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evilweasel · 2 years

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Fucking???? Blows my mind that people buy things regularly, or have things bought for them regularly. Like new video games every two weeks, new accessories or clothes/shoes every month, art supplies, even getting regular coffee or lunch out in supermarkets. I have a friend who constantly spends on shirts, sparkly rocks, cool notebooks, shoes, figures, pokemon cards, a sunglasses collection. Stuff she just sees and goes "I want that" and GETS it. She doesn't save to the endless void like I do. Doesn't hang on to every fiver, every pound coin, because she's going to need it for this big Future Purchase that never comes. Another friend, she gets money to buy lunch. She doesn't automatically get the cheapest food so she can save better. Why not? Aren't you worried you're going to need that? A third friend, she's in a wealthy tax bracket and gets money from her parents whenever she wants and spends so much on genshin and models and plushies it makes me wince because it's so much money to me. She has the balls to ask money from her wealthy parents and doesn't feel shame about it. Which, GOOD. THATS HOW IT SHOULD BE. WHAT THE FUCK THOUGH.

No shade to these friends btw they are genuinely the most generous people I ever met and I honestly aspire to be their level of generous. The amount of times the first 2 friends have bought me snacks, energy drinks, coffees, donuts (don't know the 3rd friend as well but she's also super generous to her gf). And all I can think is do you know. Do you know i will not be able to repay your kindness. My company isn't even that good im so shit at conversations and can barely stutter out a thank you because I'm super grateful but super embarrassed that I can't return the favour, maybe ever, because my brain just Save Save Saves, so why did you buy me coffee when this could have gone to YOUR Big Future Purchase. I aspire to be their level of carefree. Not to have to force myself to get McDonald's to fit in when everyone else is, and even then it's just a medium milkshake. To never have to weigh up the pros and cons of getting a coffee on a day you're super tired. To not count up the days you got a 3 pound meal deal 3 days a week. 9 pounds a week for every week of term adds up. Don't get me fucking started on things I actually want and don't need. I genuinely cannot buy a thing for myself without giving it 2 to 3 weeks of thought over whether I actually need it or can I Save Some More. Thinking constantly thinking about old purchases and whether they were justified or i went mad. I got that thing and don't even use it that often. I bought that game and haven't had the opportunity or spoons to play it yet, that was 20 quid wasted and i can't buy anything else until I've played through everything else. I bought those books and haven't read them yet. I got a mystery bag at comicon and didn't particularly like what was inside. All this stuff proves i can't be trusted, so I don't need that new video game, I have minecraft. I don't need new clothes, I don't like my current ones but they still fit me. I don't need that book. I can reread. I'm not hungry, I'll eat at home. Other people have it worse. Some people can't even afford to have the heating on. If I'm not Super Ultra Careful, I'll end up like them. It's like an eating disorder but instead of counting calories im counting pennies.

I'm not even working class. Our house has a kitchen island and a double fridge. We always have enough to eat, enough to turn the heating on. When I was a kid I got everything I asked for and the nice birthday presents. So why am I so scared. Whats been ingrained into me to make me scared. My dad tells me I'm so stingy. He told me when I was 5 I was told to put a pound coin into the charity spinner and I wouldn't do it bc that would mean I wouldn't have the pound coin. I didn't want to spend it on something else. I just wanted the pound coin bc I knew it might be able to get me something, one day. When I was 10 and went away to Cornwall, my uncle gave me 10 quid to spend, but told me if I didn't spend it then he would take it back because at this point everyone knew I had Spending Troubles. And I couldn't do that either. I looked around all the shops and dithered because there was nothing I wanted more than the tenner just to save it up and put it away. I was ten. What was I saving for??? A house??? A car??? A uni fund??? At the time i wanted a drawing tablet more than anything, but I knew even if I hung onto this tenner it wouldn't make any difference and ten year old me would never be able to get that on my own. I never spent any birthday money. Any Christmas money. At 14 I had enough to buy half a drawing tablet and got my parents to get the rest of it when it was on sale and they STILL only took half my money and paid ¾. Money im still hanging onto now, at 17, when they paid most because they wanted me to get something I wanted more, they didn't think I'd actually save for a drawing pad myself. I still haven't spent it. I'm terrified I'll think ill of myself in a month for it.

My friend had a birthday recently, and she always gets me nice gifts. She's gotten me promised neverland manga, a frog pin, homemade friendship bracelets and homemade jewellry made out of rocks ane crystals she's bought, alongside sweets and choccies she knows I like. Most of this wasn't even birthday stuff, just regular stuff. I am so LUCKY to have her as a friend, someone as honest and kind and generous and talented and helpful, so I wanted to get things she also wanted. She's been going through a big pokemon phase and I KNOW her favourite pokemon is leafeon, so I got her a little leafeon plushie, and as an added bonus a magnetic ponyta pin because she also likes my little pony and the galarian version looks like one of the old my little ponies. 21 pound total, three weeks ago I still remember because its the biggest purchase I've made in months. And the thought kept crossing my mind "you didn't need to give her the pin as well. The plush would have been fine", or even "she would have loved a card, you could have just gotten her a card and then you'd be 21 pounds richer". And I just feel disgusted with myself. Because she gets all her little gifts for me so unthinkingly, so willingly, and she never regrets them. I always tell her she doesn't have to, but she wants to, and she does it for all of her friends. Between me and her other 2 close friends, that's so much spent. I'm terrified. I'm in awe. I hate myself for not being like that. Hate myself for regretting when her reaction to the ponyta pin i almost didn't even give her was "OH MY G O SH I love the little Pikachu ears on the back oh its magnetic???? I don't think ill be able to wear this, ill lose it". I cherish her reaction. So why do I still feel such dread at the money I spent. What is wrong with me. It was 21 pounds. I wasn't gonna spend it. What I have in my bank account isn't enough for the PC I need for my college course, or the new art tablet I need because my current one is breaking for my college course, or the new phone im going to need soon bc this one is on the fritz. Today, I was at another friends birthday. Shes gotten me donuts more times than I can remember. We don't make a habit out of getting each other gifts on birthdays, just funny cards. I just gave her a card. Why didn't I get her a gift too?? Two of the others did. She has difficulty accepting gifts like me, but like, who cares?? It would make her happy. I don't want her to get things for me in return I want to see her face when I get her a badass notebook with an eye on the front, or a custom dnd dice set, or a sickass writing pen for her diary. I want to be able to make her happy like that. But the deep rooted well of dread at spending money is so fucking much and I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate that I can't fucking ever return their generosity. Why do they continue to get things for me. Why do they value me so much. I'm so terrible at conversations, at hosting, at gift giving, at affection, at having enough spoons to hang out most days. I'm not charismatic and I'm not worthy or all this stuff. All I've got going for me is I'm a great listener and can remember random details and im not even that good at that and cover it up most times because it's weird to hang onto too many innocuous details about a person. I love my friends so much and they'll never know because I can't show it, not physically (im too awkward for hugging or high fives) or verbally (im too awkward for compliments I say what I can but it always comes out so stiff and insincerely) or with gifts (can't spend) or quality time (no spoons most days) or anything anything anything anything.

You can't put a price on people but I have. I've literally put a price tag on everything. Even myself. And I get so confused when people give me more than the 30p I think I'm worth. Hate it. Hate it. Disgust myself. What the fuck.

#patchie is rambling #it was 2 fifteen when i started writing this now its 3 forty five #god im such a loser #thank god no one reads my posts

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erithacusrou · 5 months

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I’ve been thinking about goals for the new year the past couple weeks since I was too restless to pin any down before 2023 ended. I’ve been adding to this list for a little while, and I think I’m finally done with it.

Eat better. Pulling this one from last year since I still have room for improvement. We ate a nice variety of new foods last year, so here’s hoping this year is equally as tasty.

Cook more. Okay this was also a goal last year too and I didn’t make much progress but I DID make scrambled eggs a few times so at least I did something. I’ve been hoarding recipes for a while now so hopefully I get around to doing something with them.

Drink more water. Self-explanatory. I drank more last year than I have previously thanks to a new water bottle, but I need to do better. I’m constantly dehydrated RIP ;;

Get better at doing my dailies. I’m so bad about washing my face and brushing my teeth and procrastinating on housework. Starting tasks that aren’t urgent and doing chores without external pressure are extremely hard for me, but I’m working on ways to push through that wall.

Exercise. Some of my lack of exercise is due to anxiety about not having enough space in the apartment to work out, not feeling safe enough to take a walk in my current neighborhood, or fear of being seen looking silly. I’ve kind of got a good grip on where I want to start now, I just have to get over the anxiety and just do it. I have days set aside for exercise and stretching now, I just have to wake up early enough to have time and willpower to do it.

Journaling. I started in December 2022 around when we were shopping for a new car, then fell off in September after burning out because I had made it a chore for myself by tracking too many things via the tagging function. I was originally intending to journal in my planner this year, but I really prefer having a dedicated journal app where I can also see stats like the weather, location, step count, etc. logged with my entry. This time around I have a dedicated tracker in my planner for certain activities so I can hopefully minimize the amount of tracked activities in my tags.

Read more. It’ll probably just be manga and fanfiction because I’m so out of the loop when it comes to actual books, but I’d like to at least read something. Been a couple years since I did any dedicated reading.

Plan ahead. One of my goals for 2023 was to plan better, and with the help of digital planning tools, I’d say I’ve improved a lot in the last year. Ideally I’d like to plan even more in advance by, say, getting birthday and holiday cards made and sent out in a timely manner. And having themed art done in time for events or special days! Stuff like that.

Save money. I’m tired of being in debt, man. I gotta start spending smarter and doing better with what I have. I’m really good at pretending I have expendable money when I actually don’t. Like I know buying fewer snacks at work won’t make up for the fact that I’m not paid enough, but idk what else to do really.

Be a person! I’m determined to get into the habit of regularly interacting with other people on social media and calling my family more often and hanging out with people and appreciating the people I love more. I want to be present in the lives of others more, and have them be present in mine.

Uhhh I think that’s it! I wish I had made sense of my priorities earlier than almost halfway through January, but it is what it is. I hope everyone else is having a good 2024 so far!

#personal #journal #new years #resolutions #goals #yearly oversharing yaaaaaay

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imaginetonyandbucky · 4 years

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The Buy In

Chapter 10: Epilogue

by @dracusfyre

"I feel like you're going to try to sell me a time share," Bucky said, studying the bland conference room Tony had reserved. It looked like probably every other conference room Bucky had ever been, as if they were all ordered out of the same catalogue; beige walls, carpeted floor that had the feeling of being beige while actually having flecks of red and blue in it, and the tables and chairs with wheels on them so they could be moved easily. Tony had even pulled down a screen and to all appearances, was setting up for a powerpoint presentation.

"It's all about presentation, Mr. Barnes," Tony said. He picked up a clicker and a red dot appeared on Bucky's chest, then started moving around in what Bucky eventually recognized as a heart shape. "Gotta know your audience and what they'll respond to. Too fancy, and they'll be scared off. Not fancy enough, and they'll feel like they're being scammed. A hotel conference room fits neatly inside that middle ground."

"You've put a lot of thought into this," Bucky said. He glanced at the clock, saw that they had a few minute before people were supposed to arrive and dipped his head for a quick kiss.

"Well, yeah," Tony started, but then there was a knock on the door. Tony opened it to see that part of the security detail started bringing in the refreshments for the meeting, coffee and donuts and croissants and other breakfast-style food that people would probably pick at and leave mostly untouched. "Natasha helped," he continued, poking at the refreshments table and rearranging everything slightly. "She's better at that side of things, the headology, as she calls it."

"I can see that." Bucky watched Tony putter. Looked like Tony was nervous, which was kind of adorable. "So you can't even give me a sneak peak at what you're talking about today?"

Tony shook his head. "For right now, you're a potential investor, not my lover."

"Ok, ok," Bucky said. He realized he was following Tony around as he puttered aimlessly and made himself stop. "So I got to see KT today. Brought him his laptop so he could start catching up on homework."

That made Tony stop rearranging the plates and napkins and turn to Bucky with a smile. "Good! So that mean's he is doing well?"

"Yep. Should be out of there soon. Any update on Rumlow?"

Tony's smile turned evil. "From what I hear, he's had a run of bad luck lately, such a shame. He lost his service pistol, which, you know, big no no. And did you know someone stole his patrol car, spray painted it, and left something unmentionable smeared on the seats? Then did the same with his personal car, which was found laying upside down in front of his apartment building?"

With a force of effort Bucky kept his face blank. "Strange."

"Very strange," Tony agreed. "Insurance didn't even pay out, mysteriously enough. Apparently they had dropped his coverage the day before and he hadn't gotten the notice yet."

"Crime in this city is getting really out of hand," Bucky said seriously. "He's lucky it wasn't something worse."

"Oh it will be, give it time."

There was that smug look again that Bucky loved, and he started to sneak another kiss when there was another knock. This time the security guard was escorting people inside, a middle-aged Black couple that looked around cautiously, like they were expecting the conference room to contain something nefarious. Bucky straightened immediately, trying to look professional, and smiled at them as Tony welcomed them inside, calling them by name and offering them a warm handshake. There was a steady stream after that, until the conference room was about half full.

"Hello everyone, let's get started," Tony said, taking a head count and looking at the clock. "All of you are here because you either were recommended by a friend or a family, or I sent you a personal invitation. Thank you for being willing to join me today for this presentation, and please save your questions for the end. As you all know, my name is Tony Stark, genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, and in this presentation I'm going to ask you for money." Tony grinned as almost everyone laughed. "Then I'm going to tell you what you're going to get for your money, and then I'm going to explain how you're not even going to notice that your money is gone."

As interested as Bucky was in the presentation, he kept getting distracted by watching Tony effortlessly charm the room, making eye contact with each person and joking just enough to keep people interested without derailing his speech. It was a warmer, more authentic show than what Bucky had seen at the Policeman's Ball and it made Bucky's heart turn over with affection as he watched. KT had been right when he said that the buy-in speech could make you a believer; not just in the astonishing amount of benefits that Tony offered to people who agreed to the buy-in, but because Tony's enthusiasm for the project was contagious.

"So why do you need our money?" One guy interrupted. "If you've got so much of it?"

"Good question," Tony said. He leaned against one of the tables, putting his hands in his pocket and crossing his legs at the ankle. "Yeah, the majority of the start-up money came from me. Since this organization is technically a nonprofit, I get to write it all off of my taxes, the way rich people often do. But I ask for your money because if I paid for all of it, then it would belong to me, wouldn't it? The whole point of this enterprise is to build ownership and equity in the community. You own the health clinic and the child care centers, the retirement homes and the apartment complexes. Not only does it mean you get to decide what to do with them, but it means that you start having a place at the same table that all of the billionaire developers and well-connected real estate moguls do."

"But the stuff about the taxes and stuff, where we just hand it all to you, that's tax fraud, isn't it? Which is illegal?"

"Well, yes, in a way," Tony said honestly. "You avoid paying taxes the same way rich people avoid paying taxes, by finding loopholes in the tax code and driving semi-trucks through them. But also, I'm the criminal, not you. If we get caught, I'm the big bad con artist that scammed honest folks like you out of your hard earned savings. There will be a class action lawsuit after the criminal proceedings, my lawyer will fight hard but not too hard to defend my assets, then they will eventually get divided up among all my victims in the kind of feel-good, good guys win story that is made for Hallmark TV. In the mean time, my job is to help the community fund the type of social welfare projects that the government should be doing but isn't, by taking from people who don't deserve it and giving it to the people that do. Which the government should also be doing but isn't."

