Pearlnight's Lair - /shoebox

82 Reasons to enjoy the company of a VAMPYRE

Landed yourself into a debate? Trying to convert a nonbeliever? Need cute ideas for your vampire fiction? Then this is the list for you! These are the little things, the overlooked bits and pieces of domestic life with a corpse demon, or multiple. They’re (for the sake of curation) Safe-For-Work, thus leaving your bodice unripped and your psyche respected.

• 1. Can sleep in your attic or basement if you’re scared of things in them.
• 2. Can cool your drinks just by touching them.
• 3. Can create distractions by turning into loads of bats and going everywhere.
• 4. Can drench you in a blanket of fog, making you look extremely cool.
• 5. Can get late-night shopping for you if you forgot to get what you needed that day.
• 6. Can get you around town without the need for a vehicle.
• 7. Can get you out of print books.
• 8. Can hide in your humidifier in a pinch.
• 9. Can hypnotise the mailman into prioritising your packages first.
• 10. Can hypnotise you into falling asleep if you’re having trouble doing that.
• 11. Can identify every weird old object you find at thrift stores without Googling.
• 12. Can identify unseen things down to their smell.
• 13. Can open jars.
• 14. Can put the spiders outside for you.
• 15. Can reach the top of the shelf.
• 16. Can teach you period-appropriate etiquette for fine-dining situations.
• 17. Can tell you about the exact notes of a smell or taste.
• 18. Can use their night-vision to help you find things in the dark.
• 19. Can use their telekinesis to wash the dishes, thus preventing either of you from having to touch slimy things in the sink.
• 20. Even if their diets are limited, they can technically do wine and cheese tasting with you.
• 21. If someone breaks into your house, your vampire friend can take care of it however violently or peacefully you see fit.
• 22. If they burn your hand on something, you can soothe it on their cold skin.
• 23. If they can control the weather, they can fine-tune it to your liking.
• 24. If their ability to control animals means you can adopt from a shelter and your new pet will have an easier time getting used to you.
• 25. If they can control animals means you can adopt from a shelter and your new pet will have an easier time getting used to you.
• 26. If they can carry heavy furniture up the stairs.
• 27. If they can drench you in a blanket of fog, making you look extremely cool.
• 28. Their creature henchmen can also do stuff for you.
• 29. Their heightened senses mean they’ll keep the volume to a reasonable level.
• 30. Their immunity to the cold lets them dig out your car when it’s snowing.
• 31. Their long-lived nature means they’re bound to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of something.
• 32. Their rancid aura will repel most vermin from the premises.
• 33. Their reflexes will let them catch anything you drop.
• 34. They can be your character witness in new social situations.
• 35. They can build a snowman with their bare hands.
• 36. They can carry heavy furniture up the stairs.
• 37. They can cool your drinks just by touching them.
• 38. They can create distractions by turning into loads of bats and going everywhere.
• 39. They can drench you in a blanket of fog, making you look extremely cool.
• 40. They can get late-night shopping for you if you forgot to get what you needed that day.
• 41. They can get you around town without the need for a vehicle.
• 42. They can get you out of print books.
• 43. They can hide in your humidifier in a pinch.
• 44. They can hypnotise the mailman into prioritising your packages first.
• 45. They can hypnotise you into falling asleep if you’re having trouble doing that.
• 46. They can identify every weird old object you find at thrift stores without Googling.
• 47. They can identify unseen things down to their smell.
• 48. They can open jars.
• 49. They can put the spiders outside for you.
• 50. They can reach the top of the shelf.
• 51. They can teach you period-appropriate etiquette for fine-dining situations.
• 52. They can tell you about the exact notes of a smell or taste.
• 53. They can use their night-vision to help you find things in the dark.
• 54. They can use their telekinesis to wash the dishes, thus preventing either of you from having to touch slimy things in the sink.
• 55. They’ll always know what time it is.
• 56. They’ll never let you forget to use up your garlic.
• 57. They’ll never leave the lights on.
• 58. They won’t have to meal prep the way you do.
• 59. They won’t hover around you while you cook. (Especially if you’re making anything with the other G-Word)
• 60. They won’t slip on a wet floor because they can levitate.
• 61. They’re always cold so you can always choose to warm them up.
• 62. They’re statistically more likely to appreciate ambient lighting.
• 63. They’re statistically more likely to carry a parasol.
• 64. They’re statistically more likely to keep the house clean.
• 65. They’re statistically more likely to know how to take care of you after you donate blood.
• 66. They’re statistically more likely to know what to do in an emergency.
• 67. They’re statistically more likely to recall the most insane things you’ve ever heard.
• 68. They’re statistically more likely to show you how to send fancy letters with wax seals.
• 69. They’re statistically more likely to be a polyglot.
• 70. They’re statistically less likely to leave the oven on.
• 71. They’re statistically more likely to be more aware of their own stench.
• 72. They are statistically unlikely to complain about your dust bunnies.
• 73. You can ask them to hole punch with their fangs.
• 74. You can ask them to pop stuff with their fangs.
• 75. You can become a vampire too.
• 76. You can dress their bat form up in little outfits.
• 77. You can finally have those secret passageways you always wanted.
• 78. You can go through bad neighbourhoods with them.
• 79. You can have them hypnotise cold-callers and make them waste time, thus saving many of your fellow humans from unsolicited conversations.
• 80. You can lean against them on a hot day.
• 81. You can play with your pet rats.
• 82. You can play with your pet wolf.

