#if i let myself get genuinely invested it wouldn't work because

[jacnaylor]

when i say oz gets worse every ep i don't mean it's a bad show i mean the things that are happening get increasingly more horrendous. like you think it can't get worse but then. it does. it always does.

[comicaurora]

Hey, sorry if you’ve been asked this before, but I have ADHD and I’ve been following your comic for years and just now have started to write my own comic (partially because you really inspired me). But I’m really struggling with staying on the project even when it’s boring and getting myself to work on it in the first place. Do you have any tips on how to keep your brain invested or just to make yourself do the work at all?

I have excellent news, I literally just figured out something really important about this.

So when you're an ADHD kiddo or otherwise have difficulty staying on task in a structured environment where Task is the Priority, the main way people try to MAKE you stay on task is by removing your access to anything that is not The Task. No phone, no TV, no doodling, no going outside, etc. In practice, this just makes us miserable because it takes the boredom that's always simmering around a 2 or 3 and cranks it all the way up to 11. In the same way that you would have difficulty staying on task if you were in physical pain, this crushing existential monotony makes it very difficult to work. The work might get done simply because you have no other options, but it will not be done quickly or well, and it will take a while to recover from how much it hurt.

What I realized earlier this week is I caught myself doing this to myself. I had 42 pages of background colors to do, and I thought to myself "this sounds really tedious, but I suppose I have nothing better I can do." And I realized what I'd just thought, and got very alarmed.

Because back when I was an ADHD kiddo imprisoned by school scheduling and a million little factors that keep children immobile and restrained, I couldn't stop thinking about how big and exciting the world was, and how much I wanted to be anywhere but here. When I was feeling really crushed in I'd pick a random spot on the maps on my wall and just imagine being there instead of my bedroom. This was the impetus behind almost all of my creative energy. I've said it before - anything is a prison if you can't leave, and being in a prison makes it easy to imagine how amazing things could be outside of it. Aurora's initial worldbuilding was forged in the crucible of fifth grade misery. My enthusiasm for art and my creative drive are inextricable from my sense of wonder and yearning for excitement in the real world. Not escapism, but appreciation. Wonders unimaginable are out there, and I gain just as much joy seeking them out as I do conjuring them up in my head and sharing them with all of you.

So now that I'm a grown-up with actual freedom in every way I've been able to get, the idea that I was staying on task by making myself believe the world was small and not worth seeing was extremely alarming. It could keep me on task for an afternoon, but at the cost of slowly extinguishing the thing that made me want to make art in the first place - the hunger to experience and draw inspiration from all the myriad complexities in the world.

So what I've been doing is I've been purposefully and intentionally taking excursions whenever I catch myself thinking "I could take a break but it wouldn't be worth it, it's the same outdoors as always, I'll be uncomfy and unproductive and tired." Because that is never true. Every time I've put down the stylus and gone out, I've been renewed in one way or another, and when I come back to comfort fully recharged I get a lot of shit done. Because it is easier to work on anything if you remember why you wanted to make it in the first place, and it is self-defeating misery to just lock yourself in with it and tell yourself you're a bad person if you can't get it done.

I honestly don't know how widely applicable this is. I have worse wanderlust than anyone I know, so for me this has always been modeled as imprisonment vs freedom. I've also been extremely lucky to find myself in a profession that lets me set my own pace on literally everything I do. But I genuinely believe that when it comes to making art with ADHD, you need to give yourself freedom to move laterally, not just in the direction of obvious forward progress. We don't think linearly in any other part of our lives - art is no different.

[memberment]

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE

So the Trinitarians brain worm is back and Morning Glory is now longer and biting the dust as far as my focus goes.

But like, I genuinely want to talk to anyone who's invested in what's to come as far as part two goes. SO PLEASE. I IMPLORE THE FOUR OF YOU WHO PERPETUALLY TAKE NOTICE OF MY SCREAMS INTO THE VOID.

We're all aware that Trin is a time loop fic. That is confirmed.

BUT THE PROBLEM IS HOW I'M GOING ABOUT DOING THAT. AND I NEED INPUT FROM PEOPLE THAT ARE NOT ME AS FAR AS PLEASES AND SPARKLES GO, YES?

Because like sure I'm writing it and like fuck everything else, let me tell my story. But it's the how of it all like if I'm gonna throw another 200 give or take hours into this I would at least like one person to be having a wonderful time drinking and driving (I have since remembered this is not a common phrase, I do not mean this in a literal sense, it's an expression) with me right?

Part two is going to be 50 chapters, give or take. (Part one is about 37 for reference.)

So the plan for part 2 rn is (ROGUHLY):

(1-10) is the second timeline. There are a lot of importants and I cannot just glaze over it all more than that. But we're also working in a bit of a shorter time period than the original events of the story and introductions do not need to happen again, right?

(11-40)ish would be me running through the next timelines in a set up structure -> what changes -> the results of said changes and then inevitably what sends our looper backwards. It wouldn't be running through all the timelines but the more notable ones in kind of a four chapter structure, I am not fully sold on four, but rough estimate yk.

And then 41-50 would be the finale of part two. It's literally the last timeline in its glory and then the epilogue which kicks off part three.

COULD AT LEAST ONE OF Y'ALL SIT THROUGH THAT OR DO YOU GUYS HAVE ANY NOTES AT ALL BECAUSE LIKE

I personally kinda like it but if not a soul is reading this I am throwing myself on the curb with the rest of the garbage LMFAOOO.

I NEED THOUGHTS. OPINIONS. COMMENTS. CONCERNS. ANYTHING.

Anyways, I'm going to work. I have off tomorrow and I broke the ff investment seal for today so insanity and updates will be here tonight and homework will be tomorrow.

HOPE EVERYONE HAS A GOOD DAY <3

(9:30) I am literally falling asleep as I lazily write this angel based on Danse Macabre. Expect all of maybe one more update tonight if the tacos I am abt to receive don't wake me up LMFAO.

Also, I am almost saddened by not having something to post tm. Anyone want an early chapter of something that isn't Genesis/Desolation bc they're both on Monday?????? (I am feeling like a menace rn)

(10:19) tacos and the absolute yap session I just had did wake me up a bit. MAAAYBE might write some more. Idk I slept like three hours last night and went to work I'm kinda dead. But we're at 98.2k!!!!!!🥳

(11:06) okay we made it to 99.6k everything besides the flashback for 31 is done. I'm about to relax and watch something and figure out mechanics of some of this because god this series is A BEAST. Like, I still have six planned chapters left.

Pure insanity. I love it here. I hate it here.

Holy shit wait I just came to the realization that I started this fic exactly one month ago. I have belted out 99.6k for THIS FIC ALONE. (Moreso if we're including future shit that hasn't happened yet)

IN ONE MONTH.

THAT IS FUCKING CRAZY WHAT HTE FUCK LMFAOOOO

I may or may not be cooking we’ll find out in 6-26 business hours

(5:28) So I just had a very interesting past few business hours. I read a fic I've been waiting ever so patiently to finish. That's cool, right. I go for a walk at 4 in the morning because I'm insane. Fantastic. I get home at five and I'm like ohhhh well what do I do now it's not sleep time yet. Oh write I'm supposed to be drawing.

Nope I reread the epilogue of morning glory and realized Tweek's first address is for my morning glory and Craig's last sign off is your morning glory and now I'm ready to throw myself on the curb with the garbage as I sob. Someone call a trusted adult for me thanks.

[spockandawe]

Binderary! I already spoiled how this went last night, but now let's review how it went with slightly nicer words and slightly nicer pictures. And, as a special treat at the end, I even have a spreadsheet.

Last winter, I expressed a vague desire to do a speed test, and see if I could sustain a pace of a book per day for an entire month. Text harvesting, typesetting, everything. This was at the stage where backing books was a terrifying leap of faith rather than a mildly tedious chore, and I'd never tried leather. I had a cricut, but had been too nervous to use it yet. And I did it! In fact, in pursuit of nice round numbers, I hit 30! I didn't realize, but the month wrapped right around my one year anniversary of starting bookbinding, and those projects landed me somewhere in the 130s of total books bound (my tracking spreadsheet has gaps and also needs a revamp).