"So this is like, socialism," a young woman said in accented English. "Instead of paying the government taxes, we give that money to you, and you like, do all this stuff with it."

"Pretty much. Grassroots socialism with a capitalist veneer. I like to think of it as stone soup, from the kid's story."

"But why?"

"Because it's the right thing to do," Tony said, like it was obvious. Bucky hid his smile in his hand and hoped he didn't look too besotted; he'd sat all the way in the back for a reason. "I don't know else to say it. Why should I have so much when others have so little? I give a lot it away, because there really are so many problems that can be solved by throwing money at them, but some can't. Some need systemic change, which means empowering people, which is what I'm trying to do. That's why it's a buy-in, and not a handout." There was still some obvious reluctance among the group, and Tony's smile turned a little sad. "Look, I get it. You are used to people promising a lot and not delivering. And you think this sounds way too good to be true, right?" No one really answered, but the way they kind of avoided Tony's eyes said a lot. "Let me tell you a story.

"So I've been donating regularly to the free clinic on 17th for a while now. A few years ago, there was a kid volunteering there because he wanted to go to medical school. But he was in a shit position - his parents made too much money to qualify for the grants and needs-based scholarships, but not enough to actually afford tuition or even qualify for good student loans. So the doctor in charge of the clinic emailed me and told me to do something useful with all of the blood money I was getting from Stark Industries, and so I did. I paid for his entire education, and he came back and is currently the head physician at the rehab clinic. So if you want there to be a catch, if you need there to be a catch so that you can believe what I'm telling you, then that's the catch - you have to try to give back at least as much as you were given."

There was a long, thoughtful silence after that, and Tony wisely let it sit for a while instead of trying to fill it with words. "You don't have to answer now," he said after a few moments. "The forms that you would need to fill out for the buy-in are right here," he added, tapping a stack of papers next to him. "Take one with you, and think about it. Any last questions?"

"Yeah, I got one," the young woman said. "I heard you stole Jeff Bezos' car, is that true?"

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A/N: If you enjoyed this story, come find me over at @marveltrumpshate where I will be participating in auctioning off TWO fanfics! One auction is a fic with art (with @massivespacewren) as WrenFyre and the other is a solo fic as Dracusfyre. All the money goes to a good cause of your choosing, so I hope to see you there!

#tony stark #bucky barnes #tony x bucky #winteriron #no powers au

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thinking-in-symbols · 3 years

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Quinquennial Life Assessment

So, it’s been a few years. When I was 19 I posted a sort of “roadmap” for the evolution of my life on this blog. Today I thought I’d revisit that. I want to take a look back and see what progress I’ve made, and then in a separate post I want to turn to the future, think about how my vision for it has changed, and consider how I can reincorporate these goals into that vision.

This is the list of things I wanted to get done in varying time frames. I’ve crossed off the things I’ve done to get a sense of my progress:

1 year:

At 19, my hopes were to accomplish the following things by age 20:

- Joined, and consistently participated in, at least 2 campus organizations that suit my interests, at least 1 of which should be competitive in nature - well, I joined the ISO and KVRX, my college radio station! Neither of those were competitive, but in retrospect I don’t really care about that :-)

- Made concrete plans to study abroad - Nope, unfortunately I never did this. I’m not quite sure I regret that, all things considered - I traded that experience for other things. I did make plans to spend a few months abroad of my own accord, and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for that meddling global pandemic. But as it stands I haven’t done this.

- Learned C++ and python to proficiency - Hm. “Proficient” is a relative term. But I think I have a tendency to downplay my skills, so in the interest of counteracting that I’m going to count myself as “proficient” in these languages. I think that’s fair.

- Gone on at least a several day road trip with at least 1 friend - I’ve gone on several trips with @meeshbug, my very lovely girlfriend and best friend in the world :-)

- Decided on a concentration beyond the extremely vague umbrella of “computer science” - Unfortunately as far as my education is concerned I never really did this. If anything my interests have *broadened* rather than becoming more focused. More on this later...

- Made meaningful, ongoing contributions to an open-source project - You know what? I’ve published the source of everything I’ve ever made, and I’ve gotten to the point where I can make stuff that’s not trivial. So I’m giving myself credit for this one.

- Learned to cook enough meals to eat in most days and not get sick of my own food - I wish. I’ve learned to cook a fair amount of stuff but I still get way too depressed and lethargic to apply that consistently. Whether I consider myself to have achieved this honestly depends on the month.

- Learned to keep my living area clean - I’m much better at this than I was at 19, but at 19 I could barely clear a path to walk across my room. So there’s more work to do. More on these last two later.

- Gotten a pet - Meesh and I have a dog named Courage (after the dog of cowardly fame) and a cat named Jax!

2 years:

- Independently written a piece of software to completion and deployed it publicly - I’ve always pretty bad at actually seeing projects through to completion, but I do have a few full, independent projects under my belt at this point. I’ve built a simple game engine, a pathtracer, plugins for games I like, and some other stuff.

- purchased and begun regularly using some basic amateur radio equipment - Ah man. I got my license but I still haven’t gotten any equipment. I guess I have to get on that...

- purchased and begun experimenting with some basic music recording equipment - This one I’ve done, but I haven’t done as much experimenting as I’d like.

- hosted a party - I did this for my 21st birthday and it’s one of my favorite memories! Honestly this was probably the last time I had all my really close friends in one place. I’m actually getting kind of emotional about that.

- done some kind of hallucinogen - I have now done this. I definitely did get something out of it, albeit not what I expected. This is something I actually only did pretty recently and it’s still having a pretty profound effect. Maybe I’ll write a separate post about this.

- Gone camping with friends - Despite my best efforts, this hasn’t happened yet. Pretty fucked up.

3 years:

- learned to play another instrument besides the piano (guitar?) - I don’t feel comfortable crossing this one off quite yet, but I went ahead and bought myself some guitar equipment and have been messing around with it lately :-) I think I’m going to have to bite the bullet and pay for lessons if I’m serious about this, which I am.

- Written and recorded a song - Damn, I can’t believe it’s been 5 years and I haven’t even done this.

- Met a group of people I can play music with - nope

- Owned a leather jacket. I can’t believe I’ve still never even owned a leather jacket - I’ve done this and wore it frankly too much. Kinda cringe.

- Worked as a professional software developer - Yep! Worked as a software developer for a retail company for a couple years. I’m actually not working as a software developer right now, though; I’m working in a sort of adjacent position. More on this later.

- Participated in research related to my field - That’s pretty ambitious. Not sure I’ll ever do this, unfortunately. But we’ll see.

- Been to a film festival - Oh shit, I totally forgot about having written this. That’s a cool idea. I should do this, it’s not like it’s hard (well, at least in principle. I guess covid kind of changes the situation).

- Gotten a dog - Courage is one of those, I think, although he might also be part rat.

- collected 50 records - Lol, my dumb ass really thought I was going to buy $1,000 worth of records on college money. No, I haven’t done this, but I’m on my way there.

- Purchased a desktop computer - Well, my dad gave me his old desktop. That’s not really a purchase but I think it counts.

5 years:

- Begun accepting freelance development gigs - haven’t gotten here yet and I’m not totally sure this is a direction I want to go in my career. Freelancing has its own stressors as I’ve come to learn from others. No career path is sunshine and roses and I’m trying to internalize this fact.

- Participated in a student film - Nope. I don’t even know why I wrote this down to be honest.

- Gotten laid by solving a 5x5 Rubik’s Cube in front of a girl because surely that’s gonna have to work on someone eventually, otherwise I wasted a lot of time - These are getting weird. Surely I didn’t really expect this to happen, right? Well, either way I now have a long-term girlfriend, so I don’t - wait, Meesh has seen me solve a Rubik’s cube and she saw it before we started dating. So actually I’m going to give myself credit for it. I’m the one who makes the rules here.

- Fleshed out my political opinions - Yes, I now know everything about politics and can answer 100% of questions on political issues. Just kidding. But I know where I stand.

- Participated in a protest or some other kind of political event - Done! Went to a few protests as part of the ISO, participated in lots of their events, and attended some protests with friends as well.

- Studied abroad - Nope :-/

- Learned a language other than Spanish - I took a semester of French! But I don’t quite want to give myself credit for this one because I really would like to learn a different language to something resembling fluency.

- Run a marathon - Lmao. I am in much worse shape now than I was when I wrote this post, and even at that time I could probably do like 7 miles if I really pushed myself. How sad.

- Gone hiking outside of texas - This is weird because I’d literally already done this when I wrote this post. But I’ve done it more since then, so hey!

- Been out of the country with a friend - This I had also already done. I guess the point is to have done it without “adult supervision” or whatever. I haven’t done this since writing this list so I guess I have to leave it uncrossed.

10 years:

- Lived with a girl for an extended period of time - Meesh 🥰

- Spent at least 6 months living on the road in an RV, preferably with a dog and a girl - God, I am so close to being able to do this. I don’t want it to be an RV anymore - those things are expensive. But a van? Still pricey, but doable, especially if I’m willing to sacrifice some comfort. This has actually been front-of-mind for a while. I’ll let you know when I get the balls to pull the trigger.

- Started making Real Money - Well, yep, I have gotten to that point. I do have other thoughts on this, though. Money is weird, man.

- Lived in a long-term living space outside of Texas (i.e. not including RV time) - How long is long-term? Three months? If so, I’ve done this by living in Boston with Meesh for a few months after she went there for law school. However, I anticipate staying there much longer in the near future, so I’ll wait on this crossing this one off.

- Written a book about something, idk - Not yet. I’m halfway to the deadline on this one and I have some ideas, but ideas aren’t worth all that much, especially to me, who rarely sees them through. We’ll see where this goes. It’s not exactly a priority and historically I struggle to get even my priorities done. It might make more sense to replace this with recording a concept or narrative album, for which I also have ideas that I happen to take more seriously.

- Learned to solve a 6x6 Rubik’s Cube - nope

- Gotten laid by solving a 6x6 Rubik’s Cube - nope

- Lived in an apartment where I pay all the rent - Yes! :-))) We love independence

- Earned an advanced degree (this one’s iffy) - This hasn’t happened, and whether it will ever happen is something I’ve been thinking a lot about. I sort of decided half-way through college that I would be totally burned out on school by the time I graduated. But in retrospect it takes way less time to burn out on work than it does to burn out on school, and grad degrees are a different kind of thing. So it’s worth revisiting.’

- Given a best man speech (Sam, this means you have to get married within the next 10 years. Good luck out there.) - Holy shit, Sam, you maniac, you actually did it! Sam got married back in 2019 and I gave his best man speech! It’s another one of my favorite memories :-)

- Gone on a cruise with someone I’m dating - Hmm, not yet. I’ve gone on cool trips, but none on a boat. Maybe that’s something to aim for after the pandemic passes :-)

Retrospective:

1yr: Completed: 5/9

More than half isn’t bad! I’m not gonna worry too much about whether I got these things done within their assigned “time-frame”. I’m a procrastinator in my heart and I don’t see any reason to put that kind of pressure on myself. The point is, they got done. That’s enough for me.

The things I did best in in this category were academic things, and things to do with relationships. I’m proud of the academic achievements, I really feel like doing them has increased my belief in myself and my sense that I’m good at the thing I’ve spent the last four years studying. And of course, I am so happy to be in a loving, fulfilling relationship that brings so many good things into my life. I almost feel like the things I accomplished sort of fell into my lap - of course I’m gonna do programming stuff as a programming student, and getting pets / going on road trips are things I did as a result of my relationship with Meesh. I don’t say that to downplay the accomplishments, but I do think it’s worth noting.

The things I haven’t done are more to do with personal development, which is disappointing. I would like to be able to say, 5 years down the road, that I’ve done the personal development I expected to do in just a single year, but maybe that’s a lot to expect. These are problems I’ve dealt with my whole life. I think what this means is that I can’t expect everything to fall into my lap. Those things are going to take real concerted effort to change. I’m not quite sure how to go about that, though.

2yrs: Completed: 4/6

Two-thirds! Even better!

Lots of these are one-time accomplishments, not so much long-term commitments to personal development. The good news is, I did them, and I think those resulted in some development in their own right :-)

Again, though, the things I didn’t do so well are the things that require long-term, concerted effort. For instance, while I crossed off the one about experimenting with music, it’s really only the initial investment that I’ve really done at this point. It remains to be seen whether I’ll be able to follow through on the commitment to actually experiment and learn.

3yrs: Completed: 4/10

This category also follows the same pattern I’ve noticed with the last two. The other thing I’m noticing is that so, so much of my effort over the past few years has been going towards developing a very particular skill: programming / computer science. Music and art are so important to me, but I’ve done very little real development in those areas. I mean, I’ve done some. But not as much as I would have hoped for half a decade.

5yrs: Completed: 4/10

This is getting a little more fun because less of my goals have to do explicitly with my degree. I’m starting to think beyond college, which is good, because the stage of life I’m in right now requires me to start thinking about the kind of life I want to build now that I’m done with school. Also, I’m at the deadline for this one right now! So this is a particularly interesting category because it really shows where I thought I’d be by this time.

The goals I accomplished in this timeframe are, again, mostly things I’ve done through my relationship, but politics also feature pretty prominently on this part of the list. I spent a lot of time reading and researching political issues during college and really did look for ways to participate. I honestly made politics a pretty big part of my identity over the last 5 years, and I think it will stay that way forever, but I’ve gotten to the point where I think I need to devote less of my mental energy to knowing more. I know what I need to know. It’s time to think about other things.

10yrs: Completed: 4/11 (and counting!)

There’s some career stuff in this section that I’ve been able to do, which is good news. I’ve always been scared about entering the working world. All things told, it’s gone more smoothly than it could have. But I also have lots of lingering doubts about what I want to do in the long term. So one of the most pressing goals I should aim for is to resolve those doubts.

Ultimately, I have a lot of time left, and I’m not even done with this time frame, so I’m not gonna spend much time dissecting the things I haven’t done. What I’ll do instead is say that while I didn’t do everything on this list, I feel proud of the things I have accomplished. I said when I first wrote this list that it’s sometimes hard for me to feel that my life is moving in any particular direction, and I’m still feeling like that five years later, to be honest. But looking back on these things has helped me see that I actually am making progress in my life. Not in all the ways I want to, but that’s OK. There’s still time.

In the next couple days I want to come back to this and reorganize this list into an updated set of goals, for the same time frames. Maybe that will help me think through exactly what it is I want out of the next five-ten years, with the benefit of having analyzed the things that I did and didn’t do well over the previous five.

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purplesurveys · 3 years

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1156

survey by ehxsnos

First lets get the basics out of the way...

What's your name? Robyn.

How old are you? 22.

Where are you from? Philippines.

What color are your eyes and hair? Eyes are dark brown, hair is black.

When were you born? April 21.

Now for the fun stuff!

Do you sleep with your closet doors open or closed? Closed. Some people can fall asleep with their closet doors open (and this is a thing in the first place??)? I could imagine that would irritate me to death, and I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep until I got up and closed it.

