the fact i can buy a new high end laptop for video games as a birthday gift to myself in less than a month, along with planning out an out of town vacation with my coworkers, is not smth i expected from my life earlier this year, but here we are. uni student me would have wept at the thought

2023 rlly was the year of personal achievements and forward momentum huh

fwiw, writing with you has always been an absolute gem of an experience and i can name a number of threads we've had that been such a strong reminder of why i'm glad i pursued the medium in the first place. no joke.

on the idea of "the good old days", esp w rp, bc its smth ive mulled over a lot in the past year + months, i think you're in them so long as you're, at least the least bit, glad you're doing what you're doing. we may not know when we've left them until we actually Have(TM), but hey, may as well have fun on the ride while we're still here, yeah? 

or at least, that's how i like viewing any kind of Experience with its ups and downs. anyone and everyone has their own takes on the thought, but the idea of celebrating what you've got going on and being proud of what you once did tends to be my personal cure for nostalgia, missing, and even grief. idk idk

telling the people you love and care about heartbreaking news is a hell of a difficult thing, and you have all my empathy and support. i'm so sorry that you have to go through this, and i wish you nothing but the best for you, and your mom, and that this can turn out. seriously. from what i know of you based on the posts you've made here, and our few encounters together, i firmly believe you deserve nothing but good. <3

scott pilgrim takes off. Thats it. Thats the thought

i rlly did miss being poetic in my writing, so these were nice ones

as much as i like the pay and people from my job, im gonna scream if another excel sheet gaslights me

anything wherein it rlly feels like "there is no going back from this point"/"consequences cannot be undone/taken back/etc. and will fundamentally change a character, a faction, or a setting's narrative"

that can include character death, major injury (+1 on an arm getting lopped off — did it once, 11/10 would do again), trauma that'll stay, the loss of something vital, the destruction of something vital, harrowing betrayal, what have you

ofc it doesnt need to be that metal to be high stakes imo — "high stakes" will shift depending on the setting and atmosphere. but generally, yeah, if its p clear w/e happens cannot be undone and how thatll change things for a long time, those are (good imo) high stakes

i did not expect this turn when i first planned this character but,,,, i cant say im against it

based on a true story—

picked up Black Punk Now, edited by James Spooner and Chris L. Terry, which is an anthology collection of fiction, nonfiction, comics, and interview transcripts all about the afro-punk scene since i wanted to dig a little deeper into that & blasian experiences with regard to punk / the punk scene for character work ++ just generally finding this stuff so interesting. some passages that rlly stuck with me so far include:

there’s a long amount of context but it was one of my biggest highs in rp — i made two characters who were effective narrative foils of each other but in the kind of “tragic foils” kinda way where, no matter what way you look at it, it would always be an impossibility that the two can coexist together and be happy, no matter how much they tried to make things work. it never will.

that eventually resulted in a solo thread between the two of high stakes and a countdown. it was effectively a fight to the death — both of them were actively trying to stop the other from achieving their goals (which, ironically, was one of them wanting to save the other / rewrite her narrative, while the other was rapidly careening into full doomed villain tragedy). lots of payoff, lots of emotional deconstruction, etc. and in the final moment, the knife stabbed one of them, and i didn’t specify who until the next post. i really wanted that thread to have the energy of “whoever came out of this alive, if someone would, there is a narrative that is still possible”.

and then it’s revealed who got stabbed, and i write her death post. the thing is, the other character suffered a major injury too, so i write his “death” post (quotation marks for a reason; he was going into shock and passed out). didn’t say anything fully confirming either characters’ fates in the server for a few days. people’s reactions were hilarious. some were mourning, others in disbelief, etc. 

then it’s revealed the one that went into shock survived.

and then i got yelled at.

11/10 would do it again.

just finished loki s2 and what the fuck i'm gonna be deeply unwell about this for awhile

fresh air and touching grass does, like, insane things to keep yourself from going insane