry pomegranate piece from @/iliothermia.

Saturday's redirect page: "Shabbat Shalom" Vintage Tee from Woz Art.

I did note that I was worried that I had overcomplicated things, and I didn't know how well this four set arrangement would hold up as sunset times change over the year. While I could make the sets once with this plan, I then had to remember if I was in the right season for ignoring a delay. (Or: My Friday Delay set started at the December time when Shabbat starts earliest in the year for my location, which is at least three hours before I actually need to worry about Shabbat starting in July and August.)

It sounded better on paper. I got caught in a loop of delay countdown pages while trying to reblog something during that Friday Delay, and I messed up listing out the times for the Saturday Block (and could just outright access Tumblr when I did my first trial of accessing Tumblr to make sure the delays and blocks actually worked). I switched over to one Delay set per day with an uninterrupted chunk of time that needs updated weekly, and I fixed whatever technical problems I accidentally created before. It's the 'did I remember to update my Shabbat times?' questioning mid-week that's now the hard part.

I have no doubt that some people find it easier to not use a website blocker at all, but it feels an awful lot like - if you really cared, you'd just remember and willpower your way through this. Been there, internalized that, didn't even get to join a club. So far, writing down the times in my planner is an obvious visual sign that I did the update, but I'm thinking of making a list for the rest of the year [3] and crossing each week off. (Checking each week isn't very hard when there's not a lot of weeks left in 5784, but a list will probably help more in 5785.)

Outside of all the technical stuff, it's been nice to not be on Tumblr during Shabbat. (If I curated a very specific Shabbat only dash, it'd probably be different, but that would probably entail undoing some XKit fixes in order to get another tab at the top of my dash for specific tags/blogs.) I've debated adding more websites to the block list for my sets, but most of my other sites are considerably less stressful compared to Tumblr. While it might be nice to try avoiding the whole internet on Shabbat at least once in the future, I think trying that now would be a bit rushed when I haven't built in alternatives yet.

~

[1] Why Are Shabbat Candles Lit 18 Minutes Before Sunset?: Technically, Shabbat starts at sunset, but we light candles early because we shouldn't light candles once Shabbat begins. Ancient reckoning for the amount of time do a certain thing gives us 18 minutes, though some places have different local customs.

[2] What is Havdalah (or, When does Shabbat end)?: Havdalah is at nightfall. When is nightfall? Traditionally when three stars are visible, but most times that I've seen use some sort of formula such as the sun being 7.5 degrees below the horizon (about 42 minutes after sunset) [medium sized stars], 8.5 degrees below the horizon (about 50 minutes after sunset) [small sized stars], or a fixed 72 minutes after sunset. [Depending on location and time of year, the time using the degree tactic may be a bit shorter than the times listed here.]

[3] Hebcal has Candle-lighting Times Year at a Glance. I was originally curious about whether elevation made a difference in my times, but honestly, it's not a large enough difference that I'm worried about using the default sea-level assumption.

[ddgraywrites]

Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag - Part 1

I read a whopping 24 books this year which isn't my greatest reading year. But as long as I'm reading, that's good enough for me.

1. Best book you've read so far in 2024?

Hands down, Under the Surface by Diana Urban. I was lucky enough to receive an ARC by #penguinteen and I DEVOURED this book in 3 days. After I finished it, I watched a documentary and a couple Youtube videos about the Paris catacombs and it's insane. I highly recommend watching this one cause it really reminded me of the book:

Synopsis:

An epic survival-thriller about four teens who get lost in the Paris catacombs for days—a gripping and propulsive story of love, danger, betrayal, and hope… even when all seems lost. Ruby is terrified to cave to her feelings for Sean and risk him crushing her heart. Sean is pumped to spend a week with Ruby in Paris on their senior class trip, and he’ll wait however long until she’s ready to take things further. But when Ruby’s best friend sneaks out the first night to meet a mysterious French boy, Ruby goes after her with two classmates, but caves to another temptation: attending mystery boy’s exclusive party in the Paris catacombs, the intricate web of tunnels beneath the city, home to six million long-dead Parisians. Only they never reach the party. Underground, as something sinister chases them, they get lost in the endless maze of bones, uncovering dark secrets about the catacombs… and each other. And if they can’t find a way out, they’ll die in the dark beneath the City of Light. Aboveground, Sean races to find the girl he loves as a media frenzy over the four missing teens begins.

2. Best sequel you've read so far?

Another book I devoured in 3 days was Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig. Not gonna lie, it took me a while to get into the 1st book and I ALMOST DNF'd it, but my book club peeps urged me to keep going and I'm so glad I did.

I'm obsessed with the magic system. The concept of Providence Cards is so interesting and I hope the author comes out with an official deck.

image source

Synopsis:

Elspeth and Ravyn have gathered most of the twelve Providence Cards, but the last, and most important one remains to be found: The Twin Alders. If they are going to find it before the Solstice and cure the kingdom of the dark magic infecting it, they will need to journey beyond the dangerous mist-cloaked forest that surrounds their kingdom. And the only one who can lead them there is the monster that shares Elspeth's head. The Nightmare. And he's not eager to share any longer.

3. New release you haven't read yet, but want to.

A Novel Love Story by Ashley Poston. The last 2 books she came out with (The Dead Romantics and The Seven Year Slip) have this supernatural element to them that's never really explained but just.. accepted? I'm not mad about it cause I think she does it SO. WELL. and that's why I'm excited to read this one.

Synopsis:

Eileen Merriweather loves to get lost in a good happily-ever-after. The fictional kind, anyway. Because at least imaginary men don’t leave you at the altar. She feels safe in a book. At home. Which might be why she’s so set on going to her annual book club retreat this year—she needs good friends, cheap wine, and grand romantic gestures—no matter what.  But when her car unexpectedly breaks down on the way, she finds herself stranded in a quaint town that feels like it’s right out of a novel… Because it is.  This place can’t be real, and yet… she’s here, in Eloraton, the town of her favorite romance series, where the candy store’s honey taffy is always sweet, the local bar’s burgers are always a little burnt, and rain always comes in the afternoon. It feels like home. It’s perfect—and perfectly frozen, trapped in the late author’s last unfinished story.  Elsy is sure that’s why she must be here: to help bring the town to its storybook ending. Except there is a character in Eloraton that she can’t place—a grumpy bookstore owner with mint-green eyes, an irritatingly sexy mouth and impeccable taste in novels. And he does not want her finishing this book.  Which is a problem because Elsy is beginning to think the town’s happily-ever-after might just be intertwined with her own.

