Wednesday, October 22nd, 2025 11:23 pm

Yuletide 2025

Hi! I have previous past letters with likes lists and prompts that still hold true, so feel free to peruse old letters, though please be aware of my current DNWs and requests. Some of these are fandoms I have requested in the past, please feel free to check out my fandom tags on the sidebar and see if there's anything in past letters you think might apply! I'm super excited for any of these fandoms, and I hope you'll have a lot of fun creating for the one you've chosen.

For ease of finding me: [archiveofourown.org profile] tuesday.

What I've written and what I want as a gift can differ, so for best results, please rely on my likes and DNWs over what you may find on my AO3 works page.

Text Likes )

General Likes )

Horror Likes )

Ship Likes )

Smut Likes )

Do Not Wants )

Requested Fandoms

Dwarf Fortress )

House of Leaves )

RED (Movies) )

Rimworld )




I'm off work today because I had to go get a tooth crowned. They've streamlined the process since early last year, when I had to go one week for the preparation and then back again a week later for the installation - they did it all in one day today, with about a 30 minute break between parts 1 and 2, where I just sat in the exam chair and read my book on my phone. This time I had to stop them a couple of times during the first part because they just spray water everywhere without sufficient suction so I felt like I was drowning a couple of times. The dentist warned me about it ahead of time and was apologetic about it, so I didn't feel like I was too much of a problem patient for stopping so I could, you know, breathe. One of the things I like about this particular dentist (there's a bunch of them at the practice and I've seen most of them over the last 5 years) is that he tells you what he's going to go ahead of time and answers questions, and then he tells you each thing he's going to do during the process right before he does it, and he gives you a heads up as to how far along in the process you are/how much more time it's going to take. Because it's unpleasant, at best. I mean, I was all numbed up for it (so numbed that my right EYE was feeling numb - the tooth being crowned is on the top right way in the back - which is a real fucking weird feeling), but ugh. I'm sure there are probably other crowns in the future - they want to get out all those old, old silver fillings, and he said this tooth did crack while he was removing it, so we caught it before it happened on its own.

I'm glad I didn't get new glasses this year - that left $950 in my FSA, which I had to supplement to pick up the rest of the cost, because I do not know what my insurance will cover as the dentist is out of network. I know I should find someone in network (and preferably near my apartment instead of in Manhattan), but as mentioned above, I like this guy and I think that is an important factor with any medical practitioner if you can get it.

So I came home and took a 3 hour nap because I didn't sleep much last night due to anxiety over all of this. Oh, and I mailed my ballot for Mamdani. I'm very curious to see if his lead in the polls translates to winning the election or if all the people who are scared because he's Muslim will turn out for Cuomo (or Sliwa, I guess, but I cannot take him seriously as a candidate). We have tended to pick terrible mayors recently, so it'll be interesting to see how this all turns out.

And I guess I mentioned reading up there, so yes, I am in the middle of a reread of Blue Lily, Lily Blue, which I am enjoying! ♥BLUE♥ remains my favorite.

*

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2025 12:50 pm

What I'm Doing Wednesday

books (De Nicola et al, Ben-Ghiat, Michelson, Thomson) )

healthcrap
The eye is gradually getting better but is still semi-borked. cut for mention of weight loss & nausea ) Also, I have some pain in the ass neighbors across the street who stay on their front porch day and night, talking nonstop en espaƱol, which is just on the edge of what I can't, at speed, distance, and through walls, understand. Though my brain keeps trying. Annnnd it all interfered badly with my sleep Sunday night. (I had to dig up my earplugs and I was literally *sweating* with aggravation.) OTOH, they have sort of respected quiet hours since late Monday. Trouble is, since the weekend, I'm not sleeping til after 4am now, even with it quiet. Even with going to bed at 9 and trying to read myself to sleep like usual. It's awful. I've already got a sleep disorder. I don't need this on top of it. /extended whine

yarning
Finished the calico cat stitch scarf, made a second one, sold it, and started finished a shorter one (~68-72 inches) in black (instead of taupe), cream, and orange. more yarning )

#resist
Nothing national scheduled yet. Mobilize has lots of small local things on their calendar, though.

