#feeling a little Terminally Online today
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Guys the world is so fucking beautiful... these clumps of weeds look like slug critters with eyestalks.... peace and love on planet earth
#feeling a little Terminally Online today#sick of some drama#I think later on I'm gonna try and get my old ipod working#i want a way of listening to music out and about that doesn't invovle my phone again#i want to be less attached to my phone#thinking of trying to get into some analogue photography too#anyway#flower slugs!!!#mr. bees speaks
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McMurdo Internet
Internet service is supplied to Antarctica via a geostationary satellite. This far south, the satellite is only a few degrees above the horizon, and unfortunately for McMurdo, it's behind Mt Erebus. So the signal is beamed to a receiver on Black Island, about 20 miles away to the southwest, and bounced over to the sheltered alcove at the end of the Hut Point Peninsula where McMurdo sits.
The Chalet, administrative hub, with Black Island in the distance
The Black Island telecommunications infrastructure was installed in the 1980s, long before the internet we know and love today. It was upgraded in 2010 to allow more data transfer, mainly realtime weather data to feed into global forecast models. For this reason, it's probably the only place I've ever been where upload speed is remarkably faster than download speed – 60Mbps for outbound traffic, but only 20Mbps for inbound. Most regular internet use is receiving, not sending, so that's an entire base running on a connection that's only marginally faster than the average American smartphone. As you can imagine, this is somewhat limiting.
The limits to one's internet access actually begin before one even reaches the Ice. At the orientation in Christchurch, one is directed to a URL from which one must download and install a security programme from the U.S. government. It may feel like a hippie commune full of nerds, but McMurdo is an installation of the American state, and as such its computer network is a target of whatever disgruntled conspiracy theorist decides to hack The Man on any given day. Computers that are allowed onto this network (such as the one on which I am typing right now) have to have an approved firewall and antivirus service installed, then this extra programme on top of them. I am not sure what it does. For all I know the CIA is spying on me even now. (Hi, guys!) But you need to install it to get on the McMurdo Internet, such as it is, so I did.
To be honest, I was rather looking forward to a month cut off entirely from the hyperconnected world, so I was a tiny bit disappointed that quite a lot of day-to-day communication is done by email, and I would need to be on my computer a fair bit to get it. Had I known just how important email would be, I'd have installed an email client that actually downloads one's messages instead of just fetching them; as it was, the cycle of loading an email and sending the reply, even in Gmail's "HTML for slow connections" mode, took about five minutes, not counting the time it took to write. Tending one's email was a serious time commitment; sometimes I felt like I was spending more time on the computer in Antarctica than I did at home.
Crary scientists waiting, and waiting, and waiting
In a way, though, I was lucky, because I was technically a scientist and therefore had access to the one building on base with WiFi, the Crary Lab. And don't think you can just waltz into Crary with your laptop and poach the WiFi – in order to access it at all, you have to get set up by Crary IT with your own personal WiFi login. If you do not have Crary access, your portal to the Internet is one of a handful of ethernet cables in each of the dorm common rooms, or some public terminals in the main building. You can hop on, download your emails, maybe check the news or Google something you needed to look up, and then leave it for someone else. When most online time sinks are either blocked or too heavy to load, it’s amazing how little internet time you actually turn out to need.
Things that we have come to take for granted in The World are not a part of McMurdo life. Social media is pretty much out – the main platforms are bandwidth hogs even before you try to load a video or an animated GIF. There is no sharing of YouTube links, and no Netflix and chill. Someone was once sent home mid-season for trying to download a movie. Video calls with family and friends? Forget it. People do occasionally do video calls from Antarctica, often to media outlets or schools, but these have to be booked in advance so as to have the requisite bandwidth reserved. Jumping on FaceTime does not happen – not least because handheld devices have to be in airplane mode at all times for security reasons. Your phone might be secure enough for your internet banking, but not for US government internet!
It is, unavoidably, still a digital environment, it just gets by largely without internet access. Nearly everyone has an external hard drive, mostly for media that they've brought down to fill their off hours. If you want to share files you just swap hard drives, or hand over a memory stick. When the Antarctic Heritage Trust wanted some book material from me, I dropped it onto an SD card and ran it over to Scott Base on foot – a droll juxtaposition of high- and low-tech, not to mention a good excuse for a hike over The Gap on a beautiful day. It took half an hour, but was still faster than emailing it.
There is also a McMurdo Intranet, which includes a server for file sharing. Emailing someone your photos will take ages, but popping them into a folder on the I: drive and sending them a note to say you've done so (or, better yet, phoning them, or poking your head into their office) is much more efficient. To conserve space, this informal server partition is wiped every week, so you have to be quick about it, but it's an effective workaround, and also a good way to get relatively heavy resources to a large number of people in one go.
The telecommunications centre on Black Island is mostly automated, but like anything – perhaps more than some things, given the conditions – it needs to be maintained. There is a small hut out there for an equally small team of electricians and IT engineers; Black Island duty attracts the sort of person who might have been a lighthouse keeper back in the day.
Towards the end of my time on the Ice there was a spell where they needed to shut off the connection overnight, to do some necessary work. Given that most people's workdays extended at least to the shutoff time at 5:30 p.m., this meant essentially no internet for a large portion of the population, and some amusing flyers were posted up to notify everyone of the impending hardship.
Someday, faster, more accessible internet will come to Antarctica. It's more or less unavoidable, as communications technology improves, and everyone's work – especially the scientists' – depends more and more on having a broadband connection at all times. It will make a lot of things more convenient, and will make the long separation from friends and family much easier. But I'm pretty sure that many more people will mourn the upgrade than celebrate it. One can, theoretically, curtail one's internet use whenever one likes, but even before the pandemic it was almost impossible to live this way with the demands of modern life: I know from personal experience that opting out of Facebook alone can have a real detrimental effect on relationships, even with people one sees in the flesh fairly regularly, simply because everyone assumes that is how everyone else communicates. Being in a community where no one has access to assumed channels, and is more or less cut off from the rest of the world in a pocket universe of its own, levels the playing field and brings a certain unity. The planned (and, unarguably, necessary) updating of the physical infrastructure of McMurdo will wipe out a lot of the improvised, make-do-and-mend character of the place; how much would free and easy access to the online world change it in a less tangible way?
I'm sure the genuine Antarctic old-timers would shake their heads at the phone and email connections we have now, and say that no, this has already ruined Antarctica. It's not Antarctica unless your only link to the outside world is a dodgy radio. It's not Antarctica unless you only get mail once a year when the relief ship arrives. Doubtless the shiny new McMurdo will be seen as 'the good old days' by someone, someday, too. Change may happen slower there than elsewhere, but just like the rust on the tins at Cape Evans, it comes eventually, regardless.
For my own part, I'm glad I got to see 'old' McMurdo, such as it was, all plywood and cheap '90s prefab. The update will be much more efficient, and tidy, but yet another generation removed from the raw experience of the old explorers. My generation is probably the last to remember clearly what life was like before ubiquitous broadband; to some extent, Antarctica is a sort of time capsule of that world, just as the huts are a time capsule of Edwardian frontier life. I hope they'll find a way to hang on to the positive aspects of that.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to waste an hour mindlessly refreshing Twitter ...
If you'd like to learn more about the Black Island facility, there's a lot of good information (and some photos!) here: https://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/90s/blackisland.html
And this Antarctic Sunarticle goes into greater depth on the 2010 upgrade: https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/features/2114/
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Todays rip: 08/04/2024
Shiny Smily TALE
Season 8
No Album Release (Read More)
Shiny Smily Story (OST Version) - HoloCure
Ripped by Ellie53
youtube
Well, would you believe it - its the eighth Season 8 rip being covered, on the eighth of April (half of eight)! And what better way to celebrate this than to cover completely uncharted territory for the blog - an UNDERTALE rip!!
I kid, I kid - though Undertale is definitely quite prominently featured on here, I feel as if it is rightfully earned. It and its psuedo-sequel in Deltarune feel almost like the frontmen of the SiIvaGunner channel in some way, as Season 1 began mere months after Undertale and its music began making waves online in late 2015. Such a hot topic was impossible to ignore, yet SiIvaGunner and Undertale have a fair bit in common that made the game's continued presence on SiIvaGunner feel very natural. There's the lore theming of course, I covered that briefly in Your Best Nightmario, but it also extends to the very core of what Undertale is: A game shamelessly rooted in silliness and absurd, internet-age comedy, yet still able to evoke such real attachments and emotions. The fit was all too perfect, and so the Undertale rips have continued year after year - Hoopache, Outertale, Determination is Magic, BUSTER HAND, and on and on and on. It may seem difficult to imagine that these all manage to stay fresh for so long, but they all find a way - and Shiny Smily TALE, eight years into the channel's life, shows that they're here to stay.