4. Most anticipated release for the second half of 2024?

The Davenports: More Than This by Krystal Marquis. I had the pleasure of reading an ARC of the 1st book last year and I FELL. IN. LOVE. with the world and the characters. I'm a huge fan of time period books, movies, and tv and this novel is on the top of my list! Even though it takes place in the early 1900s, it still gave me Bridgerton (Netflix) vibes and I'm a huge fan of that show.

Synopsis:

Like the blazing Chicago sun, the drama is heating up for the Davenports and their social set. Before the summer of 1910 drops its last petal, the lives—and loves—of these four young women will change in ways they never could have imagined: Newly engaged Ruby Tremaine is eagerly planning her wedding to the love of her life when a nasty rumor threatens her reputation and her marriage.  Olivia Davenport has committed to the social justice cause and secretly hopes she’ll be reunited with dashing lawyer Washington DeWight—until her parents decide she’s to marry someone else. Amy-Rose Shepherd is making her lifelong wish of owning a salon come true, but when an incident forces her to return to Freeport Manor, she’s back in the path of John Davenport, who still holds her heart.  Helen Davenport is determined to get over her own heartbreak and bring the Davenport Carriage Company into the new century, even if it means teaming up with a thrill-seeking racecar driver who just loves to get under her skin. Inspired by the real-life story of the Patterson family, More Than This is the second book in critically adored Davenports series, following four empowered and passionate young Black women as they navigate a rapidly changing society and discover the courage to steer their own paths in life—and love.

5. Biggest disappointment?

I'm sad to say that Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson was my biggest disappointment so far. My expectations were VERY HIGH because I know this series is soo loved in the bookish community. I just wasn't a fan of the magic system. I didn't like the concept of coins but I did think the science of the magic was interesting? I'm sure if I continue reading it would just get better and better but right now, I honestly have no interest in continuing.

Synopsis:

For a thousand years the ash fell and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years the Lord Ruler, the "Sliver of Infinity," reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Then, when hope was so long lost that not even its memory remained, a terribly scarred, heart-broken half-Skaa rediscovered it in the depths of the Lord Ruler's most hellish prison. Kelsier "snapped" and found in himself the powers of a Mistborn. A brilliant thief and natural leader, he turned his talents to the ultimate caper, with the Lord Ruler himself as the mark. Kelsier recruited the underworld's elite, the smartest and most trustworthy allomancers, each of whom shares one of his many powers, and all of whom relish a high-stakes challenge. Then Kelsier reveals his ultimate dream, not just the greatest heist in history, but the downfall of the divine despot. But even with the best criminal crew ever assembled, Kel's plan looks more like the ultimate long shot, until luck brings a ragged girl named Vin into his life. Like him, she's a half-Skaa orphan, but she's lived a much harsher life. Vin has learned to expect betrayal from everyone she meets. She will have to learn trust if Kel is to help her master powers of which she never dreamed.

6. Biggest Surprise?

Good Material by Dolly Alderton. This book is advertised as "funny and hilarious" which I think is very misleading in my opinion. I bought this BECAUSE I thought it would be a hoot. It's really just about a comedian mending his broken heart while also trying to figure his life out. I honestly found this book to be quite serious BUT it was still VERY GOOD, just not what I thought it would be.

Andy's story wasn't meant to turn out this way. Living out of a suitcase in his best friends' spare room, waiting for his career as a stand-up comedian to finally take off, he struggles to process the life-ruining end of his relationship with the only woman he's ever truly loved. As he tries to solve the seemingly unsolvable mystery of his broken relationship, he contends with career catastrophe, social media paranoia, a rapidly dwindling friendship group and the growing suspicion that, at 35, he really should have figured this all out by now. Andy has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story. Warm, wise, funny and achingly relatable, Dolly Alderton's highly-anticipated second novel is about the mystery of what draws us together - and what pulls us apart - the pain of really growing up, and the stories we tell about our lives.

____________

Part 2 will be posted sometime this week! Have any of you read these books/are you going to read them? Let me know in the comments!

[mickcedesagenda]

17.03.2023 | JEDDAH FP1 & FP2

FP1

Okay, so FP1 is not representative because it's daytime and the track is hot and all that, but I like to see the pace and overanalyze, so here are my thoughts…

RED BULL

Max started later in the session and went straight up from P20 to P3. Around 33:00, he set the fastest lap and left a gap with Fernando of only +0.015 seconds which is very, very little. Max then continued to further the gap and reinforce P1 until the end. Something I noticed but may be totally wrong is that he seems to lose a bit of time in Sector 2 while being very good in Sector 3, but I could be wrong.

From the beginning, you can see that Checo has a good pace, even when he went wide on turn 22. The commentators said that he has a new gearbox, and near the end of the session, he said on the radio that he "doesn't have any front-end." But yeah, he maintained a stable pace throughout the session, and in the last minutes, he passed Nando and was P2 with a +0.483s gap.

ASTON MARTIN

I'm really excited for Fernando because his first lap was more than 4s slower than Checo, and the next lap was the fastest. He looked great throughout the session, and I think he's doing pretty well in Sector 1. I think he had a good pace on the Hards, and had it was better when he changed into Softs around mid-session. He finished P3 with a +0.698s gap.

Lance spent some time in the pits, and when he came out, he found quite a lot of traffic. He picked up a good pace at the end and got a P4 with a +0.960s gap (+0.262s from his teammate).

In other news: Stoffel cam!!!