I hope all of y'all are doing well! <333


Tuesday, October 21st, 2025 11:46 pm

(no subject)

The Boy Bride by A.J. Demas:

Read more... )

Unbroken by Jordan L. Hawk:

Read more... )

I read Reading the Remnants earlier this year, but plan to revisit it now that Pale Mirror has finished editing their translation and has posted EPUBs and PDFs for it.


Fandom History Rescue Help Needed:  Edgewood Maryland (1 hr north of Baltimore)

A Star Trek fan needs help retrieving her fandom history collection from her apartment now that she is in a nursing home. It consists of correspondence  and fanzines dealing with Star Trek and Sime Gen fandom history in the 1970s and 1980s.  If there are any volunteers willing to help sort and box for shipping, please send me a DM or email me at morgandawn @ gmail.com

Tuesday, October 21st, 2025 12:23 pm

Fandom History Rescue Help - Phoenix Arizona

 A few months ago Phoenix fans helped rescue a fanzine collection and were in the process of boxing the collection for shipping. The organizer/volunteer has been ill and we're looking for volunteers in the Phoenix area willing and able to help with the final push of boxing and shipping the zines to their final home. Please send me a message or email morgandawn @ gmail.com



Monday, October 20th, 2025 05:48 pm

Dear Yulegoat 2025

Yulegoat, thank you so much for agreeing to write for me. I am excited about all of these fandoms, and I’m grateful that we share a love of one or more of them. I’m definitely and enthusiastically open to treats!

I write long letters, but this is in response to my own preferences as a writer and treater: I love lots of detail. If you don’t, please use what is helpful from this letter, if anything, and feel free to not engage with the rest. I included most of the basics in my sign-up itself; I added this letter mostly so that my writer could have access to old letters and more detail about general likes (or more information about my DNWs)

And so:


DNWs:
-Character death (even stories that end ā€œand after a long happy life/friendship together, Character A buried Character B, remembering all the wonderful times they’d had with a bittersweet smileā€. I get that death comes to us all, but this move really depresses me, even if the people in the fic have lived a long and fulfilled life)
-Unhappy endings
-Characters facing or inflicting extreme violence
-Gore
-Injustice or suffering that won’t relent or be resolved (I’m happy to see some dramatic tension created by a villain who’s out to get someone, but narratives where petty villains do shitty things for pleasure or terrorize someone for an entire storyline, even if there is justice at the end, are not enjoyable for me)
-Unresolved lack of communication, or long stretches of miscommunication/refusal to communicate that aren’t delved into or addressed before the end of the story
-A focus on discrimination or cruelty. Some of these canons could feasibly have canon-typical homophobia; I'd prefer for this not to feature prominently
-If you’re writing sex/smut: please no scat, vomit, diapers, infantilizing, Mommy kink, or vore. This seems an unlikely one, but just in case: please no gathering come in a receptacle and then making someone drink it or otherwise interact with it, a pet horror of mine stemming from an ~adult vampire novel~ someone snuck me in the 7th grade.


Things I enjoy!
-Found families and teams and groups of people working their way through life together
-Epistolary devices of ALL SORTS
-Dorks and hijinks
-Strong friendships where people know each other’s shit and have each other’s backs
-Dangerously competent people
-Conversations!
-Pining that resolves
-Overt flirtation: lots of touching and indications of interest, all in the context of a slow-ish burn
-Crossovers and fusions (between my requested fandoms or between my fandoms and anything I’ve written or bookmarked in the past is delightful; if you’re taking me to a new and exciting place, I’d appreciate a little summary of what I need to know so I can orient myself, and also if the focus isn’t heavily on the canon you’ve incorporated, as I am an old and will likely be lost).
-Grew-up-together fic
-Historical AUs (all the way through to the ancient past), royalty/high-political-intrigue-court-settings, magical AUs, or any AU where I learn a ton about something I didn’t know about before
-Tropes: amnesia and there’s someone you know you can trust even if you don’t recognize their face; woke-up-married and it’s hilarious; woke-up-married and it’s secretly what you wanted; arranged marriages where people fall in love gradually or have to work to discover how they can love each other; the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-fuck-you-only-I-get-to-antagonize-that-person-I-will-smite-all-other-enemies
-If you’re writing sex/smut, I like healthy explorations of power dynamics of all sorts, bondage, dirty talk, talking in general, playful sex with laughter, lots of making out, and any focus on tits (regardless of gender)! I can genuinely get behind almost every kink (see exceptions in the DNWs; if watersports are your thing, I like it, and I don’t mind blood in the context of a pre-sex fight/event or a period; a little comeplay is totally delightful, as long as it’s not the focus of the story/what I mention in the DNWs above). Daddy kink is fine; Mommy kink is not (don't mind those dynamics, but use of 'Mommy' is a no-no for me).
-I LOVE a good smutfest that is secretly also a feelings-fest