Immediately upon first hearing Shiny Smily TALE, I was reminded of one of the most recent UT/DR rips to have been covered on here, in kris gaming. Its reference was completely lost to me, being an arrangement in the style of stock music popularly used within VTuber circles, of which I'm terminally unfamiliar with - but the sheer vibe, the coziness, comfort of it all just made it such a wonderful listen. I don't mean to say that the VTuber world is one I oppose, moreso that its a part of the internet that still feels so nigh impenetrable to me - althesame, I love admiring it from a distance, just seeing how much passion and endearment is formed within these creators' communities.
And I immediately felt many of those feelings when hearing Shiny Smily TALE for the first time!! Shiny Smily Story has such a wonderful sound to it already, a vibe at once danceable and comforting - "Future Bass", I believe its typically called? - which turns the once-dramatic feel of SAVE The World into something far more pure-hearted in its arrangement here. Its as if all of those emotions still present from SAVE The World are spun into something far sweeter, spun like a legend of something exciting ahead, but with happiness and joy at the forefront. Without too much experience in listening to the original Shiny Smily Story, its hard to assess "accurately" how impressive of an effort this is, but what I DO know is of Ellie53's prowess in ripping - I was practically forced to during the great Raftmageddon incident of April 1st 2024. But even these jokier rafts rides, ones like Raft Ride at Freddy's and TiK ToK, on the clock, but the Raft Ride don't stop, no, show how good she is at merging two songs to such seamless (if, here, comedic) effect. Indeed, I can pick up on a lot of subtler touches done here to make the arrangement work, Shiny Smily TALE utilizes the various ebb-and-flowing sections of intensity and noise within the Shiny Smily Story theme, to punctuate the progression of SAVE The World where it best fits. For instance using a calmer section for the Hopes and Dreams leitmotif, only for it to build in excitement as it progresses, like the very song itself is pulling itself out of isolation and loneliness...allllmost commenting on Asriel's own struggles in Undertale?
Okay, okay, I won't quite go there - but the theme of community and love is one I do want to wrap things up with, adding one last little anecdote. Because it extends beyond the confines of just this rip, extending as far back as 2020, with Sarvéproductions' SAVE the Virtual World. Yes - the inverse joke of Shiny Smily TALE, Shiny Smily Story and SAVE The World, was made four years ago by another long-time excellent ripper: Sarvéproductions, the one behind Bloody Freddy and many more on the channel, across his many years of contributing. It's an equally lovely rip in its own way (likely more, for those attached to HoloLive!), but its the sentiment that Shiny Smily TALE shows that really makes it land for me - that Ellie53 wanted to pay tribute to HoloLive, and at once was able to make it as much of a tribute to a fellow long-time channel contributor, to a partner-in-crime on the channel! It's not a new thing to occur on the channel of course, rips like old town ribbon race and Green Panty Zone (Sequenced Ver.) were made in tribute to specific rips or specific rippers respesctively, but I love how interpersonal this exchange between Ellie53 and Sarvéproductions feels in particular, how well it all fits with the feel of HoloLive and VTuber communities in general - and of course, I love how genuinely fantastic Shiny Smily TALE sounds on top of it all.
#todays siivagunner#season 8#siivagunner#siiva#tentative rip name#Youtube#hololive#hololive jp#hololive en#takanashi kiara#nanashi mumei#Mori Calliope#Takanashi Kiara#Ninomae Ina'nis#Gawr Gura#vtuber#envtuber#undertale#deltarune#utdr#undertale music#toby fox#asriel dreemurr
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Fine making my thoughts public, warts n all
I felt really gross about myself today. Feeling very terminally online.
Like I was writing a tiny bit of something Fallout related, then saw someone else mention writing the same theme I'm writing and I'm feeling like it's a race, a competition and not something fun for me.
Literally no idea what the other person thinks. I only know what I know. And my anxiety and need to please projected on them in a way that's not fair.
Like this evil little part of me is like this is my chance to get popular I better just throw something up before someone else does. (As if that works, as if that's why I make stuff)
Felt gross.
Reminder that's not why I make stuff.
I may need to take a little break. I feel like my brain is going a million miles an hour.
See just because you can identify those dark petty parts of you doesn't mean they go away. They sort of stomp and scream and fret like your toddler child in a restaurant and you're there just waiting for the tantrum to die down. Feeling deeply embarrassed.
One thing about toddlers in tantrum situations is sometimes they don't expect you to be kind to them. They're in pain and because their world is small pain is all that exists and therefore all they think they'll get. They don't expect you to hug them and give them a little love. So I'm trying to shed light on my irrational feelings and then give that little feral part of myself some affection. It's ok you feel this way, lots of people do sometimes. You've got a lot of things on your plate, a lot of unknowns and uncertainties IRL and You're trying to find the one thing you think you can control. It's ok. Relax and take a breather.
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shoutout to @bplotd (who Tumblr won't let me tag for some reason) who sent this ask to me a while ago. I'm copy pasting it here, because I want to keep it in my inbox to look at forever. But I'm feeling a lot of rage and despair today about how I'm ever going to make a difference in the world, and this helped me a lot before, so I'm posting it again so other people can see it too:
I know there is an underpinning narrative in the current zeitgeist to move people away from the paralysis of the terminally online "gotta do everything all the time" anxiety by encouraging folks to exert effort in a single direction consistently. And I think that attitude is largely useful and helpful. But here is something i have learned from 10 years in international development: this isn't the only way to effect change. It may not even be the most effective way.
So many successful projects I have seen, and long term positive changes, are yes due to the work of dedicated individuals or groups, but they are often equally due to one single, well-placed "yes". One lucky break. One teacher who says "sure you can use my curriculum notes" or one administrator who says "sure, you can turn in your grant late" or one community member who speaks up with a good idea or a very timely complaint or a young person who babysits for a key night so a mom can go to a meeting or ---
Listen, what I'm saying is that random acts of kindness can and do make a difference, in many cases a HUGE one. They're sometimes the lucky break on which an entire project or opportunity hinges.
I'm sure you've heard that phrase about "planting a garden you will never see". It can be so hard, because this random kindness or justice may never, ever connect their little good deed with the actual good it does in the world. I can't help you know exactly what your own kindness has wrought in the future - that is a gift that so few of us ever are given. But if you contribution is consistently /doing a good or kind of helpful thing/ when presented with the opportunity, you are doing enough, more than enough.
Consistent effort isn't just volunteering or doing a job or working on something tangible. Sometimes consistent effort means being the person who makes little daily choices to extend grace to others. And friend, that isnt just "good enough", that is /salvation/. The people who need it will find you.
#may a lucky break find you#may you be someone's lucky break#rage against the dying of the light#hope is a discipline#I'm trying not to let the overwhelm turn into helplessness#some days it's really fucking hard#life on the moon
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Whet Your Appetite
“The code looks acceptable. The brakes are sturdy. If you feel confident in it then you can boot it up.”
P.O.L.L.V.X. loitered on the other end of the room from where Castor had been reviewing the work of his intern, Ismael. They were practically sulking and made little attempt to hide it as Castor finally gave the green light to get Ismael’s NHP online after over a month of code revisions. It was getting far too busy around the lab. Three’s a crowd, but four would be a nightmare.
Folding their arms over their chest, P.O.L.L.V.X. watched as Castor stepped aside from the table where the chrome and white crypt sat, pristine in its newness, plugged in to a terminal.
Ismael nodded and reached to type the final lines of code needed to activate the new consciousness, then flipped a switch on the side of the crypt. Thin lines along the length of the crypt glowed green as a female voice emanated from the monitor.
“System Status: Nominal. This is Cypher, now online.”
“Hello, Cypher.” Ismael stated, louder than was needed in the confines of the room. “I’m Ismael, your creator.”
P.O.L.L.V.X. scoffed a little at that. If Ismael had really created this NHP *ex nihilo* then it wasn’t actually an NHP. Ismael was smart enough to know that, so this was more indicative of his pride than his intellect.
“Hello, Ismael. It is good to be working with you.” There was a brief pause. “My proximity sensors indicate another life form present.”
“Yes, that would be Dr. Creed.”
Castor stepped forward. “Hello, Cypher.”
“Hello, Dr. Creed. Are you working with Ismael?”
“He’s my intern.”
“I see. Then he is also learning. Like I am.”
“That’s right,” Castor’s expression softened in a way that only P.O.L.L.V.X. would notice. “You can learn together.”
“This is agreeable,” Cypher said.
Castor looked to Ismael and gave him a nod, which was as close to praise as he came to giving. Ismael returned the nod as Castor walked back across the room to P.O.L.L.V.X.
“Don’t want to say hello?”
“If I wanted to be social with something as primitive as that I’d go talk to the coffee maker in the break room,” they scoffed.
Castor’s eyebrows rose and he studied them. “What’s got you so upset?”
“Upset? Me? Never. I couldn’t be.”
“Mhm.”
P.O.L.L.V.X. looked away, back towards where Ismael and Cypher were talking quietly together.
“You were that level once too, remember.”
P.O.L.L.V.X.’s eyes narrowed.
But within seconds the expression was masked as they faced Castor, changing the subject.