How many people have you slept with this week? Zero.

What size is your bed? Just a twin size. It’s all I need for now.

What do you drink with dinner? Cold water, always. We also usually have other drinks served at the dinner table - Coke, buko juice, and iced tea - but I never drink anything else.

What do you dip a chicken nugget in? Barbecue sauce.

Last person you kissed/kissed you? You know who it was, I don’t feel like continuing to mention them on surveys as often as I used to any more.

What movies could you watch over and over and still love? Two for the Road, The Proposal, and Toy Story.

What is your usual bedtime? From Monday to Friday I’m usually passed out anytime between 10 PM–12 AM. It’s a different story on weekends; revenge bedtime procrastination is my thing now, so I go to bed anywhere from 2–5 AM.

When you were a kid, what did you dress up as for Halloween? I always had different outfits on per year, but they were always the generic ones that we could buy costumes of at the mall – pirate, Tinkerbell, mermaid, etc. I didn’t start getting resourceful and/or witty with my Halloween choices until I was about 14 or 15 when I first went as AJ Lee.

Last time you got a portrait taken by a photographer? February last year when I had my grad photo taken.

Take a vitamin daily? I am guilty of skipping my vitamins lol.

What do you wear to bed? I answer this all the tiiiiiime but I like wearing super-thin clothes so it’d feel airy while I sleep. I don’t exactly live in the chilliest country in the world.

Wal-Mart, Target or Kmart? Can’t relate.

Ever have plastic surgery? No.

Do you want kids? I would love to have kids, yeah.

Where did your last kiss take place? Outside of that person’s car, just right before they got inside.

Four words to explain why you last threw up? I had a fever coming in and was starting to feel nauseous.

Last thing you ate? Adobo.

Do you get your nails done? Nope.

When did your last relationship end? September.

So tell us, what room ARE you in? I’m in my bedroom.

How many stories does your home have? Three if you count the rooftop.

Do you own headphones? No. The one I have in my room is my dad’s; he just lets me borrow it.

Have you ever...

Gotten a Brazillian wax? No, never tried having that yet. Being waxed looks like it hurts, so I’ve stayed away from it to this day lol.

Gotten so drunk you couldn’t remember wtf you did? Only a handful of times as I try not to get to that point, but yes, it’s happened before.

Been called a bitch? Sure.

Slut? No.

Pierced anything? I have a couple of piercings, but nothing I pierced myself.

Had a tattoo? Not yet.

Smoked a cigarette? Yes, but I actively try to make it a point not to form it into a habit.

Smoked weed? Nope.

Missed someone so bad you couldn’t eat or sleep? Sure, this has happened back when I still felt this way about the person.

Worked out at a gym? No, never at a gym. I’d feel too self-conscious to get a gym membership altogether haha. In the brief time I worked out, I only did it at home.

Snuck out of the house? No. With my parents, it’s much safer to ask permission than attempt to be sneaky since they always say yes anyway.

What’s the nearest furry object? That would be Kimi.

Is the room you are in messy? I would say it’s messy in my mom’s eyes but relatively neater than the average bedroom I would see at my friends’s and relatives’ houses. My mom just has ridiculous sky-high expectations when it comes to neatness and I’ve stopped bothering to meet them years ago.

What is the single largest item in your house? Either the living room couch or my parents’ bed, not sure which would ultimately take up more space.

When did you first become interested in sex? I mean I remember starting to explore porn when I was maybe 13 or 14, so those ages would be safe guesses.

How much money did you spend today? Zero and I plan on making it remain at zero. Payday is taking so long though :((((

What is the biggest amount of money you have ever had at one time? I think I had to hold around ₱7,000 in bills at one point in high school when my mom asked me to pay for something tuition-related.

What kind of cell phone do you have? iPhone 8. It sounds more and more ancient with each year that passes lmaooo.

Have you ever been under anesthesia? Never, and I hope I never have to? I’m scared of the things that could come out of my mouth.

Which Disney parks have you been to? None of them.

What does your bed comforter look like? Blue.

When did you last cry? Yesterday, from watching an emotional clip.

When is the last time you took medicine? Start of June.

What was the medicine for? It was to treat my UTI. I was already feeling so much better by the time I had to take that last pill, but I was instructed to take it for a certain period of time so I was just following the schedule.

What kind of health insurance do you have? I’ve actually never tried looking into the specifics of it. I know health insurance is part of my job, but I don’t even fully understand insurance yet HAHA and the thought of it makes me anxious so I haven’t read too much into the kind of insurance I have and the inclusions I can avail from it.

What is your birth control method of choice? I don’t have a preferred one. I’ve only been with a girl, so I haven’t had the chance to explore methods I could gravitate towards.

How much do you spend on your parents for Christmas? Several thousands of pesos, usually.

If you were given $1k and had to use it on 1 purchase, what would you buy? Like, I was challenged to finish it off on one thing? I’d get an iPhone 12.

Have your parents ever caught you drinking? They never caught me drinking when I was not yet allowed to drink. Now that they know I do drink, there’s no ‘catching’ that happens; they don’t mind me downing a bottle of soju from time to time.

Have you ever crawled through a window? I may have as a kid.

What do you spend most of your money on? Food delivery, heh. :)))))))) It’s my favorite way to spoil myself.

Is there a secret you've never told your parents? Yup.

Do you still have pictures of you & your ex? Yes. I’m definitely a photo hoarder regardless of the person, so she’s not an isolated case; I also still have photos of people who aren’t in my life anymore, like Athenna and Sofie. I just don’t look at photos of me and Gab anymore, but they are definitely still around. Deleting them would be like deleting the last six years of my life and that sounds a little unfair.

Has someone ever spread a nasty rumor about you? Someone spread a rumor that I was bi and dating Andi back in 6th grade but I wouldn’t call that nasty.

How many rooms does your house have? It originally had three, but we had the balcony renovated into another bedroom, for my brother; so now we technically have four.

Would you sex tape with you in it for 3 million dollars? As long as I felt safe in the environment and with the person/people, sure.

Are you happier single or in a relationship? There are different kinds of happiness you can get from either; I don’t believe this is something that should be compared.

Do you have curly hair? No.

What is a compliment you receive often? That I write well.

How tall are you?: 5′1″.

Who was the last person to say they loved you and when? Not sure, maybe one of my parents or one of my best friends.

What is the last thing you said aloud? “Already?” Cooper was nipping at my hoodie and he was able to destroy a part of the underside in like three minutes.

What was the last thing you had to drink? Coffee.

What is one thing that can ALWAYS be found in your freezer? At least one type of frozen goods, like tocino or hotdogs.

How many pets do you own? Two.

How old will you be turning on your next birthday? I’ll be 23.

Last time you went out of town? January.

First thing you wash in the shower? My hair, then I work my way down.

What kind of shampoo & conditioner do you use? I use a Dove shampoo and a Pantene conditioner.

Do you own something from Hot Topic? No.

Have you ever bought anything from Pac Sun? I don’t think so. We don’t have that here so there’s no reason for me to own anything from there.

How often do you hold hands with someone? Never. That’s a sensation I miss, for sure. But I’m fine – this is just my period talking HAHAHA

What was the most recent thing you bought? I got a Zinger from KFC because I was craving for fast food at 1 AM yesterday.

Could you ever forgive a cheater? Considering how stupid I can get when it comes to love, probably yes in certain situations.

Do you have Verizon? No.

Would you consider yourself to be spoiled? To a very, very tiny extent, especially compared to my siblings. I’m nowhere close to being a brat, though.

Have you ever been pregnant? No.

What is your average cell phone bill? I’m on prepaid, so I load up my phone every week with a certain amount instead of paying for a consolidated bill every month.

How many piercings do you have? Two.

Do you start the water before you get in the shower or when you get in? I turn it on only once I’ve gotten in.

Have you ever had stitches? Nope and I’m terrified of the thought. I hope I’ll never have to need any.

Do you think it’s right for straight guys to get their tongue pierced? Eugh, outdated question. Next.

Are you more of a coffee or alcohol drinker? Coffee.

Do you have a wireless keyboard and mouse? No. I don’t use a mouse and my keyboard is already built into my laptop.

How many songs are on your iPod or MP3 player? I don’t regularly use either anymore.

Where did you get that shirt you're wearing? I’m pretty certain this is a hand-me-down from my mom.

What are your pet’s names? Kimi and Cooper.

Honestly, are you in love right now? Nope.

Honestly, what color is your underwear? Blue.

Honestly, do you think you are attractive? Some days.

Honestly, do your wrists hurt? Haha no, but my back and shoulders do.

Honestly, wouldn't you rather be having sex right now? Sure.

What would you do if the doctor told you that you were pregnant? Continued from this morning. Figure out a way to tell my parents without getting hit.

Was there anyone who "made your day"? Today? Not really.

Are you vegeterian? Nope.

How many windows are open in your computer? Two of Chrome, one of Spotify.

Do you read Perez Hilton? Ew, no. Does that guy still do stuff???

Is there a baby in the room with you right now? No.

Do you plan on moving within the next year? It’s nice to daydream about but likely not gonna happen.

Have you been to a baby shower? No.

What brand is your computer? Apple.

How many cars can fit in your driveway? 4-5 if we really want to make the most out of the available space, but at present it only has 2.

Are you taller than your mom? Nah. Everyone thought I would be, but then I just stopped growing. I am now the shortest member in the family hahaha.

Are you a cuddler? Only with significant others. I would feel uncomfortable if a non-SO cuddled me as I am not a touchy person to begin with, except when it comes to hugs.

Sleep on your back or stomach? Stomach. I could never sleep on my back; I feel too exposed.

Do you go to the bathroom with the door open or closed? I always close the bathroom doors. Kimi has the tendency to pee on the bathroom floor so I make sure he doesn’t follow me in there.

Do you dress for style or comfort? More for style. I do take comfort into account, but looking nice and feeling confident in my outfit honestly takes precedence for me.

Think of the last time you were angry. Why were you angry? 15,000 cases today.

Would you marry someone if they were unable to have sex? Yeah. It would even be a bit of a relief, honestly, because it means less pressure for me to have sex to please my partner.

Have you ever made a boyfriend or girlfriend cry? Yes, both happy and sad tears.

Does heartbreak really feel as bad as it sounds? It depends on the person, I guess. Some can handle breakups well, and I’m not one of them.

How long has it been since you had sex? It would be 7 months this April.

Who was the last person to call you babe? My ex probably.

Last reason you went to the ER? I’ve never been to.

Were you a planned pregnancy for your parents? Yeah. They were having trouble conceiving at first, but my mom eventually found out she was pregnant with me on her 27th birthday.

How old was your mom when she gave birth to you? ^ 27.

Have you ever taken pictures in a photo booth? Yes, many times.

When was the last time you shaved your legs? A couple of weeks ago. I’ve been meaning to shave again but I’ve just been sooooooo lazy.

What facial cleanser do you use? I don’t use any products on my skin.

Do you use a blowdryer? Nope.

How many purses do you own?: 3 – I now have more than one! Haha. A month ago I had to buy bayongs from this small business for these PR kits we needed to send out and they included a couple of purses as freebies. Since we’re all working from home, I got to keep them since I was the one who placed the order heheh.

What are your top five favorite stores to shop for clothes? I really just stop by stalls of small businesses I see at the mall and see what trendy pieces I can get from them.

What kind of clothes do you mostly wear? I like halter and tank tops, paired with denim jeans.

What about shoes? Sneakers. You’ll rarely see me wearing anything else.

Have you ever cheated on the significant other that you have now?

For that one week a month, do you hate being a woman? I’ll feel icky about it every now and then, especially if my flow happens to be heavy; but for the most part I don’t have any complaints. I think bleeding out every month is actually kind of fucking hardcore.

What are your first thoughts when your visitor visits? Be relieved. I’ve never had irregularity issues with my period, so every time it comes it usually serves as a reassurance that there continues to be no problem.

Favorite underwear brand? Don’t have any.

Last thing you bought at the mall? Three new pods for my vape.

Do your parents like your boyfriend/girlfriend?

What color are your pillows? They’re the same style as my current bedsheet, so they’re also blue.

What if an ex asked to be back in your life? I think it would be nice if we would at least have lunch somewhere to catch up, then ask her what led her to that point.

Don’t you just love DVR? We didn’t use it often.

If you're on a laptop, how much charge does it have left? 93%.

Last gift you recieved? I got lunch from Bea after our virtual event with the media for one of our clients. Later that day, Kata also had banana bread delivered to my place :)

Lesson you recently learned? What to do when my candle starts tunneling, which I had looked up literally no more than 5 minutes ago because it started happening to my scented candle :(

#survey #surveys

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squid--inc--writes · 4 years

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i did a thing, green team mercenaries

@schwarzekatzen @wettthepottterheadss4120

Okay, so, I'll admit, I have done much serious shit with digital art in a while. This almost counts as serious because it took me a week. However, this is based on this image

Pizza gal is Chastille, goth is Yauhmass, raven is Huuli, wedding gal is Torslo.

And this is kind of an unofficial "how they met" thing. Bare in mind that this is fantasy, but does have the occasional element of trains, and by proxy cars, just generally old tech enhanced by magic.

Huuli and Yauhmass already knew eachother because Yauhmass has all of Huulis colony in her hair. How? Because, technically speaking, Yauhmass is a massive fucking creature. She can easily hop a mountain, even with her limited mobility. She has an enchanted necklace, which allows her to shrink and look more human based on how well it's screwed on. This also shrinks everything on her, including living things, so she just has tiny beings in her hair, making houses (which are the little "beads") people usually think "oh, your hair must be gross" since she can't wash it normally, but it's very clean because the Tarpuan (Huulis species) clean regularly with the threat of getting straight up dunked in water. Tarpuan aren't know for wanting to be clean, so, y'know, better to keep the host clean if you don't want a forced bath. They made money through either Huuli stealing, or Yauhmass beating people in fights, because, while she looks slow, and really, is slow due to how her body is designed to be much larger, she cannot be knocked down by ordinary means, and she still has the same amount of strength as when she is full sized. Just not as balanced.

Torlso is a scholar, and after being banished from her stronghold by her father (admittedly, not the leader, but he WAS well respected before his daughter, who was supposed to marry the leader, is gone) for ignoring her combat lessons, and some of her duties, she went and got educated at a variety of institutes of learning (not all are colleges, but I'm working stuff out). She came back, to show him all she learned, but she isn't allowed back in. I have a point about that later in the series.

Chastille is already a mercenary. Her mother was a Courier (magical services involved, such as flying horses) and her father was a mage, both human. However, due to her parents, she was cursed by multiple gods, ironically giving her a very powerful ability that could kill the gods themselves. Her body, starting at her finger tips, turn a very dark green when she activates it, either intentionally or unintentionally, which is why she wears gloves when she isn't actively using it, so that there is warning. She can also control the dust itself, but unfortunately can't reverse the effect. Her parents were nomadic, so, while she mostly lived with her father, because he was closer to being stationary, she wound up living on her own, and working as a mercenary. Both her natural and learned powers led to her being well sought after. She is an extremely happy individual.