A paraphrased plaque

In September 2025 I flew to Chicago to meet my best friend Alex, who drove a few hours to meet me there. This transcription comes from the Art Institute of Chicago, the last museum we hit up before we parted.

Bill Brandt
English, 1904-1983
Asleep in the Sarcophagus in Christ Church, Spitalfields
1940
Gelatin silver print
This startling image of a man sleeping in a coffin was taken by Bill Brandt during the Blitz, a German bombing campaign against London during World War II. Brandt was a talented documentary photographer known for night photography, whose work appeared in British periodicals and his own books, such as A Night in London (1938).
He was recruited by Britain's Ministry of Information to document civilians sheltering from air raids. While many sought shelter in the subway tunnels of the London Underground, Brandt's photograph attests to the use of even eerier subterranean spaces.
Gift of Lawrence D. Hite, 2014.1207

Apple Notes Suggestions

Unfortunately being at a computer 24/7 would be horrifically bad ergonomics, thus forcing me to interact with a mobile phone. I came across this one by pure chance, but for some godforsaken reason, Apple Notes decided to "suggest" (see: hallucinate) some ideas in my searchbox. This is what I got, presented completely out of context to recapture the same bewilderment I felt seeing this at 4:34am.

A

• away angie whol present black blackacular
• absolutely hammer-
• airline hostesses
• air of sensuality
• anonymous author

B

• bunch of white worm cultists sacrificing someone
• bountiful meal of mutton
• bunch of werewolves
• bottle of red wine
• bradley thomas turner

C

• conventional horror flavoured detective story
• cious manuscripts
• christophe morand
• certain delicacy
• cultists scene

D

• definitely likes physical restraintaining
• different holy figure
• definitely resemble
• deliberately meant
• dreadful rapidity

E

• extreme body horror soddens another
• eloquently labelled
• eccentric foreign noble
• excellent red wine
• earthy mid-tones

F

• film kind of alternates actually
• flames burning
• fat policeman
• funny feeling
• flashes of colour

I

• interesting inventory management puzzle
• interesting inversion
• interesting camera choices
• infamous ilistoire
• interesting flourishes

G

• getting stereotypical vampire vibes
• german shepherds inside
• glimmering light
• genuine scooby fans
• group dynamics

H

• huge amount of player frustration
• hypnotic silver tones
• hammer dracula
• hypnotic power
• hours straight

L

• literally tools of sexual assault
• letter of pericles
• lightning flashes
• local orphanage
• lover of books

M

• mcdonalds philly cheese steak burger
• mendous gusts of rain
• manuscript of sappho
• modern literature
• mental alertness

N

• neopagan stuff admittedly okay king
• neighborhood of kosice
• nighttime scenes
• notably cold
• neglected dead

O

• obvious weirdo slash xenophobic metaphor
• ominous sucking sound
• oldest vintages
• overt cougar
• open glade

P

• physically-imposing dracula dominates every scene
• persian manuscripts
• physical comfort
• pure eating force
• perfect latin

R

• reveals someone desperately building tantasy armor
• ruddy-featured monk
• requires sacrifice
• rich illuminations
• real estate bride

S

• surely seeing piles of decomposing household litter weighs mightily
• series of slow thrusts
• several chambers
• sometimes arrive
• sensory inputs

T

• trillion-page quest ensures transparency
• true demonic worm form
• thickening gloom
• troupe of performers
• type of vampire

Dealbreakers in vore

Singlehandedly one of the funniest exchanges I've ever seen online and it's from a 20+ year old fetish website.