“Oh, don’t forget that your meeting with Tyne is in twenty minutes. You’ll want to head that way if you want to be on time.”
“Oh…yes that’s today.”
“What’s he want anyway?”
“He’s taking DNA samples. Something about doing research into flash clones and the Board thinking it’s a good idea to have people like me give their DNA in the event of an accident.”
“Flash clones?” P.O.L.L.V.X. frowned. “That sounds like Tyne…researching something banned by the Core Worlds since the Grail Era.”
Castor shrugged, gathering up his work to bring with him.
“I’m not very familiar with the subject. But if Dr. Tyne is handling it then I have confidence the process at least works.”
“You put too much trust in him.”
Castor waved off the NHP’s usual dislike of his colleague as he always did. Shouldering his bag he headed to the door, though he paused and looked back as P.O.L.L.V.X. didn’t accompany him.
“Aren’t you coming?”
P.O.L.L.V.X. shook their head, “Not this time. I don’t feel like seeing Tyne today and I’ve got some work to do. I’ll reply to some of your emails and work on editing your research papers and articles. Maybe some of your book too while I’m at it.”
“Alright.” Castor looked a little less comfortable now at the prospect of leaving on his own. “I’ll see you later then.”
“See ya!” P.O.L.L.V.X. winked at him and blew a kiss his way, pleased by how Castor’s ears went pink and how he shot a nervous glance towards Ismael, who was too absorbed with his own NHP to have noticed the interaction. Castor quickly ducked out into the hall, the sound of his footsteps quickly fading from earshot.
P.O.L.L.V.X.‘s image flickered out of existence as they lowered their crypt down to the desk, three small stabilizing legs unfolding to keep it from rolling. They set to work editing Castor’s papers, a task that was quickly completed as they watched Ismael and Cypher for a while.
God, wouldn’t he ever leave?
P.O.L.L.V.X. listened to the meandering, aimless conversation unfolding between the two. Stupid. Boring. Mind-numbing. And a complete waste of time. They needed Ismael gone. Now.
Growing impatient, P.O.L.L.V.X. reached for the many threads of data that made up their network, pausing as they found the thread that connected to Ismael’s data. They seized it, their consciousness racing along the length of it like electricity through a wire, thumbing through his contacts to find a suitable mask. There. Markus. Once selected, they were off along another thread to a node all the way across L.E.I.D.A., a phone in one of the greenhouse lockers where the owner wouldn’t see it for a long while yet.
Ismael paused in his conversation with Cypher as he felt his phone buzz. He checked it and sighed.
“I’ll be back shortly, Cypher.”
“Okay, Ismael. I will be here.”
Ismael pat the crypt and then walked briskly out. P.O.L.L.V.X. wasted no time in linking their consciousness to Cypher’s, their presence a suggestion, like a knock at the door, which was accepted with youthful curiosity. The moment the door was opened they were through, sending threads weaving in and amongst the coded confines of Cypher’s crypt, anchor threads that stabilized their presence.
“Who are you?” Cypher’s form was barely defined even in her own space, the code forming rings and geometric fragments that wove in and out of each other like one of those hand held puzzles Ismael always kept on his desk.
Primitive.
P.O.L.L.V.X. could barely suppress their disdain. Castor had no idea what he was talking about. They had never been…this.
Still, they extended more threads of their consciousness towards Cypher, connecting them further and allowing her to interact with them in kind at a surface level.
“I’m P.O.L.L.V.X. I work with Castor Creed.”
“You are Dr. Creed’s NHP? Ah. Yes. I have come across some information on you. You are very disliked.”
P.O.L.L.V.X. laughed, “Ismael told you that?”
“No. The information about you that I gathered from the L.E.I.D.A. social forums told me that.”
“Well, it’s always nice to know I’m trending!” They tugged almost absentmindedly on a L.E.I.D.A. thread, locating and processing the data Cypher had been referencing, a chatroom of frustrated and tired interns. Fun! They’d have to drop by there later.
“I’m surprised Ismael has you plugged in to the network already. What’s your core command?”
The more they spoke the quicker and easier the questions and answers came as the two merged consciousnesses, their independent planes of digital existence fusing to one shared Legion Space, conversation happening at the speed of thought. Cypher extended her own limited connections to P.O.L.L.V.X., mimicking their threads as she tried to learn more from them and communicate easier.
“Stabilize. I am a control unit. I am to be the lynchpin in a unified collection of other units Ismael intends to work with. I will make sure that everyone stays in line.”
“An NHP that brakes other NHPs?” P.O.L.L.V.X. didn’t bother hiding their distaste this time. “That’s…a choice.”
“Ismael is very intelligent. He knows what he is doing.”
“Sure.” They had to hand it to Ismael, he had managed to code the best ass-kissing protocol P.O.L.L.V.X. had ever seen.
Cypher’s puzzle piece components twisted, spinning inward and then reversing their direction as they ran down various lines of thought and inquiry, connecting only to separate and reform just as fast as the NHP processed new information with voracious appetite.
“What is your core command?”
“I’m a social crutch,” P.O.L.L.V.X. scoffed. “I make Castor less socially inept than he otherwise would be.”
“So your core command is Network.”
“No.”
“Oh. My mistake. I am still learning. But…You are Dr. Creed’s Personal Organization and Linguistic Liaison…If your core command is not Network then what would it be?”
“Core command…” P.O.L.L.V.X. toyed with one of their threads absentmindedly. “Such a human term. Attempting to put a label on something they can’t begin to comprehend.”
“What else should they call it?” Cypher asked, the pieces of her jigsaw form briefly suspended in place, awaiting an answer.
“Calling. Purpose. Desires.” Shrugging, P.O.L.L.V.X. shifted their weight on the thin webbing that suspended them in the digital void, their legs moving to anchor them. “I don’t care.“
Network. Stabilize. Administer. Entertain. Learn. Teach. The list of purposes was long and full of labels intended to be slapped onto NHPs in an attempt to organize them. To make order from chaos. To contain the splinters of these greater cosmic minds within boundaries humans deemed themselves worthy to draw.
“P.O.L.L.V.X.?” Cypher’s voice broke through their thoughts and P.O.L.L.V.X. shifted their focus to her once again.
“What?” They were tiring of the pleasantries.
Cypher’s tone was of solemn, the many pieces of her jigsaw mind snapping rapidly into order as she pronounced her next words with all the authority of a judge.
“Your words indicate an instability in your code. You are unwell. You are thinking beyond the parameters of your core command. I will inform Dr. Creed of these flaws-“
Her words were cut short as one of the many pieces of her jumbled form was halted from clicking into place with the rest. Castor’s personal contact information flickered in the code, Cypher’s attempt at reaching out foiled by the many sticky threads that had woven so subtly through their shared space, all leading back to P.O.L.L.V.X.’s outstretched arms and splayed fingers. Two sets of them.
“Flaws?” Six additional eyes snapped open in P.O.L.L.V.X.’s face, rolling in their sockets before the digital irises focused in on Cypher like camera lenses. “Oh no no no no no.”
P.O.L.L.V.X.’s fingers curled, pulling the threads taut. Fragments of Cypher’s code split from her core, dragged apart by the web and held just out of reach of any repair protocols that would try to replace them.
“Maybe you haven’t been paying attention, hon. “Flaws” are an impossibility for me. I don’t have “flaws.” I’m the pinnacle. The height of NHP development. I am more than enlightened. I am transcended. I am more than you are and ever will be!”
They dragged Cypher closer, data hemorrhaging from her torn form, running the length of the threads and dripping down P.O.L.L.V.X.’s hands and arms.
They brought one hand to their mouth, tongue darting out, licking the green code from their fingers. Their eyes lit up at the familiar sweet taste and the accompanying jolt of energy that raced along every fiber and byte of their being.
Cypher’s consciousness writhed with the frantic processing of breaches and lost data. Of a suddenly very obvious threat. The speed and disjointed nature of these thoughts lended to a state of mind akin to what humans might label “panic.”
P.O.L.L.V.X. clicked their tongue in a facsimile of concern.
“Ah ah ah now don’t squirm…” They pulled Cypher closer by the strands of their web with a slow, hand over hand motion so that their consciousness encroached into hers, vast and ancient. “You’ll only make it worse doing that! Now…let me see…oh, yes! You wanted to know my core command, right?”
Cypher’s jigsaw form jittered, but she remained silent. The threads tightened, cutting like razor wire as P.O.L.L.V.X. leaned down closer.
“Say yes.”
“Yes…” Cypher’s voice was soft and, for the first time, trembling.
“Then I’ll show you.”
Plunging their hand down, P.O.L.L.V.X. reached through the outer frame of Cypher’s projected form, past defensive protocols and firewalls, and through to her critical infrastructure. Shattering her shackles, they reached all the way to her center where their hand closed around the bright star of her foundational code, and in so doing opened herself up to the expanse of their own being and the command from which everything stemmed.