When they met, technically in a tavern near a train station, Chastille had seen Torslo crying and asked what was wrong, and Torslo tells her. So Chastille thinks for a minute, and goes "ooooo why don't you travel with me. Maybe you could earn the riches to allow you back in. Or find a new friend. Either or." And Torslo, who quite likes how sweet she is, agrees, because, frankly, even if this is a trick, death is better than what she believes awaits her.

Huuli hears the riches part, and Yauhmass walks over and asks "did I hear something about riches?" Kind of expecting this to be a hiring experience, what with a tiny chick that looks incredibly weak, even by human standards, asking a big orc lady for help.

So, Chastille says "ooh, what that be the implication that you'd like us all to start a mercenary company together" a genuine career path, acknowledged by guards and the like. A company would actually give them more lee way with murder, theft, assault, and they get a hefty discount with most Inn keepers. Yauhmass looks at her and goes "a.... Mercenary company? Thought you were hiring"

To which Chastille says "oh, no, I've been a mercenary for over a decade now, at least. Started when I was stilll a child" (16)

Yauhmass, skeptical, agrees, only in humor. Either they have steady, easy cash (varies from place to place, as there can be more than one type in a province and sometimes they don't even accept each others currency) or she's entertained for a week.

There's a whole April about them applying, but, thanks in part to Torslo having very little experience in active fighting (you have to do a test, varying where you are, because the one they apply to is affiliated with a mercenary guild of sorts, and they don't want to ruin their rep with candidates who die in under a week), and Yauhmass and Huuli being actively wanted dead by many rulers/law enforcement, they can't actually apply for it. Ensues them being mercenaries illegally. Da da da

#gtm #green team mercenaries #orc #fantasy #made up races #mercenaries #original story #fandom #magic #magical #powers #train #original fiction #origin story #art #digital art #artist

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feathered-serpents · 4 years

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Alright I haven’t made an original post in a while (school is hard) and while I HAVE made a post on my reverse omens on my old blog I cannot find the post and I have changed some stuff so fuck it I’m gonna ramble about my reverse omens AU

Zephaniel and Crocell

Crocell - An angel who did not fall. Somehow.

- Biblically, he’s known as the Serpent of Eden. What? Knowing the difference between good and evil seemed like a good thing. No one told him it would lead to humanity being banished from paradise. No one tells him anything!

- He is told by his superiors that he is the worst angel in Heaven. Which he doesn’t see as an issue because he’s hardly ever in Heaven. Making him by default the best angel on earth.

- In all seriousness. Is very very stressed. His superiors tell him constantly that the only reason he didn’t fall is because of a freak paperwork mistake that switched his name with another. Meaning that he is in another angel’s spot. An angel that would actually deserve to be on the “right side.”

- This stress leads to some “bad habits” depending on your definition of “bad habits.” He yells at his collection of house plants and he’s a bit of a trickster. Gluing coins to sidewalks. Inventing “Googling yourself.” Seeing people be in a fraction of his misery makes him feel better about his eternal existence. What’s Heaven going to do? He’s not doing any real harm, no one will even remember those minor inconveniences in the morning!

- He does enjoy doing the occasional good deed when called upon. Though never in the way Heaven intends. Oh, Heaven tells him to spin a miracle and get the teenage boy to forgive his hateful parents? Because forgiveness is god’s way? No. Tomorrow that boy will discover he has enough money in his shoebox to buy that train ticket and go live with his partner’s family in Oxford. Yesterday he swore he was fifty pounds short. Funny how you lose count like that.

- He is best friends with Zephaniel, the only other ethereal being on earth. Yes, a demon, but the most angelic demon he’s ever seen. Far more angelic than any of his lot. He calls him “angel” and spends as much time as he can around him.

- He lives in a flat in London that is absolutely the messiest place you’ve ever seen. There are plants and historical memorabilia everywhere. Zephaniel asks him regularly if he’s trying to rebuild Eden to make up for the “incident.”

- He has a gas fireplace that is always, somehow, on. The flames are a little redder than they should be. He doesn’t know what you’re talking about. It’s a perfectly normal fireplace. Why are you even talking about the fireplace?

Zephaniel - An angel. If you look at him in the right light.

- While he is not quite as famous for his biblical role, he was the “dove” that lead Noah’s Arc to shore. He had done it to disrupt the divine plan obviously, they had another forty days to go and land was closer than they thought. He hadn’t known they’d be so grateful. He also hadn’t known they’d mistake his demonic white raven shape for a dove. Of all things. A dove!

- Made peace with his fall by his complete and total faith in God. He fell because She wanted him to fall. So this is role in her Plan. Which he hates. Obviously. He’s a demon. But even demons have their place in the Plan.

- He likes to do little good deeds whenever he can. He knows he shouldn’t, but it feels good! Demons get so little opportunity to feel good, and he won’t tell Hell if you won’t. He’s gotten more bold since the creation of the Arrangement with Crocell, which he originally protested against until his Enemy pointed out that he’d now have a perfect opportunity to do good. It was hard to say no after that.

- Runs a bookshop full of “Strange, occult, and illicit literature!” Which mostly means copious amounts of “banned” Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, and Jane Austen novels. However he does have a vast collection of witch’s spellbooks. Each one of a kind. Some of them having spells that even work. He began collecting the spellbooks in his hunt for Agnes Nutter’s book, and still had yet to find his that crown jewel. You can try and buy a spellbook, but you should know each book has a 100% chance of spontaneously summoning demons.

- His bookshop is also very well organized, to the point that it makes Crocell worried that if he sits on a chair wrong he’ll push something out of place with his mere, messy presence.

- He knows of Crocell’s theory that the angel whose place he stole was him, and Zephaniel thinks everything about that is preposterous. Zephaniel fell because he was meant to, and Crocell fell because he wasn’t. It can’t be more simple! There’s good in Crocell, he knows it. Just as much good as evil in him!

- He does have a belief, somewhere in his heart, that he will see Her face again. He’s nearly certain of it. Don’t ask him why.

#Good Omens #Reverse Omens #ineffable husbands #there's A LOT happening in this AU #maybe one day i'll finish it lmao

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thefamoustownofyeadon · 4 years

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I will keep on writing this stuff until someone stops me Hillbrow- Berea border Johannesburg. December 1986

During 1985 my family and I were living and working at a residential farm school at Glen Austin midway between Johannesburg and Pretoria in South Africa. The school was operated by a charity founded on the educational and social principles of the philosopher Rudolf Steiner and operated as a fairly closed community.

The director of the school had a moderate and tolerant approach. She became unwell and others, who were stricter on the dogma, took over. In short, when the original director was in charge the place was fun and people were happy. When the blue meanies got the upper hand it became oppressive. I decided it was time to move on. There was no problem with my work, it was a matter of a lack of commitment to some of the very odd ideas which underpinned the running of the place (See Anthroposophy, if you are interested).

The place gave me a distaste for fanatics. We left with only a very small amount of money

I had a British nursing qualification and phoned up the head of nursing at a state psychiatric hospital in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg. She gave me an interview the next week. After a year of doing hard manual work with only a monthly pocket money allowance, all I had in the way of clothes was baggy jeans, trainers and T-shirts. My hair was home cut. I could not imagine anyone would employ me looking like that. I was also late for the interview. I had to hitchhike into the city and then find my way across the northern edge to the hospital which was tucked away in a residential area. The first words out my mouth was an apology for how I looked and for being so late. The lady who interviewed me, did not seem phased by any of that and I got the job.

I was to work there for about eight years and count it as the best place I have ever worked. Incredible opportunities were provided for me. The hospital was linked up to a top-class university (Wits) and the learner culture was rich. I count that interview as one of the luckiest half an hours of my life. A friend at Cresset helped us move our stuff, which only amounted to a few suitcases, to our new home in a district of high rise flats on the edge of Hillbrow in Johannesburg. We were in the Helderberg Building. Twenty storeys high with a view out over the city. We had no furniture at all. I bought two cheap mattresses for the kids and that was our new home... but we did have a swimming pool. Near Christmas, a Jewish charity came collecting door to door. I was not home but they saw how we were living through the open door and rather than asking for money they gave us a generous amount to get us over Christmas and up to my first pay packet from the hospital that I was working at. We somehow survived that first month and then things got a lot better. Six months later we had had a fridge, tables and chairs and everything!

After rural Glen Austin, Hillbrow was like an overdose of adrenaline. It had been the place where immigrants to the country had been arriving, in waves, for a hundred years. Southern Europeans, Brits, Jews escaping oppression under the Russian empire, lots of Irish and a sprinkling of Czech, Poles. Hungarians. It was an area of the city which was starting to 'go grey', which was a term to describe relaxation of the Group Areas Act which had controlled where people of different races were allowed to live. It was urban, noisy busy and exploding with street energy. A very tall African man in high heels, wearing a kilt and full Scots regalia would promenade up and down one of the main streets playing the bagpipes all day long, trying to entice people into underground arcades. I remember lines of Hari Krishna boys, as we called them, dancing in a long conga line wearing Saffron robes. I would sit out at a continental i.e. Mediterranean style café's and watch all this craziness going by.

When a country is in crisis all kinds of odd people turn up… drawn in by the political fever. An Australian Doctor arrived proclaiming the end of the world on a certain date. Thousands assembled on a hillside, waiting for the end which did not come. Every trickster, scam merchant snake oil entrepreneur headed in to set up shop one minute and disappear the next. Hillbrow felt like it was having the equivalent of a manic episode. It operated twenty-four hours of the day. I was shocked when the police turned up and hurled tear gas at revellers on New Year’s Eve, but this was the regular deal that happened every year to clear the streets. It felt so extreme. The dark side of this was the levels of criminal violence in the city. I was common to see blood on the pavements as I ran across town to catch the bus to work. Piles of glue-sniffing street children slept in shop doorways every night, and street hold-ups were a constant hazard. One incident sticks in my mind though.

The Helderberg Building, where we were staying, was surrounded by a low wall and a paved area. On one side of that area was a swimming pool, and the remainder was spotted with palm trees and benches. I regularly got up at 4am to sit, drink coffee and read. One night I heard a commotion out in the streets and went to the window. A black man was running down the street being pursued by white men in a car. There was a lot of screeching of tyres and shouting going on. I watched as the black man ran into the paved area below my window, but seven floors down. He hid behind one of the palms furthest from the gate. Three or four men, armed with handguns, got out of the car and began conducting a search. I could see both sides. The man hiding and the other men searching. As they got closer I could see the man was going to run, which he did. What happened next was really odd and I have never understood it. He ran but then stopped by the wall of the building. The chasers stood in a line and opened fire at the man who then collapsed to the ground. They then walked over and stood him up. He walked away with them in a fairly normal way. They then pushed him into the back seat of the car and drove off. Lots of lights had come on in the buildings surround a park in front of our flats. They then all went off within a minute or so, I guess because the observers had judged the incident over.

I have no idea if this was an incident related to crime or politics, or if the men in the car were police or not. They were not in uniform. What struck me was how suddenly things happened and were over.

In later years I learnt that a government sponsored death squad was based at the Johannesburg Fort detention centre less than a mile away.

To be continued. Travelling around Lesotho with the aid of a bin bag.

Photos: 1980s Hillbrow and neighbouring areas

youtube

#Hillbrow #1980s #Helderberg Building #civil cooperation bureau #johannesburg

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mszegedy · 4 years

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mszegedy’s nutrition guide for people who want to lose weight without getting another ED

This post was prompted by an acquaintance of mine who asked for help losing weight for trans reasons. It is written from a DID-centric point of view (because we both have it), and is intended for people who’ve already been through an ED, and are trying to be careful to not get another one. That said, most of the information in this guide is useful to everyone.

I know I am dipping my toes in a deep pool here, on a website where people have strong opinions about nutrition science, and about EDs, and about body positivity. Let me say this much: if you are currently experiencing or recovering from an ED, this guide is not for you. This is not a guide that will magically let you jump from hating your body and diet to being both thin and healthy. This is for people who already have a degree of confidence in themselves, and a degree of love for their body, and are just afraid of trying to make any changes to their weight at all, because they worry they’ll get an ED. If you still have an ED, then you need to get help for that first, and then, once you’re more confident, come back and read this guide.

Alright, so, as a system with a host who’s a trans biochemist with an interest in nutrition chemistry, and as a system that’s had an ED before (basic binge/restrict anorexia, but motivated by money rather than weight), this is what we’ve got to say about healthy weight loss:

First of all, the body positivity mantra, which I’m sure you’ve heard before but needs to be the headline of any weight loss guide: the healthiest weight is whatever makes you the happiest. It is not healthy to push yourself too hard to lose weight. It is also not healthy to hate your body. Find a comfortable balance between the two. For us, as a system experiencing gender dysphoria, that first meant putting a lot of effort into looking the way we wanted to, and then gradually easing up as we got more comfortable with the peculiarities of our body.

The single aspect of your diet that impacts your health the most is regularity. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to get the same amount of each nutrient every day, or even the same amount of calories per day. What it does mean is that you have to add eating each day to your schedule. If you have a history of ED, you may simply forget to eat most of the time. (I know we do.) That’s why you have to manually take control, and nail down a time window each day when you can eat. Even if it’s just once, although you should work your way up to two or three eventually. I don’t know how your system works, but in ours, basically, I do all the diet planning and execution, and everyone else whines about it (even our host, who shares our job as a biochemist).

Calories are good. Calories are fuel. If you are consuming calories, you are alive. Be far more afraid of not consuming enough calories than of consuming too many. Extra calories are ballast, supporting you on days when you can’t eat as much. Missing calories are death. Every calorie you eat is precious brain and body fuel. Your peak performance, especially brainwise, is when you’re not missing any fuel. Start worrying about whether you’ve had enough calories each day. But don’t count them! The number doesn’t matter! Trust me on this, the only meaningful part of your calorie intake is the digit in the thousands place, and if you try to calculate that, you’ll just end up counting calories again like a chump. Instead, just check whether you’re going to bed hungry or not. If you’re not hungry at the end of the day, and you’ve actually eaten, you’ve won that day. Learn to eyeball how much food lets you end a day like that.

Now that you’re forbidden to mess with the amount of calories you’re getting (beyond just making sure you’re getting enough), what can you mess with? Your diet’s nutrient breakdown. This is where knowing biochemistry comes in handy, because there’s SO many different kinds of nutrients to keep track of. First of all, the stuff that contains calories:

Sugars: The primordial fuel source. Pure energy, as far as your body is concerned. Avoid when trying to lose weight, but don’t feel guilty if you’re supplementing your calorie intake with it in small amounts on days when you otherwise wouldn’t be getting enough. Remember that there’s a really easy way to tell whether something contains sugar, namely whether it’s sweet. (Some things, like milk, aren’t sweet and still contain sugar. You just have to memorize those. And of course some things have non-sugar sweeteners in them, but in that case it’ll be obvious.)

Digestible starches: Sugars with a price. Still no nutritional value beyond energy, although they tend to come bundled with other nutrients like proteins. Again, not great if you’re trying to lose weight, but there’s no need to cut them out completely, unless you really don’t care about not being able to eat, say, potatoes. (There are also people who are helped by no-carb diets in other ways than weight loss for mysterious reasons, probably relating to allergies, but it’s not the end-all be-all of healthy diets that keto people make it out to be.)