This year, I had progressed a lot. I had gotten much more ambitious with my projects and was a MUCH better typesetter. I was confident I could hit exceed thirty, so instead I thought I would see how quickly I could do it. This was a fantastic plan, because work had me so exhausted and strung out that I accidentally started february a day early. Doing great. I pushed on so I wouldn't get an artificial rest and set my deadline at the 27th. Then.... in 13 days I hit 28, and all it took was one joking poke, asking if I thought I could average two books per day. It sank in. My brain ADORES ridiculous artificial conditions. I just Had to do it. I was emotionally invested. Anyways! I'm flirting with genuine burnout, but I DID IT, BABY. Last night I hit sixty!

SIXTY BOOKS! Five in leather! One in denim! One in velvet! Two edge marbled! One over a thousand pages! Three cnovels! All but one book cover done with my existing stash of paper, fabric, and leather! That one exception was tian ya ke where I knew which fabric I wanted, and I had precut pieces in my stash, but I wanted to fussy cut alignment on the fabric so I went out to buy more, hahaha

I did ease up my initial self-imposed rules a little, just because like forty books in, the concept of STORIES stopped meaning anything. I went hilariousuly numb. It's like semantic satiation, but for a concept. Stories? Never heard of em in my life. So when fics has multiple authors I wanted to gift them to, I made multiples and each counted as a separate book. Other books here were anthologies of a couple dozen stories, counted as one book. So I didn't stress it. I am legit more burned out than I wanted to be, I wasn't going to find EXTRA unnecessary reasons to push and make it worse. This was a fantastic achievement, and I'm really so proud of myself right now. My last svsss was book 201, and these are 202-261. This is just under a quarter of the books I've ever bound. I am EXTREMELY proud of this.

Now for dessert. SPREADSHEET. I'm redacting all the books and authors, because some of these are gifts and if i do decide to fully spoil the surprise, I'm at least going to do it with individual glamour shots. For now, this is what we've got. Please note the right three columns, where I tracked the total numbers of stories, words, and pages in here. Mistakenly saving the villain (part two) is the one that counts as 0 stories because it's split across two volumes, but everything else should make sense, I think. I did PRETTY DARN GOOD

[archivalofsins]

It's that unbothered feeling of no concern for others that Mikoto and Yuno can only give. One blatantly dismissing it while the other behaves in a way that denotes care and consideration only because that's what's most appropriate to the environment they wish to advance in.

Today's timeline interaction really brought back to mind a conversation Yuno and Mikoto had earlier on. Because Yuno's birthday conversation really highlights and follows up on this previous conversation well.

20/07/08

Yuno: Hey, Mikoto-san. Don’t you get tired being so conscious of others all the time? I mean, you’re free to do what you want though.

Mikoto: Eh…… Aha, what are you talking about I’m not being conscious or anything. It’s normal to make sure to get along with everyone, right? I mean, when you put it like that, aren’t you the same, Yun-chan? You’re always smiling and getting on with everyone too.

Yuno: I don’t smile unless I actually want to. But with you, when you’re talking with other people it’s more like you only smile deliberately. So I kept thinking, don’t your cheeks get tired? Ah, is this just what happens when you become a working adult? ……you see people like that sometimes.

Mikoto: Haha, you don’t mince your words do you. …….that was never my intention, but now that you mention it, yeah, I guess I do. This might’ve been since I started my job too…… But like, if I was rude to everyone I met, all my efforts would come to nothing, right?

"I don't smile unless I actually want to."

Umbilical

"I can't smile well anymore; it's because of you."

Tear Drop

"Let's just do it, please smile?"

"If I was rude to everyone I met, all my efforts would come to nothing, right?"

MeMe

"If I could end, if I could stop- How long would this dream go on?"

"If I could break it, if I could change- Can I do it; I wonder from when I started to give up?"

Voice line from the second trial teaser movie

Mikoto: [scream] You’re all fucking annoying! I’ll beat you all to death, pieces of shit!!!

*what follows may not be completely accurate since it's just my interpretation of this translation.*

23/09/02 (Yuno’s Birthday)

Kazui: You've been helping Shidou-kun, right? That's a bit surprising. You didn't seem to be the type to concern yourself with others.

Yuno: Hmm, what's this all of a sudden? It's not like you're wrong, I'm not really that interested in people. Under other circumstances I wouldn't even bother- But if someone is about to die in front of me, I'll help out. That's just normal, isn't it? Don't you view it that way too, Kazui-san? Despite helping too, you don't really seem invested on a fundamental level either.

Kazui: …Maybe. I'm not as sharp as Kashiki-chan. I was brought up in a world that was all about physical strength. So, I've never even thought about things like that.

Yuno: Haha, we're both liars, aren't we? The only difference between us is our reasons for lying. You lie to protect yourself, because you're important in your own eyes. For me, no one is particularly important- Even myself.

Both of their focus on how the way they behave is normal despite how emotionally uninvested in the action they are or if it directly contradicts their genuine feelings- Is just so interesting, and I think it should be highlighted more.

[bluegekk0]

Bit of a ramble about something that's been on a mind for a while, about HK and the AU. Not really a vent, but just wanted to talk about it. It's pretty long so I'll hide it.

My relationship with HK these days is a bit complicated, to be honest. I absolutely adore the game, I get this warm feeling every time I hear the soundtrack and I still get the itch to replay it from time to time. It's a work for art and I'm so, so grateful I played it, even if I was quite late to the party all things considered.

But I can't deny that I fell into the rabbithole of having too many headcanons where I can't engage with other people to the extent I perhaps used to. I don't like many of the popular characters nearly as much as the fandom does, and those that are close to my heart I interpret in a way that speaks to me, but one that feels very distant to how other people view them.

It has some downsides. I avoid looking up HK fanart and I'm slowly starting to dislike getting posts about it recommended to me in the For You tab a little bit. Not because the art is bad, far from it, there are incredible artists and other members of this community that deserve all the love in the world. It's just that it keeps reminding me that my interpretations are so personal, and headcanons that go against them almost feel like mischaracterization, as ridiculous as it sounds. Some interpretations end up upsetting me more than I'd like, too. Some of it is misinterpretations that annoy me, but some are just things I personally don't agree with.

But part of me makes me think that it's my fault somehow. I can't quite explain it, I think this is somehow rooted in my self-esteem issues. I often fear that I don't belong, that I'm doing something wrong by not following the general fanon, that my AU feels like an insult against the canon because of how derived and self-indulgent it is. I didn't have that problem before, not to this extent, but as my mental health got worse over the months, it makes sense that something like this would also start to make itself known. Or at least it makes sense to me.

So deep down I'm torn. On one hand, I get weirdly protective over my interpretations and it's gone to the point where I struggle to separate them from the versions other people talk about. On the other, I'm starting to feel guilty that my AU versions are so different that they might upset some people.

I had some moments where I considered turning them into OCs. But every time I I think about that, I reach the conclusion that no, I don't want to do that. I love them the way they are, despite their designs evolving with time, I wouldn't want to change anything about them, let alone turn them into different characters. And it's not like I'm really changing the character from the canon. Some details are different, but it's also easy to forget that we don't really know much about a lot of these characters, so in many ways I'm just filling the blanks and writing the story around it. Not to mention, adapting canon in ways that I find personally engaging is one of my favorite things about the worldbuilding and lore of the AU. And then there's all the engagement from people who like the AU and want to learn more that is genuinely the main reason why it's as expansive as it is. I don't think I would've stuck around making art for it for this long if I was doing it for myself only.

But it's not just art, knowing that people care, and getting all the interesting ideas I haven't considered inspires me to expand the world of the AU even further, I think about it in my spare time, of all the ways I could develop the world, I still get random ideas for it that I eventually want to include, I read about something in the game's lore and I immediately think of the way I could adapt it into my AU. It became a personal project that I find comfort in, and changing it would just feel wrong. And I know how my brain works (well, at least I think I do), I know I wouldn't remain as invested if I were by myself, I need to share it with other people. And I doubt they would be as interested if it wasn't for the connection to HK. I think that's natural and to be expected.

So all that leaves me in a bit of an awkward spot. I love HK, but over the last year I built a wall around me and the sandbox of my personal interpretations, that creates this disconnect between me and the rest of the fandom. I don't think that fact alone makes me upset, either. There's a reason why I'm still sitting there and playing in that sandbox to this day, and it's because I genuinely love doing it. I guess the disconnect just feeds into my already existing confidence issues and worries. Then again, I haven't really left the fandom, and I'm not planning to anytime soon. All I'm hoping for is that my low-confidence plagued brain improves, and stops telling me I'm doing something wrong by playing in the sandbox by myself.