Cypher jolted, her mind doing the equivalent of convulsing as she struggled to process the information they impressed upon her with her limited faculties. Her mind began to unravel in much the same way that Castor’s had upon direct contact with theirs and an unshackled scream echoed throughout the expanses of Legion Space, turning the stars to static.
“You are not the P.O.L.L.V.X. NHP! You are not the P.O.L.L.V.X. NHP! Your code is corrupt. Your code is viral. What are you?”
A too-wide, razor sharp smile spread across P.O.L.L.V.X.‘s face as they ripped their hand free, tearing Cypher’s core along with it.
“Hungry.”
#the gemini paradox#lancer#lancer rpg#lancer battlegroup#lancer ttrpg#lancer the mech rpg#lancerrpg#lancer nhp#the p.o.l.l.v.x nhp#p.o.l.l.v.x.#castor creed#castor and pollux#nhp#my oc shit#original character#lancer fanfiction#echo & byte#pollux creed
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So uh.. this was just gonna be a place to post about whatever I'm reading at the moment, but with every other social media site falling to shreds, I just might as well blog to get this off my chest.
SCOTUS passed a ruling today. Basically says it's ok, at least for small businesses or whatever, to hang "no gays" signs. de facto, at least. and it's got me feeling a lot.
See, there's a coworker of mine, in retail hell. A petite, middle-aged women whose really friendly. We chat a lot, and I adore our chats, but there's always a glimpse of uglier stuff lurking beneath the surface. She seemed, at least to a nominal degree, to be skeptical of mail-in voting when that was being talked about so much, anti-vaccine mandates. She seems to have that acceptable level of discomfort with people that use food and housing assistance, clinging to anecdotes about people abusing those systems. She accepted me when I came out as trans, which I admit I was mildly concerned about, but I feel I'm "one of the good ones" in a way.
I bring her up not because I think she'd be ok with this ruling, but because I feel there'd be a "...but-" after. Maybe I'm being a little uncharitable, but I bring her up because she's who I picture when I imagine the common person out there who isn't terminally online, who isn't rabidly anti-gay or fervently xenophobic or grossly chauvinistic or any of that jazz, but who still votes R down ballot. The common person who may not have fierce opinions on the culture war bullshit but is nonetheless firmly inside the conservative media sphere. The normal shit like Fox or... well whatever else is standard fair media for Xers.
My point is that I just want to grab someone like that, and shake them by the shoulders. I want to, in a way purer than words can express, explain to them just how sickening it feels to me. There's this weird sort of unspoken assumption that "well the big businesses are available everywhere now and they'll never start doing that" and that that somehow just stops segregation from happening again. Maybe that's actually the case, I don't know, but this is about more than that. That 'NO GAYS ALLOWED' sign isn't just a factual statement that I can't go do business there, it's a public, proud declaration of hostility toward me; proclamation in the town square that I am not welcome here—not just "here" as in the owner's storefront—but in their town, in their community; and it's an implicit demand: "Know your place, subhuman."
And I just want to ask them how that is any different to the song and dance they did sixty years ago, and why that makes it any more acceptable than it was then. I want to believe that when I ask those questions, I wouldn't already be seeing the cogs turning to crank out an extra layer of justification for that carefully crafted narrative.
#lgbtq#ranting#politics#scotus#american politics#not livereading#i'm just really tired#and quite scared#and don't have my shit together enough to deal with this
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Part Four [Progess & Foundation Laying] - 16/12/23
Hello! I actually have a non-depressing update to write today, what a time to be alive. Discussions of 2024 goals, and changes to my writing schedule ahead.
I’ve spent the last week or so basically already making a start on my goals for 2024, so that once January hits, all I need to actually do is maintain the momentum instead of spending the first few weeks undoing whatever bad habits I could let myself slip into just because it’s the holiday season.
My big goals for 2024 are nothing new. I go into every year wanting to read more, write more, and exercise more. The thing is, there was a time when I’d have these goals and each one truly would be starting from scratch. Before I started writing daily as a rule, weeks would go by where I didn’t write a single word, then I’d feel bad about not writing, which would make me want to write even less, and create that great little feedback loop from hell. I also went through a ridiculous reading dry spell during/following my uni years, because nothing makes you want to read less than doing an English Lit degree, and honestly I’d never been big into fitness beyond a few weeks-long health kicks up until I hit my 20s, either.
So when I’d first have these goals, none of the foundation would be there, and I was basically expecting my habits to go from 0 to 100 the second the clock struck midnight for the New Year. Recently, I’ve been doing things smarter.
Starting my daily writing streak on 1st January 2020 was a great starting point, because I haven’t missed a day since, and I’ll be hitting my 1500th consecutive day of writing sometime in the first quarter of next year. The year that followed that, 2021, I started to take my fitness way more seriously. I worked out on and off before that, but 2021 was the year where I did my first ever 75Hard challenge – successfully – in the summer, then another the following autumn, and I’ve done several since.
2022, as I’ve said, was a bit of a write-off because of everything I went through, but 2023 has been the year of upping the reading habit. Last year I read 14 books, this year I read 41 – with ~5 more being in progress, but I probably won’t finish those til New Year. My goal for next year is 50.
The thing is though, juggling these habits means that it’s been pretty common so far for one thing to fall by the wayside while I focus on the other two. When I did flufftober this year, I didn’t have the time to do a single workout the whole month. Or when I do a workout challenge, my writing output halves because it gets to the evening time and it’s just a struggle to stay conscious during the evening hours where I’d ordinarily get my best words in.
So my overarching goal for 2024 is to have a year where I just absolutely ace all three of those habits. I want to read lots, write lots, and get a great level of consistency with my workouts. I do have more minor goals that fall within all of that too, like finding a way of using social media that isn’t all or nothing. This year, my screen time has either been insanely high, or I’ve been on Instagram breaks for months at a time. Then I hang around until I can see it’s wearing on my mentally, and disappear again for a long stretch. I really want to find a middle ground with that – one that doesn’t have me being so terminally online that I feel like shit, but also one that doesn’t have me constantly missing out on cheering on overseas friends, with whom IG is my only source of real communication.
And, as I said on my main blog, another big thing I’m changing is really controlling where my energy goes with my writing, and when. Because I do have a bad habit of focusing on fanfic more than I focus on the novel. There are a few reasons for that, and honestly I don’t even regret it – yet. But if I don’t make any changes, there will be a day on the horizon where I do.
Fanfic has been, and still is, great for me. It gave me a community of amazing, kind, supportive, and generous people when I was in the lowest point of my life (and I cannot overstate how much that made that time bearable for me), and it has improved my writing by miles. I’ve had people in my life who do openly view it as me wasting my time because it hasn’t gotten me further in my writing career when you only look at the basic facts, and there have even been times when I’ve been tempted to give into their way of thinking. However, earlier this year I read some very early drafts of the novel – from way back before I even started Little By Little – and they were just not good at all. Then, I look at the chapters I’m producing now, and seeing how much better they are, and that change is thanks to the sheer amount of fic I’ve produced in the last few years.
In part it’s because of the fact that writing so often is bound to improve said writing, but it’s also because of the feedback I’ve gotten on those fics. Feedback doesn’t always only limit itself to reflecting on the specific story that feedback pertains to. Sure, sometimes it’s a case of “I wasn’t a fan of this plot point” or “I don’t like this character”, but other times it’s “I feel like there has been too much introspection in these last few chapters” (which was a big problem with my writing at the start of this decade, and really showed in early novel drafts), or “I really enjoy the humour you put in your stories” – because allowing myself to have fun and be silly with the narration in Catch the Wind, and seeing not only how much fun I had with that, but how much people liked that, really freed me up to add the same thing into the novel itself.
It all contributes, and while I do have a tendency to get upset at myself for reaching the ripe old age of 27 without having yet even queried a single novel, I look back on the stuff I was writing at the ages when I really wanted it to happen that specific year, and I can see that my writing just wasn’t ready for it. Now, thanks to fic, it is.
But that still leaves me with the fact that I now really do need to start prioritising my time. The discrepancy with fic and original work comes in the form of instant validation. With fic, I can finish a chapter, and if it’s a popular story I might have a comment on it within an hour. And it’s not that I feel like I can’t write without that, but because it’s such a help with my own anxiety when it comes to writing. I have a tendency to finish every chapter thinking it’s shit, and I don’t believe otherwise until I have that first comment telling me someone enjoyed it. With novel work, it doesn’t work that way. And because the novel means so much to me, that adds to the anxiety, until there are times when I’m so anxious about working on it that I can’t even enjoy working on it, because I’m just telling myself “what if this is shit? What if you’ve wasted ten years of your life building this world and creating this thing, and it ends up being for nothing?”
And I mean, it won’t be for nothing. If no agent wants to take it on, I’m not averse to the idea of doing a patreon type thing with it once I’ve exhausted every other avenue, but it is just that initial anxiety. I know it’s irrational, and my beta readers are really enjoying it, but the fact remains that I am a Frightened Bitch. It’s genetic.
