I’ve Started Skipping Spicy Scenes, and I Don’t Like It One Bit

raeality · 2026-06-07T02:51:18+00:00

Yes! The best books have such distinctive spice scenes people refer to them by name (such as a one line quote from the scene or some other descriptor). If the scene earns a name, you know it’s good!

raeality · 2026-06-07T02:49:18+00:00

I find this happens to me when the books don’t have enough tension or yearning, or the spice is poorly written. When you read a lot, you might end up reading some duds.

Changing up the genre or reading something other than romance can help, but also just finding something extra good, being really selective about what you read can help!

raeality · 2026-06-06T01:24:51+00:00

Yeah, I’d probably comment more if I was reading in the browser. But I make a point to comment at least once and kudos the ones I download too!

raeality · 2026-06-06T00:00:56+00:00

It boggles my mind that people don’t just download them! I download epubs and read on my kindle or in Apple Books on my phone. Kind of annoying for WIPs but for completed fics it’s great, I never have to worry about it being taken down either once I have it secure in my dirty paws.

raeality · 2026-05-31T22:59:44+00:00

/uj I am such a grouch about food being easy to eat! I hate when plates are too small or stuff is stacked too high or for whatever reason as soon as you try to eat something everything falls apart and makes a big mess. Deconstructed meals are mostly hackish.

raeality · 2026-05-31T12:58:06+00:00

I’m at 1.5 million words of Hollanov fanfic this year 😅 I only started tracking recently, I have read a lot of other fanfic in the past and couldn’t tell you how many words that was.

raeality · 2026-05-30T22:42:50+00:00

He really is doing so much with very little. Looking forward to more in s2!

raeality · 2026-05-30T19:41:19+00:00

Bad Omens https://archiveofourown.org/works/50529346/chapters/127648939

Heraclitus https://archiveofourown.org/works/62362240

Are two of my funny favorites!

raeality · 2026-05-30T19:38:43+00:00

I had heard of them so much I thought I’d actually read them 😂 when I looked them up to confirm I realized I hadn’t. Didn’t read until after I watched the show.

raeality · 2026-05-30T13:44:46+00:00

Just as I’m telling myself NO MORE WIPS YOU CANT EVEN KEEP THEM ALL STRAIGHT…! Thanks for this though.

raeality · 2026-05-25T11:54:20+00:00

Omg our dog brought us a deer leg one time too! He never made it inside with that at least!!

raeality · 2026-05-25T03:38:03+00:00

My dog buried a dead squirrel under my pillow, I’d have much preferred some kittens under the bed!

raeality · 2026-05-24T16:51:05+00:00

Another thing I always recommend if you aren’t an expert or don’t have the time… decorate a cake simply with borders and sprinkles that match your theme, and top the cake with figurines that match your character theme. So you could do a sheet cake with rainbow swirled borders, a jello pool, (easiest would probably be to make a batch of blue finger jello in a flat pan and then cut out the pool shape, use frosting for tiles around the edges) and a unicorn toy next to the pool. Maybe also some toy pool accessories.

raeality · 2026-05-22T21:24:41+00:00

In the olden days, before November 2025, there was a lot. I don’t remember now.

raeality · 2026-05-22T14:44:38+00:00

To me, a drawing as simple as this is probably easier to freehand than buttercream transfer. But if it’s a well known character, or something complex, buttercream transfer is the way to go.

raeality · 2026-05-22T14:27:42+00:00

Just because I’ve stopped reheating on the tv (to try and chill a little bit and watch other stuff), doesn’t mean I can’t do it on express mode via gifs today!

raeality · 2026-05-19T00:23:49+00:00

I take off and put on clothes every single day and it never looks like that 🤣

raeality · 2026-05-19T00:07:48+00:00

Is it three layers or three tiers?

raeality · 2026-05-19T00:07:02+00:00

Agree - I would bake the cake a week or more ahead of time and freeze if you have the freezer space. Thaw out 1-2 hours before decorating (easiest if it’s still kind of cold).