FERRARI

Okay, so Ferrari's lap times weren't ideal, especially considering they both have new power units. How is it possible that they're so far behind? What is the problem? I understand that it's daylight and the conditions are not representative but I really have a high standard for a team like Ferrari.

Carlos finished P7 with a +1.307s gap.

Charles finished fucking P11 (!?) with a +1.501s gap (+0.194s from his teammate)

MERCEDES

I started this session wanting good for Mercedes with Lewis in P1, but as he said, he had problems with the grip, and almost towards the end, his pace was bad (+6 fucking seconds!!!). There was a moment when he was on a fast lap and an AlphaTauri was on his way. In the end, he was slower, almost +6 seconds again ??? I want to think it's the Hard tyres during the day. Lewis finished P6 with a +1.170s gap.

They initially blocked George during his fast lap, but at least he continued to rise in the latter half of the session. I don't think they have a good pace, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt because FP1 isn't really representative. George finished P5 with a +1.154s gap (-0.016s from his teammate).

In other news: Mick + Toto cam!!!

ALFA ROMEO

I didn't pay much attention to Alfa Romeo because I was praying Ferrari and Mercedes would pick up some pace. I should have put Alfa Romeo in my prayers because they were bad. Again, I hope it's the temperature.

Valtteri finished P18 with a +2.353s gap.

Guanyu finished P19 with a +2.369s gap (+0.016s from his teammate).

ALPINE

Pierre seems to have a better pace than Esteban but says his brakes are rubbish. Pierre finished P8 with a +1.332s gap.

Esteban didn't have the best lap time, but it doesn't look too bad. Estie Bestie finished P12 with a +1.564s gap (+0.232s from his teammate).

WILLIAMS

Alex in P4 around 24:00 is important to me. It seems he had a good pace, and I can imagine him in the points again this week, but we will have to wait for Qualifying. Alex finished P9 with a +1.413s gap.

I didn't pay much attention to Logan, but I think he can improve throughout the day when it's cooler. Williams doesn't look as bad as last year's, but I need another race to compare the gap between teammates. Logan finished P17 with a +2.305s gap (+0.892s from his teammate).

In other news: James cam!!! Also, was he drinking a Red Bull when he was interviewed, or was it another drink?

ALPHATAURI

I don't have much to say about AlphaTauri, just that apparently they were in the way all the time and that's kinda funny.

Yuki finished P10 (slay) with a +1.493s gap.

Nyck finished P13 with a +1.833s gap (+0.340s from his teammate), being the rookie with the best time.

HAAS

Haas on Ferrari was a hate crime towards me, and all four were in softs??? And then they got worse, thank God (sorry Kev).

Hülkenberg finished P15 with a gap of +1.935s.

Kevin finished P16 with a +1.949s gap (+0.014s from his teammate which is positive for me, get his ass Kevin!!!).

MCLAREN

Oh, McLaren is bad in FP1. Normally, I would think it's unrepresentative, but we already know how Bahrain ended. I wrote in my notes: "both biting the dust I can't believe this" and I can only say… I am a comedian.

Oscar had a gap of more than 2 seconds, which he later improved. Oscar finished P14 with a +1.874s gap (-0.658s from his teammate!).

On the other hand, I didn't pay attention for a microsecond, and Lando finished LAST, P20, BEHIND EVERYONE, with a +2.532s gap… 2 AND A HALF SECONDS. What the hell happened to McLaren that has them this bad?

FP2

Now this session is more representative because of the temperature. I heard that the medium tyres are better in this circuit but something tells me they’re going to use the softs a lot during Qualifying and that's why they did a lot of laps on them, so they could check the pace for Qualifying. I think. I don't know. I'm not really an expert.

RED BULL

Truly the Red Bulls do beautiful laps in Jeddah. Max’s laps are so so pretty, I can't wait to see him in Qualifying. I'm slightly concerned about the sparks, but they look gorgeous at night lol. He almost hit the wall, again, and that worries me a lot. I would hate to see his laps ruined by another accident. Max was P1! Of course.

I also like Checo's laps a lot, the cars are so beautiful at night. I hope he has an amazing weekend. Checo finished P3 with a +0.299s gap.

ASTON MARTIN

I would never have thought Aston Martin would improve so much in a single season.

Fernando had beautiful laps and looks fast in both softs and mediums. I also noticed that despite being fast, he doesn't get as close to walls as Max. Nando finished P2 with a +0.208s gap.

Lance did quite well, he got closer to the top many times but didn't finish as close to Fernando. Lance finished P7 with +0.507s gap (+0.299s from his teammate).

FERRARI

I wrote quite a bit on Ferrari but most of it is angry nonsense so I'll sum it up by saying I can't believe Ferrari looks so slow at a circuit like Jeddah. Disappointing. I look forward to more of them on Saturday and Sunday.

Charles finished P9 with a +0.738s gap.

Carlos finished P10 with a +0.989s gap (+0.251s from his teammate).

MERCEDES

The W14 looks so beautiful at night but being a Mercedes fan is too stressful.

Lewis worries me, P11 is a crime. I know they’re going to be better during the race but I am so looking forward to seeing Lewis win and this feels horrible. Lewis finished P11 with a +0.996s gap.

George was able to get some pace near the end, which gives me hope for qualifying. On the other hand, George insulting the McLaren was way too funny for no reason. George finished P5 with a +0.467s gap (-0.529s from his teammate).

In other news: Toto + Bono + Mick cam!!! I found Toto's interview funny because I only focused on his hand gestures lol.

ALFA ROMEO

I don't have much to say about Alfa Romeo except that Valtteri was last and I want to kill myself. Anyway, Val finished P20 with a +1.449s gap.

Although Guanyu was better than Valtteri, he’s still too low for what I want. He finished P16 with a +1.234s gap (-0.215s from his teammate).

ALPINE

I didn't pay as much attention to Alpine but they look good. They don't impress me. But they look good, I definitely see them in the points at least one of them.

Esteban finished P4 with a +0.436s gap.

Pierre finished P6 with a +0.497s gap (+0.061 from his teammate).