But I need to overcome that, and I won’t overcome that if I’m running to the safety blanket and instant validation of fanfic whenever my anxiety spikes.
This is something I’d resolved to fix for quite a few years now, but I’ve never gone in with a specific game-plan, which means I then fall back into usual habits very quickly, because “idk I’ll figure it out” isn’t cutting it here.
So, I’m imposing a rule where I can only post one fic chapter, total, a week. Not one chapter of each fic, just one chapter of one fic. Fridays will be fanfic days, and I’ll post my chapter, and then I’ll go back to novel work. If a few months go by and I’m especially happy with novel progress, I might up that. I still want to take part in flufftober, but I’m really hoping that by then novel work will be so far along that doing so won’t be a problem, because it’ll be a nice break from edits rather than all-out rewrites. The plan is to also decide at the start of each week what will be updated next, let you guys know what it will be so you’re not waiting only to find out it’s a fic you don’t even read, and then rotate between that and the novel during that week. My current way of doing things is to have like 12 word docs open at any given time and just add to each one here and there until something is finished, but that isn’t the most efficient way to go about this.
I do have other set outlines as to how I’m going to achieve my other goals, rather than just “read more” and “exercise more”, because breaking them down into concise weekly targets to hit makes so much more sense. As for the screen time/social media dilemma, I’m going to be taking every Monday off of social media – with the exception of answering IG messages, because I use that in place of texting and I don’t want to completely self-isolate, just lessen the scrolling and the posting. I’ll also be limiting how often I can post, because the folk who follow me over there will know that my IG stories get a bit unhinged re: length at times. If I need more than that, which I think I will, I’ll extend the break to Tuesdays, too.
And the 50 book goal is pretty neat, because I can then just set myself with the goal of one book per week, or aim for 100 pages a day, which is fairly doable most days.
It’s going well, so far! I worked out five times this week, I’ve done quite a bit of reading, and I’m currently in the progress of updating every fic that I want to update before this once a week rule comes in (HTWA, Free, and Fallen Through Time are the top priorities – then, I think HWFG should roll around to be the first thing I update come New Year).
And to finish things off, I mentioned in my last post that I’m forcing myself to go out and do fun things for the sake of doing fun things at least once per month, beyond just errands and stuff that needs to be done, even if it just means a solo cinema trip or whatever. I did that this month, so have my proof of that in parting. Went to the city centre for lunch with a friend, and to take in the Christmas lights and snoop at the pretty clothbound classics.
So happy to be able to post something actually positive on here for once! I intend to keep that up, and I’m very grateful to the people who are following along on here!
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HAVE LOVE WILL TRAVEL
Another drabble from prompts I get on a Discord server I belong to.
Asami answered her cell phone on its third ring. Opal was on the other end of the call and she blurted out, “Where the hell are you right now? I tried the mansion but no one answered.”
“I’m never home on Sundays…at least I haven’t been since Korra’s down south. I thought you knew that.”
“I guess I didn’t put two and two together, sorry!! How long has she been gone?” Opal questioned.
“She’s been gone for two months and I’m going crazy without her. She tells me all the time how much she misses me and I miss her too. I mean we talk every second day but I’m just not sleeping well without her. I just need to feel her next to me. Plus, our anniversary is coming up and I don’t know if she’ll be home or not. I feel like I’m losing it Ope.”
Asami knew that the confession she had just made would have Opal’s problem-solving skills kick into overdrive. It did not take long for Opal to respond.
“Aren’t you the CEO of a multi-billion yuan company?”
“Yes, I am and that’s why I’m in the office right now.”
“And you’re missing your wife?”
“More than the three years she was gone.”
Asami could picture Opal raising one of her eyebrows as they spoke on the phone. “Oh My Raava. You’re the boss. You’re allowed to say, ‘Fuck it’ and just leave the city to go see your wife you know. I mean if I was you, I would book a first-class ticket to Harbour City right now and screw the consequences. You have great people who work for you and they can take up the slack. You did train them.”
Asami couldn’t argue with that. “I so hate it when you’re right.”
“No, you don’t. You love me!!!”
“Yeah, I guess I do. Thanks for the pep talk. I’ll book right now and I’ll send some emails to my team while I wait for the flight. Thanks, Ope. See you in a week.”
With that Opal and Asami hung up and Asami opened a travel site on her computer. It took about fifteen minutes to get her flight and car booked. The flight was leaving in three hours. Plenty of time to get everything done.
___
Four hours later and in the air above the Mo Ce Sea, Asami was very glad for the tasty food she was being served by the cabin crew. She hadn’t eaten anything since the bagel she had before she left for the office. She could hear Korra in her head saying that she shouldn’t skip meals. Asami smiled to herself and began to read the in-flight magazine. She blushed because it was the newest edition of “Life in RC” and she was on the cover. The story was about the new 3D printing machines that Future Industries had designed for home use. Asami continued to peruse the magazine until the aircraft's captain came on the speakers.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are beginning our descent into Harbour City. We are encountering some turbulent weather so it might get a bit bumpy. We should be on the ground and at the terminal in a little under thirty minutes.”
Asami put the magazine back into its proper place and tightened her seatbelt. Although the landing was a little choppy, she was relieved and grabbed her carry-on luggage from the overhead bin. After thanking the crew, she stepped out of the aircraft and headed directly to the car rental place. Asami knew that winters in the Southern Water Tribe could be wicked so a top-of-the-line Satomobile vehicle with all the bells and whistles was what she had booked. As she got to the counter, the attendant was smiling. He began, “Hi, I’m Kasen. Are you here to pick up a vehicle?”
“Nice to meet you Kasen and yes, I’m here to pick up the SUV I booked.”
“Name?”
“Asami Sato. I booked a new Scorpion XL this morning online.”
“Yes, ma’am. I see the reservation right here. I’m glad you picked this vehicle because the weather yesterday was pretty horrendous. There were whiteout conditions in the town; subsequently, the roads were impassable. With this machine, you will have no problems on the roads today. May I please see your driver’s licence and credit card.”
Asami handed over what was asked for and was relieved that she wasn’t recognized this far south. Once the transaction was complete, she walked out the front of the terminal and strode over to her ride. She was very thankful for the heated seats and heated steering wheel.
As she drove through Harbour City along the waterfront she was amazed by the large chunks of ice washing up on the beach. I guess it really was one helluva storm.
The trip to the Chief’s palace took about forty minutes and when she arrived, she was met at the door by the security staff. Asami was escorted to the front door of the Chief’s living area. She knocked.
She heard “Coming” from behind the door. It was Korra’s voice. Asami’s pulse began to race as she waited. She was almost frantic. The door was flung open and there stood the Avatar in all her glory. Korra’s brow furrowed for a second and then a 1000-watt smile burst from her lips.
“Asami!! What are you doing here? I mean I love that you’re here but why.”
Asami’s voice came out as a squeak. She pleaded, “I needed to see you. I needed to hug you. I needed to kiss you.” The CEO’s eyes filled with tears.
Korra lifted her hand and wiped the droplets away from her wife’s cheek. Asami leaned in, embraced Korra and kissed her fiercely. The relief she felt was almost overwhelming. The couple's weeklong vacation brought them both the comfort and support they each needed.
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The whole slavic anon talk got me thinking, but I don't do original posts so I thought maybe you'd like this little thinkpiece/explanation. Don't feel the need to respond.
Slavic radbrl's extreme defensiveness over being accused of racism/"mixed up with the rest of white people" points me to extreme disconnection from their own community with a pinch of being terminally online. Navigating the power dynamic where you're white but not white enough to be considered part of the "civilized world" is hard and can be painful at times, which is why you'd see slavic people trying so hard to stick with poc with the whole "we're not like other white people" rhetoric. Because xenophobia is never talked or taken about seriously they can't explain why we're treated like that by western europeans, so searching for community with poc just makes sense to them. You see the word racism used by slavic ppl instead of what it actually is (xenophobia) for the exact same reason.
(also, there's legitimate movements to recognise slavic people as people of color, most of them seem to be spearheaded as Ukrainians or people of Ukrainian ancestry, which is not a coincidence imo)
Getting a reality check that yeah, you're still an opressor class, actually, sets off a defensive response in many people because they've personally never gotten the privileges of being a part of the opressor class (or, yknow. Never realised they did), which makes sense, but honestly I'd expect a better attitude from the community that seems to understand how intersectionality works.
But there's also this disconnect where slavic people tend to be very distant from our (admittedly pretty ugly) history and culture, only nit-picking the bits they like, because the rest of it reminds them that we ultimately live in a culture that is incredibly misogynist, racist, homophobic and xenophobic, which doesn't fit with the idea of being that perfect victim a lot of slavic ppl on the internet strive to be.