Dealbreakers in vore

by Assimilation » Wed Oct 25, 2023 6:03

"alockwood1 wrote: But, I don't think that anyone would seriously want to be thinking fat or waste.

Any normal human would think it's fucking ridiculous that people would want to be eaten alive.

Every Sandwich I've ever Eaten

Like zoinks, it's my sandwich list. In the spirit of all things spooky, I have to dedicate an entire page to my sandwich contraptions. As of now there are 44 sandwiches on this list and counting. Be warned, I dwell in the eternal swamp you know as England and thus, my standards of what constitutes a normal meal are in hell.

• Avocado toastie (disaster)
• Bacon and egg
• Baked bean
• Baked bean and cheddar
• Baked bean and sausage
• Beef and Coleman's mustard
• Beef and horseradish
• Beef tongue and lettuce and mayonnaise
• Cheddar and branston pickle
• Cheddar and red onion
• Chicken pate
• Chip and mayonnaise
• Cucumber
• Cucumber and Philadelphia
• Egg mayonnaise
• Fish finger
• Grated cheddar cheese
• Grilled bacon, egg and mushroom French toast
• Ham and cheddar
• Haslet and lettuce
• Leftover roast chicken
• Lettuce, Swiss cheese, red onion and mayonnaise
• Mozzarella, ham and scotch bonnet chutney
• Mozzrella, mushroom and gherkin grilled
• Nutella
• Peanut butter and Strawberry Jam
• Poached egg
• Pork tongue and lettuce and mayonnaise
• Pulled pork
• Rarebit
• Raw mushroom
• Red Leicester
• Red Leicester and branston pickle
• Red salmon caviar
• Smoked salmon and cucumber
• Smoked salmon and Philadelphia
• Spam
• Strawberry Jam
• The Ham
• Tinned meatball
• Tinned meatball and cheddar
• Venison steak (medium rare)
• Walkers cheese and onion crisp
• Walkers roast chicken crisp

Favourite Animal Crossing Villagers

It's been a love since forever and I've always wanted to tell you about it. City Folk and Wild World were the main ones here, though I lean towards the former as I think Animal Crossing feels better on a bigger screen.

Alligators

Drago

He's a dragon! What more can I say?!

Bear Cubs

Stitches

The more inanimate object villagers, the merrier.

Bears

Teddy

The capital-B Bear, just the epitome of what I think when I hear the word.

Birds

Anchovy

The comically large angrybrows are a cute design trope for all the other villagers, but Anchovy just completely owns them. Dozens of birds in real life would agree with me, if they could talk.

Cats

They're all perfection, but especially:

Rosie

I had a plush of her as a kid!

Tabby

She's like a little Tiger, and I love that such a strange design gets given to a female character. While I actually have a softer spot for the more feminine villagers than one would expect, for a tomboy this is a breath of fresh air.

Tangy

A current City Folk playthrough has blessed me with her zesty presence.

Cows

Patty

I like it when designers are allowed to make cows that aren't just Holsteins, Longhorns or Herefords.

Dogs

Lucky

For being presumably horribly maimed, he's taking it well.

Eagles

Avery

Apollo's iconic and we used to really want him around as a kid, but growing up has replaced the stars and spangles with a more native american favourite. The markings are so sleek and anything with a root in ancient art is an easy win for me.

Elephants

Axel

He's very cute, though his design is more suited for a Lazy than a Jock.

Ducks

Derwin

He's so stupid and helpless looking, I want to push him into pitfall traps.

Frogs

Camofrog

Please use your hide to sneak in my village and get Jambette evicted for me, thanks.