WILLIAMS

Alex didn't have an ideal position but surprisingly I still think he can do pretty well this weekend. Alex finished P14 with a +1.207s gap.

Okay I'm going to tell the truth, I don't care about Logan that much, I only have him as a reference to how good/bad Williams is, but hey. Logan finished P18 with a +1.356s gap (+0.149s from his teammate).

In other news: James cam again!!!

ALPHATAURI

Yuki finished P13 with a +1.173s gap.

Nyck finished P17, being the best rookie, with a +1.318s gap (+0.145s from his teammate).

HAAS

Hülkenberg getting in the way and randomly P4 was funny. He finished P8 somehow, with a +0.578s gap.

Kevin finished P15 with a +1.217s gap (+0.639 from his teammate).

MCLAREN

I repeat, McLaren is bad and it’s worrying. I know we were all like fuck McLaren and all that but I'd really like to see Oscar do well and this car is so bad I wonder what went wrong.

Lando didn't look good at almost any time, there was a point where his laps were more than 6 secs which is criminal. WHAT'S THAT? Lando finished P12 with a +1.118s gap.

Now Oscar :( It’s a shame this car is so bad. At first he seemed to get better but the traffic and pace weren’t ideal. Fuck everyone slowing down my baby including Zak Brown and his shitty car. Oscar finished P19, being the worst rookie, with a +1.361s gap (+0.243s from his teammate).

[fuckgiantkiller]

Old Business: KILL THE VANDAL!

So, okay, I haven't posted on Tumblr in a while. And yes, the embarrassing truth is I'm back because of all the shit with the birdsite. In my defense, it's not like anyone was paying attention to my tumblr anyway (least of all me). At any rate, I was going through my old posts, trying to figure out where I left off before I stopped logging back in six years ago, and I rediscovered a couple of blogs I wrote about a longstanding film-project of mine, originally called VANDAL that I then ended up re-titling KILL THE VANDAL! in no small part because of these blogs.

What I never did was follow up on any of it. There were a lot of factors involved in this failure to return here and share what I was doing, including a dramatic move cross-country (from Nashville to Los Angeles) followed promptly by the loss of a parent shortly thereafter, and then just years of not wanting to be this personal and open online.

Anyway, here's the short version: (1) I finished KILL THE VANDAL! (2) No one gave a shit, and (3) that's okay.

So for the sake of looking back, here's the original blogs in question:

• "Failing in Private in Public" – a long behind-the-scenes post talking about VANDAL as both the best film school on earth (which it was) and one of the great failures of my life (which it might be). There's lots of BTS photos, details on how we made it, and a breakdown of why it sat on the shelf for so long. There's also an extended diatribe on a potential/hypothetical "Video Lab" blog project where I would write about the process of either bringing VANDAL back or digging into why it doesn't work and what I learned from the process of feeling that out. Obviously, I didn't do that. But then again, I put that idea out there and was met with resounding [crickets] so if you really think about it, that's kinda your fault.

• VANDAL becomes KILL THE VANDAL! – this follow up to "Failing in Private in Public" comes after I actually cracked VANDAL open again for the first time in years and realized I was maybe taking myself too seriously. It's not as long as "Failing" but it's still too long and rife with bad writing and bad grammar. Best excuse I have for that is I was probably stoned. Also features a deeply ugly sketch-up of the new title, also probably courtesy of an over-abundance of mids.

• And finally, the last time I posted about KILL THE VANDAL! which has the benefit of brevity going for it. It is deeply hilarious to me to see how I went from the sprawling self-indulgence/self-loathing of "Failing" and ended up here bemoaning my cartoon creation before vamoosing from Tumblr for literal years.

So, anyway, I finished it.

I wrestled it from the grip of the self-serious and self-loathing 24-year-old failure that was Me, dug in and finished the snarling, genre-bending monstrosity that 18-year-old me set out to make to start with. For better or worse.

Then I put the first episode online, with the seemingly clever grass-roots marketing scheme of holding the rest of the episodes hostage until it hit the deeply modest goal of 500 Views on Youtube; the idea being if people wanted more they would have to share it to drive that count up. Then I sat back and watched the views roll in!

All 457 Views!

That's right, it topped off less than fifty views shy of its goal. As of this date, five years after releasing it, it hasn't climbed an inch in four years. Honestly, at this point, I don't know if I'd ever post the rest of the series even if it did hit 500 views.

But mostly what I feel about that? Relief. Like, it's okay, I sort of feel like my business with KILL THE VANDAL! is no longer unfinished either way. Everything is off the shelf and out of my hands, and I did everything I could within my limited means to get it in front of eyeballs, and that's how it panned out. The important need to finish this thing I started is done, so what else do I need from it?

In short: Oh well!

Anyway, why am I writing this now, 5 years later?

I dunno, honestly. After I tripped upon those old blog-posts a couple things stuck to my ribs about them. That "Failing in Private in Public" post in particular struck a chord with me so many years later, and I felt I owed it to the version of me who wrote that to resolve the public anguish a bit. I wanted to turn this into a web-series and blogging project, and Grief and Alienation had other plans for me, so much so that it feels genuinely like a miracle that I resolved this unfinished business from my early 20's at all. Felt like I owed that blog post a follow-up.

But if I'm being very honest – and lord knows I'm already being pretty goddamn self-indulgent here, so why slow down now – it was this part that made me want to write this:

"But there's something in the way. I don't know what it is, only that it's self-imposed. Maybe it's this paper-weight of a feature reminding me of the time I tried and failed. Maybe it's good, old-fashioned, clinical depression. Maybe it's simply that I am, and always have been, a total hack, and that nagging, neurotic fear that I am a fraud with nothing to offer anyone -- audience, employers, whomever -- in this field and no marketable skills in anything else is entirely justified. "I don't know. I'm not sure what I’m doing. Even writing all of this is a shot in the dark. All I really know is I have to do something before I go crazy. I turn thirty in July and I'm still living what you might charitably term 'college life' long after I left college, and with no end in sight. And the debt and doubt and goddamn not knowing how to answer the question 'where do you see yourself in five years' isn't half as terrible as having nothing to show for the last five." ... "Guess I could use a hand knowing how to move on. I don't know where I'm going with this writing/directing/filmmaking thing, or where it might lead me, if I'm lucky enough for it to lead me anywhere at all. But once upon a time I got off my ass and just made a movie cause I could, and it hurts my heart feeling like that might be where it ends."