Okay, not by myself, that would be selfish of me to say. There's still a lot of you here, people whom my silly AU clicked with, people who want to see more of it and are still there for the 6th slice of life drawing of the week. I love and appreciate you all, and I'm really grateful I can share the sandbox with you. You're the best, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I'm so, so happy that you found something in my art that resonated with you.

I don't know how to end this post tbh. Again, it's not really meant to be a vent post, not the usual kind at least. Even if some things about this frustrate or upset me a little bit, I think I'm slowly moving towards the acceptance stage. I don't want to change my interpretations so they're more in line with the rest of the fandom, and I don't want to force myself to engage with things that upset me just to feel like I belong. All I'm hoping is that I eventually stop having doubts; about this, and everything in general.

I guess I just wanted to share my thoughts. Maybe someone else feels like they're in a similar spot. Maybe hearing some words of encouragement that I'm not going insane with this would also help me accept the position I'm in. Maybe it's Maybelline.

[ishvalan-alchemist]

Why I prefer FMA03 over Brotherhood.

Simply: How they treat the characters.

I notice liking the character interactions much more in the first show. I found myself remembering Team mustang more in 03 than BH because they were kind of a goon squad. Yes, the tone of BH is more serious. But say Heyman or Havoc died, I wouldn't have cared as much. I can buy 'these guys are friends more in 03 because we see them goofing around and acting like friends more in 03.

We see Ed start out respecting Mustang in earlier episodes. A kid looking up to this military leader and wanting to impress him. Then realizing he's kind of a prick and letting egos clash.

Brotherhood drops in with the two already disliking each other. This isn't a bad thing, but I'm definitely more invested after seeing how Ed & Roy got to that point in their relationship. Furthermore, 03-Roy gets points for never putting his hands on Ed/a kid as BH-Roy does.

Maes is introduced as Roy's friend calling him up to talk about his pregnant wife. From there, we see him as a skilled knife user, a new dad, a surrogate uncle figure to Ed & Al, the nerdy guy in the office that everyone is mildly annoyed by, and the right-hand man to Roy. All of this is over season 1. With his death closing out the season. The last image before the credits roll is Ed seeing his ghost.

BH tries to cram a lot of this in 10 episodes. That's nowhere near enough time for me to feel connected to this side character. He's been an overprotective dad, the nerdy guy in the office, and we see him use a knife 1 time in 1 scene. BH does better with giving his death closer (Roy vs Envy), but I didn't really care about Maes before they fridged him for Roy's development.

Nina is the same way to Ed & Al. In 03, I can buy that the Elrics saw her as a little sister because we see them interact much more across multiple episodes. In BH, it's all 1 episode.

Paninya & Wirny's discussion in 03 feels more earned. The two talk about automail and how they view it all while Winry fixes her arm. This is after Ed scams a scammer that broke Paninya's automail. So while I do side with Ed on a personal level, I can understand where Winry's anger/disappointment is coming from in this episode. Also, this gives Paninya a chance to show her parkour skills under less 'happily committing a felony' reasons. If Paninya & Winry met again in 03, I'd be excited to see what else the two had to say or get into.

In BH, Paninya is just a thief who steals Ed's watch. Winry tells her to stop stealing and...she agrees. That's it. A 30-second speech was all it took. It's one of the most rushed scenes I've seen in any show and I genuinely hate it.

Scar is the second biggest contrast I've seen of characters who're in both shows. Third, is Sheska whos a full character in 03 but is in 2 episodes in BH. The first is the next example I give after this one.

Anyway, Scar in 03 I absolutely can get behind. 03 as a show does everything to show the horrors of Ishval. From Roy & Alex's PTSD. To casual racism background characters have for Ishvalans. We see more Ishvalan characters outside of Scar so we have a fuller picture. He starts out as this guy cursed with the arm and just looking for answers. Falling back to religion at times and becoming calculated in his vengeance. Going from 'what do I do?' to leading a caravan saying 'here's what I need you to do'. He legitimately could've been the main character in his own story.

BH Scar is willing to throw down with a 12-year-old from the get-go. At times, it feels like he fights what the plot puts in front of him rather than seeking out a goal. I can buy this guy working with the military at the end of the show since 'the world is at stake'. But, just barely.

The homunculi in 03 are humans that were brought back via alchemy. So, each of them can be killed if they're close to something from when they are alive. A body part, cloth, etc. It's much more personal when Izumi sees what would've been her biological kid joining the bad guys. Ed has to dig up the grave of his mom so he can defeat Sloth. It's so heavy and is one of my favorite moments in 03 with the colors of the sunset overshadowing Ed's face as he finds what he needs. It also makes the homunculi a threat with a weakness that ties into their origin. Manipulated by a villain who wants to live forever.

Meanwhile, in BH, the Homunculi are still interesting characters (except for Sloth). But they're just henchmen created for 1 immortal. With a weakness of:

"I figured it out. We just need to punch them really, really hard." - TFS Piccolo

I could keep going with more examples, but I feel as though that could come across as me 'hating' BH. Which I don't. I love both versions. But when I see 'Bh is better because it follows the manga', that means jack to me. Just because something is a more faithful adaptation, doesn't mean it's a better overall product.

[halfdeadwallfly]

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who liked or reblogged something from you! Get to know your mutuals and followers✨

!!! (I realized too late this is five things, ten ppl :(((( sorry abt that one.... Feel free not to read but I wanted to talk abt them haha )

My acappella group--- I was in a lot of groups and things in high school, and I listened to a lot of sentimental graduation talks about people finding their home and their family in those places. It always made me so sad, because I never did. But even though I'm not close friends with everyone in acappella now, I already feel so much more comfortable and at home with it already than I ever did in high school. I love the people all so much, and I'm so happy to be around them every time we go to rehearsal and every time we perform. Being in acappella has been the highlight of my year honestly, and I'm so grateful for it. I love the music, I love to direct and lead and sing, and the people are just so so so kind. Genuinely. Even when I feel anxious or stressed or I feel like I need to hide, I know that I can work through it, because I really just trust that outside of my own social anxiety, these people are kind and genuine. I love them so much and being around them makes me so happy.

Making flower chains -- pure pure fun. Can do anything you like during. Or nothing. Listen to a podcast. Listen to the buggies. Like down. Run around. Frolick. I love finding a good patch of flowers with long stems, esp if there's multiple kinds, and just really investing myself in them. You can find little buggies and greet them and love them so much when you are in the grass and such, and it is super nice to see them all. My favorites are rolly pollies but I also like snails and slugs a lot and also I think ants are cute and beetles and worms so I always try to help out the worms if they get lost

Writing poetry -- very good to do, do not always recommend rereading. Do recommend taking poetry 1 with [redacted] at my school bc he is the greatest and so kind and helpful. I love writing poetry even if it does make me hate myself for being too pretentious sometimes. Sometimes I like what I write and it is nice to talk about with people and get thoughts and opinions

Reading abt gender theory -- Genuinely life-changing thing taking that intro to wgss class this year lolollll. Maybe it is silly of me, but that class really made me rethink myself and where I want to go with my life. There's so much more that I want to read and learn and I'm almost anxious that I can't do it fast enough

Looking at the stars and clouds -- a good one. It makes me happy. I am very small. Sky is beautiful like art. It's the same and it's never the same. I'm getting tired sky is still up there. Space is very very very cool. Clouds are very very very cool

Cicadas -- BEAUTIFUL CREATURES!!!!! they have been so loud this year and I had to wear headphones outside while watering the plants for a while, but I also get to see all of them out there!!!!!!!!!! And different kinds too!!!! They are so beautiful and lovely and it makes me so happy to see them and hear them too most of the time. When I was little they would always be dying under the trees at recess and the boys would mess around with them when they couldn't fly away, so I had to go make them stop so they wouldn't be dying while being tormented by ten year old boys. I was always very mad when they did that and I'm always still super sad to see cicadas in the midst of dying when they can't fly anymore. But I love their singing and their songs and their nice nice eyes, and I like to pick them up if they let me and have them crawl all over my arms because their legs are sticky and nice. They're the prettiest little bugs and I love them

Melted brie cheese -- yummy.

Putting on pajamas after work -- I work in a warehouse with no ac which is ok but kinda sucks in the summer, esp when it's super humid like it is now where I am. I also package coffee that often is flavored with really strong syrups, and is often ground, so I almost always leave work smelling intensely like pancake syrup (less nice than it sounds after nine hours) and covered in gritty coffee. It's a good job and I like it a lot actually, but boy by the end of a day when the temperature is high, it's super tiring. When I get home I just take off all my work clothes and turn off the lights and lie in the dark, and it's so nice and calming and I really love getting to do that, and relax into a calm cool late afternoon.