Gorillas

Boone

I always loved it when they'd use the villager models as a template for different species, but they went hard on this guy. Flora and Savannah are similarily great designs, just oozing with character

Hamsters

Clay

Another ancient art inspired design. Why is he a hamster? Who gives a shit, he's cool.

Hippos

Hippeux

So typical of your kind to twist the truth to cloud the mind with unholy thoughts.

Horses

Roscoe

He's so damn cool, I just know he'd stomp me to death.

Kangaroos

Mathilda

I know the joeys match all of their mothers, but Mathilda's is the funniest. Also anything that's melanistic is statistically more likely to win for me, similar case to Roscoe.

Koalas

Melba

Even if she originates from a continent that likes to erupt into surges of hellfire, she's happy to be alive with that calm brown scheme of hers.

Lions

Bud

I know they made him a Jock but he just looks so chill, man.

Mice

Chadder

I'm shocked they didn't make a guy like him earlier.

Monkeys

Monty

The pickings are slim with these villagers but Monty's cool, mellow colours and lazy eyes made me say they could be slimmer.

Octopi

Zucker

Another edible villager but another unique model and thus, another gem.

Ostriches

Flora

This design's so good it hurts and I'm seriously considering finding a mod of City Folk or Wild World or Anything so I can have her Everywhere.

Penguins

Boomer

Waiter, waiter, more tropes that should be overplayed but endear me anyways! Nice relaxing colours, cool hat, and an adorable house!

Pigs

Chops

I know some people get creeped out by facial hair on villagers but I find it (much like strange-looking orange cats), refreshing. It really shows off the spectrum of ages and life experiences. This and for a military man he's got such gentle looking eyes.

Rabbits

Coco

Don't listen to them girl, you're not creepy, you're another cultured reference to ancient history.

Rhinos

Rhonda

What if we have a huge rhino woman who's really feminine and her rhino features don't undermine her feminity but redefine it? Perfection.

Sheep

Muffy

Oh the visual cohesion, oh the interior design, oh the subtle creepiness, oh!.

Squirrels

Static

He stands out like a flashing light, knows it and loves it. I'm guessing they gave him a lightning motif because of how absurdly fast squirrels are.

Tigers

Rowan

While he's a rather conventional Tiger, sometimes that's all you need. I love Tigers.

Wolves

Whitney

What if the apex predator was feminine and graceful in an ethereal way?

Hidden Muffin Recipe from a 1995 Dungeon Crawler

This originates from Stonekeep for Windows and MS-DOS, lovingly added by Tim Cain. They're the Shadowking's favorites!

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp cloves
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup pumpkin (half of a 16 oz. can)
• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick), melted

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F or use baking cups.
2. Grease muffin tins (one dozen regular-sized).
3. Mix flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.
4. Break eggs into another bowl.
5. Add pumpkin and melted butter to the eggs and whisk until blended.
6. Stir in chocolate chips.
7. Pour wet ingredients over dry ingredients and stir until just blended. Do NOT overstir!
8. Scoop batter into tins and bake 20–25 minutes.
9. After cooling, keep muffins wrapped in plastic to prevent drying.

IRC Cheat Sheet

Lavender Tea Bread

Ingredients

Lavender Cake

• ¾ cup milk
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh lavender
• 6 tablespoons butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt

Lavender Glaze

• ½ cup milk
• 1 tablespoon dried lavender buds
• 1 cup confectioner's sugar

Preparation

Cake

Preheat the oven to 325°F (165°C). Grease and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan.

Combine the milk and lavender in a small saucepan over medium heat. Heat to a simmer, then remove from heat, and allow to cool slightly.

In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg until the mixture is light and fluffy. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt; stir into the creamed mixture alternately with the milk and lavender until just blended. Pour into the prepared pan. Bake for 50 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a wooden pick inserted into the crown of the loaf comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack.

Lavender Glaze

Place the milk in a saucepan over medium heat. When it starts to boil, take the pan off the heat and add the dried lavender buds. Let the mixture steep for 5–8 minutes, then strain the milk. Whisk it into the sugar, a tablespoon at a time, until you get a smooth and opaque glaze. Pour or spoon over the cooled loaf.