Reader, the haunting thing about it is this, and I'll begin with some caveats: in the subsequent five years, my life has gotten better in many ways. I feel more removed from "college life" than I did when I wrote this (although debt and the poverty line are still looming specters – I can't even afford to keep the Giantkiller website live right now). At the above point in my life, I thought I might never get to make anything else ever again, that my filmmaker dreams stopped and ended with unfinished KILL THE VANDAL, a movie that I did not like or relate to or particularly want anyone to see. I still don't think I like it, I definitely do not relate to the filmmaker who made it... but it didn't end there.

I wish I could tell the near-30-year-old who was fretting over "where do you see yourself in five years" and had nothing resembling an answer that five years later, he'd not only have finished KILL THE VANDAL! but he would write and direct two new short films that would represent who he is as a human being in all the ways KTV doesn't. That those shorts would screen at film festivals all over the world* and he would have a clearer understanding of who he is, what he is capable of, and what he has to offer.

*(albeit during a pandemic, which made for a lot of online-only film festivals; PRESENT ME: "invest in masks and hand-sanitizer, Past Me, invest in masks and hand-sanitizer" – PAST ME: "invest... with what money, Future Me?" – PRESENT ME: "uuuuuuhhhhhh")

And reader, five years later with all the work I genuinely feared I would never get to make under my belt, I am once again at a place in my life where I genuinely fear I will never get to make anything again. These things cost money I to make that I still do not have. I still feel like a hack. I still don't know where I'll be in five years. I still lay awake at night thinking, "this is it, that's all I'll ever get to do, and this may have all been for jackshit nothing who cares, why didn't I learn any other skills, what the living fuck am I supposed to do now, am I an absolute failure by every standard, most damningly by my own?"

I re-read that post and thought, "that's me three wins ago, and that's still literally how I feel right now." And it's the first time since the empty vacuum feeling of the end of my short films' festival run that a little hope has risen above that killer depression/anxiety combo.

If I was wrong then, maybe I'm wrong now?

So I guess I'm writing this for Future Me. Future Me who, if the trend holds, still thinks this way. We both know from experience how wrong I was then. How wrong was I now? How wrong are you then?

Please, please, please, Future Me. Do what you can. Make sure we're both wrong.

Anyway, with the business of KTV finally settled on Tumblr and everywhere else: if anybody but Future Me is reading this, keep an eye out for those festival-touring short films that I somehow do still like. I'll be sharing more soon.

[HINT HINT: You can find one of them on YouTube and Vimeo already, if you want to go look for it]

[alexandrianicolegrey-oc]

Eddie Diaz x Fem!reader

⚠️TW:⚠️ swearing, mentions of physical abuse, alcohol, drugs, mentions of abandonment

Angst, Physical Abuse, Healing/Trauma

Eddie finds out that Y/n's father is physically abusing her when she shows up to the station covered in fresh bruises, blood, and tears.

.......

For years, Y/n's father had been taking drugs and drinking his life way. And everytime he did, he would take his rage out on her. Leaving her broken, hurt, bloodied, and just scared. But, the day she met Eddie Diaz at the Santa Monica Pier when he was with his son, she would never forget it.

Fast forward a few years, Y/n and Eddie stated dating, and Christopher loved her as much as Eddie did. It was a mid morning, when Eddie got to work for his shift. Y/n was home alone when her father showed up. Angry that she had left him alone to fend for himself and he took his anger out on her, leaving her there to die.

After he left, she had blood dripping down the side of her face, she had a busted lip, her eye was bruised badly, and her nose was bleeding but she managed to get to the station somehow.

She limped her way inside, just as Hen came down the stairs and saw the shape she was in. "Oh my god!" She rushed over, catching Y/n in her arms before she fell. "Guys! I need help down here!" Hen called into the radio.

Bobby was the first to come down, followed by Buck, Chimney, and Eddie. Eddie's face froze when he saw his girlfriend beaten so badly. He rushed over. Bobby started to hold him back, "No!" He pushed his way to Y/n.

Eddie kneeled down, "Y/n? Who did this to you?" He asked, whe examining her face.

"M-my father. He-he came by after you left and beat me. He said-" She broke into sobs again. "He said it was my fault!" Eddie shook his head, "No, nothing is your fault. That drunk son of a bitch will pay for this."

"Eddie, let Athena handle this, I've called her and let her know what the situation is." Bobby said, coming back from taking a phone call from Athena.

"Y/n, follow the light for me." Hen asked sweetly. She followed the light or tried to at least. "Yeah, she has a concussion."

Buck helped Eddie get Y/n to the couch to rest. "Buck is going to stay here with you while we're out on calls. Alright? And if you need me for anything, Buck knows how to reach me." Eddie kissed her head softly. "Buck, here's some money if you or her get hungry." Eddie tried to hand money to Buck.

"No, keep it. I'll pay for the food if she gets hungry." Buck pushed Eddie's hand away.

"Thanks, man." Eddie said with a smile. He was still very much worried about Y/n. And the fact that he just found out about the abuse, he was not happy. But he wasn't mad at her. He was mad at the low life that called himself a father.

Later that day, Eddie just got off his shift, he took Y/n home and got her settled into their bed. He brought her dinner that he made for the three of them. Him, her, and Chris. He laid beside her. "How long has he been hurting you? And be honest with me." Eddie said calmly and softly.

Y/n looked up at him, her eyes filled with sadness and fear which Eddie could see. "Ever since my mother left and never came back. I was three then. He started drinking heavily and got into drugs. Meth, weed, cocaine. You name it. And he became more violent towards me. He blamed me for my mom leaving us. He then started beating me everyday of my life." Her small voice broke Eddie's heart to hear her say it.

