Also I Learned About This Project Calledqueering The Map. The Idea Is That In The Past Gay Neighborhoods

also I learned about this project called “queering the map.” the idea is that in the past gay neighborhoods and gay spaces were very clearly defined bc it just wasn’t safe to be yourself anywhere else. as lgbt+ people become more visible and accepted many feel that we are losing our connection to those spaces

so every dot on this map is basically someone’s queer experience: coming out, meeting their future wife, seeing another gay man in public for the first time, anything you can think of that truly left a mark on them

it started in Montreal and is primarily English-language with most pins dropped in the US, Canada, and Europe, but there are people all over the world who’ve shared their experiences. it’s great to look at places near you but it’s also great to see that even people in places you thought were the middle of nowhere are happy with themselves and finding community and living their lives

Why don’t you post as much as before ?

I'm so sorry for my inactivity, it's just that school's getting kind of busy, and I have a few assessments due soon so I'm trying to get them done.

I'll try and post more soon though!

i hope that one day i will finally be ok….i’ll make a cherry pie when it is all over

why the fuck does english have a word for

but not for “the day after tomorrow”

???

Etho opens the door to BDub's tower and descends the staircase into the basement one slow, whispered step at a time. His armor is loud in the quiet of the empty building, and in the cramped stone stairwell its clatter is close and tinny and grating. The stairwell opens up on either side of him suddenly, suspending him on an angled staircase into darkness, the outline of the room he's made his home edged in candlelight. The points of flame on the candles stand straight up, giving only the barest of flickers as he moves past them. His presence in the room is the closest thing to airflow this place gets. Cool and damp creeps out of the darkness, out of the stone, but never enough to make a breeze.

Etho ducks into the room at the bottom of the stairs, kicks up the trapdoor, steps across the pressure plate. The stone in the wall yanks back with a piston pull, and the candles nearest the false wall jitter wildly. Etho times his steps so he passes the threshold half a second before the pistons close again. He steps into bright lantern light, the bare bones of what he's calling home. He takes in the bare stone back wall, the single bed, the scant furnishings.

He walks to his smoker, peers into the pot he set over top of it. It's inside is still a bit wet from where he washed it a few hours ago, but that's fine. He drops his armful of vegetables he's taken from the community garden onto the stone block functioning as his counter. He stoops, lights the coals in the smoker, pours a little bit of water into the bottom of the pot. Every motion is sharp and loud in the silence of his little basement room. Even if the stone walls didn't muffle all noise outside, he's alone in the tower right now. There's no one to break the silence.

Etho doffs his armor while he waits on the water to boil. He grabs the only knife he owns off his belt and sets to work chopping carrots and potatoes, two of each, finely diced. He grabs some flour by barrel he keeps by his piston door. It's coarse, but he made it himself in a mortar and pestle. It's also flaked with blue, because it's the same pestle he uses to make dyes, and everything stains with the last thing he made in it. He tosses the flour into the water and let's it thicken and brown, chopping some beef and adding it in as well.

Making a stew is both pleasantly easy and deceptively difficult. Not that Etho minds eating badly cooked food. He's been informed that he eats everything, no matter how bad. It's a running joke that he's a bit of a garbage disposal. Personally, he just thinks it's really hard to do food wrong, but he's also used to surviving more than he is living, exactly, so maybe that's tainted his palette.

Etho seasons the odd roux-thing he's making with salt and pepper - it's all he has. It bubbles occasionally, which means he's probably in danger of burning it. It's a thick and heavy sound that reminds him of mud. It smells... Decent. Not burnt, anyway. Etho adds in his vegetables, stirs, and then spoons in water a ladleful at a time until he thinks this stew actually looks like stew. The room temperature water stops the boiling immediately, throws the room into silence again, outside of the barely audible noise of him stirring. His spoon drags across the bottom of the pot with a hollow, deep ring that reminds him of a cracked bell. He knocks the spoon against the side of the pot three times. Each knock dies immediately after the sound is made, no echo. Etho stares down at his stew, waiting on it to heat back up again.

A watched pot never boils.