Manifesto Obscurum

Intro

The Internet continues in its state of hyperspeed. Its last ten years have seen unparalleled activity, with billions of lights piercing the earth to live new lives online. From the primordial film of patchwork networks, squirming with hobbyists so base and tactile they evoke the bodies of early life, it has grown into a thing of nigh-unstoppable brightness. Now it is a tool that commands the attention of entire nations at a time. As a result, the experience of using this Internet nowadays is nothing short of a prolonged trance. For many, this fugue state remains endless. Amidst the robots, there are so many of us here we hardly feel real. I have to remind myself that you can all bleed. By now, the glow is so unrelentingly bright that I dare not face it head on.

For I post from a dark room.

1: I become bigger in a dark room.

1.1

When someone else enters my dark room, the knowledge of my presence ebbs into the darkness.

1.2

They know I sit in one place, yet the feeling in their chest tells them I surround them, almost threatening to engulf them.

1.3

So when they enter, they enter and meet something larger than a person.

1.4

I sound confident, because I am.

1.5

After all, they’ve entered my domain, even when I lie retiring.

1.6

It’s my patch of darkness that I know better than anyone else.

1.7

It’s the room I stumble around in half-asleep without tripping, like a childhood bedroom.

2: Things feel more focused in a dark room

2.1

When I’m in a dark room, they have to hear the exact nature of my voice and interpret it as a voice alone.

2.2

They know me, but it’s not about how I look at first sight. There’s no measuring me to the bright things outside this domain.

2.3

You can make an effort to, but I exist in my own world.

2.4

If I am not trying to compete, why measure me like I am?

2.5

You must hear my voice, without the distractions of my face, my surroundings, and your own conceptions of me.

2.6

You must learn focus, and see a version of me not curated for immediate consumption.

2.7

Instead you must interpret me for yourself, and retreat to your bright room with this in mind.

2.8

You can then either decide whether I’m too unsightly (and thus, leave me to my confines), or realise you were made to focus on something that you never realised you wanted.

3: Things intensify in a dark room

3.1

Having blurred the line between human and inhuman, corporeal form and shadow, I can now sculpt the dark room to my liking.

3.2

The black is a block of wax and my thoughts are the scalpel.

3.3

There is nothing that will amplify an idea harder in my head than hearing it come with no other sensory background.

3.4

I have no choice but to digest every last syllable and its implications.

3.5

The dark room removes all distractions and lets me focus on what is meaningful to me.

I will never forget that balmy September evening when I saw this to its absolute limits.

I’m lying in a room of the Millennium Knickerbocker, traffic of the Magnificent Mile purring about me while my friend stands in a darkness so still it feels clerical.

The air-conditioning has plunged the room into a solid chill, a desperate measure to soothe my wearied self.

I’m sleep deprived, and badly.

Amidst the pleasures of my trip, I’ve accumulated on-and-off days of sleep debt.

It is four days into this ordeal, and I have seen mirages of relief at best.

By now, my sternum throbs from the stress of the nightly cortisol highs.

I’m frantic to sleep, and my friend stands watch, praying my body finally gives in.

My body temperature spikes again.

”I love you.” I rasp. “I love you”.

The silence so immense I can barely breathe. I feel like I’m shrinking beneath the weight of it, as it crumples beneath my words, which themselves trail off into the room and distort about its confines, warping yet never leaving.

”I love you too.”

It sends a shockwave through my feverish mind.

I’d heard it so many times, many in-person through this trip, yet the dark room sent it into an unimaginable frequency.

I struggle to articulate this even now. It was like two human souls, spilling and mingling together in a viscous cosmic rhythm.

Arcing, then branching off into dozens of sprawling, vein-like tendrils.

Time resumes once more. I’m in a positive stupor, not of dissociation but pure lovesick abandon. I barely comprehend their footsteps nearing the door. It creaks, and they’re about to leave. This isn’t the last time we’re to meet, but it’s late for me and I badly need to recuperate. We have another day before they have to drive home. Then, they creep from our blackness and leave me to it, in the hopes I finally sleep.

I did sleep that night. Cradled by the vivid colours of those words, cutting through the dark and reverberating through a pocket-realm of complete and utter obscurum. It happened completely outside the prying eyes, not a critic, not a voyeur, not even another illuminated thing. Certainly not millions of people on the internet, and even publishing this now I doubt this is a million people I’m speaking to. But you did not have to be there to see what a dark room can do. Maybe you’ve been in a room like this too. Maybe if you haven’t, you would like one for yourself.