"He will never touch you again. Athena tracked him down and he is now locked away." Eddie kissed her head. "You are safe with me and-"

"Me!" Chris had come into the room. He softly yet gentally climbed into the bed between his father and Y/n.

"Yeah, what my son said." Eddie laughed. Y/n smiled and chuckled. "You two are something." Y/n laughed. "That's why I love you both."

After awhile, Eddie, Chris, and Y/n all fell asleep after a long, tiring day. But during the night, Y/n woke up from a pounding headache which had her crying. Eddie heard her and quickly got up, which woke up Chris.

"Dad? What's going on?" Chris rubbed his sleepy eyes.

"Its Y/n." He rushed to her side. "Hey, hey, what's going on, baby, talk to me." Eddie said soothingly.

"M-my head hurts so bad." Tears streamed her face. "Come here." Eddie helped her back into the bed. He handed her the pain meds and handed her a bottle water. After she drank it, she became sleepy.

Eddie climbed back into bed with Chris asleep against him and Y/n, who also had fallen back to sleep not long after.

Eddie never went back to sleep. He stayed awake making sure Y/n was alright. It didn't bother him because he was used to staying up all night when working 24 hour shifts.

The next morning, Eddie cooked breakfast while Chris and Y/n were still asleep. He heard a knock and walked over to a answer the door. "Buck, hey, come in." He stepped aside as Buck walked in. "How's Y/n?" He asked, standing with his hands in his pockets.

"She had a rough night. Her head hurt her a lot. I set up a doctor's appointment for her with the neurologist to see if anything else is wrong with her head. She just fell asleep early this morning after the pain med I gave her."

"I take it you didn't much sleep either?" He noticed the burnt toast. "Let me help, Eddie." Buck offered. Eddie stepped aside, too tired to argue. "Alright, I'm going to get Chris up and check on Y/n." He headed off to their room that they shared. He saw Chris asleep against Y/n with her arm around him.

He smiled, and quickly took a few pictures then decided to let them sleep longer. He showed Buck. "Awe, your son really does love her, huh?" He smiled that goofy smile.

"Yeah, he really does. He called her mom the other day when we were out getting lunch but she doesn't know it yet. I told him to wait until I asked her to marry me which will be on her birthday in a few weeks." Eddie smiled.

"Wow, I'm happy for you, man. Really proud too. Keep me posted on what they say about her head." Buck just put the plates on the table along with silverware. "Breakfast is done." Buck shouted, proudly.

Chris came into the kitchen shortly after, followed by Y/n. Eddie kissed her cheek. "How are you feeling, baby?" He asked.

"I feel a little bit better, still sore." Y/n smiled over at her boyfriend. He helped her sit down and handed her a plate of food. "Are you staying for breakfast, Buck?" Eddie asked.

"I can, yeah." He sat down, after getting a plate for himself. Chris was just eating away his food. Eddie watched Y/n carefully, making sure she was alright. He was still worried but didn't want to overstep her boundaries.

[artsy-hobbitses]

I'm getting very curious about Malaysia... what's it like there?? Culture, living conditions, etc.

Pretty loaded question!

Off the top of my head, some specifics:

- Very much a melting pot. Malay, Chinese and Indian ethnicities mingle pretty freely, interracial marriages are not uncommon (I’m quarter Chinese on my mum’s side) and the modern Malaysian slang is often a mishmash of Malay, Chinese and Indian words. You have a choice between public, vernacular (usually caters to a specific race ie. Chinese/Indian as a stronghold of the language/customs, however I had Malays friends who went to Chinese Vernacular schools) international, private and religious schools (mostly for the Muslim-Majority Malays). Public holidays are designated for all three major races (big ones are Eid, Deepavali and Chinese New Year) plus more specific ones in Sabah/Sarawak for the indigenous population, and it’s normal for say, Malays to be invited to a Deepavali gathering or for Chinese to be invited to Eid open houses. We’re usually chill about it like that.

- Despite this, racism exists. It’s not loud and proud like in western nations though (except for your occasional Malay nationalist politician) it tends to be more of the passive-aggressive sort. Some parents discreetly warn their kids about not being friends with [X] race at school, some house rental listings with single out [X] race, though we’re coming to the point that we’re not bothering with Asian decorum anymore and publicly shitting on that behavior. On a historical aspect, the potential reason it takes on a more subtle, passive-aggressive tone here was that on 13 May 1969, sectarian violence broke out between urban Chinese and Malays in Kuala Lumpur due to unrest over the general election, and this resulted in the deaths of 600 people, mostly Chinese (My mum lived through this time at the heart of the incident). Basically the nation’s been scarred and has feared a similar event ever since, so those spouting open racial violence get slammed down pretty quick and “Remember 13 May” has often been used as a warning for whenever tensions flare up. Or when politicians want us to keep our grumblings down. We tend to have a don’t-rock-the-boat mentality here on the basis of trying to keep the peace for everyone—-it doesn’t always work. Malay Privilege/“Ketuanan Melayu” is a thing you’ll hear often from some sections of Malays here, who tend to argue that since they’re technically the original inhabitants if the land (don’t quiz ‘em about the Orang Asli), they should get more rights than the others.

-Living conditions vary. I live in Selangor—the state surrounding the Capital Kuala Lumpur—-which has the highest density of denizens. Here, it’s pretty modern. My husband and I rent a two-story terrace house, my parents who are a little well-off have their own bungalow. Places like Penang, Perak and Johor also tend to be more in the modern side. You’ll find more rural areas and kampungs as you go deeper into the heart of country (Pahang), the East Coast (Kelantan, Terengganu) and the country’s rice bowl (Kedah, and by extension, Perlis). This is within the Peninsula—-Sabah (I lived here for about four years) and Sarawak have a combination of modern and rural areas and tend to take life at a much slower pace than the Peninsula states (They also want none of Peninsula’s religious tension bullshit). My father’s kampung is in Pahang, and while I was never close to my paternal grandparents, I do have fond memories of cooking outdoors and plucking rambutan bunches from the trees they grew.