In no particular order, the fandoms:

Ender Series: Bean, Ender

I have read a large part of the books in this universe at least once (up until I discovered that Orson Scott Card was not someone to whom I wanted to give my money), but the one I’ve re-read again and again since my teens is Ender’s Game. Feel absolutely free to focus on this period/the Ender’s Shadow period, but also to range far and wide in the universe if you prefer! I love the boarding-school (of horror) aspects of this, and there is such a yawning gap of desire in my heart between what Bean knows and what Ender knows and what it might have meant for them to know together, to have each other in that way.

I love this relationship and would love to see it explored in any way whatsoever, particularly in canon-divergence fics where there is a happy ending for them both.

-BEAN REVEAL is my jam, I have to say. I thirst for recognition from Ender.

-Space hijinks and justice! Ender and Bean or Ender/Bean figure out what’s going on and wrench the early storyline in a particular unexpected direction?

-Ender’s acknowledgment that he worked his best lieutenants the hardest, and demanded most of them, is given more room to breathe, and maybe the two of them take a quiet moment to reflect on the world that might have been or the world they’ll now be responsible for building, through no choice of their own.

-AU where they’re all in some other kind of high-stakes, competence-requiring world and Ender and Bean can find ways to relate that aren’t completely defined by the realities of their origin universe.

-I love Bean’s quiet blessing to his troops in the final battle. I would love to see what would happen if Ender knew the truth too, and what they might bring to bear on a battle that included that incredible weight. I also love the one-by-one introductions of his lieutenants when Ender first sits down to battle after training alone for some time; I would love to see what goes through his and Bean's minds in that moment (though we know a bit more about Bean's perspective already)

-REBELLION AGAINST THE AUTHORITY! The kids just spend some time in a Battle Room drifting and talking quietly, or god forbid, laughing, or they straight-up demolish that bullshit institution and turn it into something constructive and powerful, because fuck ā€œwe couldn’t have used you this way if you’d ever known the truth, kidsā€ and ā€œthis was the only way to do itā€



Pitch: any combination of Ginny, Blip, Mike, Evelyn

I rewatch this series with some regularity, and have accepted almost a decade on that I will never be over it.

I have nominated Ginny, Mike, Blip, and Evelyn for the particular reason that there's something about their possible shared dynamic that fascinates me (but I wouldn't mind you playing with whatever combination of these three characters inspires you the most).

One of the best thing about this show was the genuine character growth that seemed to take place in one season. Blip pushed Mike and Ginny to grow; Ginny pushed Mike to grow; Mike pushed Ginny to grow; Evelyn was doing a shit-ton of heavy lifting throughout

As you can probably tell from all of these prompts, I love moments of generous instruction between individuals, and I was so fucking happy to see Blip point Mike in the right direction when it came to being the kind of teammate that Ginny deserves. Anything that continues to explore that would fill me with joy: I'd love to know why it is that Blip has Ginny's back so fully (is it his genuine decency and generosity? The fact that Evelyn took him aside and gave him his own talking-to, hard? That he saw Ginny's dedication first-hand, like Mike did? Some combination of all of these things, or something else?), and I'd really to see him teach Mike how to see with... clearer eyes. Better eyes, honestly. I'd love any moment of siblinghood between Blip and Ginny, or maybe Ginny trying to teach Blip and Mike something (baseball-related or otherwise) and having them both fail utterly at it?