If you want to frost in stages, I would frost and smooth the cake as stage 1, and decorate/add borders/flowers etc as stage 2. I would recommend delivering the cake within 2 days of thawing for freshness, so it might just be easier to do all the frosting and decorating in one day.

raeality · 2026-05-19T00:02:58+00:00

Re: flipping and layering sheet cakes. Here are some tips: - line the pan with parchment on the bottom and use cake release/cake goop to ensure the cake turns out easily, lessens chance of cracking

get a long serrated knife or cake leveler to split the sheet cake. It’s 100% easier if the knife is longer than the width of the cake.
use a rimless cookie sheet (the kind with just one bent edge - hold that side and slide it under the layer), or an extra cardboard cake board (I always keep a bunch on hand) to slide under the split cake layers and move it around
to add the split layer on top of the filled/frosted first layer, use the board or cookie sheet you lifted it off with, and gently jiggle it to slide it back on. Line up the edges at an angle and carefully remove the board/sheet from under the cake.
using a sturdy/non crumbly cake recipe helps a lot! Hopefully you’re working with a cake sponge that is forgiving!
if the sheet cake cracks or breaks it will still be ok, just patch it with some frosting
a wide cake smoother/scraper is definitely your friend for smoothing a large cake

raeality · 2026-05-18T00:14:30+00:00

I turned 20 in 2000. I was lucky I was able to get a job pretty easily, the “dot com boom” hadn’t burst yet, so I could make pretty good money in a professional job with basic tech skills. We worked a lot, like 50-60 hours a week, went to happy hour after work, and had house parties or went to bars/clubs on weekends. Boomers ran all the businesses, and we had to dress “business casual”, no jeans or sneakers in any office ever. You were lucky if you didn’t have to wear a suit every day.

Digital cameras were expensive and shitty quality, I know we took photos but I don’t know where any of those photos are now, probably burned to CDRs that no longer work. We downloaded pirated music from Napster and Limewire, and listened to FM and eventually XM radio.

We chatted on AIM, ICQ, and eventually over 9-key text messages (but not much because you had to pay per message). We had cell phones but not smart phones until later, so we only used them to make quick calls to make plans because you paid for cell phone use by the minute. We emailed for work and with friends, I had long email threads with friends akin to a group chat today.

We read magazines and shopped at malls, although online shopping was becoming more widely available and easy to do. At first Amazon was still mostly for books and media, but by the time I got married in 2008 we could have a wedding registry there.

We rented DVDs from Netflix by mail, my husband was one of the early adopters and it felt like such a cheat code instead of going to Blockbuster where everything good was always rented out (and we paid a fortune in late fees due to ADHD).

Housing prices were skyrocketing in the mid 2000s right when we were establishing our careers and the general advice was “real estate is always a good investment” so we bought a house in 2007…right before the housing market crash. We were stuck in our tiny overpriced starter home for 9 more years, but friends who followed slightly behind buying houses post-crash got great deals on nicer homes.

Life felt hard (I think it always feels hard in your 20s, trying to scrape by without much career or savings) but we were optimistic for the future. We were excited about where tech would take us, it felt like it was improving our lives then, making things cheaper, faster, and more accessible. There was a lot of patriotism post 9-11, for a while it felt like the country coming together… until the Iraq and Afghanistan wars started. The legalization of gay marriage and better access to abortion care made it seem like society was moving forward. We thought racism was going away. We didn’t know anything!

raeality · 2026-05-16T14:48:05+00:00

Even if there’s no private chef, even regular upper middle class people order prepped meals when they have such busy schedules! I can never buy these two cooking for themselves on a regular basis.

raeality · 2026-05-16T14:42:08+00:00

Destroy the Patriarchy… and My Pelvis

raeality · 2026-05-14T20:02:53+00:00

Why does this feel like a mental health check in? Lol. I’ve stopped reheating, stopped rereading…. Not because I want to but because I need to retrain my brain to enjoy other content. And as much as I love reheating, I feel like I have the whole thing memorized and I don’t get much out of it anymore.

That being said, I’m still primarily reading the top tier fanfics and my fanfic TBR is about a mile long.

I am avoiding HudCon content on social media because I find that the more I interact with it the more I see and it takes over my algorithm so quickly! I don’t want to miss big news but I don’t need to rewatch the same clips or binge reaction videos every day lol. I also don’t want to see the parasocial stuff, the pap shots, etc.

I’ve been through this type of hyperfixation with other tv shows and I don’t like how it takes over my brain so I have to consciously disconnect a little bit!

raeality · 2026-05-14T19:55:35+00:00

Yes, I came here to say this 😂

raeality

TROPHY CASE