#yes i learned this from drawfee

[partlysmith]

"pokemon are kinda weird when you think about it"

"digimon lines are pure chaos and make no sense"

monster rancher: "here's a normal ass ape wearing sunglasses that can only be obtained from a specific Billy Joel CD"

[sea-buns]

i need a drawfee archive that's got every stupid funny moment documented in chronological, alphabetized order for when i spontaneously remember a really obscure bit that i need to find or else i'll explode. i need to be able to type an extremely vague description in a search bar and have it understand me completely.

[vexic929]

Drawfee Quotes Prompt List

These quotes live rent free in my head. Send a number and a character for a ficlet!

This is a family show...for fuck's sake

If God's ever been mad at anything I've said, he hasn't done shit about it - so he either doesn't care or he's a coward

Mayonnaise is food lube

Are we human or are we Luigi?

It's not that I don't like it I just hate it

We have learned nothing and will continue to learn nothing

Hedgehog the animal or hedgehog the Sonic?

These are not Joanna's eggs and these are not Joanna's legs

If you are between the ages of 3 and 25, you are a toddler

I'm just viscerally afraid of any living organism who looks like a fucking Windows Media Player visualizer

"I wanna be a weird baby" "No..." "Wouldn't have to do shit" "N-okay, fair"

"Koochie-koo" doesn't pay the taxes!

They're in the same surrealist baby play group

If someone ruins my beverage experience that person is a criminal

"My brain went on a really quick tangent" "Yes" "Do we think-" "No"

You gotta really put your tits in that voice

I don't wanna bodyshame this alien but I...don't like looking at him

You get turned into dust because they suck all of the liquid out of your body...like a mermaid

And then Hot Joseph unloads his beautiful nectar into my mouth, and the rest of my day is so much better because of it!

I'm like the tortoise if the tortoise also lost the race

It's like they said in Star War The Last Jedi: the past fucking sucks, dude...ignore that shit and get a lightsaber

"Is he giving you a jizzle?" "Don't say that…" "Don't say jizzle" "Well that's like slang for a joint" "It's not, I promise you it's not"

It goes like this the fourth the fifth the yaoi hands his rock hard tits...

You make misses all of the misses you don't misses

Birds are infamously religious, because they fly close to the sun and that's where Jesus lives...in the sun

Dogs are kinda simps by nature

You could just strap a fish across your titties if you wanted

Do you think Adam from Bible was a horse??

Heavy are the chests that carry the tits

They're God's angels and also God's himbos

[faeseekerandy]

drawfee prompts #6 :)

It had been weeks since Danny Al Gul Joined an all-girls school. Ricky told her that they were tracking down a target at the school a potential assassin that escaped and was hiding out among the students and that she had to go undercover to find this assassin. But the reality was that it was the only way to get her into a school. There was no assassin, no mission, and Danny was starting to suspect this was a trap.

“We need to do something, I think she knows” – Nightwing Told Redhood

“why do you even want her to go to school?” – replied Todd more annoyed than amused at this tip toing around, she had suggested the idea as a joke but as usual ricky has  a stick up her ass

“dafuk is that suppose to mean” – grayson was annoyed –

“did I say that outloud? , I thought I was only thinking” - Todd clearly knew

“Fk you, we need to do something or she’s gonna leave school and then all the progress we’ve made is gonna be lost”

“Progress?”  - asked redhood

“yes progress, she’s got friends now, and its socializing, she needs to make friends who aren’t also assassins or meta humans” – Ricky was happy to think of Danny having friends and studying in the library

“or a demon child with daddy issues” – Todd wasn’t a fan of Raven and was happy to keep Dammy as far away from crazy demon girls, witch boys and all that nonsense. With a look of resolution  was obvious , they will do what they must to keep Damine this year in school.