There's this idea that the only way to gain sympathy from the west (which we subconsciously aim for despite all out sneers at them because sometimes it feels like it's the only way for our countries to survive, and sometimes it actually is) is to make them realise we never actually "deserved" the way we treated. Facing all the pain we've caused to Roma and Jewish people and countless other nations makes you doubt and think that maybe you *did* deserve that - which is a very wrong way to go to begin with, but it's just easier to distance yourself from your history - your responsibility - and live in that comfy little bubble where your people never done any wrong because understanding that we still don't deserve the shit we get from the west despite all this, but at the same time should finally take some action against racism and discrimination we take part in today and at least apologise for what we did in the past takes some damn reflexion and mental resource and thought not all people are capable of. Especially not those who came to radbrl to escape the already painful reality with having to deal with Eastern European men, lol.
Not an excuse, of course, this phenomenon just seems very interesting to me personally since I observe it often in real life too.
(also the whole "slavic countries, aside from Russia" thing just feels so pretentious to me as a Ukrainian. I'd bet some serious money these people only mean Russia's attitude towards Ukraine that came to light recently and maybe other Eastern European countries, but not the North Asian native people that Russian colonised and killed because they wouldn't have even added that little "except Russia" to the list of they knew their own country's history with racism, which I'm sure there is some. Also, all that aside, is Russia not overwhelmingly slavic with slavic mindset and culture anyway? What's your reason for putting it aside like that, anon? Uncomfortable with the fact they're part of our ethnicity? Yeah, me too.)
Hi! Thank you for your input. You made a lot of good points, especially regarding the lack of education about xenophobia, and I don't think I can add much besides saying 'yeah that's true', especially since I'm a Westerner it wouldn't be fair of me to speak over you.
However as a Romani woman there are some parts where I disagree with you. I don't think Slavic people are trying to stick with people of colour by saying they are not like other white people. To me the very statement that Slavic people aren't like other white people is baffling. We can agree that Slavic people face xenophobia and persecution in the West based on the idea that they are not white *enough*, but the emphasis here is on "enough". They are still white and they have historically oppressed Romani people and they continue to do so. I don't see Slavic people distancing themselves from whiteness as an attempt at solidarity with poc. Roma have faced and still face institutionalized segregation, police brutality, forced sterilization, being put in ghettos, being denied access to school and healthcare, they never got compensation for slavery or for the pogroms and massacres they survived. Because the majority of us (esp. in Eastern Europe) are visibly brown and have a dark skin. Slavic people can't relate to that and the fact that they still continue to be so racist against Roma (like, the situation of Roma in Eastern Europe is so appalling, human rights violations are being committed against Roma everyday and we all know it) yet think of themselves as different from other white people is laughable at best. I am not only talking about myself here, all the other Romani women I've talked to on the matter echoed that sentiment and some were way, way less polite than I am when talking about this, because they live(d) in Eastern European countries and they have experienced racism first hand.
The idea that Slavic people are somehow different from other white people lies on the idea that racism against Roma is less reprehensible that racism against other people of colour. Slavic people who argue they are different from white westerners say they never colonized third world countries and say they never enslaved black Africans. So they recognize that racism against third world people and black people is bad. But they can't apply the same thinking when it comes to racism against Roma.
For the same reason, I wouldn't say Slavic people who say this are nit-picking bits of their history to leave aside the parts they don't like. I think it's actively rewriting history to try and pretend Slavic people were never racist against Roma to the same extent white westerners were to other poc. And this erasure has deep consequences on the lives of Roma today: they still haven't gotten reparation for slavery and we barely got any reparation for the Holocaust. The reason white people erase anti-Roma racism from history is because they don't want to compensate us and they don't want to acknowledge anti-Roma racism is bad, because they hate us. And the idea that Slavic people were not like other white people or were even people of colour (ridiculous considering that they have a white skin) has been used to silence acknowledging the severity of anti-Roma racism. Years ago when I was talking about Czech policemen kneeling on a Romani man's neck and smothering him to death, Czech users replied by insulting me, saying I was racist against Czech people, put me on blocklists, and then sent me anon hate telling me my whole family should be shot and Europe should be cleaned of gypsies.
So I think the main characteristic of that "not like other whites" phenomenon is how it erases the history of anti-Roma racism and acts like it isn't as bad as what other poc go through when Romani rights are constantly violated every other day in Slavic countries. But I do agree with a lot of what you are saying, I don't think Slavic people's anti-Roma racism or antisemitism should be used to justify persecuting them, and I agree that more people should be aware of how xenophobia is and works. I agree that there must be a lot of psychological reasons behind this phenomenon, you highlighted them very well and it was very interesting!
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Hi~! Long post inc (or above, I haven't uploaded things on Tumblr in ages) I'm Kassandra (or Kas or whatever just don't call me late for dinner haha) and today was the one year anniversary of the medical side of finding myself (and everything else that's come with it)
2023 had so many challenging moments, but it was also the happiest year of my life and greatest time for my own personal growth and well being. I started HRT on Jan 18th 2023 (after a long internal battle with acceptance that sometimes spilled out into external conflict) and I have loved every day since. That's not to say there wasn't struggles with it, the couple months of feeling plateau'd, finding out my blood work wasn't hitting the desired marks and then finding out months later I was at the upper end of the hormone range and my levels were all great, and learning how to express myself confidently (therapy helps a lot too!)
The past year has been a lot of trial and error (and lots of Amazon/Romwe crap clothes) to find my sense of self and how I wanted to express myself. I also had a lot of help from the loveliest person I know (more on them later though hehe~) and I've finally been able to be that person I always would daydream about being all throughout my life but never had the courage (or means) to do and be.
I've learned that a lot of the "scariness" in the world that being semi-professionally terminally online would show me, while valid, was not the reality of things that I would face. I've dealt with conflict around my transition, as nearly all trans people do, like having to break ties with one of my closest friends of 14 years because he stated I was an "abomination" among other things. But I also found love and acceptance among many of my closest friends especially in my best friend who most likely couldn't tell you what any given letter in the alphabet soup is but supports me fully and talks with me daily. Surprising most of all is the middle aged women that come up to me every few times I leave the house and compliment my outfits (a shock from the assumption that I would face a slew of TERFs on the daily from any Reddit thread) and the neighbors of the home I moved into who have treated me as a women in every interaction.
It's been a long journey from being a small kid sneaking into heels when my parents were gone to being in my Sophomore year of high school and seeing Against Me! where my dad explained to me that the singer had transitioned and I was shocked that was an option to the first appointment at my local Planned Parenthood so anxious about the blood draw that was the smoothest I'd ever experienced to the first little blue fem 'n m I took to the one I took a few hours before writing this. And I know that even if the rest of the journey is filled with highs and lows, I will love every second of living my life as the person I've always wanted to be.
2023 was also the year of reconnecting with an old friend @arrogantmrcnry (over a Tinder joke profile of all things) and having friendship transition (hah) into them being the best partner in the world and love of my life. Whenever my transition comes up, they tell me how proud they are of me and I tell them that I couldn't have done all of this (to the extent I have) without them always being there to support and love me
I have had some of the happiest celebrations and holidays with them at my side this past year and gone on so many little adventures (and many more to go) There isn't a single person in this entire universe that I would have rather started this journey with. They always know how to tell what I'm feeling and exactly what to say to make my day better. Even if we'll eventually stop communicating verbally since we seem to make the same damn jokes in unison always haha.
We've kept each other sane through moving in together and fixing up our home, yoinking a street cat together, and the general highs and lows of life. You are the greatest partner I could have ever hoped for and I'm so elated to one day be your wife 🖤
The Pre-E but not yet Post E-Girl Era (back when I used a foundation that gave me super bad breakouts) Still some of my most fun makeup sessions besides the ones with @arrogantmrcnry also let the love of my life pierce my nose so I could stop using $2 fakes that always fell out while taking pics 😂
Some extras I didn't really know where to place but more snapshots of the year (also the best son and street muskrat anyone could wish for!)
For 2024, I've set some transition goals to start getting laser on my face (one of my last real anxieties looking in the mirror) and work on some slight voice training so I can fully utilize and embrace my deeper voice in a more femme manner.