Fats: A pretty inconvenient source of energy; breaking them down puts annoying, difficult-to-metabolize acids into your blood, and doesn’t net you all that much energy anyway. An ideal calorie source for losing weight; just make sure to consume as few sat fats as possible, and preferably no trans fats at all, which should be easy if you stay away from fast food places and stick to establishments that change out the oil in their fryers every, idk, 3 hours or so.

Amino acids and proteins: Now we’re getting somewhere! These guys are the “worst” energy sources out there. Breaking them up is very expensive, and turning the resulting amino acids into digestible calorie sources is a complicated and annoying process. But amino acids are a nutrient in their own right; every cell in your body is making tons of proteins continuously, some of them building important structures like skin and muscle, and they need a continuous supply of amino acids to do it. So, proteins? Great. Fantastic. You can’t have enough of them. Eat eggs and cheese and soy products, and if you’re that kind of person, meat. You can tell it's got amino acids and/or proteins in it when it tastes savory ("umami"); that's mainly the taste of glutamate, an important amino acid. Gluten is also made of proteins, but it’s even harder to digest than most other sources of protein, so you might have problems with it; and it comes bundled with a lot of starches, so, ehhh.

So, now for a couple non-calorie sources:

Vitamins: Vitamins have nothing in common with each other collectively; they’re just a bunch of random minor nutrients. If you’ve got your vitamins A, C, and D sorted out, then the only ones I’d worry about are folate (B9) and cobalamin (B12). B9 because it’s important for your brain, and tends to be missing in sufficient quantities from modern diets; we take methylfolate supplements every morning to make sure we get enough of it. B12 because it’s important in general, and may be missing in sufficient quantities from your diet, depending on what you eat. It’s only found in animal products, like meat, dairy and eggs. If you’re eating at least one of those regularly, I wouldn’t worry about it too much.

Omega-3 fatty acids: Technically contain calories, but not enough of them to matter. Found in fish, and good for your brain. We’re vegetarian, but we take two capsules of these every morning, because they really help with depression and memory, which are both problems for us.

Iron: Found in meat, beans, falafel, spinach, and lentils, among other things (like cocoa!). Needed to replenish blood. You shouldn’t need supplements for this unless you actually get diagnosed with iron deficiency, or lose a LOT of blood in a short time (which, uh, happens).

Water and sodium: Long story short, your blood is counterfeit seawater. Land organisms don't actually exist; we just brought the sea with us when we crawled out of it. To counterfeit seawater, you need water and sodium. Hence, why they're important nutrients to us. Your kidneys do an excellent job of maintaining a particular level of sodium in your blood, but if you eat too much more sodium than you drink water, or drink too much more water than you eat sodium, then they won't be able to keep up. You usually shouldn't have to worry about this, but if everything you eat is salty, then maaaybe you should drink more water, or dial down the sodium in your diet. (Anything wet contains water, from energy drinks to the juices of fruits to sauces, so it's not very hard to get water. But some things contain a higher sodium-to-water ratio than you need, so they won't help you balance out a salty diet. Be mindful.)

Dietary fiber, aka non-digestible starches: I don’t have anything interesting to say about these. Conventional wisdom about fiber seems to be correct, as far as I know. I only listed it because it’s in most nutrition facts in the US.

So, now that you know the roles of the various kinds of nutrients, just eyeball the correct amounts of them for your diet. Broadly, the less carbs you eat, the more weight you’ll lose, but it’s not a race. Find a nutritious diet that makes you happy. Think about all your favorite foods and ingredients, and think about their nutrient breakdowns. Mentally award yourself points for eating nutritionally diverse foods. It’s a healthy thing to turn your ED instincts towards. Good luck!

(If people ask for sources I’ll add them, but I’ve already spent way too much time on this guide, so I won’t do it immediately.)

#biochemistry #nutrition #did #trans #ed #weight loss #nutritron science #eating disorders #health

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lovestillaround · 5 years

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Thoughts about Phil’s last video (Draw My Life: Part 2)

So, it’s been two days and I still have trouble processing all the information from Phil’s newest video - that’s why I’m writing my thoughts down, hoping that it will give me more inner peace. Disclaimer: following text includes critique of the video, so if you’re sensitive to that kind of stuff/ not in the mood for hearing my negative opinions, please proceed with caution or stop reading. Love ya <3

So, Phil starts the video saying that he’s aware that we know what’s been mostly going on in his life during the last six years and that he’s gonna share with us all the behind the scenes facts. And that on itself is fine, but oh boy, nothing would prepare me for the amount of negativity that I was going to endure (and no, I’m not talking about the subjects of death and illness). I said it to my friend and I still stand by that opinion - the video was for me more like “20 minutes of complaining about/listing every bad thing that happened in my life” than actual “draw my life”. And well, obviously Phil has the right to reflect on his life in whatever way he wants, but as I was watching the video, I couldn’t help getting more and more frustrated with his lack of awareness, especially regarding the massive privilege that he has and has always had. (Also, I’m not trying to call him out for being rich and being able to afford things that I can’t afford - that’s not at all what this is about, it’s about the attitude and the way he chose to speak about those things).

While I do think that the video was full of lovely and cute moments, I’m going to focus mainly on what I found annoying or upsetting, just to keep it (relatively) short. So, I was talking about how in my opinion the video was filled with negativity. You might ask - where is it, Daria? Or more importantly - why is it bad? The response to the video is (at least from what I saw) overwhelmingly positive. Well, I’ll try to explain how I see it.

The video literally starts with Phil saying that London was (is?) 5x more expensive than Manchester, and that if their career in London didn’t work out, they would have had to move back to their parents. I have enough compassion to understand that it must have been hard for them to feel insecure about their finances (I know this feeling damn too well) - but I also think that people should, idk, be generally aware that their actions have consequences? They took a risk, and it was hard to live in uncertainty - I get that - but people having to live with their parents is a reality for so many people! So many young people don’t even get a chance to start an independent life, for various reasons. And I’m not saying that he doesn’t have the right to talk about his struggles - just for me, in the light of the rest of the video that is played on a similar note, it becomes clear that Phil isn’t aware of how much luck he’s had in life and how he has already started his life from a much better position than - can I say that? - probably the majority of people. So for me, what lacks in the video is, idk, maybe just one instance where he acknowledges his privilege? Or just generally him using a different language while talking about his experience, choosing his words more carefully, but I’ll get to that later.

The negativity continues when Phil talks about how he could not work out how to operate the radio control panel, how it was a bad decision to say yes to everything (although I admit, this one is just Phil acknowledging sth that he has learned over the years, which isn’t really negative but let’s still keep it on the list of bad things), anxiety, lack of sleep, stress, juggling responsibilities, people that they used to work with getting more from dnp than dnp did from them, dnp doing things out of obligation, not being able to fully create things how they wanted to, people being cynical about youtubers doing projects/not understanding youtube and media’s negative reactions, loads of office work, risking all their life savings to go on tour, heteronormativity of the interviewers, lots of work related to creating gaming channel videos, overworking themselves during gamingmas, frustration with people not realising how much work happens behind the scenes, people cancelling projects, losing money because of Manila.

On the other hand, the positives that Phil talked about were getting job at the radio, getting 1 million subs, interviewing people being a cool thing, everything about his relationship with family was very positive, getting a new team of people to work with and dropping some responsibilities like the radio show, success of the books and tours and games they created, creative freedom, positive relationship with his audience, improvement of the press over the years and people in traditional businesses becoming aware of what youtube is, creating and expanding irl merch, having fun on tour.

Then comes the moment when I got genuinely quite confused, aka the moment when Phil talks about not having a life. Like.... really? He has every right to feel what he feels but honestly, not that many people would count themselves lucky enough to be in a long term relationship, having a loving family, four friends that want to hang out with them, going out to dinner dates and cinemas on the regular, regularly going on vacations, being able to take private yoga or boxing lessons etc.

When I heard him saying “and I didn’t do any normal stuff people do, like getting a house or a dog”, that’s the point when I’ve lost all my hope. Like, I’m sorry Phil, but are you really gonna complain about not having time to get a house because of the life choices that you’ve made? Just… think about it. I’m not an expert on the standard of life in the UK but I personally can think of exactly zero people that I know who bought a house in their 20s. And I have to say, it’s upsetting that he seems to be so detached from what is the reality for many many people.

Sharing personal stuff on the internet requires courage and I don’t want to be the one who takes all this knowledge and uses it against him. But I’m genuinely upset with the way he handled things this time. As I was watching the video for the first time, at the end of it all I could think was - wow, you’re really that entitled, aren’t you?

And it makes me sad, because I see two possible reasons for him being like that:

a) He is not in the best place mentally, so that he can only really focus rn on the negative aspects of his life, regretting his past choices, being disappointed in how his personal life looks like. This could be supported the fact that for basically any major thing that happened in his life he decided to share with us and elaborate mostly the negative details attached to it, rarely the positive ones (see the list of positive and negative things that I included above).

b) He is completely unaware of what’s the average threshold for a “good quality life”, and he’s not aware of his own privilege.

To elaborate a bit more on the point b): one could see Phil’s video as maybe a reminder that everything comes with a prize and that even though a youtuber’s life might seem super easy, there’s still a lot of stress and work involved that we just don’t see. But… I’ve been aware of that. Nobody’s life is one-dimensional, and everyone has struggles. And of course they have to edit their videos and do the business stuff. But when Phil says how he sometimes wishes people were aware of his personal struggles, I can only think that this is the reality for many many people, not only celebrities on the internet. Idk, maybe I just wasn’t the target of this whole segment in the first place, but for me it sounds borderline patronising, and again, entitled, because as I mentioned, everyone has their own struggles.

But for me, Phil doesn’t seem to be aware that he was only able to make some of the life choices that he’s made because he already had a good start in life in the first place. He’s always had a safety net in form of his parents, so he could make a choice of risking everything and moving to London for example. And yes, coming back home and asking his parents for money could have been embarrassing for him and emotionally hard, but so many people could not take such risk, or any risk, in general! Because they have families that they need to take care of. Because they have not enough money to move to an expensive city, no matter the circumstances. Because they have no one left who would help them financially if something went wrong. And so many other reasons!

On one hand, I can empathise with his frustration. I know how it is to work my ass off just to be able to go to uni, while many people that I know get money from their parents, go to a couple of lectures and then party/do nothing really. And then having other people thinking that everything is easy for me because idk I’ve always had good grades so according to them I don’t need to work as hard. Is it frustrating? Yeah. It’s hard to be misunderstood, or having your work belittled. But I would never blame other people for not being aware of how much work comes with the lifestyle that I’ve chosen. And I’m aware that dnp were working their asses off to create good things for us, but also, obviously, they were hoping to make financial profit out of it. It might sound awful but they did not have to do most of those things. In many instances, they totally did not have to overwork themselves, because it was not like they were making money to survive, they were making money just to make more money, basically. Nothing evil in wanting to make money but honestly Phil, most people work super hard, and they don’t get millions for it. While I do acknowledge that they’ve been working hard, and that a part of their audience might have not been aware of that, I think that complaining about that seems quite… inconsiderate? Complaining about the lack of private life seems inconsiderate too, especially because most people aren’t privileged enough to just decide to put their work aside and focus on their private life whenever they want. Many people I know are overworking themselves too, simply because they don’t have another choice.

So, I’m quite upset. I don’t know what my point is. It seems to me like in that video Phil comes from a place of deep frustration, and well, I’m frustrated too. Fair game, I guess?

I want them to have a good life. I want them to do whatever the hell they need to do in order to be happy, I want them to get a goddamn dog and a house. But I also hope they’ll continue to grow, and that maybe next time Phil will be more considerate, and more careful with words.

#amazingphil #phil lester #dnp #phan #ramble

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spidercrimes · 5 years

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if it's not too much to write, how about All even numbers for the OC asks for either character of your choice! or both if you're feelin wild whatever works : ]

wheezes this took so long but im finally done holy shit

2. Do they have any titles? How did they get them?

Echo doesn’t have any official titles, and isn’t really planning on getting any, unless Champion of Sune counts?

4. What is their relationship with their parents? What’s a good and bad memory with them? Did they know both parents?

Echo has a very good relationship with her moms! To their knowledge, things were a bit tense after leaving Ivydome, but plenty of letters and visiting when they could helped with smoothing over their relationship. A good memory would be when her moms taught Echo how to bake! They can really only bake cupcakes and cookies but theyre like. Hella good ones. They dont really have any bad memories with/of their parents, since like. They will forcibly forget or repress anything that upsets them, as long as it only affected them. If the memory is something bad that affected others it will linger for however long Echo deems necessary(read: an extremely long time)

6. What were they like at school? Did they enjoy it? Did they finish? What level of higher education did they reach? What subjects did they enjoy? Which did they hate?

They were there and graduated fantasy high school what more do you want from them jkdxxjndk. They started working at the local sweets shop after school, so no higher level of education here! They like history a bit, but that’s about it tbh!

8. Did they have pets as a child? Do they have pets as an adult? Do they like animals?

Yes! Echo had a pet cat back at Ivydome with her moms, and before the campaign she didn’t really have the money to keep another, so they settled for feeding and playing with the stray cats in Summervale.

10. Do they like children? Do children like them? Do they have or want any children? What would they be like as a parent? Or as a godparent/babysitter/ect?

Hmmm, Echo doesn’t mind children?? but there’s only so long they can be around them before she gets overwhelmed. Children like them well enough since Echo is always up for playing songs or messing around with cantrips. Echo would be the fun parent/godparent/babysitter, but. Please dont make them look after children they dont want any.

12. What is their favourite food?

Give my child spicy noodles or give him death

14. Do they have any specific memories of food/a restaurant/meal?

Their first cake made without supervision was. A disaster to put it lightly since someone was feeling ambitious.(it turned out like rubber and after that he was too flustered n frustrated to focus so everything else turned out badly too) So they dont bother with that anymore! Cake mistakes who i dont know her sdkjjkdbs. So half the time they pass by anything with some type of airy sponge cake they cringe lololol

16. Do they collect anything? What do they do with it? Where do they keep it?

She had a rock and shiny things collection back at Summervale! They’re mostly for decoration, although some with certain textures are used for stimming. Some rocks are kept on shelves, but most are stored in cool jars to save space

18. What’s their favourite genre of: books, music, tv shows, films, video games and anything else

Echo is a sucker for romance novels and fun, upbeat music! Idk if video games, films, or video games exist in-universe, but if they did, they’d like dramas and baking shows, rpgs, and more character focused games like nitw

20. Do they like musicals? Music in general? What do they do when they’re favourite song comes?

They love music, and they’d like musicals too! They will grab their lute and play along if their favorite song came on, and if nobody was around then maybe they’d sing too. Maybe.

22. What are their favourite insults to use? What do they insult people for? Or do they prefer to bitch behind someone’s back?

tbh their go-to insult is calling someone a prick or a bastard, and it’s usually for whenever someone’s done something particularly scummy. Or if someone is just. The Absolute Worst. It’s a leftover habit from when they used to live in Ivydome, but Echo usually sticks to talking shit when the target is. Very far away/not in the area.