The next day a very obvious non disguised Dicky Grayson joined the school and introduced herself in homeroom class as Mika Anges von Rochester the III. “but you may call me III” – explained Dicky – “for shorts”

Danny had a look that seemed to scream “earth swallow me whole”

“Dafuc you’re doing here” – Danny was clearly annoyed

“I have news about your assassin” -  Nightwing whispered – “I have intel from the justice league, the enemy we are searching for indeed goes to this school, he, or she, or them, goes by the code name RED X”

Danny read the file carefully after class, Red X had been targeting random rich students in class, torturing them and forcing them to send small sums of cash, normal bully behavior except this was a rich prep school, Red X could easily steal 10K + with each attack and get away with it, 10K here, 20K here, it ads up and was targeting specially rich students in class. Grayson disguising as a Dutchess from a rich family was a ploy to lure out the mysterious RedX.

Nightwing spent the rest of the day talking about his amazing wealth and pretty much embarrassing Damien with all her friends. She was clearly having fun.

“OMG Damine have you learned NOTHING? A2 + B2 = C2  so to solve this equation…” Dicky Grayson was annoyed at the fact that Damine still had difficulty with basic math, and reading, and writing, and history and literally anything”

“I don’t have time for this bullshit, I have learned nothing and will continue to learn nothing” replied Dammy annoyed, “Im only here to catch this assassin that I already know its Redhood btw, do you think I haven’t read Redhood’s aliases, how stupid do you think I am, I suspected this was all a farce  but this confirms…..”

A smack to the head quieted the rant and turned into a tantrum. Clearly Danny did not appreciate the trick and was more annoyed than anything. But she understood what they were trying to do and decided to try 1% more.

[starswirls-planet]

Get to know me/FAQ masterpost thingy✨

I realized I haven't made one yet so here we go!

------------------------------------------------

🧭Hi, I'm Asta! I'm a nonbinary demisexual lesbian with raging adhd, also I'm autistic.

I use they/them pronouns exclusively but I'm fine with being casually reffered to with both masc and fem language (dude, girlboss, sir, etc.)

⚔️I draw, I play D&D and I hyperfixate a lot on my various OC's

⌛I always love people drawing fanart of my characters but keep it sfw (spooky stuff is ok)

🗡️I have a bad habit of sometimes going radio silent on here for 1-2 months at a time.

That's just because I can have a lot of things going on in my life and I'm forgetful to a comedic degree, so don't get concerned if that happens

☄️All posts (including reblogs) are tagged with appropirate trigger warnings (food, horror/death, heavy topics, repetition, etc)

But I do swear sometimes and use all caps occasionally, I don't put warnings for that fyi

🪐Please credit me if you repost my art or use it as a profile picture.

More repost terns/links to my socials in my carrd below

--FAQ--

🌙What programs/device do you use for your drawings?

My standard full illustrations with lineart are done in Ibispaint (cause it has the better layer system)

My sketches, kinda traditional paintings and more experimental stuff is done in Procreate (cause they have the good brushes and smudge tool)

I occasionally do pixel art, for that I use an app called Potipoti and add effects (blur, chromatic aberration, bloom) in Procreate

🏰Can I commission you?

Most likely yes, I don't really announce commissions but most of the time I'm open to them, I only do one slot at a time though

🌠What brushes do you use?

On ibispaint I use the default set and some customized brushes, let me know if you want the qr codes for any of them

On procreate I use the basic selection, customized brushes and a handful of dowloaded sets, let me know if you'd like links to any of them

🌌How'd you learn to draw? Do you have any reccomendations for art resources?

I'm mostly self taught other than art class in school and stuff like that

I honestly learned a lot of anatomy by having several buff TTRPG characters and just drawing them a bunch

I really reccomend the drawclass series from drawfee on youtube, they're all compiled as a playlist on their stream VOD channel, it's done by four amazingly talented illustrators and covers everything from anatomy and worldbuilding to design and practice

For anatomy studies I use a website called lineofaction, it allows you to create a custom virtual life drawing session

⚖️How long does a drawing usually take for you?

Full illustrations tend to take between 7 and 20 hours (obviously not in one sitting), but it can vary a lot depending on a bunch of things

Thank you for reading, I'll update and edit this post over time to keep everything accurate!