4: Other things of this Dark

4.1

There are things I love that people barely know about, things considered obscure, arcane, ephemeral, yet deeply meaningful to me.

4.2

They’re not critically-acclaimed by any means, many are downright panned.

4.3

But my love overrides that knowledge, because it’s not about the others.

4.4

It’s about the emotion it gave to me when I first met it.

4.5

I have the confidence to love it this way, and more-so with how lonesome it is.

4.6

I feel lonesome too, even if it’s by my choice.

4.7

So, perhaps I see myself in the obscure.

4.8

The dark room, simultaneously unsettling and comfortable.

4.9

The confined space, a cage but also a bed.

4.10

The obscure, unloved but loveable.

4.11

So I want myself to take that energy, that feeling I have for the obscure, and direct it inward.

4.12

When I go out of sight, when I am a lurker, I haven’t stopped existing or lost my meaning.

4.13

I’ve only stopped feeding the attention spans of others.

4.14

I’ve returned to myself, to exist on my own terms.

4.15

It is instinctive of me to want connection, but it is also instinctive that I’ve pursued connection at the cost of my well-being.

4.16

It’s simply not sustainable to forego my need for a dark room.

4.17

I must have it at all costs, even if it’s mere obscurum.

Scientifically Proven Perfect Extremely Easy Grilled Cheese

Ingredients — Seasonings

• Butter — usually 2 or 3 tablespoons per sandwich
• Garlic cloves — usually 3
• A source of heat, like red pepper flakes or szechuan peppers
• A source of spice OR sweetness, such as dijon mustard or honey — slather that motherfucker on a slice of your bread
• A source of herbiness, such as oregano, thyme, sage, rosemary, etc. in any combination or on its own. If someone tries to tell you that you need it fresh, they're fucking lying — the $2 crushed powdered sage is fucking great. Experiment with other spices such as ground turmeric if you're spicy.

Ingredients — The Metaphorical Meat of the Sandwich

• Two slices of bread per sandwich. This is actually a massive influence on your sandwich's taste and texture as a whole. A basic white or wheat will still be fucking delicious. However, if you CAN — getting bread like brioche, texas toast, brown bread, rye, or sourdough will easily elevate your sandwich to "pay $23 at a fancy restaurant" level.
• One to three types of cheese per sandwich. You can get away with one type but really try for two or three if you can swing it.

What matters isn't the SPECIES of cheese, it's the TYPE of cheese. Getting the deli at your local Safeway or Walmart or whatever and asking for the cheese they gotta cut (or just the fancier, better-quality cheeses in general) is literally the only major requirement that I ask of you. If you are on SNAP/EBT programs, me too, and I promise you: please do this. Please trust me when I say do not get the cheap Kraft-type cheese because it's less money.

I know it's a bit extra but it's only a bit to get like ¼ or ⅓lb — and you have no idea how much I'm actually getting a little emotional about this, because the "rice with butter and beans or top ramen every single day" life is soulsucking and sickening and it is genuinely one of the greatest sources of suffering to human beings I can imagine, I'm serious. Following this formula will genuinely change your life/mental health just a bit, because you know that you have one meal that is super delicious, super filling, pretty damn cheap, and super easy to make on days where the idea of doing more than 15 minutes MAX is gonna make you wanna die.

Super sorry for that paragraph btw — I just really cannot overstate how this is a lifechanger especially when you're poor/low spoons/depressed. Delicious food makes me not be as depressed. This is that.

Method

1. Take garlic cloves and crush them either with the meat of your palm, the flat of a knife, or literally anything that would crush them. Take bread slices and apply a source of spice or sweetness if you are using one. Take a pan and put it on the stove on low-medium heat (a 2 out of 10).
2. Place the butter in the pan, as well as the garlic cloves, the source of heat, and the source of herbiness. Congratulations — you have now literally done ALL the extra effort that you need to make a grilled cheese like this. That's it. No extra dishes. No fussing with amounts or chopping or whatever. That's it.
3. The butter will melt in the pan and soak up the delicious ingredients. Take each slice of bread and place it in the pan to butter it, OR just take one slice, place the cheese on it, and put the other bread on top. It's really just a matter of extra effort.
4. When the bread is in the pan, turn it up to medium heat (5 out of 10) and let it sit for a bit. When you can see the cheese start to get visibly melty — or when you vibecheck it — flip it once and do the same thing.
5. When you've grilled your cheese on both sides, take it out of the pan and put it on a plate (or just a paper towel to save on dish spoons — paper plates and plastic utensils are a fucking godsend if you hate dishes and/or can't do them very easily).