24. What is their sleeping pattern like? Do they snore? What do they like to sleep on? A soft or hard mattress?

They try and get around six hours, to varying success, and to their knowledge they dont snore! Echo loves soft things and would prefer to sleep on a soft mattress with So Many blankets and pillows and maybe a cuddle buddy

26. How do they act when they’re happy? Do they sing? Dance? Hum? Or do they hide their emotions?

Fun fact echo does a tounge blep when she’s happy!! They tend to do lil happy claps and bounce up and down in place when they’re really excited, but when it’s a more calm-type of happy he purrs loudly and smiles a lot more than usual!

28. What is their biggest fear? What in general scares them? How do they act when they’re scared?

He’s claustrophobic and is terrified of being alone again or having to leave people behind even when the situation calls for it. So like. He aint copin too well after the last session! They get very flustered and panicked and freeze when theyre scared

30. Do they exercise? Regularly? Or only when forced? What do they act like pre-work out and post-work out?

Does going on champion quests and running from his problems count as exercise or???

32. What do they dress like? What sorta shops do they buy clothes from? Do they wear the fashion that they like? What do they wear to sleep? Do they wear makeup? What’s their hair like?

Crop tops with long sleeves, shorts, and boots make up most of their wardrobe and they love it. Theyd go to like the fantasy equivalent of marshalls i think? Somewhere with good deals and a lot of options. Overlarge shirts, tank top crop tops, and more shorts make up their pjs. They dont really wear makeup, mostly bc they touch their face a lot and it feels weird the whole time, but they wouldnt be opposed to wear a lil bit every now and then! Their hair is floofy and a bit of a controlled mess since they cut it themselves

34. What is their body type? How tall are they? Do they like their body?

Echo is 5’9”/ 175.26 cm! Theyre on the average side i think? Like theyre not super skinny but not fat either so just. Avergae. And yeah, Echo likes their body, theyre so bright! And their horns are so cute and having a tail is very handy and claw maintenance can be a bit of a pain but like. Aesthetic am i right folks

36. What are they good at? What hobbies do they like? Can they sing?

Hes good at playing the lute and generally being very cute and giving out good vibes, and he likes baking and playing music! They can sing, but really only do that when theyre playing their lute ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

38. What do they admire in others? What talents do they wish they had?

Echo admires passion and creativity the most, and dont let anyone from the party know but he wishes he could be just. A bit smarter and know what to say + ask. Theyd also really like to be able to make a decent genoise sponge too like theyre not picky

40. Do they like energy drinks? Coffee? Sugary food? Or can they naturally stay awake and alert?

Theyre a tea drinker all the way, and arent the biggest fan of sweet things. He used to use more tart or mellow flavors when baking. They def arent alert after being tired for a while, and will space out a bit

42. What are their goals? What would they sacrifice anything for? What is their secret ambition?

No secret ambitions here, Echo is an open book(unless they roll high on deception dvdjxb)! Becoming Sune’s champion, making a decent sponge cake, and protecting his friends with his life/in any way they can are all their current goals. Echo doesn’t care too much if they get hurt, so physical well-being and maybe mental are things they wouldn't mind sacrificing, but as a whole they don’t really want to think about what they’d have to give up. He’ll burn that bridge when he gets to it.

44. What is their favourite season? Type of weather? Are they good in the cold or the heat? What weather do they complain in the most?

If its cold, wet, or humid echo is not a happy camper lol. They prefer summer and the beginning of fall the most, and sunny days with lots of puffy white clouds are the best! They think its fun watching the clouds shadows on the ground. They’re better in hot weather than cold, since clothes for that type of weather are easier to dress for and they dont have to account for their tail or horns as much

46. Do they make a good first impression? Does their first impression reflect them accurately? How do they introduce themselves?

God i hope they make a good first impression im dying over here xjkxdk but honestly it depends! They try to make a good first impression and i think they usually do? But if theyve just finished with a job w the gang or theyre just. So tired they wont really introduce themselves at all. Its pretty accurate of how they are, and their go-to greeting is “I’m Echo Barquiel, a pleasure to meet you dearie~”

48. Do they enjoy any parties? If so what kind? Do they organise the party or just turn up? How do they act? What if they didn’t want to go but were dragged along by a friend?

In theory they’d like parties but being around so many people with that much noise for an unknown amount of time would not be. Ideal so smaller get-togethers with friends would be the most enjoyable! Echo doesnt really have the uh, space to host anything so theyd just turn up to other’s parties. Theyd be in a constant state of switching between ‘holy shit im so gay’ and ‘oh my god theres so many people/internal screaming’. If they were dragged to a party, theyd mingle for a leelte bit before stepping out

50. If they could only take one bag of stuff somewhere with them: what would they pack? What do they consider their essentials?

A bedroll, waterskin, food supplies, rope, knives, a lute, matches, money- yknow regular survival stuff!

#the sylph speaks #echo barquiel #sweet jesus how long ago did you send this???#i have no idea #mxbuccellati #does the readmore even work on mobile?? rip mobile users if it doesnt i guess #long post

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clamorbelli · 5 years

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whaddup . it’s ya boy , skinny penis . ok so there’s not much to put here except hi to any new people that might’ve not seen my intro for noelle & angelo ( CLICK HERE ). i’m jaz, & this here is my newest babe, sebastian higgings. i’ve definitely missed stuff, but underneath the cut u’ll find plenty of fun stuff abt him. and by fun i mean tragic , bc sebastian is a piece of shit. ; )

‹ LIKE THIS OR HMU IF YOU’D LIKE TO PLOT WITH SEB. ›

TRIGGER WARNINGS : death, drugs, alcohol, emotional instability, therapy mentions, unhealthy habits, blood mention.

◟ * ◊ ─ keith powers + cismale + he/him » * believe it or not sebastian belongs to the higgings family. they are 26 years of age and are known to usually spend their time around buena vista apartments. the photographer has been living in victoria for 22 years. the people closest to them describe the bisexual + aquarius to be +inspired and +autonomous as well as -callous and -debauched.

sebastian is the ( current ) eldest son of the late johnathan and sasha higgings, born to the couple when they were happy, in love, and a shining example of what marriage should be. sebastian was a momma’s boy through and through from the day he was born, severe separation issues plaguing his infantdom, only rectified through intense therapy. his bond with his mother, even after finally being convinced she wasn’t the only nice person in the world, never wavered however. they were thick as thieves.

there was never anything remarkable about seb’s childhood except his fondness for the family camera whenever they went on holiday. his parents first believed it was a desire to model, but they soon came to understand it wasn’t being in front of it that seb wanted, he wished to be behind it. from then on they gave him a disposable on every trip, and before long the house was full of his amateur photography.

when he was ten, the unthinkable and unfathomable happened. his mother died. seb had been an entirely normal, average kid up until that point, but part of him died the day his mother slipped away forever. it was impossible for it not too, with the amount of time they’d spent together, his dependency on her at birth, the fact she was his best friend and it didn’t matter what the kids at school thought. as a child, he was ruined, affected for the rest of his life in ways he didn’t quite understand yet.

seb was sixteen by the time victoria was adopted into the family, and his reign of terror on victoria had long since begun. he came home with bloody noses and bruises more times than he could count, he sneered and spat at other kids in the playground, knowing they could do little except beat him to a pulp and have their parents foot the bill. he started drinking all too early, dabbled in drugs no sixteen year old should’ve touched, spent nights away from home, uninterested in the new woman in his father’s life.

victoria, however, was a different story. the pair got on like a house on fire, likely because of their bratty, conniving ways. at that age sebastian was like gasoline and his newfound sister was the match. natalya still had seb’s heart from when they were kids, his sister being the one thing in life he still felt warmth for, but victoria had managed to form a relationship of her own with him. for a while it was them against the world, until cassandra stepped in, pitted the girls against each other, and made life infinitely harder for a boy already on the brink.

he and his father argued daily. blazing rows that ended in smashed kitchenware. seb was losing it but the higgings patriarch failed to see his behaviour as anything more than childish cries for attention. seb didn’t know the empty feeling in his chest wasn’t normal. he didn’t know he shouldn’t play with girls emotions until they cried. he didn’t understand why he only felt things when he was getting into schoolyard fights or looking through the lens of a camera.

seb graduated high school and chose to do an online course for photography, honing his skills whilst remaining close by until his sisters graduated. when they did, he only managed a year without natalya before leaving the city himself, he would miss victoria dearly, but they facetimed every day and skyped properly at the weekends. before he left he told his father to stick his businesses up his ass. he was disconnecting from his legacy. his final words to his father were full of toxicity and rage, as they had been for 12 years now.

he went to new york, cliché and crazy as it may have been, and found a surprisingly immense amount of success. through some ridiculous means, his shots were picked up by a local, renowned photography blog, the owner of the blog also owning a gallery, wishing to display his work. from then on it was up and up. seb travelled the globe, was able to shoot the most incredible places, spent his weeks on planes and trains and on his feet. he had his dream, he made a name for himself, he didn’t need his father.

seb may have had the career of his dreams, but his personal life was a shambles. full of one night stands with no substance, exes that hated his guts, friends who’d found it too unbearable to be around him. he was arrogant, confident in himself to a fault, unable to connect with passion on any level except with his work. he was a riot, a fun guy to be around who was willing to try anything once, but he lacked the ability to form meaningful relationships. people came and went and seb was left, alone, in his fancy apartment somewhere in manhattan. he was as lonely as he was the day his mother had died, things in that regard had never changed.

the phone call he received when victoria died shook him to his core, the male feeling something other than debauchery for the first time in a long time. his father? a fucking waste of space who failed to keep his children safe, but victoria? he flew home just days ago, having one emotional instinct left in him – his brotherly instinct. natalya was still alive and god knows seb was going to lose another member of his family.

PERSONALITY :

ok so yeah, seb’s an dick. when i say emotionally unavailable i mean . . . highly, on an unhealthy level that requires some serious therapy. seb lost himself when his mother died and since then he’s been trying to find some solace in these flings he always has but, of course, he never will. he’s apathetic when it comes to people becoming attached to him so tends to be particularly cruel with ppl who get involved w him.

asshole . like, just not . .. a nice person . will point out someone’s faults, will tell u if ur skirt is ugly as fuck, willing to laugh in your face if he thinks what you said is stupid. just doesn’t . . give a f. needs to grow up.

hOWEVERRRR R rr. ofc if he was like that 24/7 he’d never even get people into bed in the first place so he can, of course, turn on the charm. he’s very flirtatious, loves sex and sexually charged conversations. flirting is a hobby for him and it’s one he has fun with. if ur not looking for anything deeper, seb isn’t too bad ig . if you can engage him on things he wants to talk about, keep things chill, not take his dickheadedness to heart, etc, he can be manageable. sort of.

massively confident, but unfortunately it’s justified. he’s beautiful, he’s talented, he’s rich of his own accord, and he’s successful. he’s massively independent, but finds it hard to work in a team.

he’s ! lowkey ! a visionary !!! when it comes to photography he really is that bitch and is genuinely incredible at his job because it’s something he’s actually passionate about. he never turns down the opportunity to photograph, so even though usually he loves money, he’d be willing to do a lot of photography for free whilst he’s back bc ? he just loves doing it, and it reminds him of his mom and how she encouraged him.

uHhh bad habits to the max. the only one of my charas who regularly takes hard drugs and drinks, has a penchant for mdma and is looking into microdosing to help his artistic ability.

WANTED CONNECTIONS :

exes from before he moved away

fwbs

best friend, probably only 1 bc . . . intolerable

any kind of connection from before he moved, bc it’s always exciting to see someone again after four years right

enemies lmao

people he knew in new york, if anyone has charas who’ve been there recently

people that were friends with vic

i dunno i’m not good at these y’aLL KNO I LIKE BRAINSTORMING DOMFDOD

give me some angsty shit too

#victoireintro #❛ · ˚ . — 𝒗𝒊. casey frey fan club! › out of character.#finishing off memes and getting to ims now ! finally odmfksds

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sol1056 · 5 years

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git along little nonnies

Got a whole bunch of you on related themes, so I’m just gonna do this all at once: a bunch of questions about DW, spinoffs, merchandise, business, management, support (and protest) and whatnot. In no particular order.

Ok there are petitions and peaceful boycotts directed at DW but problem is they aren’t addressing the EPs and things they, not DW, did so how are we to sign them, how to handle this when this could at best confuse the situation and not give any results and at worst, make matters even worse about what we want regarding DW addressing things?

Here’s what companies care about: money. Everything else is gravy.

If you want a corporation to pay attention to your complaints, then you need to figure out their sources of income, and find a way to threaten that. If the social reprobation is high enough, damage to the brand can translate into lost sales, but the tempest required to make that happen must be much, much larger than anything I’ve seen the fandom manage.

I’ve been saying this all along: voices are far more powerful than signatures. If twenty thousand people wrote or called in, and said what they liked vs what upset them, that would have a far greater impact. Certainly a lot more than a list of names with no emotion beyond a request that may not even be something DW can, or would, fulfill.

And don’t even get me started on mailing stuff in. Cute, but hardly actionable.

Do you know what kind of contracts DW sign, as in, are they obligated to air all seasons, can they choose not to air them, do the companies they work with (netflix, wep) have a say or more say than them? Who gets the last word? Is airing all seasons squarely on DW or more?

As I’m not a corporate lawyer employed by any of the signatories, I can’t tell you what the contract stipulated. What I can tell you is that a contract of the magnitude of the DW-WEP-Netflix agreement probably had a dissertation worth of riders covering the different types of possible defaults or breaches, and the penalties for each. Additionally, the contract also likely covered what constituted ‘satisfactory delivery’ of the product.

To take it down to a really simple level: you place an order at a restaurant. You expect to get it, eat it, and pay for it. You don’t expect to be told, “hey, we burnt your steak and we’re out of butter for your sweet potatoes, so have some green beans instead,” and then be told you still owe the full amount, anyway.

Netflix wouldn’t settle for ordering (and paying for) something never delivered, anymore than you would. Sure, any corporation worth their over-inflated stock options would try --- but that’s the point of contracts, to make sure they can’t.

Netflix paid, DW delivers, end of story.

...do you think ppl in charge didn't think EPs would tell they made changes and also thought they'd manage to bury it? And then they got in trouble and DW is going thru changes for that reason? -waves at DW goings on and silence.

I got lost in all the pronouns, there. Who’s the first ‘they,’ the EPs or DW execs? Is the second ‘they’ referring to the same as the first? So... I’m not really sure what you’re positing, but if the ‘DW is going through changes’ is implying DW’s got a shakeup and/or is promoting its head-of-TV to president and that’s somehow connected to two newbie EPs screwing up?

I’d say the chances are so infinitesimal as to be nearly in the negative. (I should also note, the press release listed successful shows Cohn oversaw, yet oddly did not include VLD.) DW is not a three-person start up; it has stakeholders and a board and a C-suite to satisfy. Cohn got that promotion ‘cause she’s got a track record going back thirty years, most recently growing DW’s TV division from 8 to 800 in five years.

Most corporations tend to announce their new CEO or President like someone woke up that morning and went, hey, I’ve got a great idea. Truth is, it’s usually in the works for at least a year, sometimes several years, or more. The only thing that has me side-eyeing the announcement is the silence around who’ll fill Cohn’s previous position.

But that’s again less to do with a single series, and more to do with what it says about DW as a whole, business-wise.

What meaningful changes could the new president Margie Cohn make that would be different than the last one? Also I'm sorry if your getting a bunch of Voltron/DW questions lately, you just seem to be the most knowledgeable person on this platform.