[cherrycoloredphoenix]

Drawfee did an episode recently where they did a shuffled songs character design challenge, and I thought it was a very fun prompt, so here's mine!

Rules were: shuffle a music playlist, the first song describes one character, the second song describes the second character, and the third song describes their relationship.

I had a lot of fun :) head empty no thoughts just vibes

more word dumping about this under the cut because I like talking about my own stuff

Songs: Any Song - Zico / Legacy - Lost Stars / Phoenix - League of Legends

The woman on the left (Renge) is the older of the two, and a very laid-back, laissez-faire, go-with-the-flow person. The dragon on the right (Yichan), meanwhile, is desperate to prove herself and rise up, seeking to do something grand and important to win glory for her disgraced family.

Their respective personalities were shaped by difficult and traumatic histories which left scars, physical and otherwise. Renge used to be under the command of a powerful cultivation clan that forced her to do things she now regrets, and when she escaped she decided to reinvent herself, distancing herself from her past by adopting a "lazy" attitude. Yichan's family ran afoul of the heavenly court when she was young and lost nearly everything in the subsequent fallout, so to partially atone for the family's transgressions she was given to the court as a servant. She eventually joined the royal guard and even got promoted a few times.

Some sort of conflict arises that the heavenly court needs powerful cultivators to help resolve, so Yichan is sent to find Renge, since the heavens are aware of her past exploits/infamy. The two butt heads a lot, especially since Renge never seems to take the situation seriously and Yichan is constantly stressing about her reputation and political standing, but over time they learn to support each other and help each other through their trauma. And together they save the world! or something like that

Yes Yichan can turn into an actual full-size dragon

[warriorsbutnotreally]

6, 7, 18 for ask game :]

Which artists inspire you right now?

Well, first the obvious one; Lady Teelia has always been a huge inspiration to me and even now I enjoy her works! Not just her art, but world-building, characterization.. All of what she does inspires me a lot.

I also like the artists Karina Farek and Jacob Andrews from Drawfee. Don't get me wrong, I love Nathan and Julia, too, but these two are my big personal faves, esp just hearing them talk about their art progress.

Specifically in the Warriors fandom, I'm currently inspired a lot by some of my friends such as @woofcaat and @sparklestardesigns as both of them are such amazing artists with unique and fun styles!

I only tagged two of said friends cause my head is so empty but literally all my friends are cool artists

which, yes

includes you, Lee

don't worry

.

Favourite works of all time excluding your own?

I thought this was going to be easy to answer, but honestly all I can think about is the Rory Ashfur MAP and the This Is Halloween MAP sadh

and non-warriors; Strong Hearts Are Mandatory by Teelia and the Fragile comic by Deercliff

.

Do you have any larger projects you'd like to pursue? Like comics, shortfilm, a series etc?

I have a lot, tbh!

On top of my fanfiction over at @funnywordsforbattlecats, i also have plans for animated projects I'd love to work on once I learn animations!

AND on top of that, I want to do a comic with my OCs one day [it has a plot ready I just need to refine it!]

[bean-n-shroob]

I wanna talk about EM and EL and all the things I love, hate, cherish and ideas I got for future installments!

BUT I kinda wanna talk about this idea my friend and I came up with for a Minion Mode for Partners in Time!

I’ll call it... Goomba’s Time-Jump Journey!

Okay so, I’m gonna start with establishing what I think the story can be! So premise!

Much like in Peach’s  Castle, time holes have mysteriously opened up in Bowser’s Castle as well, and Captain Goomba is mighty suspicious of the safety of these so he takes his Captain Crew and hope in to see what’s the danger!

Suddenly, disaster strikes and the crew is jolted and separated in the time hole travel and they all come out from different spots on Past Mushroom Kingdom! Captain Goomba comes out of Past Bowser’s Castle, a little tutorial in how the gameplay works and suddenly, Captain Goomba finds a familiar face. Its Mini Captain! Him from the past and a little squirt who dreams of becoming part of Baby Bowser’s armada! He is currently in midpanic over Baby Bowser’s misterious departure from the Castle!, This story takes off right after Mario & Luigi go through and get the first crystal shard.