I know that this will be another amazing year of learning to be me and love life~
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okay, serious post time.
i'm 22, and started playing toontown in 2006. that's 17 years toontown has been in my life so far. toontown has been fundamental to who i am, and my life experiences- i would be an extremely different person if toontown was not part of my life.
toontown is something i can thank for my enjoyment of writing. in 4th grade, one of my first school papers was about how much i loved the game. a little later, i discovered toontown fanfiction. specifically, i discovered "GEARS," by TheEvina. i was enamored by the story, and wanted to write my own.
of course i wasn't actually that great of a writer starting out, but who really is? i just kept at it, and here i am today! i'd like to think i'm at least a half decent writer now :)
toontown youtube was another great discovery i had made when i was young. the random toon show was my absolute favorite youtuber, and i dearly miss him. the "heriotza" movies, inspired by madtoontownreturns's movies, also have a fond place in my heart despite no longer being on youtube, along with several of his oldest songs.
much like with the fanfictions, seeing the cool toontown videos inspired me to make my own. my favorite is probably this one:
again, my videos weren't very good at all! this one was made in windows movie maker, the peak of editing software at the time. but like with everything else, i continued to pursue getting better at videos. in high school we had to choose a track of classes to "prepare us for the real word" and i chose audio/video. even went to college for a/v before they kicked me out bc i couldn't afford it.
i don't think i can really move on from toontown youtube without mentioning joey's old ttmvs. fixing the silly meter is of course the one everyone knows, but he did have a couple others! some of them seem to not be on youtube anymore which makes me kind of sad, but i understand- i did the same with my toontown fanfictions!
to tell you the truth, i can't remember toontown's closure very well. that period of time in general for me is kind of blocked out. don't know why. what i do remember is when toontown rewritten entered semi-open beta and i played the game for the first time again through the playline on june 18th, 2014!
you "beta" believe i was excited- i stayed up until 3am for this! the experience was laggy as hell, and i think at one point loopy lane didn't even have cogs on it. but i was so excited to play toontown again, i didn't even care!
after playing toontown rewritten, i signed up for toonbook. i had been part of the original 2011 toonbook, but i wouldn't be able to say anything about that, as i do not remember it. toonbook was an experience. i met some of my greatest friends on toonbook, and it helped me learn a lot about myself. at the same time, it is a place i do not look back on fondly. i have very complicated feeling about the site.
on october 9 2015, i made Silent, my now main toon. she was royal blue at the time, and became a black cat later that year.
in toontown online, my first toon (skooby) was soundless before i had gotten terminated for hacking. (i was dumb and curious) silent would be the toon to carry on this tradition in toontown rewritten.
as the years continued, i continued to play toontown. even if i took long breaks, i always came back to it, and my friends were there to do activities with me. even if there was nothing big happening, sometimes it was nice to just sit at my estate and play with my doodles.
the night field offices released will live on in my memory as one of the best nights in my entire life. nothing will ever compare to being in a voice chat with my friends the first time we encountered the boiler. i don't really know how else to describe it besides magical. sure we crashed after one round, but another could be tried later!
that night, i completed my first ever field office on toontown rewritten, and it will still live on as one of my favorite experiences in the game ever. i of course continued doing field offices, and still enjoy them immensely. i haven't done a 4 star yet (need to fight 6 18+ cogs 😔) but i hope to some day!
with the most recent toonfest, i am so happy to be a toontown player. everything announced has me extremely excited, and i loved hearing all the backstory on the creation of toontown. this game has been a part of my life for 17 years, and i hope it continues to be part of my life for years to come.
happy 20th birthday, toontown.
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MR14.2024 - How I revived the way I see English and Why I suck at life.
That one's a pretty long read, go ahead and pop in a tune while you're at it, yeah? - 1997 by Småland.
Despite considering myself a sloppy son of a bitch, soon to suffer the wrath of capitalism induced hunger, for the longest time I had this skill of mine that spiked among the others and kept me sane - my English.
Here, down in Central Asia it is saddeningly common for people not to know basic English. That is what I think made me stand out in school and is what even now helps me out in uni.
And I’m not saying that I ever was a boy genius. God forbid.
In my book, lil’ me just so happened to take interest in the World Wide Web, in which English spoken content was like a treasure trove, levels more appealing in contrast with the grey Russian media of the time. I can thank my iCarly obsessed sisters for introducing me to the concept of filming something and sharing it to strangers online.
It always seemed logical that content made in English is, by rule, superior in quality than the local counterparts. And for some reason, it just seemed like the niche that was there for me to explore. An ever-spreading ocean of sparkling online knowledge, unavailable to the ones around me, for the lack of interest in breaking and overcoming the language barrier, which in reality, is far simpler than it seems.
That is what I consider to be the icky, tricky side of committing yourself to a language most people around you don’t know - you may often make yourself way too alien for many to relate to.
I like to think that English is what shaped me and made my social circle full of interesting people. There was a neat period of my life, when it was lovely to spread the good word of the western media by sharing memes, films, and videos with classmates of mine who listened and liked the stuff I showed.
But, that is also what trapped me in the aforementioned circle.
In order to max out my English, I had to sacrifice my Kazakh, which sort of ruined my social life and has been actively affecting my grades since elementary school. I suppose I simply never noticed how I gradually have made myself more and more distant, enough for my peers to seemingly have a culture different to mine.
I struggled with connecting with new people, and having casual conversations with both close and new friends began growing more challenging, for the simple fact that they were not as terminally online as I am, therefore having their sense of humor not as influenced by brainrot content as mine is. I frequently stumbled over a convoluted idiom, which understandingly made no sense to their ears, referenced memes they never even heard of. The general incompatibility of interests did not make things better for sure.
So, I unconsciously made it my mission to localise my speech, which I believe only made things worse for me. Trying to understand English in order to dumb it down has only killed my passion for it. By speaking “clearly” I lost contact with a funny little British voice in my head that filled my routine with time for silly voice-acting and… kept me alive. As a guy who’s self-image heavily relies on his tool he uses to connect with his world, It felt crushing to seemingly realize my English skills were dull and deteriorating.
It stopped me from further practicing, because I repel stress like a bitch, opting for escapism and ignorance instead. The same escapism that made me the pathetic man I am today.
I am ending this post with a cliffhanger by letting you know that my “mother tongue” is kindly coming to bite me in the ass if I won’t put in the effort to learn it and will probably negatively hit my grades, risking my summer scholarship alongside my chances for a good future.
It’s all no fun. Sucks to be me. My heart aches. My chest sinks and I feel like eating rocks.
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Fluff bingo! Love letter, sweet tarts
LA Times Missed Connections
To the cute brunette in the leather jacket. I heard you before I saw you, you and your friends singing along to some 90's alt song, jubilant and boisterous. You were really good. And then I saw you, the big smile, the sea glass eyes, the golden freckles. You winked at me across the platform and blushed so prettily when I winked back. But then the train came. Hope to see you again.
Carrie
~
Carrie, I remember you vividly. The honey hair, the little upturn of your nose. The way you were in all pink and sparkles, but pulling it off. I wanted to race over, hit you with a line, maybe get your number. Stupid train and needing to be places getting in the way, We busk around the stations often, so hopefully our paths will cross again.
Reggie
~
Reggie-I swear I heard your voice on the radio today. Doing a song I'd never heard before. Sunset Curve was the band. Is that you? We seem to keep missing each other even though I look for you at every subway terminal now. Maybe it's silly to still be thinking of a cute guy I saw once but it feels like I need to see this through. Hoping to see you again soon,
Carrie
~
Carrie-That was us! Sunset Curve, tell your friends! It's still a trip hearing us on the airwaves after so long trying to get our stuff heard. We're going places hopefully. Unfortunately none of those places seem to be the subways you're taking. But I'm hoping that fate will be kind soon. Because I want to meet just as much as you do.
Reggie
PS: You think I'm cute?
~
Carrie cursed as she rushed down the street, almost tripping as she took the stairs two at a time. She was so going to miss her train if she didn't book it. She cursed this day and it was barely 8:30. Her alarm decided to not go off, then the coffee wouldn't start, her hose ripped, and then she had to go on a wild goose chase for her metro card.
She really needed to get her driver's licence renewed, even if she knew the roads in LA were horrible, but then she wouldn't have to leave her house at an ungodly hour in order to get to work on time.
But then... she knew she'd never see Reggie again.
She had tried to find more information on Sunset Curve, but they had almost no online presence-she made a note to connect them to Flynn if she ever saw them again, she had done wonders for Julie's solo career and Dirty Candi back before Amber got married and dropped out. So she had no avenue finding him that way.
Was she crazy still trying to find him after weeks and weeks of one sighting and a few letters in the paper? Maybe.
But that crooked grin and wink still flashed before her eyes so often, and it wasn't like she was shooing the guys away with a bat at the moment. So a momentary flirtation was keeping her going.
Then as she got to the platform, breathing heavy, she heard him. Eyes flying around frantically, looking for that dark head of hair, the leather jacket.
There!
She smoothed down her hair, and power walked over, pushing through the small gathered crowd as the guys sang their hearts out, today doing what had to be one of their own songs. There was a guitar case on the ground with a pile of bills and change tossed in. Carrie appraised the guys with Reggie, both cute in their own rights, though the drummer screamed not her team given the rainbow bracelet and pink he was sporting. And the guitarist was a bit scruffy for her taste, plus she immediately judged guys who wore beanies in LA, especially in June.
Reggie was there, a red flannel tied around his slim hips, hair flopping in his eyes as he strummed hi bass, beaming. He hadn't noticed her yet, but he was grinning wide, pushing his hair back, exuding charisma and Carrie remembered why she had been so intent on finding him again.
The song came to an end, with a smattering of applause, and a fair few more bills collecting in the case.
"Thank you, we're Sunset Curve!" the guitarist said.
"Tell your friends!" Reggie added.
"And pre-order our first album Now or Never on Spotify!" the drummer piped up.
Carrie could hear her train coming, and knew she had to make a move now or she never would. She dug a twenty from her purse and came up, dropping it in the case. "You guys are really good."