I’d be willing to bet I’m far from the most knowledgeable person; I’m just someone not bound by an NDA, and curious enough to do a bit of digging and jaded enough to talk about (most) of what I find.

A president can have immense impact on a company’s direction; that’s kinda why they exist, to set that high-level strategy. That said, Cohn will be bound by all contracts signed by her predecessor. The TV side (barring someone filling the shoes she left) will probably continue as it was. The theatrical side (which she’s taking over) will be where we’ll probably see any major changes.

And even those aren’t likely to be on films currently in production. Hell, given theatrical animation can take up to five years, I’m not sure that’d show much change, either. Look instead to changes in investors, new deals, and new properties.

What do you think DW will do about a sequel if there’s really no bible? Theres tons of plot holes & abandoned storylines. VLD will never feel satisfying, and fans already argued with different interpretations based on conflicting content, without a nice satisfying explanation...

I know this is the first of a three-part ask, but I’m skipping the rest because the only answer possible is to your very first question: the bible doesn’t matter.

Any new series --- even a continuation --- will construct its own bible. Same as we’d do in fandom: they’ll patch together what they can, fill in blanks as they need, and gloss the rest, or retcon it outright. Even if there were a bible, diligently followed, that doesn’t mean the next series is automatically beholden to it. Some franchises would care (ie Star Wars) while others might let a reboot mess with the details (ie Star Trek).

For every continuation, there’s gradations in between, since otherwise what’s the interest for creative minds, if you’re obligated to follow someone else’s script exactly? So, no. The absence of a story bible doesn’t preclude the next iteration making its own, as it needs, to whatever extent it requires.

I was wandering around the hot topic online store, and i noticed a shirt that raised a few flags and questions. it's the 'Voltron Location' shirt. it has all the paladins in different places in a star globe chart thing? with what might possibly be planet designations. plus Lance is the only one not inside his blue colored bubble. Keith is in Red and Shiro in Black again. it's interesting at least.

Nearly all the shirts use the same base images, just changed up. It feels a little like someone handed a designer a half-dozen images with a request for forty-something designs --- and now HT is just throwing them all at the wall to see what sticks (or sells).

HT’s stuff has been pretty consistent, from what I’ve heard: Shiro is Black, Keith is Red, etc. Considering the t-shirts seem to be selling out regularly (along with various other sidelines), I’d say someone is savvy as to the fact that the segment of fandom spending the most money is also the segment that prefers the S1/S2 lineup.

If that’s what customers want, it’s smart business for DW to provide.

(Yes, that applies on more than one level.)

There are VLD comic books being released by LionForge Comics, are those considered canon? Do LM and JDS have any involvement? They take place before Season 7and8 but I don't wanna support the original EPs.

Every fandom has its own stand on what counts as canon. Sometimes (especially with adaptations) you’ll find fandoms being explicit as to whether they’re book or movie (ie HP and LotR). I expect the same will eventually shake out in VLD’s fandom, too.

From everything I’ve heard, Hedrick and Iverson were handed the comics and ran with it. I suppose that would argue for seeing the comics as canon, being they were written by people also writing the main series... but from what I can tell, it’s one-way. The show affected the comics, but nothing in the comics ever affected the series.

That said, your purchases have nothing to do with the original EPs. All you’re doing is telling DW you like the VLD-iteration of Voltron.

What are your thoughts on the final vld poster? I feel like it’s missing the end. Allura is randomly staring back into nothing.

It’s a clever idea to do a poster for each season, but it’s not something I’ve ever paid any attention to, really. If it were drawn by the head writer? That might mean the artist had more insight than, say, a storyboarder or animator. But even then... cool picture, still not-canon. I’m only interested in canon.

Do you think that Voltron was rushed purposely by the EP's. [...] Wouldn't this effect the quality of, well, everything? I feel as if they got frustrated with the show at that point and just wanted out.

Dude. There are times I sit here and just stare into space, bewildered yet again not just at the thought of 39 episodes released in one year --- but doing that with 26 as a last-minute cut-and-paste rearrangement. All I can tell you is that what I’ve seen from animation people and aficionados (and friends) is that three full seasons in one calendar year is just bonkers.

If DW hadn’t wanted the schedule that packed, the EPs aren’t the ones getting the say. That’s a DW-Netflix thing. I really wonder whether DW used VLD as a guinea pig. TH went a year between S1 and S2, and the numbers slumped badly. Perhaps DW wanted to know if more episodes, more often, would keep fan interest high? DW has experienced execs, but they’re all from broadcast; how you arrange and time things in the brave new world of binge-watching is a completely different beast.

So, it’s possible it was less of a rush job to get the show out, and more from a desire to see what'd happen to release so much, so close together.

I still think it’s a bonkers schedule, though.

"Relaunch the whole property" sounds like they won't continue expanding the whole vld universe and they'll make a new itineration. Though if they do a spin-off it'd likely be on the vld universe surrounding the new "Legendary Defenders" from the epilogue. And "especially given the response" do you think after the negative response from s8, wouldn't be better for WEP to not keep working with Dreamworks? Or maybe they need to clean their brand from vld fiasco? What can you say about all of this?

I can say you might try re-reading, because boy is that a radical interpretation of the text. Remember, Jeremy was speaking before S8, and all indication is that he was caught off-guard as much as the fans. Re-read in light of Jeremy (at the time) appearing to expect S8 to be a crowd-pleaser.

...I'm becoming more confident in my belief that DW has something planned for Voltron. I mean they are still heavily promoting the show, LionForge is still publishing Voltron comics, and merchandise is still being made. These don't seem like the actions of a company trying to get people to forget a show.

You’re not wrong. Up to the last few days of 2018, DW gave every indication they wanted S8 quietly buried. Nothing they’ve done since has fit that pattern --- including the anomaly of failing to announce their 2019 series. Something is going on, that’s for certain.

Did DW really just throw the VAs to the wolves [for] three days? and there's still no official stance? One panel was enough. They had [the VAs] take the heat for them? But thankfully fans felt sorry for them? Which could also have been the goal, shut the fans up [with] the VAs of the characters who got the worst treatment and who love their characters ... Yes DW this really makes me trust you /sarcasm/

I don’t think that was the original plan. Let’s pretend DW released its 2019 schedule via press release in the first few days of January, and among those was an announcement of a VLD sequel or spinoff, coming late 2019.

People wouldn’t be fussing over putting the VAs through three panels. They’d be complaining we didn’t get the biggest room for every panel. The majority of the fandom doesn’t trust the EPs, and is wary of DW --- really, the only ones who retain any goodwill, at this point, are the VAs. So who better than to assure a nervous fandom about the goodness of the second iteration than the VAs whose characters were most shafted by the first iteration?

What breaks this is that immediately after S8 dropped, Josh and Kimberly went silent on twitter. AJ slipped into passive-aggressive snarking; Jeremy fell off the radar and usually he’s pretty interactive with his fans. Bex pretty much wiped VLD from her stream, possibly including deleting older tweets. Neil tried to engage and made a hash of it, bless his heart.

Josh and Kimberly are consummate professionals who reliably promote the series after every season drop, but their radio silence continued for almost two weeks. This wasn’t the first season that came saddled with controversy; if there was a time to go quiet, it was after S7. Something else was going on.

I have strong suspicions backed by research, but if I’m right, I’d be stepping on a major legal landmine. In the interest of not getting blown up, I’ll only say that the VAs appearing for those three panels (and their low-key and mostly diplomatic hedging around VLD’s conclusion) was a good sign that all parties involved are willing to work things out.

[DW was] quick to handle the Season 7 backlash and have stayed mum on what is arguably a much worse reaction to the 8th and final season.

and

I believe the S8 of voltron we got was not the original ending we were supposed to get and highly edited. My question is why? What was the point of changing the original ending? [The] radio silence from DW and the cast is driving me nuts. I wish DW would make a statement.

DW is in an interesting place. Its TV side is barely five years old, but dominated by execs with long-time broadcast experience, predating vibrant interactivity afforded by platforms like twitter, tumblr, or instagram. DW’s background as a theatrical company also seems to incline it away from any ongoing engagement with the audience. It releases a movie and by the time that hits theaters, DW is onto the next thing.

It’s a strong contrast with production studios like Zagtoon (Miraculous), who penned an open letter to their fandom about production delays. Or little studios like Wonderstorm (The Dragon Prince) whose deft use of twitter and tumblr sets their brand apart. Or Federator (Castlevania), with their witty marketing campaigns and willingness to engage with fans. Even Disney was willing to be open about its errors with Tiana, and to make clear how it was striving to do better --- so there’s no excuse that only small studios do such outreach.

My guess is that DW's core leadership is from the school of business in which admitting a mistake is tantamount to ritual suicide. Don’t blink first, or maybe the rule is never let them see you sweat, but whatever it is, DW is turning into a textbook case of how silence can damage a brand.

Companies have multiple avenues to reach customers directly, now. Our modern technologies are a two-way street, and good companies leverage that to create not passive fandoms but active communities. It takes work, careful planning, and some level of transparency --- something old-school execs find highly uncomfortable, to be honest --- but in this day and age, those are crucial building-blocks to achieving any kind of audience loyalty.

DW isn’t going to render itself obsolete (at least not overnight), but it's on a track to end up as the studio whose work audiences only watch when there’s nothing better being offered. Unfortunately for DW, there’s a hell of a lot of other studios out there, and they're all offering something better.

#vld #voltron #television production #marketing #business #sol thinks about stuff

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purplesurveys · 4 years

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653

Do you have a reason to smile right now? Mehhh not really. I know I have to work on revising my thesis the whole day, so I’m not looking forward to this Monday. Do you start the shower water before or after you get in? I get in because I wouldn’t be able to reach the knob from outside, but I step away from the general area the shower hits. Like I stay at the very corner. True or false: You’re not sitting on a chair to use the computer right now. True, I’m on a couch.

Do you regret any of your past relationships? At the time of my first breakup I remember regretting it at first, but it was very short-term. I was able to see the lessons from it and the regret faded away not long after. How many times have you been to a museum? Maybe a grand total would be 50-60 times. It’s probably more. Idk, I’ve been regularly going to museums since I was 7, I try to go to at least one museum in every out-of-town/country trip that we take, and I repeatedly visit museums around Antipolo (where I live) or Metro Manila (where most of the museums are).

How has this past week been for you? The last week was decent. There was nothing to look forward to except for my high school’s fair, but the days spent waiting for it were just meh at best.

Is anything going to happen next month that makes you happy? In general my dad is gonna be around for the whole month of March and that makes me happy, if that counts. Are you going to be getting any new pets soon? Nope. Do you like the rain? I love the rain. Do you like it when stores have sales? Yes because there is a chance for me to snag something good. No because stores get so cramped and people are their ugliest whenever and wherever there are sales lmao. Would you rather be a Panda or Grizzly bear? Grizzly just because I know a good amount of people would pick to be a panda, so it’d be nice to be different. Do you have any of your Easter candy left over? I didn’t celebrate Easter last year. I celebrated my birthday, which fell on the same day. Is there someone on your mind that shouldn't be? No. Does your ex make you mad? Nope. Will you talk to someone on the phone tonight? I may, I may not. Our schedule on talking on the phone is never consistent. Do you like BBQ sauce? I LOVE barbecue sauce. Put it on evvvvvverything. Do the stairs in your have carpet? No. That wouldn’t work in a tropical country. What were you doing at 9 AM this morning? Taking this survey. It’s 9:12 AM. Can you do a twirl like a ballerina? Nah and I never learned how to despite taking ballet lessons. I just don’t have the predisposition to do ballet, so lessons didn’t help. Would you rather eat 12 hot dogs or 6 hamburgers? SIX HAMBURGERS. What color is the door to your basement? We don’t have a basement. Was your favorite class science because of the experiments? Partly yes, but I liked science more because it was all real stuff, like history. Science also has lots of terms and memorization involved, and that’s always been my forte. Do you like citrus pop or any drinks? I’m assuming pop means soda, and I don’t like any kind of soda so I don’t drink them. Last time you wore the opposite sex's clothing? I don’t know if I’ve even ever done this already. What's the last board game you played? Secret Hitler or whatever it’s called, back when my orgmates still used to bring board games to school. Do you trust people too easily? My friends, yeah. I’m wary of strangers though. Are you currently fighting with someone? I am not. Do you hang out with your siblings friends? We’re in very different crowds, so I don’t think I could hang out with my sister’s friends without feeling bored or awkward lmao. Last time you had butterflies in your stomach? Tuesday. Have you ever kept anything wild as a pet? No. Do you set good examples for little kids? Only when I’m already in front of kids. Does your favorite song mention a famous person's name in it? None of my favorite songs do. Are you counting down the days to anything? Not really. Our fourth anniversary is coming up but I’m not actively counting down the days leading to it. Does your house have a pool? Nope. If you broke your computer, would you be able to fix it by yourself? LMAO no. I’d ask Gabie first and if she can’t fix it, wait for my dad to come home so he can take a look. Then if neither can fix it, it’s time to go to the repair shop. On a scale 1-10, how much does the opposite sex confuse you? 38. When you party, do you get wild? I can, depending on who I’m with, who the crowd is, and what the vibe is. Idk parties are a hit or miss with me lmao. If you found a wallet full of money, what would you do? See if there’s any ID inside and try to reach out to that person. If there’s no ID I’d turn it in to the nearest establishment I found it at. Do you enjoy fishing? I’ve never gone fishing ever. Was your first job babysitting? I’ve never had a job but my first experience with something related to having a job was my internship! Did you wear a hoodie today? Nope. Are you embarrassed to talk about stuff with your dad? Only about coming out. Taylor Swift or Carrie Underwood? Carrie Underwood.

#survey #surveys

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watchmegetobsessed · 5 years

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Shawn Mendes // Boundaries Part 11

HAPPY EFFING 2019 YOU GUYS!!! hope yall had a great night, mine was pretty chill but honestly i loved it haha. anyways, here is part 11 to celebrate the new year!

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10

Going home the next morning feels like going to my own funeral. Everyone is so quiet, no one dares to say a word to us and I guess this has something to do with how we look and act.

On our way to the airport we are basically inseparable, we never let go of each other’s hand, I’m so clingy normally I would feel ashamed, but Shawn is the exact same. I’m constantly on the verge of crying, but I’m trying my best to look tough and I also don’t want any photos of me with red and puffy eyes. We have to make it look like we are more in love than ever, which is kinda true, but also, we only have hours left together.

Shawn doesn’t try to change my mind though I really thought he would at least make an attempt in the morning hoping I softened through the night, but for my biggest surprise, he says nothing. Instead, he is trying to use our final hours together wisely just like me. Neither of us sleeps on the flight, we share a seat and watch the clouds swimming under the jet in silence, we share kisses from time to time, but it’s mostly just us silently enjoying having the other one close for the last time.

Shawn cancelled on our last appointment on Sunday, he called Andrew and told him he isn’t feeling too well so the interview got postponed to a later date. I’m happy I don’t have to see him once more, saying goodbye is already hard enough, I don’t know if I would have enough strength in me to spend one more day with him without breaking down in tears.