So Captain Goomba and Mini Goomba team up and journey out in search of Baby Bowser mostly cause Mini is worried with all the Aliens that are suddenly attacking, a bit of a callback to the first Minion Mode with the Captain being rather on the nose about it. The two venture around Past Mushroom Kingdom, given how the game usually progresses, maybe they hop back into the present, maybe not. But little by little, the Captain teams up with his crew as well as the baby versions of the crew. Maybe they find a baby Boo too, I feel that would be super cute and hilarious.

They’ll venture around, both searching for Baby Bowser and trying to survive the Shroob Invasion, finding themselves in dire Shrooby situations. Like at one point, they’re hiding away from Yoob, maybe the next they particiapte in the Koopaseum fighting waves of Shroobs for entertainment and the next they venture in Toad Town, fighting Shroodroids cause they thought B.Bowser went towards Peach’s Kingdom. Anything can happen and it can easily be kept out of the main storyline.

Bosses can be tough enemies that the Mario Bros have encountered. Or maybe not bosses.... Or Maybe Commander Shroob! COMMANDER SHROOB! Yes!

The Crew encounters different Commander Shroobs of varying colors. Like Dr Commander Shroob and Flaming Commander Shroob and they face off against their Shroob Army!

Or just the one, give him a bigger story to be involved in, one where his army can be useful! He was a rather random encounter, truth be told!

That could work, Captain Goomba’s Army faces off again the Commander Shroob’s Army!

Could make him the final boss, it could end where after the Commander Shroob is defeated, he’s like “I’m gonna grab my bomb, and when I return you’ll be sorry!” When he returns, the Mario Bros are there :p the Captain Crew hid cause they didn’t want to encounter the Bros~ Idk uwu

Now for the Gameplay!

No mayor changes, I got nothing :0

Except! Add a new mechanic where you can mix and match Captains with Mini Captains. Captain Goomba with a Mini Shy Guy would have a melee focused captain than can deal additional range damage. Two Captain Goombas and you got some powered up Melee attacks! Super Attacks vary depending on the mix of Captains and Minis.

Honestly, something like this would be intriguing enough for me to stay and complete the sidestory!

As good as an improvement that Bowser Jr Journey was, I kinda lost interest after the “Bowser Jr learns to appreciate Morton” flashback, cause I just got stopped by a roadblock and didn’t feel I had anything to work towards.

That’s all I got :p I got distracted by this Drawfee video so my train of thought has been halted

[theamberfang]

Journal 240: [Mental] Health and Diet

Calm?

My first inclination was to write about how today was a nice, calm break, but if I had to be perfectly honest, it left me feeling a bit antsy. Maybe it had to do with what I specifically spent my time doing: watching more Smash Bros. Ultimate tournament gameplay, moving from Glitch 7 to Mainstage. (They’ve both been listed as big events, but I’m starting to think I need to be even more picky about the tournaments I even consider checking out.) I didn’t even catch Drawfee’s Friday livestream, which I find to be a more genuinely relaxing experience.

In general, I could be more selective about how I spend my time trying to relax. When it comes to the Smash stuff, if I had to be perfectly honest, I’m mainly watching it because I feel obligated to: that I’m somehow missing out otherwise. The feeling is strong enough that I’m struggling to even consider closing the tab with the VODs. I think I might just continue with these VODs to the end and commit to being more selective in the future, but I’ll at least keep the option of stopping in mind.

Basically, it goes back to the fundamental issue I had with spending so much time watching people play games. Funny thing is, I actually unsubscribed from a Hero of the Storm player, but I enjoyed watching his VODs more than competitive Smash—in part because I could have Pandora in another tab since he doesn’t play with music.

Diet

Something I’ve been experimenting with lately is adding a bit more carbs back into my diet; I ate some biscuits as part of a couple of breakfasts recently, and today I ate some fried rice and even some Cheetos. The basis of this change has to do with a certain conclusion I made that I had wanted to share in “A Rough Idea,” and though it felt irresponsible to follow through with that, I feel like it’s relatively safe enough to share my thoughts in a personal journal.