-I’d love to see an easy day at the field, Mike icing his entire fucking body and Ginny at the end of rehabbing her shoulder and their easy camarederie on display
-I have to admit that early life exposure to Mark-Paul Gosselaar in the form of dubbed Salvado Por La Campana episodes has permanently left me in a place in which I'd love to see him and Ginny get together. I am very into it. Including just... bad-decision PWP with love (which need not be super romantic) and respect.
-Future fic where Mike’s retired and Ginny's house-husband (or best friend) would be A-okay by me.
-SPORTS OLD AGE, THOUGH NOT ACTUAL OLD AGE: A Biography by Mike would be great, particularly if he settles into coaching or broadcasting or anything entirely new
-Finally, anything with Ginny will make me happy. I don't know enough about her and I want to learn where her vulnerable parts are and how she got that frame of steel, and I want to see her really carve out her place in the team (with others ideally stepping up and helping make a space for her)


The Exorcist: Marcus, TomƔs

I haven't seen this series in a while (and plan to re-watch it in preparation for Yuletide); I'm looking to re-immerse myself in it. I liked S1 more than S2, but was so happy to see the relationship between these two deepen and become more complex.

If I were to sum up what I want in one sentence, it would be: defrocked travelin' man and rebelliously still-frocked (I know that's not a term) priest travel the country (the world?) doing good and getting bloody. If they FALL IN LOVE THAT IS A GREAT PLUS.

I am very happy for you to explore the real horror elements that are central to this canon; I don't mind you telling a story that is firmly rooted in those elements, though you should also feel free to capture TomƔs and Marcus in a moment away from all of that, shooting the shit at a bar. I would love to see anything that deals with how each of these men (or all of these men) are dealing with the fallout from S1, including the deep sense of betrayal that they each must feel, in different ways.

(I also wanted to say that if you want to deal specifically with questions of faith or religion, you should feel free to tackle those; I am not religious myself, but would find any story dealing with this fascinating.)

-I like Marcus' implacable nature, and am interested about where it meets with a problematic inflexibility; TomƔs' human core, and his openness to others, are some of the most interesting parts of his character to me, but I see how they would be both a gift and a curse going forward. Any kind of exploration of how these men came to be who they are, or any story that deals with who they are becoming, would be wonderful, too.

-Future fic (outsider POV?): a case brings them back together (Marcus is living in a town and has ended up embroiled in it; the church sends TomƔs). They have to get used to one another again, but before they know it it's like no time has passed, and the person who has called them has lots of moments of watching it and being like, "How did these two best friends/boyfriends come to be here? I thought they didn't know each other?"

-Anything that is research-oriented, or which explores the bookish parts of the work they will probably be doing in the future, would make my heart sing. Medieval archival research for the win!

-Passionate, somewhat-guilty-but-not-really, just... emotion-filled fucking is my jam


Billy Elliot: any combination of Billy, Michael, Jackie, Tony

This movie has been beloved to me from the moment it came out (alright, alright, don't lose your blob! I lost my blob).

I love the relationships between the family here: the deep willingness that Tony and Jackie have to act in ways that support Billy, even if they don't fully understand him. In general I think this is the vibe: reaching across spaces toward other people, because love makes it worth it. The fact that Billy loves Michael, and that THEY ARE STILL FRIENDS IN ADULTHOOD (I hope; given that the family is all seated together at the end, I'm assuming they are) makes my heart explode.

-Seeing Billy thrive as an adult would be amazing. A slice-of-life in which he is self-assured and happy and being gracefully competent would make me so happy

-Without dissing on Michael's partner, I WOULD NOT MIND Billy/Michael in any form: casual, laughter-filled, hot sex between friends; friends-to-lovers; Billy realizing late in life that Michael has been the most consistent presence in his life and realizing he must battle for his hand in marriage

-Billy being incredibly oblivious to the fact that everyone in his company is thirsting after him and Michael pointing it out (laughingly, as best friends do, or sexily, as best friends do), or Billy teaching someone the very basics while they struggle not to implode

-Seeing either Tony or Jackie become knowledgeable-ish about any aspect of what Billy does would be tremendous, as would be them trying to teach others. I'd also love to see any of their future interactions in the mines (DOWN WITH FUCKING THATCHER), perhaps a little wiser and a little more emotionally able because of how they've grown as a family

Monday, October 20th, 2025 09:56 pm

PSA - DW notifications

The AWS outage is affecting DW notifications - some are delayed, some may be lost.

I only noticed I wasn't getting emails about my own comments after I'd already posted a bunch, so I hope they'll get delivered eventually! In the meantime it's probably useful to manually check back for new comments/replies.