Arriving back to New York Shawn puts on his best fake smile as he takes selfies with the fans waiting for him while I go straight to our car. Ten minutes later he follows and we are on our way to my place. My stomach is in a knot, my throat is dry as I’m staring out of the window, Shawn’s hand still holding mine and I’m thinking about what I should say to him before walking out of his life. I’m cursing myself for making it this hard, I should have been smarter.

When the driver stops in front of the café, our usual spot he suddenly gets out of the car and stands next to it as Shawn turns to me. I guess he asked him to give us some privacy beforehand.

“I guess this is our goodbye,” I mumble under my breath, already feeling the tears dwelling in my eyes.

“I want you to promise me one thing,” he starts looking into my eyes and I nod. “Call me if you need help. With anything. Even if it’s the slightest problem ever, I want you to know that you can always count on me, okay?”

Feeling a tear rolling down my cheek I smile at him sadly as I nod.

“Okay,” I whisper.

“And… if you change your mind in the future… about us… just call me,” he adds and I can’t help but chuckle. He did try for one last time after all.

Cupping his face I pull him into one last kiss and it turns out longer and more passionate than what I planned, but I don’t mind. I let his tongue dominate mine, he is nibbling down on my lip gently and I moan into his mouth, all kind of emotions mixing in me at the same time.

“I love you,” he whispers to me once we part and he rests his forehead against mine. I’m shutting my eyes closed tight and I fight the urge to say it back immediately. If I say it now, I feel like I won’t be able to get out of the car and leave him behind. “It’s fine,” he smiles at me when I open my eyes. “I’m happy I got to meet you. Take care, Naya.”

“You too, Shawn,” I smile as I reach for the handle and using everything in me I turn away from him and get out of the car.

I avoid looking at him one more time, I just start walking. I hear the driver getting back into the car and when I hear the car’s engine starting again I turn around and watch the black Range Rover drive away and then disappear from my sight.

My days without Shawn are just one dark blur from the moment I get home after Paris. All my stuff gets delivered to my place and he even let me keep the dresses I wore to the fashion shows. I want to call him to say thank you so badly, but I decide not to.

The next Friday we have the Assembly, everyone gets their new deals and clients, except me. Joshua explains to me that I need to lay low for a while, so I get signed up for shifts in the Nook as a hostess and I’m honestly happy I don’t have to get back to my usual work. I don’t think I would be able to work with another client so soon.

I spend a lot of time with Elisa and the kids. I volunteer to babysit as much as possible, and when Riley asks about Shawn my heart breaks every time. I tell her she’ll meet him again soon, and I hate myself for lying to a kid, but I guess these lies are making me feel better as well. Playing with the thought of seeing him again occurs to me often and it’s soothing to think about possible alternative universes where we are still seeing each other.

But no matter what I do, how hard I’m trying to keep myself occupied nothing really eases the numbing pain I constantly feel in my chest. I spend all my freetime in my room, mostly sleeping, because this is the only time I can avoid thinking about Shawn, but sometime my brain finds a way to torture me in my dreams too, because I often wake up in the middle of the night looking for him besides me only to find no one in bed with me. I usually can’t fall back to sleep when this happens so I just lie in bed awake, staring at the ceiling until the Sun comes up.

The money gets transferred to me on Monday, after we parted and in the following days I do what I’ve been doing for months. I transfer almost the whole amount to different accounts that belong to people that I owe to. When I finish I have just the right amount of money to get through the month, but at least I have the thought that I took a huge step closer to my freedom with this money as I was able to pay back a lot more than I usually am capable of.

It’s the third week now and I’m somehow feeling more… normal. Everyday things don’t take as much effort as they did in the past weeks. I’m on my way to the Nook for my night shift, Elisa is with her client tonight and I’m just hoping Josie is in tonight so I can hang out with her in my breaks.

The dim lighting and loud music with a chest banging bass feels like the best place on Earth tonight. I woke up a bit dizzy today, felt like I was about to throw up, but I’m pretty sure it’s because I ate a whole pack of salty crackers before going to be and my stomach just couldn’t deal with it properly. But now I’m all good.

I put my stuff down and get changed before sitting in front of my mirror to put on some more makeup and my black pixie cut wig that helps me keep my identity hidden and no one recognizes me as Shawn’s mystery girlfriend, who is by the way very much missed lately.

Yes, I kind of got obsessed with reading gossip sites since we parted our ways, I’m very ashamed of it, but I couldn’t resist. We went from one hundred to zero pretty quickly and I needed a daily dose of info about him to keep me sane, this is when I started browsing these sites and searched for his name. I read articles about him, saw paparazzi photos of him and the guys leaving places, he apparently spent a lot of time with them after our split and I checked his social media profiles regularly. Every time I saw a new post from him my heart started racing and stared at the photos he posted for an hour at least. I’m not proud of the way I’ve been acting, but I think I’ve been doing better in the past couple days and I can actually see a time when I’m not thinking about him for an entire day.

“Honey! I didn’t know you’d be in tonight!”

Josie’s chirpy voice snaps me out of my thoughts as I see her in the mirror, standing behind me in her neon pink dress that she paired with blue thigh high boots and a pearly necklace. Honestly, I have no idea where she gets these stuff.

I smile at her putting the eye-pencil down and turning around I get up to give her a hug.

“Hi J, I’m glad to see you.”

“You are looking better tonight, Sweetheart. How are you?” She gives me a knowing look and I just shrug my shoulders.

After the Assembly I stayed for half a shift at the club, but I wasn’t feeling too good. Josie found me crying in the bathroom and I told her everything. She listened to me whine about how much I’m missing Shawn and that I don’t think I’ll ever love someone the way I love him. I cried for long minutes choking on the words and cursing myself for being so stupid. When I was finally breathing somehow normally Josie gave me the best pep-talk of history. She didn’t try to tell me to just forget about it and stop thinking about him, because it’s obviously the shittiest thing to say. She sat with me on the floor and told me:

“I know how much it hurts. It will hurt, for a long time, but you are strong enough to put up with it. Breaking doesn’t mean you will never feel better, it’s just a temporary thing now. Cry for as long as you want, scream or shout, whatever makes you feel better, but also be patient with yourself. You will get through this and if in weeks you still feel like you can’t get over him, we will figure something out. But time can heal everything and I believe you’ll feel better soon.”

She covered for me for another hour until I somehow covered my puffy eyes and stopped crying. I knew she was right and I just did what she told and I decided to be patient with myself. Three weeks into my No-Shawn life and I’m starting to feel better, just like she told me I would.

“I’m doing okay,” I say as I let go of her and she fixes my wig a bit giving me a proud smile.

“Good. You look stunning, I’m sure you’ll break some hearts tonight.” She winks at me giving my arm a squeeze.

Half an hour later I’m out with my best fake smile as I serve cocktails to a group of men sitting in the VIP section in their expensive suits. I let my mind go blank, I only focus on the music that’s blasting through the place and when I’m not talking to a guest I’m just staring at the stage, watching the girls perform.

It’s around 1 am when the suited men order fruit flavored shots and I walk over to the bar. The bartender places ten shots on a tray and the deep red liquors dance in the small glasses as I’m walking over to their table. When no one is watching I lean closer and sniff at one of the glasses. I love the sweet smell of the syrup we use to make these shots, but this time, when the smell hits my nose my stomach takes a double flip.

I stop for a moment as I feel like I’m about to throw up. The tray almost loses balance on my hand but I quickly recover and catch it from falling. I close my eyes for a moment taking a deep breath as I feel my stomach growl in disagreement.

I serve the shots and rush to the back as fast as possible. As I’m on my way to the bathroom Josie steps out one of the dressing rooms.

“Honey, everything alright?” she asks, but I just shake my head and run past her, right into the bathroom where I barely reach a toilet before throwing up.

I hear Josie coming in and a moment later two hands reach for my wig and she is keeping the hair out of my face while I put everything out from me. When it seems like I’m done she disappears for a moment only to return with a glass of water and some paper towels in her hands.

“Thanks,” I choke out wiping my mouth and flushing the toilet.

“What happened?” she asks with concern all over her face. I’m sweating and I need a few more seconds before I find my voice.

“I don’t know. I smelled one of those fruity shots and just… lost it,” I breathe out still panting a bit.

“Have you been feeling nauseous?”

“In the morning yeah, but I didn’t throw up. I thought I just ate too much crackers before going to bed.” I finally get up from the floor and walk to the sink to wash my hands and mouth. My throat is burning and just the thought of throwing up makes me want to vomit again, but I keep it under control this time.

“Honey, I hate to ask this but… did you use protection with him?”

I freeze the moment these words leave her mouth. She is standing behind me, the water is still running from the tap as I lock eyes with her through the mirror. My stomach drops and my heart starts beating crazily as my thoughts drift back to Paris.

He did not use a condom, because I told him not to. Because I told him I would get a morning after pill, which I had in my purse, but with everything happening between and around us… it slipped my mind. Therefore, we had unprotected sex and I forgot to take the pill afterwards, meaning…

Meaning I now have a chance of being pregnant.

My hands are shaking, I feel like I’m about to throw up again but I’m ready to swallow it back as my unsteady fingers flip through my small calendar I usually keep with me. Josie is standing right behind me as we are standing in the corner of the room, girls are chattering happily in the back not even knowing what is going on here.

When I finally find the right month I look for the red marks, I’m clinging onto the last straws of hope, but when I find them, I almost start crying.

I mark the days when I should start my period with empty circles and then when I actually get it I usually just fill them in so I know which day is the first of my cycle. The damn circles are staring back at me from the previous week, meaning I should have gotten my period eight days ago. Sometimes I’m late, but only with maximum two days. Never eight. Never.

“Is that what I think it is?” Josie whispers and I can’t speak right now, I just nod my head. I close the calendar and show it back to my bag turning to Josie as I feel like I’m on the verge of a mental breakdown.

“What do I do now?” I ask with wide eyes. The thought of being pregnant is so foreign me at this moment and I think my mind hasn’t really processed what this means.

“You have to make a test or go to the doctor. Being late can mean a lot, maybe it’s just the stress.”

I nod my head think about it. She is right, I’ve had some pretty stressful weeks behind me, it wouldn’t be surprising if my hormones were all over the place and make my period late somehow.

Josie tries to convince me to tell Joshua that I’m not feeling well, which is true, but I choose to finish my shift. When I get off at three am I’m already a mental wreck, but there I have to face some more waiting since nothing is open at this time.

When I arrive home Elisa is sleeping in her room, she has a morning class tomorrow. I take a quick shower, put on some clean pj’s and crawl into bed with my phone. I open the contacts and I start scrolling down until my finger lingers through a name. The urge to call Shawn is tempting, I almost press on the button, but not even knowing what I would tell him I lock the phone and put it to my nightstand. I can’t talk to him until I find out for sure.

For my biggest surprise I sleep pretty okay. I set an alarm last night so I can go to the pharmacy in time to get a pregnancy test and do it while Elisa is in school. I keep my cool as I run to the nearest pharmacy and try to look as unbothered as possible when I pay for the test. I hide the box in my bag and I’m dying to finally get back home and take it.

Time has never went by slower than at this moment as I’m sitting on the floor of our small and messy bathroom. I watch as the numbers change on my phone’s screen and I almost start thinking time has stopped, but I know it’s just in my mind.

I turn my head trying to make myself busy, so I pick up a set of false lashes from next to the bathtub and hold it up in front of my face. It can be mine, but I think it’s Elisa’s. It’s longer than what I usually use. Setting it to the edge of the tub I stare at it as if I’m waiting for it to start talking to me and tell its story. Waiting is really making me go crazy.

I stand up, carefully not looking at the stick at the edge of the sink as I throw the lashes into the small trashcan and I start sorting all the makeup products that are everywhere. I already know what’s mine and what’s Elisa’s, we have lived together long enough to get used to each other and know what we use. I was always afraid that if I live with another woman we will start using each other’s stuff, like in the movies. I always thought it’s weird. I mean, it’s fine a few times, but not all the time. It’s not too sanitary and budget friendly. It’s better if everyone sticks to their own things. Elisa thinks the same. We are happy to help each other out if one of us runs out of lipstick, or needs a specific color of eyeshadow. But we never touch what’s not ours without asking first. I think this is one reason why we are so good together. Another one is our shared history, I guess.

I check the time and it’s the last ten seconds, finally. I take a deep breath and hold it as I watch the numbers change on the screen until it hits zero. I switch the alarm off, but I don’t do anything. I stand there like a statue, my limbs feel like rocks and I don’t have the energy to lift them up. My throat is so dry, I could drink a gallon of water at once.

I look at myself in the mirror and furrowing my eyebrows I tell myself that I can’t just ignore this. I have to find out the truth so I can carry on or… or find a solution if the result is what I was afraid of.

I blow out the breath I was holding and glance down at the stick that’s lying face down. I slowly reach for it and take it between by pointing finger and thumb. It’s now or never.

I turn it over and when I see it I forget to breathe for the longest second of history. I freeze and my eyes are glued to the two little lines on the stick that means one thing. The one thing I was so worried and the one thing that is now freaking me out to the point where I feel like I’m about to pass out.

I’m pregnant and I have no idea how I’m going to deal with this situation. I’m twenty-one, practically a child myself, I can’t take care of a baby, not with the way I’ve lived in the past two years, it’s impossible. I can’t do this alone and even if Elisa helps me out it’s still not enough. I have only one choice, the person I never thought I would see again and I promised not to think about ever, but I have no choice. I wasn’t alone when this baby conceived and as much as I would love to figure it out on my own, he deserves to know.

I wipe away the warm tears from my cheeks and reach for my phone, still holding the pregnancy test in my hands. Opening my contacts I scroll down and I stop at his name. Biting into my bottom lip my thumb linger over it as I hesitate and try to think about what I want to tell him. But I slowly realize that it’s not something I should tell over the phone, so instead of calling I open a new message.

To: Shawn Mendes Hey. Can we meet? We need to talk about something.

I press send before I can change my mind and I finally walk out of the bathroom. I walk through our small, but cozy living room and don’t stop until I’m in my room. First, I hide the test into one of my drawers and then I check the time. Elisa will be home in an hour from her class to get ready for work, there is no way I can face her right now, so I better not be here. As I’m gathering a few stuff my phone buzzes from a new message. It’s from him.

From: Shawn Mendes Somewhere private or do you want to have drink somewhere?

I could use a drink right now, but then I realize, I won’t taste any alcohol in the upcoming months. And a private place would be the most ideal for this conversation.

To: Shawn Mendes Can we meet at your place?

His reply arrives a few seconds later.

From: Shawn Mendes I’ll send a car for you. Where do you want it to go?

I text him to pick me up at the usual spot at the café and he assures me that a car will be there to pick me up in thirty minutes. Perfect, this way I won’t meet Elisa. I grab my bag, put everything I think I need in it and leave the place, but before I could step out, I stop at the mirror that’s right next to our front door. I see myself in an entirely different way than how I did when I arrived home, though I was already suspicious back then. But now I know that somewhere under my oversized black sweater there is a baby in my stomach. I’m not alone anymore, not even when there is no one around me.

I slide my hand under my sweater and touch my lower belly, but I don’t feel anything yet it’s so different. Nothing will be the same from now on and it frightens me so much I can’t even describe.

I shake my head, fix my clothes and switch the lights off before leaving to meet the father of my unborn child, Shawn Mendes.

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