Regarding carbs, my theory now is that as long as I eat fiber, it’ll be fine. According to Dr. Robert Lustig, plant fiber lines the walls of the gut, slowing the absorption of sugars (and carbohydrates; I hate how “sugar” ambiguously refers to both sucrose specifically and glucose and other “-oses” in general). I’m assuming this relationship between fiber and sugar is the foundation of how vegetarian and vegan diets work. Yes, on their own, sugars and carbs have ill effects, but the average person also does not consume enough fiber whereas vegans probably take in more than enough.

As for what I learned from the keto side of things, meat and eggs are quite good for the body, and fat may even be a more ideal fuel. The catch here is that the assumption in the background is that you are getting high-quality meats: grass-fed, free-range, and all that. This kind of diet is expensive—likely more expensive than a vegan diet—and going for lesser meats can be a risk: meat from grain-fed, sedentary animals are kept alive with lots of antibiotics. It’s especially risky with heavily processed meats, where curing, preservatives, and other additives can hide the quality.

When it comes to salt, it depends on what your current diet is. If it might be described as “an average American diet” with a lot of processed and fast foods in there, then you may be eating too much salt. If you’re starting to become health and diet conscious though, you need to make sure that you aren’t removing salt entirely from your diet.

To sum things up more succinctly:

Avoid additive sugars (granulated sugar, high fructose corn syrup, etc)

Eat more fiber

If you eat enough fiber, carbohydrates are fine

Meat is fine for you, technically

Moderate salt

To be clear, the above discussion was regarding personal health. I’m aware of the environmental and ethical concerns related to the meat industry. These are social concerns that shouldn’t be blamed on individuals. It takes a significant degree of privilege to be able to afford the time, energy, and money to undergo the lifestyle change that a diet demands.

To blame people for being unable to diet is to blame people for not “voting with their wallets” properly. The thing is, if someone isn’t in the position to eat healthily, then their wallets probably aren’t worth much of a vote. Antagonizing these people for having harmful diets will only cause them to dig their heels in, when they might otherwise be useful allies where their votes might actually mean something: votes in elections.

Admittedly, elections also aren’t exactly fair, but it’s still magnitudes more powerful than what wallet-votes would accomplish. Furthermore, it’s way more feasible to get people to vote for environmentally-minded candidates and policies than it would be to try getting people to stop eating meat. Also, policies that get people out of poverty may then allow those people the privilege of switching to a healthier lifestyle, both for themselves and the planet.

High-Functioning

Something that occurred to me a couple of days ago that I’ve forgotten to discuss is that, despite how intense my anxiety can become, I usually appear to be a normally-functioning human. The thought of going to meet and talk to people can be debilitating for me, but once I’m actually out there I can usually communicate decently enough. Though, more specifically, I can handle greetings and simple answers to questions when asked: trying to start conversations myself or providing more in-depth answers can still be anxiety-inducing. Even if I’m anxious though, I don’t think it’s visibly apparent: as far as most people are concerned, I’m simply shy, or I don’t have much to speak about.

This primarily occurred to me when talking with my trans friends after the DBSA support group: they suggested interacting with my parents, especially my father, in ways that honestly feel impossible to me at the moment, and I had difficulty expressing how stressful it is for me to approach them. My theory is that it’s because I seem perfectly fine with expressing myself in group—and even out of group. The way I’ve presented myself to them makes it difficult to imagine that I could also have an anxiety attack from talking to my father—though, now that I think back, I suppose I didn’t explain that.

Anyway, where this becomes more important is that I think this is the core problem that my parents have. Mental illness just isn’t very visible, and it’s not very obvious that I’m literally unable to even consider putting a resume together and looking for a job. I mean, I guess this was stuff I intellectually understood, but something about my conversations a couple of days ago made the reality of it click.