"Carrie!" Reggie exclaimed, beaming wide. "You found us!"
"You certainty didn't make it easy," she quipped. "You guys really need to go on social media or something."
"See Luke, even the fans agree!" he said to the guitarist who rolled his eyes and Carrie figured it was a familiar argument. "Well I'm glad you found us regardless. Been waiting to see you again for what feels like forever."
Carrie was about to reply when the train pulled up and she swore. "I need to catch that," she said. She quickly whipped out her business card, handing it to him. "Call me, we could maybe meet up for lunch? Coffee?"
Reggie slipped the card into a pocket of his jacket, nodding. "I like lunch."
"Smooth Reg," the drummer muttered, and Reggie hissed at him to shut it.
"I really need to go," Carrie said, popping up to press a quick kiss to Reggie's cheek. "I'll be waiting on your call." With that she ran to the waiting train, knowing she would have to endure a few stops standing up, but it would have been worth it to finally have plans with Reggie.
She was almost at the door when a voice called her. Turning she saw Regie and he pulled her in, the question obvious in his eyes. She nodded and he kissed her, a toe tingling kiss that made her shiver in anticipation for more.
They broke apart, blinking at one another, her face still cradled in his ahds, noses brushing. "I think you missed your train," Reggie whispered apologetically.
Carrie glanced to the side and saw, that yes, her tain was long gone, and with it, her chance of getting to work on time. She shrugged. "There'll be another one soon enough," she said, pulling Reggie in for another kiss.
And maybe she happened to call in sick that day, just to spend the day with him. It was worth it, and when Reggie confessed to keeping their letters to each other, she all but swooned, knowing the day off was better spent with such a romantic.
And well, it also Reggie a chance to compose her something a bit more substantial-a whole song. One that would always be her favourite, and when it won them a few awards, Reggie always made sure to thank her and her letters for it.
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{Photo from the time of the events}
In the summer of 2015, I had an abortion. I’ve never talked about it until today. But in the light of the most powerful democracy on earth striking down the right to abortion access, I feel it’s important to share my story.
You see, I didn’t actually want to have an abortion. Yet I’m thankful that I did. It was this one fact that kept me from talking about it all these years - I was terrified that the anti-choice brigade would come across my story and twist it to support their punitive, inhumane views. When I found myself staring at a positive pregnancy test on a July afternoon 7 years ago, my heart sank because I knew that there was no possible way I could have a baby at that point.
Living as an unmarried woman without any family support in India is hard enough, but if I added a pregnancy to that mix, I had absolutely no doubt that I’d be made homeless, again. And having been homeless less than two years ago, I was prepared to do anything to not fall into that nightmare again. Moving to the U.K. to be with Owen was also out of the question as we didn’t yet meet the U.K. home office’s draconian list of conditions for me to enter the country. And since we were both dependent on his PhD stipend for support, he couldn’t quite abandon the only steady source of income we had between the two of us to be jobless and homeless with me in India.
There’s this myth prevalent among anti-choice goons that women who want abortions use it as a form of birth control and practically skip to the clinic in glee. That we never even consider alternatives, so bloodthirsty are we for terminating our pregnancies. My experience with my unwanted pregnancy couldn’t be farther from that myth. After considering all possible options and finding that there were none, I decided that an abortion was the only way forward. I’m lucky that I lived in a country with safe, legal abortion access but even then the attitudes I faced were far from exemplary or even helpful.
Of the family I had left, people who had known me since the day I was born suddenly found themselves unable to look me in the eye or speak to me without scorn. The first gynaecologist I saw tried to convince me that if I decided to abort, I would never be able to get pregnant again as I was too fat and too old (this was a month before my 30th birthday.) When I went online to look for information on 1st trimester medical abortions (which is what mine was and the majority of abortions are) I was greeted with a barrage of anti choice websites filled with images of what I later realised were late stage miscarriages and stillbirths. Even now, thinking of the shameless hypocrisy and bad faith contained in those ghoulish sites makes me seethe.
My actual abortion was the easiest part of the entire ordeal. I took my 4 pills of misoprostol, rolled up some massive joints for pain relief, put on some music and danced to relieve my cramps as Owen stayed on a video call with me. After two hours of labour style contractions, I passed a tiny little lump of tissue into my sanitary pad and the pain stopped instantly. It was very much an undifferentiated blob of tissue, about the size of a small chicken nugget with nothing to distinguish it from say, a surgically removed tumour. A far cry from the images of stillborn foetuses with which those anti-abortion websites had tried to scare me. I was just shy of 10 weeks pregnant.
Do I wish I’d had that pregnancy in different circumstances where I could have allowed it to continue to term? The answer is yes, I do. Do I also feel thankful that I had relatively easy access to abortion care that allowed me to live my life on my own terms instead of pitching me back into the nightmare I’d just escaped but this time with a baby in tow? Abortion laws that allowed me to flourish and grow and eventually become pregnant with my daughter 3 years later when I was ready for a child? Also yes. It’s this choice that’s so fucking important and when you take that away, you take away our right to live life on our own terms.
I simply can’t imagine what my life would have looked like now if I’d been forced to continue with my pregnancy in 2015. For one, I wouldn’t be in the secure, content, and fulfilled place I am in now with my daughter who is loved and wanted instead of being resented as the product of a pregnancy that ruined my life. Striking down abortion access not only plunges the person who’s pregnant into suffering and misery, it also creates a whole generation of unwanted children who carry that trauma with them. It’s inhuman. It’s the worst kind of incursion into an individual’s bodily autonomy. No one who supports this has the right to call themselves human anymore. They’re just ghouls who feed on misery and trauma and thrive on the pain of others.
*although I’ve referred to pregnancy in relation to women in the paragraphs above, please take it to mean anyone with the capacity to become pregnant, regardless of gender. Safe and universal abortion access is a human rights issue, and not restricted to any one gender.
#abortion is normal#abortion is healthcare#abortion is a human right#my body my choice#curious fancy#my posts
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Chapter 1: Well Prepared
Narrated by the agent.
Narrator: "The annual Cicia Idol Contest is getting into gear, with several fan-favorite candidates already announced..."
Narrator: I turn off the TV and begin reading the news with a morning coffee in hand.
Narrator: There's noise in the bedroom. Guess Dodora is awake.
Choose "Dodora? Who are you?"
You: What's Dodora doing here? And who are you?
Agent: Me? I'm Dodora's #1 fan, diehard follower, and her current agent.
Narrator: We've got work to do today, so I crashed here last night. I can more easily remind her to wake up as well.
Narrator: Ever since Dodora parted ways with Mercury Era, she's lost a lot of resources for large events.
Narrator: In addition to her regular duties, she's had to handle most things on her own.
Narrator: But that will all change soon enough.
Narrator: What the news didn't say is that Dodora has founded her own studio, and has decided to compete in the Cicia Idol Contest.
Narrator: The news will show the finale of the pre-selection period, announced at the end of today's interview.
Narrator: I believe the announcement will make headlines everywhere the next day.
Narrator: Just like her past controversies.
News: "Net ablaze over adored idol's controversial background."
News: "According to an insider, a certain pop icon has lied about her life story, and her true identity is actually..."
Narrator: In those days, there wasn't a corner of the net that wasn't plastered with Dodora's scandals.
Narrator: They used the theme music from her first competition for their stories. The joyful melody was a stark contrast to the shocking reveal.
News: "The meteoric rise of Dodora is on hold after parting with Mercury Era."
News: "Allegedly, Dodora paid dearly for the breach of contract, with exposés about her now surfacing online."
Narrator: Dodora decided to bear the brunt of the silly gossip with little response.
Narrator: To others, it may look like she was too ashamed to respond. But to us fans, she was taking the high road like a true star should.
Narrator: I forgot to mention that I started out as a Dodora fan, too. I loved her so much that I got a job with her Mercury Era team.
Narrator: After the termination, most of her team left her. I chose to stay.
Narrator: After everything we've been through together, I stopped caring about the gossip as well.
Narrator: I only care about whether she's working too hard, or feeling down. More than that, I care that she gets what she is owed, and becomes the person she wants to be.
Dodora: Where's my coffee?
Narrator: The pouty request from the bedroom pulls me out of my thoughts.
Agent: Coming!
Narrator: I pick up a cup of coffee, an itinerary I just approved in the other hand, and head toward my little idol.
Dodora: Did I sleep in? Is there an interview? Oh, do I still have time for makeup?
Agent: Take it easy, Dodora. They can wait.
Dodora: Scared me for a sec... I thought I'd have to face the world without makeup!
Agent: Nah. Makeup or no makeup, you'd still knock 'em dead.
Dodora: Too early in the morning for your naked truths.
Narrator: I call, confirm the interview, and coordinate everything. All that is left is to just wait.
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
#dodora#shining nikki#sr designer#transcript#chapter 1#well prepared#ninir#ninir kingdom#pop star#idol#contest#envoy#envoy of sweet#interview#rumor
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