By tumblr user Flagellant, 2023

Victorian Masturbation excerpt

I like to recite this one when I remember people I don't like.

The frame is stunted and weak, the muscles undeveloped, the eye is sunken and heavy, the complexion is sallow, pasty, or covered with spots of acne, the hands are damp and cold, and the skin moist. The boy shuns the society of others, creeps about alone, joins with repugnance in the amusements of his schoolfel-lows. He cannot look any one in the face, and becomes careless in dress and uncleanly in person. His intellect has become sluggish and enfeebled, and if his evil habits are persisted in, he may end in becoming a drivelling idiot or a peevish valetudinarian. Such boys are to be seen in all stages of degeneration, but what we have described is but the result towards which they all are tending.

Quotes

"and the universe said I love you because you are love"

Julian Gough - End Poem

“We destroy them in many ways. First, economically. They make money. It is only by hazard that a writer makes money although good books always make money eventually. Then our writers when they have made some money increase their standard of living and they are caught. They have to write to keep up their establishments, their wives, and so on, and they write slop. It is slop not on purpose but because it is hurried. Because they write when there is nothing to say or no water in the well. Because they are ambitious. Then, once they have betrayed themselves, they justify it and you get more slop. Or else they read the critics. If they believe the critics when they say they are great then they must believe them when they say they are rotten and they lose confidence. At present we have two good writers who cannot write because they have lost confidence through reading critics. If they wrote, sometimes it would be good and sometimes not so good and sometimes it would be quite bad, but the good would get out. But they have read the critics and they must write masterpieces. The masterpieces the critics said they wrote. They weren’t masterpieces, of course. They were just quite good books. So now they cannot write at all. The critics have made them impotent.

Ernest Hemmingway - Green Hills of Africa

"In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth."

Henry Beston, The Outermost House

"I love men too — not merely individuals, but every one. But I love them with the consciousness of egoism; I love them because love makes me happy, I love because loving is natural to me, because it pleases me. I know no “commandment of love.” I have a fellow-feeling with every feeling being, and their torment torments, their refreshment refreshes me too; I can kill them, not torture them."

Max Stirner - The Ego and Its Own

"I can’t see him but I can hear him chobbling and cleaning himself pmsl.
It’s like watching the film alien. When you know he’s literally right next to you waiting for him to strike"

My mom, trying to pinpoint one of our cats in a dark room.

"By a far-reaching analogy, the dead are blamed for sickness and death: death comes, in other words, from the dead, who, through jealousy, anger, or longing, seek to bring the living into their realm. And to prevent this, the living attempt to neutralize or propitiate the dead—by proper funerary and burial rites, by "killing" the corpse a second time, or by sacrifice—until the dead have become powerless. This is a condition which, worldwide, tends to correspond not just to when they stop entering one's dreams but also to when their bodies stop undergoing change and are reduced to inert bones. The bare skeleton—in our culture the very symbol of the terror of death-is in other cultures evidence that the dead body is finally safe and that the living are out of harm's way."

Paul Barber - Vampires: Burial and Death, Folklore and Reality

"I love coming up with the stories and being creative and working with creative people and coming up with visuals and creating characters."

Roberta Williams

"Sometimes I think the universe just waits for me to get cocky."

Egon Spengler - The Real Ghostbusters

Xtern 256 Colour list

I just found this extremely pretty and had to make my own copy.

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WARNING 230K FILE!

I took this screenshot from an old Geocities website in August 2025. I still keep cracking up at it.

Dragon animations using Dragon Renderer
Purple Dragon breather fire: (WARNING 330K FILE!)
Blue Dragon looking around: (WARNING 230K FILE!)
Silver Dragon Roaring: (WARNING 250K FILE!)