Unfortunately, I don’t think it actually changes much of anything. I still have to somehow deal with my anxiety so that I can properly educate my parents about my anxiety, but they’re also a key source of anxiety... I suppose this clarification for myself might influence how I try to engage with and educate my parents in the future, so there’s at least a half-step of progress here.

Wrapping Up

I don’t actually have too much to say about tomorrow other than that I still plan on playing through and writing about another full day of Night in the Woods. It’s just because I don’t want to start part 1 of a day, only to have to wait until next Thursday to finish it. Next week is when I’ll try splitting things into two parts, even if it means having a lot of work to do tomorrow again.

Regarding my obsession with blog activity, I found myself really wanting to check if yesterday’s NitW post got any notes, but it wasn’t actually too stressful to keep myself away. I did notice the frequency of urges go up past noon though, especially with how I’ve increased the duration of the restriction. For now, I’ll keep the restrictions as they are.

Tomorrow’s Tasks

Avoid checking blog activity; 0900-1400

Dance for exercise; 0930

KA: US History; 1030

MLP: FiM episode; 1130

NitW stuff; 1300

Journal; 2000

[theamberfang]

Journal 212: Family

Waiting

Today was stressful. From morning until early afternoon, it was because I simply had no idea when my half-brother, Iris; his wife, who I now know is Melissa; and their two daughters, Kensington (named after a British town?) and Kelsie, who I now know were coming with them. (It was their three older sons, at least one of whom was from Melissa’s previous marriage, who weren’t coming.) My anxiety was generally up from knowing that they were coming, but not knowing when. Though, it didn’t really help too much when I learned they would be arriving in the evening, because my anxiety simply spiked higher come 1700—even Drawfee didn’t help as much as I would have hoped.

Before they arrived, maybe around 1600, my mom let me know that everyone was going to eat out for dinner and she asked if I would come. Initially, I simply answered “maybe,” because I honestly did have to sort out my feelings on the matter. It’s been years since I went out with my family (particularly if my father was there); I never even went out to eat with my grandmother in all the years she lived with us because my father was always around for it. (It figures, since he’s always the one to initiate such a venture, being the breadwinner of the household and all.) I knew that I wouldn’t feel great in the process, but I also knew that I going out would help rewire these anxiety-responses to social activity. I also knew that it would make my mom especially happy for me to spent time with my half-sibling.

When my mom came around a second time for a more definitive answer, I decided on “yes.” I even changed clothes preemptively to get this commitment across to myself. I was going to go out and spend time with family, and hopefully nothing would trigger a panic attack.

Out For Dinner

When they finally arrived, I didn’t immediately go out to greet them. To be perfectly honest, it was more to avoid my father who was greeting them than to avoid our visitors; and that general sentiment would continue for the rest of the evening. Melissa briefly greeted me by my bedroom door on her way to our bathroom, and I first greeted my half-brother when we were all heading outside to pack into our respective sedans.

This left me at the back of a car driven by my father: something that I did plenty of times growing up, but now left me feeling like a cornered animal. In retrospect, I don’t think this was simply due to being out of the habit for severals years; I recall a similar tension from my teenage years and beyond. Back then, the more conscious element would have been the sheer weight of parental expectation, but on a subconscious-level I was always aware of how much he wanted me to “be a man,” which wasn’t great for a trans kid growing up, even if I wasn’t consciously aware of it.

I spent the car ride packed into the corner, arms hugged to my torso like a flimsy barrier. My chest was tight, heart racing, and my eyes watered. On a couple of occasions, a thought crossed my mind that I could open the door and jump out to escape these feelings. I also worried about what might happen at our destination; I mentally prepared myself to walk out of the restaurant if I needed to. It wasn’t a great time, but I survived.

We arrived at a generically Asian-styled buffet—I think the name was Japanese, but the interior was indistinguishable from Chinese buffets. The mothers took some time wrangling the daughters—one and two years old, Kelsie and Kensington respectively—out of the car. My father had already driven off to park, while Iris waited to do the same. I spent that time awkwardly standing off to the side, wondering if I could head inside to reserve our table—just to do something and be useful. I didn’t have confidence to actually do it, so awkwardly I waited.