(None of the websites and services I used today were noticeably affected otherwise, luckily. I hope everything has come back for everyone else.)


Monday, October 20th, 2025 10:11 am

AWS outage

DW is seeing some issues due to today's Amazon outage. For right now it looks like the site is loading, but it may be slow. Some of our processes like notifications and journal search don't appear to be running and can't be started due to rate limiting or capacity issues. DW could go down later if Amazon isn't able to improve things soon, but our services should return to normal when Amazon has cleared up the outage.

Edit: all services are running as of 16:12 CDT, but there is definitely still a backlog of notifications to get through.

Edit 2: and at 18:20 CDT everything's been running normally for about the last hour.


Sunday, October 19th, 2025 08:30 pm

but that's not the case

I made some chicken thighs in the slow cooker today with hoisin sauce, soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, garlic, and some tomato paste. The chicken shredded nicely, but mostly what I tasted was salt - it was low sodium soy sauce too, so I'm not sure why. Maybe the balsamic? But that was only 2 tsps. Kind of a disappointment, though now at least I have some room in my freezer for other things. *hands*

Finished my reread of The Dream Thieves and now it's onto Blue Lily, Lily Blue. Still enjoying myself. I guess at some point I'll read something new to me again, but not just yet. ĀÆ\_(惄)_/ĀÆ

In other news, man, the Giants looked good for 3 whole quarters before completely unravelling and losing. the fact that they led for so long, and even came back to retake the lead once they fell behind, and still lost just makes it worse. At least the Rangers finally won last night.

*

Monday, October 20th, 2025 01:52 am

Dear Yuletide writer

Dear Yulewriter,

thank you so much for writing a story for me!

I've requested and received all of these fandoms before - some for many, many years - and I love them all. Two of them are related to my current main fandom (Guardian) through the main actors, so I might mention them more on DW, but please don't think that means I want my other requests any less! Regardless of what we matched on, rest assured that you really can't go wrong here. Just the existence of new fic for any of these fandoms and characters will make me incredibly happy.

My AO3 account is [archiveofourown.org profile] Trobadora, and it's set to welcome treats.

Everything important is in the requests themselves, but if you'd like even more info, general likes etc., here you go:

General Preferences

Likes & Dislikes/DNWs )

Fandoms and characters

Jump directly to:ē»…ęŽ¢ | Detective L (TV): Luo Fei & Huo Wensi )

L'OrĆ©al 'Time Engraver' Commercials: The Time Engraver, Worldbuilding )

Nantucket trilogy - S.M. Stirling: Kashtiliash & Raupasha )

Ring of Swords - Eleanor Arnason: Ettin Gwarha & Sanders Nicholas )

Starfire series - Various Authors: Zhaarnak'diaano | Zhaarnak'telmasa & Raymond Prescott )

é•æå…¬äø»åœØäøŠ | Eldest Princess On Top: Li Yunzhen & Gu Xuanqing )

1632 series - Various Authors: John Chandler Simpson )

Ahem. Lengthy as always. But I hope you'll find something inspiring in here, and most of all, that you'll have fun writing! :)

Sunday, October 19th, 2025 04:23 pm

Dear Yulewriter

Dear Yulewriter,

Thank you so much for writing me a story. Write something that makes you happy, and it will make me happy.

In general I am a big fan of chosen family, happy endings, people being good at things, people helping each other be better together than they were apart, theology of all kinds, wit and banter, and kindness. I'm happy with anything (any situation, any rating) that feels right to you given the characters at hand. I'm open to AUs or to going deeper into the worldbuilding of any of these canons.

Please, no betrayal or unquenchable grief or people being awful to each other or despair. There's enough of that in RL (especially these last few years.) On Yuletide morning I want something that makes me smile. Thank you kindly.

Most of this note is my standard Dear Yulewriter letter -- these are the things I've been saying year after year, and I've been doing Yuletide since... 2003 I think? but this year I am really struck by the extent to which I want to see these characters get to experience joy. Maybe because the world has been difficult, in a variety of ways, for the last several years in a row? Anyway: this is just to say, thank you for figuring out how to bring these characters some sweetness.

In closing: yay Yuletide! Yay you! Thank you so much!

There's nothing below the cut that wasn't also in my Yuletide sign-up, but I include my requests here for anyone who's curious or maybe wants to write an extra treat.