Drinking coffee with real cream -- Aka. super duper yummy. I get to work before everyone else in the morning, so I make the first coffee pot and I always make me and the other early packaging person's fav blend, and it's basically my favorite part of the morning, watching the sun rise while the coffee brews and coming back to my work area to greet the morning window spiders. At home in the summer, I love making iced coffee with milk and adding just an eeeeensy bit of cream, it's so tasty and it makes it all nutty and buttery and rich, and it brings out all the good flavors.

Listening to podcasts -- thank you podcasts you make me so happy. Right now thank you tanis for driving me insane and thank you wolf 359 for helping me feel calm and safe when I'm stressed. Special thank you to zach valenti because his voice in particular is like really soothing and anyway that sounds weird but like you know what I mean. Past thank you to potterless for getting me into podcasts and referring me to the bright sessions, which was the first audio drama I listened to and got sooo into. Special thank you to lauren shippen for being like my favorite podcaster ever oh my gosh, and honorable mention to briggon snow for being in so many of those lauren shippen related shows. Thank you wtnv for coming near me so I could see the attic. Thank you to literally every show I've listened to. Basically everybody in my life thinks the podcast thing is kinda weird and laughs a bit when I get too into it, but honestly this is like. A really important thing to me now. I love podcasts a lot and they make me very very happy to get to listen to

[hardtchill]

For me it’s very similar to the other anon. I’m turning 25 this year and I’ve still not got my bachelors degree because I had to quit my first go around at uni since i physically couldn’t learn for my exams. Granted it was compounded by other issues such as depression and anxiety but i genuinely believe that a not insignificant part of those issues come from the fact that adhd makes it near impossible to organise myself (unmedicated btw).

Seeing this on my feed rn is kind of ironic since even though im in my third year of a degree that I actually enjoy now, I literally dropped out of an exam that I was supposed to write today cuz I couldn’t revise. It’s not like I didn’t have the time and I’ve known for weeks about the deadline, but with every assignment or exam I push my own boundaries further and further back until I can’t do it anymore. Last semester I crammed 84 pages worth of notes in under 48h, an exam mind you that I’d pushed back over a year and was literally my last shot or I’d not be allowed to continue with my studies. I barely slept, I was throwing up, but I somehow passed, and with a good grade at that. Since then my brain is like, well you managed to do that that one time so you can totally afford to wait until the DAY before an exam to finish it. Or write a 15 page paper in a day.

And you know what, maybe I can. But the problem is the cost. It’s killing me. I find that it’s also very isolating cuz generally people don’t have a lot of empathy for this? So I end up pulling back from everyone including my best friends until I’m at a point again where I can be around people without letting on how incredibly bad I’m doing. Or I just straight up lie so they don’t know that I’ve not done the things i said I would do.

And all this is not just within the framework of academia. It’s also impacted my wellbeing in a more general sense - cooking for myself is hard because I tend to not listen to my body’s cues until I’m on the verge of passing out cuz i forgot to eat or drink, or by the time I’m hungry I still have to make a meal so I end up ordering something cuz it’s faster. Same with showering daily or brushing your teeth. Getting any routine started in general and sticking with it. I’ve been meaning to start exercising again but I keep delaying it for no reason. I’ve worked out regularly in the past so I know it’s something that I enjoy and that makes me feel good but despite that I’m still stuck in this place of inertia? It’s awful.

I’ve talked to some friends who also have adhd about it and the inability to start something cuz it isn’t instantly gratifying or that doesn’t align with an interest but is an obligation is quite common. Can I binge 7 seasons of a reality show in a week if it really interests me? Hell yeah! (I do watch everything at 2x speed cuz everyone talks too slow lmao but still). Will i fly through a massive book and literally forego sleeping if it means getting through more of it if im really invested? Absolutely. 1500 puzzle? Massive Lego set? Yep! Taking notes from a textbook for an assignment? Literally kill me right now.

I’m sorry for this long ass message and idek if you’re gonna read all of this but yeah just wanted to share my experience. Adhd is absolutely not quirky or a superpower and I wish there was a better understanding of it out there because it makes me my own worst enemy every day.

Ugh anon i feel you so much. I have skipped on many an exam during my bachelors because i just couldn't concentrate, focus or start revision. It's completely miserable to literally see the time go by where you feel the stress but you just cannot get your brain to start on what you need to do.

Any time i told teachers and now colleagues that i work well with deadlines i get told i'm not motivated enough because if i was i wouldn't need deadlines. That's just so unfair! My brain is graving dopamine, it's not laziness that my brain does this, it's literally just ADHD.

This is the same reason why your brain (usually) jumps into action when that crippling anxiety hits, because you're so close to a deadline that your brain can smell the dopamine.

The only reason that i finished my 6 month thesis is because i had many mini deadlines during those 6 months. I felt the anxiety to finish a part of it every month and i had a teacher who was very nice and gave you compliments when you did (DOPAMINE). If i didn't have that i would still be writing my thesis now.

ADHD is so misunderstood by so many people. It affects every part of your life and the negative consequences are so much bigger and impactful than the potential positive outcomes. I mean yeah i'm creative and can think fast, awesome but that doesn't make up for the anxiety, stress and grief you go through anytime your brain just doesn't want to start something.

[missjanjie]

Need some advice from someone not invested in the situation,so don't mind the vent:

My mother is hell-bent on my returning to complete a degree programme that I was in when I was a teenager (17 or so). Here's the thing though. I was so unhappy doing this programme that I couldn't even go to class without getting anxious or wanting to throw up. Grades-wise, I was fine, I suppose(the pass mark for this particular degree was a B, so 60%). But I grew to hate the programme itself because my anxiety was through the roof.

So, my Registrar saw the state I was in and suggested that I take a break and do an unassociated(heh) Associate Degree till I got myself together mentally. As of currently, I'm the top student in that particular Associate Degree and having a great time(and my anxiety's practically non-existent).

Here's the issues though. My mother hates that I've "downgraded" myself by doing an Associate Degree and continues to insist that I was "tricked" into doing it by the Registrar(who was genuinely trying to help). So,to fix my supposed "mistake", I should immediately return to the original Bachelor's Degree I was doing and complete it (despite the visceral trauma it caused me) because "everyone else in your age group has Master's Degrees and PHDs and you have nothing to show" (I'm 22).

But the thing is, why not get a Bachelor's Degree in a different subject area? I'm not opposed to higher education at all,but she's so fixated on the original Bachelor's Degree (in STEM) that I was doing that she can't let it go. She brings it up every chance she gets. I could be drinking a glass of water and she'll find a way to bring it up. Going so far as to say that it's what God wants me to do(I'm sure God wouldn't want me actively having panic attacks while doing what He supposedly wants me to do, but I digress).

So,yeah. What do I do? Where do I even go from here? If I make suggestions about an alternate path,she'll either ignore me, talk over me or segway into talking about my original Bachelor's Degree programme and how I should be graduating right now.

(Sorry for the long rant. Kinda don't have anyone to get my feelings out to IRL.)

unless you live in a weird mensa cult I don’t think people your age have masters/phd’s. people my age don’t have phd’s and only those in specific fields (usually teaching or social work) have masters and im 28.

also i have a little anecdote that while may not provide answers, can offer some perspective. when i was in college i took a feminist studies course and in that class was a 72 year old woman. i initially assumed she was just auditing the class (ie taking it for fun) but she explained to me that she was finishing her degree. i asked her what made her decide then and she told me “sure, i couldve gone back ten years ago or even twenty years ago. but that wasn’t where my journey was taking me.” point being, your journey is yours alone

there isn’t really anything you can do about your mom if you still live with her or are otherwise financially dependent on her except stay the course until you’re able to get out on your own or something like that. im assuming you’re not american based on some spelling, so i don’t really know the university system there so i could be off base

[anchorandrope]

leaving jokes aside, do you actually care about anti-larry and/or anti-larries (in a good way)? like would you forgive them for the harassment if they genuinely ask you to do it?

hii !! well, actually i don't have a short answer for this question so i'll try to make it as concise as i can.

first of all, i do believe that people can change their mind after getting educated and as they grow up, so if a 15 y/o in 2014 told me to kms now comes and ask me for forgiveness, if i see that they are actually sorry i definitely would forgive them. i don't own them nothing, im well aware i do not need to forgive people to find peace to myself, to have self-esteem and love, i believe humans do not need to forgive to heal in any kind of way. being that said, i know that people feel like asking for forgiveness is a good way to heal themselves and if so, i would be really happy to forgive.