Eventually the toddlers were out of the car and we started heading in, my father shortly behind us because it didn’t take long to park. We were quickly led to our table where we milled about rather than sitting, because it was a buffet and most of us were going to walk off for food anyway. The server took our drink orders, and Iris started small talk with me. I was frank and explained that I actually suffer with depression and anxiety, which is why I had always been so reserved in the past; he took it in stride—some of my stress relieved. My mom tended to Kelsie at the table while everyone else left to collect food.

Once I returned to the table, my father was still away from the table (having dropped off a heaping plate of crawfish before going off for more) and my mom had presently left, leaving me alone at the table with our guests. They quickly introduced me to their children: the use of my dead name and the word “uncle” causing me to inwardly cringe. Refusing to allow this continue any longer than necessary, I quickly gathered myself and simply came out to them, letting them know I was transgender and now preferred to be called “Amber.” They quickly obliged, even thanking me for letting them know. I was instantly about as comfortable with them as my mom—significantly more comfortable than I am around my father.

Unfortunately, my father was seated across from me, so I spent the whole dinner with my eyes avoiding him. Luckily, it was natural to keep looking to the side where our guests were: nothing suspicious about watching the little ones, especially Kensington as she bounded between her parents, a high-seat, and a regular seat. I even made a bit of small talk, such as talking about how I was avoiding sugar. After getting a second plate, consisting entirely of fruit, I commented on how I wasn’t even able to eat the canned fruits because they were far too sweet for me now. My father did dead-name me occasionally, causing my right eye and upper cheek to twitch—I wonder if Melissa noticed, because she seemed to when looking from my father to me.

The dinner went on; Kelsie was passed around between her parents and my mom, Kelsie’s grandmother, so that all of the adults could actually eat. I finished first since I really don’t need to eat much, and it’s not like I was especially interested in the unhealthy buffet options. Eventually everything was wrapped up, and I allowed myself to eat a fortune cookie. Turns out even that is pushing the boundary of sweetness for me. I briefly considered asking to ride back home with our guests, but there wasn’t enough time for me to push past how awkward such a request would be, despite the impending discomfort of being in an enclosed space with my father. It didn’t end up being as bad, largely thanks to the relaxation brought on by Iris and Melissa’s acceptance of my identity.

Hanging out

Of course, our guests spent the rest of the evening at our house. Even with my father being in the vicinity, I soldiered on to spend some quality time with our guests, family. Even with him occasionally deadnaming and misgendering me, it was worth it to experience our guests putting in the effort to use my preferred name and pronouns—they slipped up and apologized occasionally, but that made it all the more endearing. Luckily, my father did spend about half of the evening in his office; it was, at least in part, to keep an eye on the weather—even if it didn’t look like we were getting the brunt of it, there was still plenty of storm reaching us.

Even if I spent much of my time perched atop a barstool, it was an amicable experience. I spent much of the time listening, as I’ve always tended to do regardless of setting, but I did occasionally speak up. I showed concern towards Kensington starting to watch YouTube on a tablet (they assured me that they pay attention to what she’s watching); I commiserated with Melissa, knowing little more than she did when my mother spoke Tagalog to Iris (he didn’t speak much of the language, but understood fluently); and I had the occasional comment about other things. By the end of the night, the children even seemed to warm up to my presence, though it’s not like they were particularly scared in the first place.

They left at about 2100, and we all said our goodbyes with hugs and kisses, even me. They said that they’d likely wake up and eat breakfast around 0900 to 1000—essentially when I wake up—and that they’d likely spend the rest of the day with us for lunch and dinner.

Wrapping Up

It’s already past 2300 now: my monitor is in night-mode, and it’s about time for me to listen to another episode of Welcome to Night Vale—or rather, Desert Bluffs since I’m on episode 19B. I’ll simply strive to keep spending time with our guests: no longer mere family by blood and vow, but also by my choice thanks to their acceptance.

Tomorrow’s Tasks

Dance for exercise; 1000

KA: US History; ASAP

Spend the day with family

Journal; after they leave