#maybe i should reconsider getting a dreamwidth account

[maaradag]

massive, rambly spoilers for the new WILTY christmas episode underneath

First thoughts after finishing: oboy, both Lee and David going THROUGH it. Bet Rob was feeling all good safe in his host chair.

The guests were Victoria Coren Mitchell (whee!), Naga Munchetty, Alex Brooker and Melvyn Hayes. I'll admit I had to look everybody's names up except VCM.

Alex Brooker's lie has been available as a clip on the BBC website for a couple of days now, so nothing new there. Delighted by the fact that Victoria's (unbroken?) streak of guessing correctly on this show continues

So for me the show proper started with Victoria's card, which oh my god, holy shit, this was worth the wait.

David looks like he wants to sink into the floor, but for me, as Lee says: "If it helps in any way, I'm absolutely loving it."

I mean this is golden. Victoria starts trying to explain David's underwear philosophy, before turning to David and checking if she's not you know, revealing too much information on national television. David who has already spent the last few minutes looking like this is his worst nightmare, reassures her that no worries, "this is dreadful". All the while Lee is clapping his hands delightedly.

(BONUS Sweet moment!. Naga patting David on the shoulder, in an attempt at reassurement, cringing too hard to be very reassuring)

I don't know who Melvyn Hayes is (I'm not British, so my bad I guess) but his small comments here and there really brought it up a notch. Could have been annoying but it was really funny.

Other nice quotes from this round:

Victoria (to David, having revealed much about his underwear habits): I'm so sorry. (Then she laughs a bit more)

David: thE biBLe AnD fifTy SHadEs oF grAy

Melvin Hayes: I'm excited! (everybody cracks up)

This was FINALLY the resolution of Lee's quest to find out what David wears underneath his clothes.

(If only I still wrote fanfiction, and if only I could ever manage to write RPF this would segment would surely inspire me. Just putting that out into the universe before going back to hiding beneath the covers)

Have some pictures of David going through it:

BONUS: Lee being a smug bastard

The Melvin Hayes story did very little for me, as previously mentioned, no clue who he was before this, and the people he mentions are people I've heard about before but also know very little. Glad everyone seems so delighted by it though.

To contrast the previous picture have a happy picture of David and Victoria being pleased by Melvin Hayes story

THIS IS MY (Feat. a Celebrity Guest whoohooo)

Yet another person I don't know who is, but Patti seemed famous and Lee was all over her which turned out to be quite funny.

Victoria's sounded familiar by any rate, like I heard it before. Delightful story anyhow, her delivery of "better still, you can be in it." killed me.

Naga with the slow reveal of it being Lee that they hadn't recognized. Wonderful! Lovely! No notes. It's great that the story wasn't true because then the digs at Lee, and the Jimmy whatshiface of it all just became the marks of a good liar

(looked it up, the guy's Jimmy Nail. An English singer-songwriter apperenly, according to google).

David used his versatile tool to make decent stomach growls. Colour me impresssed.

Last round is a classic Lee round, in which he gets an herculean task and we watch him try to reel it in. (Alex B turns out to be quite the generous laughter which is great.)

Tag yourself I'm Alex, losing it.

[pickyperkypenguin]

So, a little PSA from me - I will be moving on after all

I had this thought for some time already, but the recent events made it for me more clear, something almost like a sign to finally get my stuff together. When @mindblownie wrote her post (that has many very good points on the situation, that I won’t be repeating here) on how despite the initial will to stay after the 17th she is now reconsidering, I have had it also boiling on my stove, the decision to leave this place.

At first I didn’t join Pillowfort when they were still sending the keys, because I wasn’t sure if all or at least most of the people I still wanted to be following will be moving – and more importantly, being active – there. That was one of the reasons I only set up a Twitter account to keep up with a lot of people, who said they were moving there. I admit, I can’t get used to using it, so it looks like I am not keeping up that well with their content. It’s too… condensed? Fast? Too, like, chunky, if communication can be called such. The marks limit just honestly, honestly doesn’t do it to me at all, it prevents any essay-like format of a post (threads are not the same, they generate a different structure), and it is deeply dissatisfying to me. And as a cherry on top I have to click at every single picture to see it in full (or at least viewable) size, and I have to do the same if there are a couple of pics in one post. It’s the worst, sorry. I’m sure it has a wonderful uses elsewhere, but not for the purpose I liked to be on Tumblr for, not as my kind of blogging platform.