Kass

The Naturalist Society by Carrie Vaughn; the Toby Daye series by Seanan McGuire; Murderbot / tv show. )

Sunday, October 19th, 2025 02:01 pm

New Vid: Until We Go Down | Phantom (2023)

Title: Until We Go Down
Fandom: 유령 | Phantom (2023)
Music: Until We Go Down by Ruelle
Summary: 'I need that fire just to know that I'm awake'
Notes: Premiered at Virtual [community profile] confabcon 2025!
Warnings: quick cuts and flashing lights, blood, violence, lots of smoking

AO3 | bsky | DW | tumblr | YouTube







valoise: (Default)
[personal profile] valoise posting in [community profile] vidding
Saturday, October 18th, 2025 08:17 am

This is Shit - a Murderbot vid

Title: This is Shit
Fandom: Murderbot
Music: Well This is Shit by Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq
Summary: Life's hard for a rogue SecUnit

Streaming at:
DW | AO3 | Youtube


Friday, October 17th, 2025 05:55 pm

visions i vandalize

[personal profile] runpunkrun mentioned that there is now a graphic novel of The Raven Boys, which ignited in me a fierce urge to reread the series, so I've started that, and I still love it (♥BLUE♥! ♥RONAN♥! #the same impossible stuff), but I also kind of wish now that I didn't read the Dreamer trilogy (or that Stiefvater had written it differently), since it kind of recontextualizes (and potentially retcons) some stuff that I don't think really needed it.

*


Friday, October 17th, 2025 04:01 pm

Bohemian Rhapsody flashmob

I'm sure everyone but me has already seen this, but I have to share it anyway - this is amazing!



Background info


Thursday, October 16th, 2025 11:43 pm

(no subject)

Queen Demon by Martha Wells:

Read more... )

Also, volume 1 of AJ Demas' new serial (set in the same world as Sword Dance, but ~300 years earlier) is now available as an ebook from her website! I thought it sounded neat, but Ream as a platform didn't interest me.

minoanmiss: Nubian girl with dubious facial expression (dubious Nubian girl)
Thursday, October 16th, 2025 09:45 pm

Ask a Manager: People using "Rape" Metaphorically

Content advisory in title. Read more... )

Thursday, October 16th, 2025 08:35 pm

here's what took place moments ago

The Rangers haven't scored in almost 8 periods (if this 2nd period in Toronto ends without them scoring in 2 minutes, it will actually be 8 periods) - and it's not even like they've been shut out by top tier goalies! - but Chris Kreider has 5 points in 3 games so far for Anaheim. They definitely sent the wrong Chris away over the summer. Sigh.

[eta] A goal! For the Rangers! Huzzah!

*




Okay so, we're watching Elementary for fun and really enjoying it. LOVE Joan, Sherlock is lolarious, really like the supporting cast Captain DILF and Detective Hottie. (I do wish there were more women, tho -- I really liked the glimpses we get of Joan's mother and shrink.) The show does suffer some from the 22-ep-long procedural's problem of The Guest Star Is the Killer, but the writing is still creative and characters remember what happened from episode to episode! I know a lot of you have watched it, so, question:

Are there any episodes or seasons we might want to skip to keep enjoying the show? I'm thinking of episodes like Seeing Red (Buffy), that horrible Fringe episode, some of the worse late X-Files episodes, and so on. We might possibly watch them anyway, lol, I just don't want to be blindsided. (For example I think we skipped that horrible episode of Fringe entirely because I knew so many people who turned completely against the show after it, and it took me personally a LONG time to get over some of the X-Files crap.)

(Also: ride or die BUT also noromo for both Mulder/Scully and Joan/Sherlock, lol)




Wednesday, October 15th, 2025 02:32 pm

What I'm Doing Wednesday

books (Osman, Kingfisher x 3, Mohamed, De Nicola) )

The Vampire Lestat NYCC extended trailer! <333


yuletide
There's so much good stuff in the tag set, it took me forever to pare down my signup. I still might change it.

yarning
so much yarning! )

rl
Speaking of spending money, I got a new laptop, as my old one is 7 3/4 years old and Win10. The old one still works mostly fine, thank Lenovo, but the Prime Day sale was too good to pass up. I've been working on getting all my old software transferred over. Slowly.

healthcrap )

#resist
This coming Saturday: No Kings Day 2. If you're protesting, please stay loud and stay safe. I'm there with you in spirit, wearing an inflatable frog suit and passing out water. (The color for the protest is YELLOW, btw, but I like the inflatables. And I look like a zombie in yellow.)