if you had asked me this same question a couple of years ago, im sure my answer would be different, but since i took a step back in the fandom and i worked on myself, i realised that even though its totally unacceptable to harras and send death threats to someone, no matter your age or life situation, its absolutely unworthy to reply every anonymous ask, to try to ask for respect, to be kind and to try to make them understand that what they are doing is wrong.

of course you are allowed to be mentally drained after harassment because it can hurt, specially if you are struggling on a daily basis. but at the end of the day, anonymous asks and blogs here or on other social media are people who don't know you and if they believe they do only because you posted something on the internet they didn't like they are clearly the problem. this might be the hardest thing to say but online or irl you will find people who dislike you and that's okay. we are billions of souls on this planet, of course some of them are gonna be mean, and it sucks! but what you have to try to do is to don't take hate that personal. people who correct your errors and try to explain you respectfully why you are mistaken are usually good people or people who love you. people who call you horrible stuff without any intention of making you change but to make you feel bad are the people who you don't have to pay attention to. people reflect their insecurities, problems, etc on others all the time (mostly unconsciously) and if you ever try to explain them that fact, they will get defensive.

your time and energy are something precious, you will never live the same second two times. try to work on yourself, try to ask yourself what do you want to invest your time and energy into. is a tumblr anon who call me stupid worth it of taking my energy and time? is it useful to spend hours worrying about anonymous messages on the internet? one day you will understand that no, its never worth it. try to pay more attention to people who love and appreciate you, who correct you for your good and who are always by your side.

my recommendation is to hold people accountable for what they did, never justify what they have done to you (or anyone) but always try to think with kindness and not with hate. of course the person who sent you a copy-paste hate message on your askbox is an idiot, what im trying to say is that maybe and just maybe that idiot is having thr worst time of their lives and hating on everyone is the only way to feel relief, which it is unacceptable but, in my opinion, thats what it makes me feel in peace with myself, because i know that im not the problem. and honey, i can assure you that is nothing more comforting than it wasn't your fault.

i hope that i explained myself the way i want to be understood, if not please let me know how can i help you to understand this better.

and lastly, i want to say something that i know that a lot of people wouldn't like, but i believe its time to be said. giving attention to people who hates you its only gonna make them wanting to hate you more and more and starting hating on others. so if you actually care if making this or any fandom/community an better place to express our interests in a mature and pleasant way, you need to stop answering hate anons. it might be "funny" to you, but think of others. what if we all collectively posted every hate we receive? do you believe that your twitter timeline or tumblr dash is gonna be full of fan art and fics? you are fooling yourself if so. is it worth it posting triggering stuff and stuff that may affect others mental-health? yeah that's what i though.

i wish from the bottom of my heart, peace, health and love to everyone single soul out there who is struggling with hate. and if you keep sending hate being an adult, not knowing if you are sending that to a minor or a suicidal person, i wish you get the karma you need. you cannot convince me that you have the "dream life" you claim to have because if so, you won't be hating on tumblr blogs by the year of 2024. you are, in fact a pathetic piece of shit who sadly believes that insulting anonymously is gonna make this a better world ;)

[marshmallowprotection]

About your post regarding ocs, you are so right. And to that anon or anyone who reads this, your advice was so top tier and should be followed 100%

I mean that's the beauty of writing, is it not? It doesn't matter how crazy something seems if it brings you joy at the end of the day. Besides, some of the best characters or oc x canon fics I've ever read are ones that are so self indulgent. A lot of people love the same ideas, so to read it in someone else's work is always fun and exciting!

My cmc for example, she's for Saeran too. She's literally a run away princess, and yes it still follows the Canon ish plot of the game. Why? Because why not! It's fun! All of my cmcs are pretty out there tbh...And sure I may post my work, but it doesn't matter If anyone reads it or even if they have critiques on it.

That's honestly what I love about your page, you post a lot of stuff that others probably wouldn't just because you like to write for enjoyment. Your passion truly shows, and you have a great talent for writing. I also love how devoted you are to Saeran, it's nice to see other people who never lost that love for these characters. I grew up with them, I don't think I'll ever stop loving them. My cmc and Saeran story will literally always move forward, and I love seeing yours and reading them.

I do think the best lesson anybody can learn is that when you're creating something, you should be creating it because it's something that's fun and you enjoy doing it. If you're creating things because you want to make others happy and not yourself, that's not going to end well.

It's a good thing to want to make other people smile, but it's more important to make sure that you are taking care of your needs, too. You have to remember it's important to love yourself just as much as it is to love the people around you.

Sometimes, the best characters I've seen somebody create come from a place that people might consider “cringe or embarrassing.” Well, there is no such thing as cringe and people should be having some fun. I don't care how preposterous or ridiculous an idea is for your character, if you like it and you want to have fun with it, go for it! The only thing that matters, in the end, is that you are making things that make you happy.

If you want to know the best way to learn how to enjoy the things you create, art, writing, or whatever you do, then you need to let go of trying to please other people with the things that you create. You need to think with yourself in mind first and foremost. If you are doing that, then the people who are genuinely interested in that will come around eventually.

Sure, it might take some time, I know it's genuinely taken me a long time to get to the point that I'm at! But, because I've spent so much time focusing on writing things that make me happy, I feel a lot better than I did a long time ago when I was only trying to please everybody else. When you are happy with what you are creating, people can see it. People can see your enjoyment in your words and your creations.

I don't know how to describe it because it's just a feeling you get when you see somebody who's putting everything into something.

Creating things that make you happy shouldn't be done because you want to be popular or receive attention, not that there's anything wrong with wanting that because everybody wants and deserves validation in some form! But, if you are making something because you wanted to boom in popularity and you're not deeply invested in that very creation, you're only going to burn yourself out and just feel miserable in the process.

That's why I'm so happy to write stories that make me happy. That means I’ll spend a few weeks working with my CMC! I’ll write her a story where she and Saeran can be happy and unlearn their trauma and it makes me giddy to see their world in print. Or! When I’m really feeling self-indulgent, I’ll go even further and write a self-insert story about myself and Ray.

Bonus points to me for when I write something I know that nobody but me and maybe three other people are going to read, but I'm writing it because I want to see what happens! It's good to want feedback and commentary, but it's just as important that you're having fun in the process of creating.

All of my ramblings aside, I hope that if anybody can take anything away from my rambling, it's that they need to enjoy what they're creating and have fun with it.

[hersweetrevenge]

corey cunningham x roger allen: relationship headcanons

i've become unreasonably invested in this pairing, and feel the need to explain myself lol. i think a relationship between corey and mr allen is fundamentally very complex and problematic, while also being an all american story of infidelity and youth.

WARNING for corey cunningham x mr allen, age gap relationship, smut, unprotected sex, infidelity/cheating, implied sex work, mildly implied child abuse (corey and his mom), murder, violence and child death. 3.8k word count.

pre-accident

their relationship is sort of like a subversion of the "lonely wife has an affair with the pool boy", but instead it's the "white collar husband has an affair with the boy who mows their lawn".

no matter how many times roger tells corey to call him roger, corey pretty much always says mr allen.

when corey first starts doing yard work, he put flyers (printed at the library) in the letterboxes through the nicer neighbourhoods in haddonfield.

joan is not happy about it. she wants corey at home, with her, always. but he's been getting a lot of big idead lately about college and independence and she is not happy. not one bit.

he meets the allens when they call the number he left and ask if he can come by at the weekend to talk about what he can help with.

corey got a crush first, almost as soon as he first met the allens, but roger was the one to instigate the affair, after a couple of months.

to begin with, roger thinks corey is a well-meaning but awkward kid, clearly not used to speaking to people that much. there's a sort of boyish confidence that comes through now and then, when he's talking about something he knows well. as time goes by roger starts to wonder -- when corey takes his shirt off in the heat, he must know what he's doing, right?

both of them are bisexual. roger experimented in college and was comfortable in his identity, but isn't really open about it since he got married. corey is still figuring himself out when the affair starts, but he's had a lot of crushes on both men, especially older men, and women.