He leans back against his stone counter-that-isn't-really-a-counter and looks up at the ceiling. It is grey stone that turns black the closer it gets to where he's standing - it hasn't taken long for the smoke from his various cooking ventures to stain. He closes his eyes. It's quiet enough he can hear the pot heating up, like he can hear the atoms in the metal slowly pulling apart as they energize. It's a weird sound that is equal parts illusion and actual noise. Etho opens his eyes again, studies the black smudge in the ceiling, sighs.

He pulls out his communicator.

> Hey guys, I accidentally made too much food. Anyone wanna help me get rid of it?

No one responds.

Etho watches his communicator until the sound of water boiling draws him from his vigil. He puts his communicator face down on his stone not-counter. He grabs two wooden bowls out from the barrel by the door. He fills them both to the brim. He sets one on the counter beside him with a hollow clack. The other he holds in his hands, feeling the warmth seep through the wood into his pale fingers. The skin is slightly purpled where he's just barely colder than he should be. That was kind of the norm when you lived in a damp basement. Not that he really minded. He pulls his mask down noiselessly with one finger, blows the steam away from the top of his bowl.

"Joining me for dinner?" Etho asks the quiet room, and for all it's hoarseness, his voice shatters the silence.

The quiet room has a shadow standing in it. He doesn't know when it got here, just that it did. Probably it showed up the second he noticed it.

The shadow looks remarkably like him.

"I made enough for two," Etho says enticingly, a sing-song upturn at the end of the phrase. "Though if you've just gotta invite someone else, I could stand to part with mine."

The shadow doesn't answer. He knows it won't. It's just here to rub salt in the wound he's slowly ripping into his own skin. Etho smiles in that pathetic way people do when they're unhappy. He feels it stop beneath his eyes. Etho sighs, sets his bowl down on the not-counter he's leaning on. He doesn't hear the wood hit the stone. He rubs his hand against his face, like he could rub some genuine back into his smile, smear the sentiment into his eyes and lighten his mood a little. He can't hear his skin, or the ruffle of his hand carding back through his hair, or the shift of his clothes. The shadow is standing there watching him. He can feel it there, but he can't hear it. He sighs again and he can't hear it. He can't hear the coals crackling in the smoker. He can't hear the creak of the iron pot cooling. It's the kind of quiet that could convince him he was deaf, the kind of quiet that made him maybe wish he was.

If he doesn't move, this room freezes. He might as well not even be here. This room would be no different without him. There would still be two bowls of stew going cold on the counter. There would still be a smoker burning itself out without anything to stoke it. There would still be a shadow in the room. Just a lonely basement in a lonely tower in a lonely spawn town that everyone has left, moving on to bigger and better things. Busy things. Things that were high priority, or at least higher priority than--

The sound of rockets overhead, loud and ear-splitting, come shrieking through the deafening quiet. There is a slam upstairs, and BDubs is howling loud enough to shake the foundations of the world.

"E-etho!! Etho!? Where the heck are ya -- you're downstairs, of course you're down -- you know I have a kitchen upstairs right?"

His footsteps are loud coming down the stairs. His half-busted chainmail clatters and shrieks, and he's in a hurry so he stumbles. It's like listening to someone toss a stack of cauldrons into the basement. Etho chuckles. He rubs his face again, viciously scrubbing away his loneliness before anyone can see it.

There is no longer a shadow in the room. It's gone long before BDubs has made it down the staircase. It never sticks around long. It only shows up to remind him it's there. Honestly it's silly.

He should be used to being alone by now.

most distinct voices in lifesteal s3, from the perspective of someone who is just starting to watch everyone's perspectives all at the same time

reddoons. he joins a voice call and i go omg reddoons

pangi, ashswagg, and spepticle, by way of their accents

subz. ok yes I have watched a lot of subz streams the past couple weeks. however his voice is often a little flatter than most of the other guys? he sounds like 😑😒🙄 75% of the time.

clownpierce. cat. etho disease (speaks really softly, somehow?)

branzy. cartoon character

mid. shoutout to mid for being the only woman on the server atm

mcclutch sounds like hes 15. idk if hes actually 15 but he definitely sounds like it.

atm everyone else kinda just sounds like Generic Guy. may update my findings later.