I hope all of y'all are enjoying the Fall/Spring weather, such as it is so far, and that all is well in your worlds. <333

p.s. This No Kings icon is shareable. It and tons of other protest graphics are found here. Feel free to link & share!

conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
Wednesday, October 15th, 2025 01:48 pm

Two letters to Carolyn about terrible parents

1. Hi, Carolyn: I grew up in a very image-conscious family. I’ve always been ā€œbigger,ā€ which bothered my parents a lot. They were always on my case to lose weight, although it wasn’t having health impacts and I don’t have issues with physical fitness. Now that Ozempic is a thing, they have been dropping hints about that, too. I’ve tried gently having conversations about how their comments are hurtful, but they — especially my mom — get hostile and tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. (They aren’t great at emotional discussions.)

I love myself generally and think I’m a cool person. But I’m in my early 30s, and I’ve never been in a relationship. I really don’t get romantic attention. I’ve been on a handful of dates from apps. This is hard. I naturally wonder whether my weight is the problem. But I can’t bear the idea that my parents were right this whole time, and I don’t want to hear the inevitable I-told-you-so’s if I do end up trying Ozempic.

I know a reasoned conversation isn’t going to stop them. And I know internally it’s going to kill me if I lose weight and start getting more attention; were they right and I was really that ugly this entire time? I have no idea how to wrap my mind around this problem. I’ve had a string of really unhelpful therapists, generally saying, ā€œYou’re not ugly, but you need years of therapy to heal ALL your childhood trauma and then maybe you’ll be able to find a relationship!ā€ and I need a break from that.

Do you have any advice?


Read more... )

************


2. Dear Carolyn: My sister and I had a really difficult childhood, but she definitely had it tougher than I did. For very good reasons, she severed all ties with our mom over 20 years ago, and, based on the way things happened, her daughters also chose to sever all ties with their grandmother.

My sister and I also were estranged for many years, but about six years ago, we rebuilt our relationship from the ground up and we are the best of friends now. That is, until Mom died a few weeks ago. My mom left her home and its contents to me. She was very clear on her wishes that I sell the home and split the money between my two children. It will be a significant amount of money. She left my sister a third of all remaining assets, which are minimal.

My sister is livid about the terms of the will, feeling like it was just another way to send her a message that she didn’t matter to our mom. I don’t know what Mom was thinking. If memory serves, she didn’t want to leave my sister entirely out of the will, but this has actually turned out to be worse.

This whole legal journey through probate is going to just keep taking my sister back to a past with ugly memories and lots of pain. How do I navigate this and keep my relationship with her? Do I reconsider how to allocate the money from the house to make things more fair — but go against my mom’s specific wishes?


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Tuesday, October 14th, 2025 05:12 pm

Dear Yuletide Writer

Thank you so much for writing for me! Please don't stress over the optional details. Write to please yourself and I'll be delighted!

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[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
Tuesday, October 14th, 2025 01:51 pm

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have now been to three weddings where I found out that the couple was already married, and just going through the motions.

The first was a couple who had gotten legally married weeks prior to the wedding so he could go on her health insurance.

The second was an older couple who said they’d never had a ā€œreal wedding.ā€ That made me think they hadn’t really been married all along, but it turns out they had been; they just hadn’t had the kind of event they’d wanted.

The last one, which sent me over the brink, was our college friends. Since our larger friend group is now spread out in different cities, this couple traveled around, repeating the wedding ceremony to ā€œsave people the expense of traveling.ā€

My mother asks me why I care if people want to make fools of themselves, and why I can’t just ā€œbe niceā€ and celebrate with my friends. The answer is because I’m expected to go along with this farce and play the Wedding Guest: dressing up, sitting through it all, congratulating them, and -- here’s the main part -- spending serious money to buy them something from their registry list.

In fact, I’m expected to do all of the above many times over, if I go to their pre-wedding (but post-marriage!) parties, which I try to avoid. Am I right or wrong?


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