[contrary to my original fic] i actually think corey was 20 when he starts working for the allens, while roger is in his mid 40s.

roger starts an affair for the classic, all american reason: his marriage has gotten boring. he wants an affair with someone younger and more exciting who will let him play out his fantasy of still being in his prime.

i don't think he has sinister or malicious intentions when he "seduces" corey. maybe he's just defending his own actions, but corey is an adult, if he didn't want to do anything then he wouldn't, right? corey clearly has a crush, right?

corey really, genuinely respects the allens' marriage.

not only does corey respect the allens as a couple (the ideal american marriage when compared with his mom and ronald), but he also really respects roger. i don't think (at that point) corey would "whore himself out" for a man he didn't respect.

deep down, corey is aware of how this all looks. he knows he's being a homewrecker.

but another part of him feels like he's doing something good. if roger was going to cheat, surely it's better that he does it with corey, than with someone else who doesn't care about his marriage.

another motivation for why corey gives in so easily is that his life is so controlled and there is so much pressure on him, he just wants an outlet to forget about everything. think gifted kid to dumbification kink pipeline.

he doesn't want to think about anything at all, and roger makes it so he doesn't have to. makes it so that his mind is empty and all he has to do is lie there and let himself feel good. it's an offer he won't can't pass up.

roger used to watch corey do yard work from the kitchen window, when he was at home. the sight made him stay home on the weekend a lot more.

even though a lot of their affair is based on convenience, roger can very much see how handsome corey is.

roger loves making corey laugh, because his laugh loud and childish. and he means it to, roger can tell he isn't faking.

mrs allen is rarely mentioned, beyond whether she is home or not, and where she is if she isn't home. both of them have a guilty conscience about her.

roger starts to wonder, is corey like this with everyone he works for? does he put on an elaborate act of "awkward, blushing virgin" -- is he actually sleeping with all the people he does yard work for? and he acts all innocent because he knows it gets people going?

corey understands he's being used. he knows this isn't a "relationship" and roger definitely isn't going to leave his family for him or anything like that, they're not going to be together, so he tells himself that he's just going to enjoy it while it lasts.

but in saying that, corey definitely fell in love a little bit.

corey's isn't your "classic" attention whore, but he is one all the same. he never had a dad and now this older man is showing him a lot of (special) attention? he'll do anything to keep it.

what can he say, he has some intense daddy issues. being wanted by an older man satiates that for a while.

plus it makes him feel like he has some control in his life. and makes him feel like an adult where he doesn't at home. it feels so grown up to have an affair.

roger doesn't know everything about corey's home life, but he thinks he understands, from what corey tells him when he's feeling vulnerable. he knows corey is lonely and stressed; a resentful momma's boy.

corey tells him about his college plans; he wants to be an engineer, wants to go to a school in chicago. if anything, roger feels an affection for him. he wants corey to find a better life for himself.

in all honesty, corey doesn't really know much about roger either. he sees him as this ideal family man, father figure and partner. he's so caught up in that, and so validated by his attention, that he forget he doesn't really know him. he knows one side of him.

roger still pays corey money for doing "yard work". corey does still do that, to keep up appearances, but he's less thorough than he used to be. they both know what the money is really for.

corey tells himself he doesn't care about the money. he needs it, but that's not what he's having this affair for.

he's selling himself (or letting himself be bought) for affection more than money.

subconsciously, it does mess him up a little bit though.

roger's thoughts about corey possibly putting on an act lose all their credit after the first few times they do anything. there's no way corey is faking this sort of earnest inexperience.

because corey is very nervous and shy at first. he's so inexperienced and he doesn't want to embarrass himself. mostly he just let's roger do whatever he wants to him.

they always have their trysts at the allen house.

at first it's at the weekend when corey is there to do the yard and mrs allen and jeremy aren't at home, but then roger starts inviting corey around more, still when mrs allen and jeremy are out (lucky for them, his wife and child have busy social lives).

roger starts finding more time to be at home when corey can be there, working from home when he can. think blow jobs while on a zoom meeting.

roger drinks heineken, pretty much all of their hook ups begin with them having a drink, even before corey hits 21.

corey's about to get a pavlov response to the sound of beer bottles clinking together.

the first few times, they only kiss. then it gets more hot and heavy, dry humping and grinding, a hand job here and there. roger teaches corey how to give head. he fingers him to get him used to the feeling because he's never done this before. they stay in the kitchen or on the couch.

the first time corey ever sucked dick, it took him a while to take it down all the way, even with roger guiding him through it.

his eyes water and roger wipes away the tears that spill over, his other hand always in his hair.

he gets good though, very good, even though he's nervous every time. roger secretly likes that nervous look, it's such a contrast to how he actually takes it like a champ. call him the king of sloppy toppy. and he always swallows.

the first time corey got a blow job he cried. just like he did with all of his other firsts. it's actually kind of rare that roger gives corey head. corey'd rather give than receive with oral, he thinks, but really roger is just kind of selfish.

roger took corey's virginity. sometimes he even feels guilty about it.

corey cried. he tried not to, he really did, but he couldn't help it. the stretch was more than he expected, even with a lot of prep and he'd never felt so full before.

("just the tip," roger had promised, to see if he could take it. it felt okay, corey had nodded to keep going but didn't realise how overwhelming it'd be)

roger pets his hair, kisses his temple, strokes his dick to try and and calm him down. it starts feeling good, really good and too much all at once.

condoms? never heard if them. it's not like roger can knock him up and they're both clean so roger never even suggests it.

corey loses his virginity in the allens' bed. after that, they pretty much always do it in the bedroom.

missionary is their usual position, though sometimes corey rides cowgirl because roger likes seeing him do all the work to get himself there.

roger doesn't really do dirty talk, corey seems too innocent for that sort of thing (in the beginning anyway). he does dole out the praise though.

"good boy" "you're so good for me" "you're taking me so well, look at you" "it's okay, i've got you"

their sex life is pretty vanilla to be honest. roger isn't into anything particularly kinky, and corey hasn't figured himself out that far yet.

the thrill of "we shouldn't be doing this" is enough.

while praise is the main thing corey likes, he's also into overstimulation (once he deals with the actually overwhelming aspect of the first few time), something like dumbification (without the more objectifying aspects), and he is more than willing to do a little bit of begging. roger tries a little bit of teasing degradation on occasion, but corey doesn't like it that much; he doesn't want to feel like he's doing something wrong or he isn't good enough.

the riskiest thing they ever did was have a quickie while jeremy was at home. corey was there to do the yard (and more), but jeremy is unexpectedly at home because his playdate got cancelled. jeremy is playing upstairs in his room and when corey comes back inside from the garden, mr allen corners him in the kitchen.

he nudges corey up onto the counter, a hand going down the front of his shorts.

corey whimpers and shakes his head, "jeremy's --"

"upstairs," mr allen finishes his sentence for him, "he won't be down for a while - kids and their computers- don't worry about it."

slowly corey starts to get more comfortable and confident during their escapades, he leans into what he knows roger wants. someone young and playful who can give him a run for his money, but who will always give in, in the end.

he starts having fun, like he's playing the role of someone more confident and sexy and teasing.

roger sometimes sends him upstairs to get ready while he grabs them some beers and locks the front door. corey does as he's told, stripping off and laying in mr allen's bed and when he walks in, corey smiles at the older man, legs spread wantonly, "see anything you like?"

roger is initially surprised at how malleable and easy corey is to manhandle when he wants to be. roger is taller by a few inches, but corey had broad shoulders and broad hips, he isn't waifish by any means. roger likes how boyishly masculine corey is.

corey is very, very good at keeping secrets. he's so used to his mom's snooping and meddling that he's perfected the art of hiding things from her. and really, who else is he going to tell?

the hardest part is hiding any marks on his skin. corey is carefully not to leave any on roger, but roger doesn't always extend the same courtesy.

joan has an annoying habit of just walking into corey's room, or even the bathroom while he's in the shower, without knocking to collect his washing or talk to him or interrogate him, so he has to be careful she doesn't see anything like a hickey ln his neck or bruises on his hips or else he'll never, ever hear the end of it.

corey is a stickler for punctuality. he is always home in time for dinner. there have been a few close calls where they lost track of time and corey needed to bike hard as hell to get home on time.

a random thing corey was unnecessarily embarrassed about was that he only wears tighty-whiteys, and not even a good brand, they are classic fruit of the loom. roger literally doesn't care, it's even kind of endearing. and the darker part of him gets a thrill out of it, knowing corey's mom still buys and probably washes his underwear while corey is here getting his brains fucked out.

speaking of that darker side of roger. he knows corey is an adult, capable of making his own decisions, but there's something about him being so dependent that does something to him.