- Wet. Very wet. Monsoon season/‘Musim Tengkujuh’ at year end interspace with mid-year. Fucks with the income of local fishermen who are barred from going to the ocean on the account of rough waves, Flooding is an annual occurrence for rural areas, though we get flash floods in cities too. Common enough that “check for crocodiles” isn’t a weird request when you come back to clean your homes from mud and silt. (Houses near flood-prone areas will employ walls or be built on stilts to withstand the floods).

- 9 Sultans for 9 states, they take turns becoming the Agong (Chief Sultan I guess?) every five years. They’re mostly there the same way the British monarchy is. Don’t really play a big role in politics unless there is a need for them to decree something when politicians can’t work things out between themselves.

- Political leapfrog. It’s. A thing. A politician you see from one party today can be a member of another party tomorrow. It’s gotten so bad they’re considering legislation to punish it. We do call them literal frogs (Katak) when they do this (Sorry frogs, you deserve better!)

- Food. All the fucking food. Melting pot = all the deliciousness. There’s no culturally appropriating cuisine here, everyone’s eating everyone else’s stuff with great gusto. Roti Canai/Chappati (Indian) for breakfast, Nasi Campur (mixed rice, mostly with Malay dishes) for lunch and Wantan Mee (Chinese) for dinner is an example of the food culture trip you go through on any given day. You’ll have Malays who adore Chinese food, Chinese who adore Malay food, and no one fights when they’re eating, that’s all there is to it. Places like Penang are a haven for food and people will make trips just to eat there.

- Islam is the main religion. However, it’s not strictly enforced in most cases, I’d dare even say that we’re quite secular, to the teeth-gnashing of the Facebook army. I’m a Muslim who doesn’t wear a headscarf (except on special occasions), I know Muslims who rescue and keep dogs (My hunter grandfather apparently caught and kept a Dhole as a house guard way back), and I know some who’re LGBT, albeit somewhat discreet about it.

- Speaking of LGBT, the country is not friendly to the community, but neither is it as hostile as sections of the US tend to be about it. As an example, gay conversion therapy isn’t really a thing there (presumably because that would entail the govt admitting that there’s enough gay people to require it at all), workplaces generally do not have a policy targeting people based on their sexualities, like you’ll find butch ladies serving you drinks at Starbucks and gay men working with local theatre productions, and violence against LGBT members is pretty rare (though I imagine this is more because most people here mostly do not want to kick up a fuss in public, what more a fight, and just judge from a distance). Basically, the majority of the public will tolerate LGBT existence—whispering behind their back——until there starts to be a call for rights.

- Good degree of English command. English is understood, if not spoken, by a lot of us here from cab drivers to stall owners, so you won’t be hopelessly lost if you decide to visit. A big majority of us are at LEAST bilingual (In my case, I speak English and Malay, and can understand some Arabic). Quite a number who come from interracial marriages are trilingual.

- Cheap healthcare. There’s a reason we’re one of the top destinations for medical tourism. You have a choice between private and government hospitals which provide a form of universal healthcare. Govt clinics/hospitals offer subsidized healthcare and meds to all members of the public, and most doctors will start out in government hospitals before moving to private practices (like my sister-in-law). Uninsured, a trip to a normal clinic for a consultation will set you back maybe twenty to thirty bucks, fifty if you need meds or a small procedure like stitches. I do have insurance but have never used it for doctor visits since the amount is pretty trivial. I have, however, used it for a hysterectomy surgery + 1 month hospital stay at a private hospital which set me back about RM30,000-RM40,000 (USD7000-USD9500) which I managed to get covered. Ambulance Fees are like, RM200 (USD47) for private hospitals and RM50 (USD12) for govt hospitals. Consultation fees, blood tests and X-Rays go as low as RM1 (24 Cents) in govt hospitals. If you get hurt here, we got you covered.

And that’s just off my head! If there’s something specific you’d like you know, feel free to ask further ouob

[fenheart87]

Blue Changes

We had a fun little challenge, we picked a prompt and had 3, 15 minute sprints to write something for the prompt. Then 24 hours for light editing to finish sentences if needed, grammar etc. This is my take on the the prompt "Has anyone ever told you just how adorable you are Because you really are." Dedicated to @verfound 🧡

“Marinette, where is my favorite designer at?!” Jagged burst into the studio, Fang trotting happily next to him on her leash and Penny multitasking between her phone call and tablet. Technically he was supposed to be on a plane to New York, but decided to swing by Paris on his way because he had an idea that just could not wait and wanted to check on his unofficial niece anyways. There was only one speed bump in that plan, the studio was completely empty. The chaos of fabric strewn about and pieces half cut with scissors still mid snip definitely screamed someone was working hard or trying to at least, the mannequin with a half-pinned design and ripped fabric seemed to lean toward the latter.

“Looks like she’s not here… Must be taking a break. Penny, why don’t we order from my favorite bakery and make sure something extra special for Marinette. I’m glad we came here before the next stop on tour.” Jagged poked around at the sketches laying in abandon on the desk, some half crumbled on the floor and more stacked on a sketchbook.

“Seems like she is having some massive creators block… We should treat her when we have a break on the tour.” Penny suggested, already on the phone with Tom and trying to insist they would pay for their order.

Some of the sketches were brilliant but had marks of black throughout them, others were completely marked out and you could not even tell what the design was to start with. It hurt to physically see what pain Marinette was going through, most of the ones with the darker markings were of the same style. He could clearly see the thought of Adrien in the suits and matching dresses for Marinette, the anger of the marks showing something had happened or changed. Sighing heavily, Jagged gathered the papers, Fang batting the ones further away with her tail over to her owner. One paper had him blinking in surprise.

“Penn! Pen! Lookie here! D'ya see this?!” jagged shouted, shoving the paper into his assistant’s face, not even minding when she sighed and pushed it to a proper distance. It was a one-of-kind leather jacket and a custom hoodie drawn to match it. Either could be worn seperate or paired together. The colors were a contrast of electric blue and smokey turquoise, the theme was music and snake. Jagged recognized it as a rough sketch due to the lack of color or material notes along the edge that appeared on her finished drafts.