The other reason I didn’t join Pillowfort and why I was having those thoughts before is this: I got lazy with art and culture. I got used to consuming all the time, instead of creating even just a bit. The half-creating thing that reblogging content felt like was appeasing any creative hunger I might’ve had. Instead of wanting to be an active part of a fandom or creating my own original stuff (which I have ideas for! They are just not being developed! At all!!!) I was perfectly content with being a consumer, and a rather lazy one, to add to all of that – rarely left comments on the fics I read, reblogged a lot of art without stopping to give a feedback in the tags (though this I at least tried to do, as I often just had that urge coming from within, to praise the artists), didn’t contact with the other members too much. To be honest, it requires from me – I think – about the same amount of social engagement and energy from me to strike a relationship online as it does offline, so I have never been one of the most popular or sociable fandom people. But, you know, that could change, if I tried. I didn’t.

Anyway, this is first part of the second reason. This is the moment in my life where I am currently trying to somewhat decide or settle on what I want to be pursuing professionally job-wise, and so I have to find out pretty soon if I am able to be creating more, or creating sustainably over a period of time. The mindset of more grinding and improving of what there already is is not going to help me as much as the one where I create and create, and create, and only then I think of the rest. I badly need to get into the habit of that.

The second part of the second reason is that I realised that I waste so much time in here. Even when it’s in the ‘allowed’ situations, like on a bus ride where I have nothing else to do, I just eat up pleasant things, instead of being less directed with my thoughts, I fix on themes I already know instead of reaching outside of my zone.

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve talked many times about many, many good sides this platform has (well, had), when it comes to the content, culture, and so on, and how I have actually broadened my horizons, thanks to it. You can go in my ‘whatever life’ tag and see at any time or this last post I made about the current situation. But this post is about the negatives, and why it is very probable I am leaving soon.

I’m feeling somewhat like I should just do some overall Internet detox for myself, or at least drastically change how I have used it. It is not building me up, expanding me, developing me any more. It has become limiting.

Hence, the idea of perhaps changing a platform. Baby steps. I don’t want to lose the contact with the couple of people whom I daresay befriended, and I do hope we will be able to sustain it, even if we will move out to different sites and it will all come down to, I don’t know, sending e-mails, which I feel is for casual relationships on the Internet an equivalent of sending the post via pigeons. Pigeons or not, I want to stay in touch with you. But I also want to move on, I just haven’t figured out yet where exactly – I already have an AO3, maybe I will join Dreamwidth? I feel like both of those may generate more of the climate I want to immerse in the future. Maybe I will get Pillowfort after all, as it is familiar and apparently has all the good sides of Tumblr that I liked, and the blogging format, but they actually listen to the users (my whole heart is with the founders and the idea of Pillowfort). I will sure let you know if/when I will choose a new main platform.

Ah, I would forget. The third reason I don’t feel like being here. I was trying for a bit to be blogging normally, and to observe how everybody else is functioning – but it doesn’t feel right for me anymore. The feeling of being restricted with the content, the general wrongness of it all, the emptiness of my dash – there are just a few people, couple of us here, trying to get over all of what happened. But my landscape have changed, and maybe a couple of the trees have stayed exactly the same in my forest, but I can hear the harvester sound in the distance and see the sky changing the colour from the fires. It doesn’t feel right for me to pretend everything is as it was and contentedly carry on.

So, this is a sort of a prolonged goodbye from me. I am estimating I will be blogging as I am now for about till the New Year, and then. Well, then we’ll see what will I do, where will I go. I will be reblogging this post periodically in hope anyone who wants to can contact or find me on other social media that I have, and that it will all be explained when I will decide to move on.

Places where I can be found:

AO3 (@aislinngun)

Twitter (@pickyperkypeng1)

Instagram (@pleurotus.ostreatus) – though I can’t really be that free there, as people who I know offline are following me there