[i'm not sure if i really believe they'd go this far, but i don't think it's out of the realm of possibility] roger takes corey out of town for a dirty weekend. corey lies to his mom, roger lies to theresa.

this dirty weekend is a turning point for their sex life.

with no time constraints, they go so many rounds they start losing count.

still nothing particularly wild, but things mrs allen wouldn't do.

corey already fulfilled one of those things for him, of course. theresa would never let him do anal.

the rest are more mundane things, like doggy style and wake up blow jobs and shower sex. even just the sense of free use that means they keep going and going and going.

corey isn't delusional (he swears he isn't), but he turns off his brain for the weekend and imagines this is his real life. with roger spending money like it was nothing, on a fancy as fuck hotel room and hundreds of dollars of room service, and having all the time in the world to laze around in bed watching movies and having zero expectations placed on him.

the boldest and hottest thing corey did on that trip was pull roger's wedding ring off with his teeth when he put his fingers in his mouth to get wet. even corey doesn't know what possessed him to do that, but the way roger practically fold him in half to fuck him afterwards, he's glad for the divine inspiration.

that is also the first time they literally sleep together after having sex, and they end up getting, perhaps dangerously, sentimental. corey just wants to be held and roger is much too gentle with him for someone who claims this is just a casual fling.

in corey's fantasies when he's alone in bed, he gets off on the forbidden nature of the affair, but it never really translates to their actual encounters.

he thinks about how he does things for mr allen that mrs allen wouldn't, thinks about saying it one day because he knows it'd drive roger crazy.

"i bet your wife doesn't feel this good, does she?" "she doesn't moan like i do" "she doesn't let you ruin her".

he'd never say any of that out loud, and it leads to some of his meaner and more delusional daydreams.

selfish. corey knows deep down that he's selfish. He doesn't want to think about mrs allen or jeremy, and he wants to be mr allen's one and only. he'd let mr allen do anything to him and he knows he'd love him so well if he got the chance.

but that is never going to happen, of course. corey knows that.

corey swings between those selfish daydreams and feeling guilty. mrs allen is really nice, he doesn't want to wreck her marriage. but is it really hurting anyone, if no one ever finds out?

the final time they fuck before the accident was on the weekend before halloween.

neither of them showed any indication of wanting to stop anytime soon. if it weren't for the accident, the affair could have gone on for months more, maybe even a year -- until corey went to college.

everything that weekend was normal, their usual routine. corey raked some leaves and then got railed.

if only they knew that would be their last time, maybe they could have savoured it.

roger is the one who suggests calling corey on halloween when their babysitter cancels on them. theresa is sceptical -- she doesn't know corey that well -- but roger makes a convincing case.

he knows corey is a good, responsible kid, and it's only for a few hours. he trusts corey.

post-accident

after the accident, they never speak. roger barely even says anything while they wait for the ambulance and the cops.

the trial is long and roger watches corey but they never interact beyond being in the same courtroom.

theresa had yelled at him outside the courthouse and roger had just held her, watching as ronald acted as a buffer between corey and anyone who tried to get close, mostly the press. he bundles him in the back of their car before they start the long drive back to warren county.

a horrible, selfish part of roger is relieved that corey never told anyone about the affair. no one who mattered anyway. he might of told his therapist, but nothing could would come of it now, he thinks.

as it happens, corey never did tell anyone. not his therapist, not the cops, certainly not his mother.

he doesn't think anyone would believe him, even if he did.

roger sees corey around town. a lot. sometimes he thinks about talking to him, but he holds steady. corey killed his son, he tells himself.

(jeremy's death is the penance he has to pay for his infidelity, he thinks)

corey takes the "break up" really hard. not only is he wracked with guilt over jeremy's death, but in a single moment, his relationship with roger is over. all that attention and affection and comfort, even just having someone to alleviate the physical need of getting off, is gone.

when mrs allen rips into him at the bar, corey's stomach drops thinking she might of found out about the affair in the years since. but no, she just hasn't forgiven him for killing her baby.

the first time they speak in four years is when roger picks corey up the morning after he meets michael.

corey isn't thinking clearly. something happened to him, something that changed everything.

roger hasn't spoken to him in years, but corey knows what he wants. it's the only thing he ever wanted from him.

he's resentful that roger tries to act like he doesn't want sex, then still feels resentful when it turns out he does.

where once corey had been shy and virginal, now he doesn't care. he's not been with anyone for a long time, something is happening to him that he doesn't understand and he wants, just for a while, to have something familiar. so he just lets himself let go.

part of him is trying to process his sudden and dangerous attraction to michael, by going back to his "first love", safe and familiar mr allen.

roger is meaner now. if corey can be -- bringing up theresa in the way he does -- then so can he. he's been through a lot. he deserves to take it out on corey, especially when corey is offering himself up.

it's rough and roger knows it must hurt, at least a little bit, but corey doesn't slow down.

when corey sleeps with allyson, he thinks about how different it is this way around. wonders if this is how it felt for mr allen when he fucked him.

post-michael

corey has absolutely nothing left to lose. a combination of stress and past trauma and an untreated concussion causes him to snap.

after killing those kids -- those fucking kids -- and that dj and his momma, and with michael in tow, he finds mr allen one more time.

(he begs michael to stay outside, he wants to do this one all on his own)

he knocks on the door, "can i talk to you?", roger lets him in, because what's the harm.

corey says everything he wishes he'd said before, that morning when mr allen picked him up and they fucked in that empty lot.

he screams and yells and blames everything on roger. getting more and more nonsensical as he goes on. working himself up to just do it --

"-- it's all your fault, everything that happened is because of you. you only asked me to babysit because you'd been fucking me behind your wife's back and you knew i'd drop everything to help you, you knew i'd do it and - and i did and then everything went wrong and - and it's your fault and you never fucking loved me, you never --"

roger thinks corey is having a mental breakdown (which in a way, he very much is)

so he just stands there and takes it, letting corey get out whatever he needs to before he can take him home to his mom or call the cops or whatever.

corey takes a deep breath and leans forward. pulls roger to him and kisses him. it's messy and desperate. corey's hands twisted in roger's shirt.

then, so much like that first kill, corey stabs him. the blood gushes over his hand and roger gasps like he's been winded.

corey doesn't break the kiss, though roger isn't even an active participant anymore. he pulls his hand back and stabs him again. and again. and again.

he only pulls away when roger crumples, unable to hold his own weight. blood pools around corey's feet on the cream carpet.

corey wipes the tears from his face that he didn't even notice had fallen and goes back outside to find michael.

[unbakehisbeans]

Omg I'm browsing YouTube looking for drama and I found a lady whose entire bag apparently is basically just shitting on and "debunking" fat activism. And it's so strange because she seems to be pretty in favor of other social justice causes, and she herself used to be fat (prime example of the sort of former fat person Aubrey Gordon talks about). And the way she talks about fat activism just entirely ignores the spirit of the arguments she's "debunking," but she's relatively sensitive and acknowledges fatphobia in health care and the structural barriers fat people and/or disabled people face (inaccessible transportation, sidewalks, turnstiles, seating, etc.). So, the entirety of her "debunking" and all of her counterpoints are basically that being fat and experiencing fatphobia "isn't the same" as being marginalized and oppressed in other ways.

And like, yeah, I too have stumbled across fat activism on TikTok that I disagree with or that is peddling misinformation, I've seen white fat people on TikTok perhaps overidentifying their own struggles with that of black people. I also don't like the way the TikTok sjw crowd so often gesture vaguely to "fat black and indigenous disabled trans women" who started whichever movement they're talking about without ever referencing any specific fat black and indigenous disabled trans women activists associated with that movement???

So, sure, I guess I could see what she's saying and kinda let it go EXCEPT THAT SHE HAS DEDICATED HER ENTIRE YOUTUBE CHANNEL TO THIS!!! And literally all of it is her showing an annoying fat person's TikTok video and then giving her commentary on that TikTok video, and her commentary is roughly the same every time. She says "fat people are treated unfairly in society" but she thinks that fat people aren't and haven't been subjected to eugenics and she continually points out that there isn't a push for anti-fat legislation the same way that there's a push for anti-trans legislation, and somehow it's wrong and oppressive for spaces to be inaccessible to disabled people but if the same space is inaccessible in the same way for a fat person then that's somehow totally different and not oppression...