“Why was this crumpled up? It’s a really great idea!” Penny wondered aloud, noticing that the eccentric rockstar she commonly felt like she had to babysit was scheming. “Jagged no, whatever is it the answer is no.”

The door opened and in walked the designer they were looking for, Marinette seemed stressed and a bit run down. Her hair was thrown into a messy bun, one sleeve was pushed higher than the other and her shirt was wrinkled where it was tucked into her pencil skirt. Flip flops clacked along with her steps, another sign she was worn out if the basic shoe was more preferred to her custom made and very comfortable flats. An energy drink dangled from one hand and her design tablet occupied the other. Both guests watched as she made it all the way to her desk without noticing they were there.

“I have no idea what I'm going to do! I don't have anyone that fits that one or the orange one… I could make it a dress but who would wear it?! Ugh! I’m going to fail at this rate and then I won't graduate and I'll never design again, who would want something made by a failure-” Fang chose that moment to nudge her head onto the petite woman’s lap, startling her so bad she screamed and fell out of her chair.

“Well I reckon that I would love to have exclusive rights to all designs made by my favorite niece but we all know that’s not fair to the rest of the world. Now I know you are in a pinch and you’re stuck like a boat in the desert, so you’re going to take a break, spend some time with uncle Jay and make sure that you show poor Fang some love, she was all excited and you just screamed right in her poor face. C’mere my poor baby, Marinette is so mean I know.” Jagged showed the croc in love through pets and scratches. 

“When.. How, why?” Poor Marinette was lost and couldn't believe the rockstar was in her studio when he should've been halfway around the world for the next stop on his tour. 

“Okay, the only thing we’re doing right now is leaving all this behind for a much needed break for food and maybe a nap in your case. Time to relax and stop stressing for a minute." Penny authoritatively stepped in, stacking the papers on the desk, handing Marinette her purse and phone and with the help of Fang scooted the younger woman out the door.

Marinette protested "Wait I need to finish, it has to be done! I can't take a break, I just did!"

"Negative, now it's time for chow, and you need a shower, at your parents then we need to have a little chat. Ladies first!" Jagged gently shoved the designer into the car with cheer, allowing Fang and Penny to enter before him. 

"So my little brilliant niece, we have some great news and a rock and roll deal for you! Can't tell you what is until after you've taken a break though." They grinned as Marinette grumbles as she gave fang the attention she wanted until they pulled up to the bakery.

Getting out of the car first, Marinette sighed at the smell of her parents baking, the smell melting off some stress like butter melting on a fresh from the oven croissant roll. Her stomach grumbled and she opened the door for the other guests, sneaking an excited Fang upstairs to not scare the other customers. Deciding to take a refreshing shower, Marinette went to her bathroom and put on some zen meditation music before getting in the shower. Quick ten minutes later and she was feeling much more alive and hungry. On a whim she grabbed a random outfit that she had made but never worn, pleated plaid skirt with a red checker pattern offset by the off the shoulder fitted top in a burgundy color, and threw it on before joining her guests. 

"Oi looking good! One of yours?" Jagged shouted with his mouth full, causing Penny to smack his arm as a reminder to use manners. 

"Sure is! Never worn it before but decided change can be a good thing and sometimes you have to start the change instead of waiting for it to happen." Grabbing her favorite pastry and a croissant because you can't just smell one and not eat it, she missed the concerned look her adopted guardians shared.

"So your studio was, well, you seem to be having a hard time." Pen tried to be gentle but made a face at her words.

"Yeah… Life is… Changing." Marinette mused, picking at the pastry.

"Marinette, what can Uncle Jay do to help?" Jagged's serious tone drew her gaze and his heart broke at the sight of unshed tears.

"I uhm well. I- That is, we-" With a huff, she calmed down and a look of determination shone on her face. "Adrien asked me out, on a date date in this really elaborate way. I turned him down. I have no idea what I was thinking but when he asked me I was so happy and then all I could think of was blue and how soft its is and it can be so calm or so chaotic and it’s always changing like the ocean but yet it's always the same and there this feeling of calm and I just couldn't say yes."

The quiet settled into a slightly awkward silence, Marinette was ignoring it and Penny was having nonverbal argument with Jagged on what to say next. With an eye roll that spoke louder than her shouting at him, the assistant took the lead once more. Quietly she rose from the chair she was occupying and sat next to the young designer smoothing out the crumpled sketch she had taken from the studio.

"Is this the blue you're talking about?" 

"Yeah… That’s my blue." A gentle smile touched peach lips briefly, blue eyes going soft.

"Is this the skater kid?"

"Skater kid?" Marinette blinked in confusion.

"Nah Pen it's the boat kid."

"He has a name you guys!" Marinette broke down into giggles, looking much more like herself and less like a zombie just waltzing around and going through the motions. "His name is Luka, yes the one who went me skating with Adrien and Kagami, yes the boat kid who has a heart way too big for just his mom and sister. And now me…"

"Sounds like you made a change?" Penny prompted smiling widely.

"A blue one yeah, I did."

"Has anyone ever told you just how adorable you are?" Jagged shouted, picking up the younger woman and swinging her around as she shrieked. 

"Okay Jagged, let's not take over her whole day. We did have a reason to show up here after all." Penny handed the tablet to Marinette after he relinquished his hold. "This is what we're looking at for a surprise concert once we are back here in Paris. There's some issues I'm ironing out but I wanted to see what you think and if you would take lead on the design aspect."

"Wait, lead designer for your show?" Blue bell eyes swiveled between ocean blue and hazel sets, wide with disbelief and building excitement.

"Yup, this tablet is yours by the way. I do ask you to keep just business on it for the show, if you want more traditional sketches that's fine but once it's done it needs to be uploaded on here." Jagged explained, clapping a red clad shoulder.

"Oh you need an opening act? I've got that covered." The sparkle was finally back in her eye to match the mischievous grin.

"I agree with Jagged, are you sure no one has said it before because you really are adorable."