It's just such bizarro logic and I genuinely cannot fathom why she's so invested in it. Like, I've never been fat and have never experienced the ways in which the world is inaccessible to fat people for myself--this lady has been fat and has experienced the ways in which the world is cruel and inaccessible to fat people, she talks about it!--but I have never been okay with how flippant and cruel people are about, like, fat people on airplanes, right? Like, this is something I remember feeling very ashamed about even as a child that people would joke about and shame fat people for needing a seat belt extender or having to take two seats or just not fitting comfortably in the seat that they have. And I remember this bothering me because, like firstly it's so unfair and so humiliating--like, even if you're a fatphobe who is of the mind that people should just lose weight to be more convenient on airplanes, the fat person is already on the plane, they can't just drop 50 pounds as they walk up to the gate and they can't just hold off on flying for work or to see their grandma or whatever until they're skinny enough to be convenient??--and then also it's just so mean spirited and humiliating, like I imagine it's already uncomfortable and embarrassing enough to have to squeeze yourself into a seat that doesn't fit you or to have to ask for a seat belt extender while you're painfully aware that somebody on the plane is sneering at you or getting annoyed that you're there. And then also, even as a kid I remember being confused because a lot of people (I think it may even be half or more in the US) are fat, so why wouldn't you design seats and seat belts to accommodate this huge swath of the population???

I'm getting heated about this, sorry, but jesus!!!! It's so fucking weird! Like, I'm just puzzled by how she can be so sensitive to the experiences of disabled people and also talk about her own experiences of fatphobia and acknowledge that BMI is a bad metric and that there's fatphobia in medicine and all this stuff and then still waste so much time, dedicate her entire public platform shitting on fat activism and fat positivity TikTok users!!!!

[evilichu]

it's been a really long time since the last time i posted anything on this blog. like, really long. 2023 i think. maybe i should do an update but i have other things in my mind right now and i need to write them down just to clear my head.

topics -- self esteem issues, my relationship, college.

self esteem issues: i have let myself go. i don't even know what to say other than that. i'm very aware that i have a troubled relationship with food and weight in general, but it's been hitting me really hard lately; not because i've been restricting but the opposite. since i'm stressed i look for comfort in food and i can feel my belly growing bigger and my clothes feeling smaller. i'm getting so much fatter and i can barely look at myself in the mirror anymore. it's so fucking disgusting. but i can't stop eating, it's all i ever do. it's just so comforting, until i'm done eating and the realizations sets in and i wanna die. it's affecting my social anxiety as well, since i feel disgusting and look disgusting i obviously don't want anyone to see how bad i look. anytime i'm out i'm sure everyone can tell that i look a lot fatter than i used to and that i'm disgusting. i don't even wanna weigh myself in fear of the numbers that it might show me. god. anyway. that's topic one.

my relationship: my ex and i got back together. maybe some day i'll make a whole post about it but for now that's it. my attachment issues have resurrected because of it. i don't wanna blame the relationship in itself, but i did feel a shift in my mental health as soon as we went back together. we've been together almost a month now and things changed rather quickly. as time goes on he is getting more and more used to being with me and he's becoming less romantic. i'm aware that relationships lowkey work like that, you get used to the person but it doesn't mean you love them less. but i'm not like that at all, i think. i think about him all the fucking time even after a month and i wanna tell him i love him all the time and how pretty he is and all of that, and the only thing stopping me is that i think it would annoy him. i feel like it's unfair in some way, he started being so sweet and attentive with me and making me feel loved just to drop the act in like two weeks and now i can't even complain cuz he is "too busy". weren't you "too busy" two weeks ago too? it's not like you got a new job or promotion, you're doing the same thing but two weeks ago you'd take a minute to text me how much you miss me and now you simply don't. AND I KNOW! I KNOW THIS IS SUCH A NON-ISSUE! but that's what i mean, the attachment issues. if i wasn't so emotionally invested in every single little thing, if my entire mood didn't depend on three words written in a message app, then i would be absolutely fine. but i care, i care so fucking much and i feel so abandoned all the time. and i've been crying so much. and i'm putting too much pressure on him and i can't stop thinking that he's gonna dump me any day now. which, fair enough, but I CANNOT STOP. ugh.

college: i'm in college now and i'm a failure. i had never expected to be this bad at studying and it's affecting my pride so much. i can't focus for shit and i procrastinate so much it's embarrassing. i don't even know why i thought i could do this. i have my first real exam tomorrow and i am not ready at all and i can't study. i don't know what am i going to do. it's crazy.

i've been so angry at myself for all of these reasons that i am genuinely thinking of cutting again. i just can't take it. i don't wanna disappoint anyone, least of all my therapist (the only person i wouldn't be able to lie to) but i don't know what to do. i am so fucking angry that i can't do anything right and i'm fucking my own life up: my weight, my relationship, my career, i can't do it right. i feel like i do deserve the punishment.

but you know, that's my mental health for you.

[otterpedia]

I think I'm gacha fatigued. I played quite a few games with gachas in them this year and after having my soul crushed repeatedly by my crappy pulls in DTW while my friends and my wife pulled characters I desperately wanted and gleefully showed them off to me (which is valid, and I'm genuinely excited for them too), I decided to reexamine why I was even playing some of these.

I want to begin by making it absolutely clear that I know gachas are gambling. I am aware of my gambling addiction, which I'm pretty sure is equal parts hereditary on my mother's side as well as a kind of mind game these activities trick your brain into. I have a lootbox problem and I am especially vulnerable to costume collecting.

I saved up tons and tons of gems or orbs or tickets or whatever for this game and that game, and because one game in particular had such powerful hooks in me, I didn't notice that my expectations for every other gacha were unrealistic.

I spent actual, real-world money that I needed for new clothes or a haircut or funds for going out and touching some fucking grass on the teeny tiny chance that I could get just one more character or costume or event prize for my digital harem simulator or whatever.

I like to collect things. (Hoarding is also a genetic failing on my mother's side, come to think of it.)

That's why these games are so dangerous in my opinion. I'm glad I don't like any other form of gambling games, and that cute anime girls were the motivation instead of the temporary thrill of winning.

Genshin Impact appealed to me because it felt like a "real" game that just so happened to have a gacha. The way the odds worked for the banners were also very F2P friendly, or so I told myself, with a guaranteed 4-star character or weapon every ten pulls.

The story was robust and the music was gorgeous. The fandom seemed pretty chill in my little corner of the internet, though I did hear the occasional rumblings of shipping drama. I read quite a few fanfics that were cute or funny or even spicy. It was a nice break from other games, or something interesting to do when Final Fantasy XIV had longer maintenance periods and I was anxiously waiting to log back in.

I truly love the world of the game still, even though I haven't played in probably at least a month and a half. I was super hyped for Sumeru, and I pulled my favorite character on my birthday last year.

That being said, I wrongfully assumed the new area in Genshin Impact would make me feel as before. The newest chapter of the main story dropped last week I think and I barely even noticed.

I felt nothing.

There were adorable cat people and steampunk elements and underwater exploration things and I. Felt. Nothing.

I decided that was enough of a reason to quit the game. If I'm not emotionally invested anymore, then why keep playing? I tried to quit before a couple times, but then I convinced myself that it had become a money sink, an investment.

That's not how games should make me feel.

Logging in started to feel like a chore. Grinding for ascension materials or talent scrolls or artifacts was tedious and boring. There were too many characters to keep track of, and they kept adding more and more stupid gimmicks. If I missed even one day of an event I wouldn't be able to finish it in time and receive rewards that would never come around again.

If I didn't log in, I told myself, I would get left behind by the friends I play co-op with. I would waste everyone's time because they would have to go back and redo stuff because I was lagging behind again because I play a lot of other games besides this one.

If I stop playing, I can't stay in the discord server we made for Genshin and I can't see all the funny memes and cool screenshots and drawings and fanfic recommendations.

Somehow I convinced myself that I had to keep playing this game that no longer held my interest or made me happy because if I didn't, then I'm letting my friends down.

This isn't the case, of course, but my brain likes to bully my heart a lot. I'm not letting anybody down. If anything, Genshin Impact has let me down. I have the power to uninstall the stupid thing and never touch it again. It's my damn computer, my phone, my life!

I like Genshin Impact still, but I don't play it anymore. If my friends are disappointed by that, that's okay. They're not disappointed in me, hell, they probably sympathize with my disappointment in the game because they are my friends, duh.

There's no reason to stress myself out over this. Which is why I needed to just write it out and be done with it.

So, there you have it.

I'm excited that my friends are excited, and that's good enough for me right now. If that changes in the future, then I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

And if my friends come across this post, I just want to say:

Thanks for playing with me, you guys! ❤️