Drenamigmo Master Post

Hello everyone! It's time for a master post now I guess. I write short stories and fanfiction, and I try to share interesting and funny stories from my life on tumblr. I have a secondary blog drenamigmofridgemagnets that I reblog stuff to, and this blog is reserved mostly for my own posts. I am aterriblewriter on AO3.

No Wrong Answer

Based on the prompt below, finalist in the 2024 Next Generation Short Story Awards.

Impossible Causality

The smallest of decisions change the entire trajectories of our lives.

An original short story, deeply personal to me.

The Universal Translator

The words we say aren't the ones we mean.

An original short story.

what's broken can be reforged

My long form League of Legends fanfic. This one is near and dear to my heart and has a ton of art that I've commissioned and been gifted for it. (Incidentally, if you've read my fic and you're an artist, I'd love to commission chapter illustrations from you).

Years of war with Noxus has left Ionia broken, bitter, but victorious. A year after its conclusion, peace and balance have slowly returned to the land, but Irelia finds herself struggling to find her own balance as she tries to return to a normal life in a quiet village near the border.

Japan travel stories

the mori art museum

when you want to smell like soy sauce

what do you snip a turd with?

Misc Poetry

poetry for my partner

being an older sibling, my homage to @bookwyrminspiration's amazing sibling poem

Other Stories

my pronouns

buy one get one free

who can enjoy mission impossible?

eyeballs taste like steak pt. 1

eyeballs taste like steak pt. 2

on knives and chinese cleavers

On Potty Humor

I love potty humor. It's the 5 year old inside me. I take every chance I get to rip a fast one whenever the right innuendo presents itself.

I am queuing for league of legends with friends and we have a squad of 4 (with 5 players being a full team)

Friend: do we have a number 5

Me: i could drop one in the toilet right now

Everyone: wtf

It is at this point that i actually have to pee and run to the bathroom while telling my partner to move my champion so i don't get afk flagged in game.

After finishing my ablutions:

Me: man that took longer than i thought, i tried to fart and it came out in the wrong state of matter

Everyone: wtf

Partner: what. Which state of matter? Do i need to be concerned?

Dropping bombs

Partner is also Japanese, which means i get the setup for tons of mildly offensive bomb jokes. As an inside joke, we also preempt going to the bathroom with bomb emojis in our chat, declaring that we are going to drop a bomb.

Me: are you showering?

Partner (showering): yeah

Me: can i poo

Partner (showering and annoyed): yeah

Me: k im coming in to bomb the Japanese

Partner (showering and annoyed and laughing): wtf

I also make the air raid tornado siren noises now when i run to the bathroom. Also, for some reason i have a crap load of ww2 trivia in my head for some reason.

Me (knocking on bathroom): can i poo, are you showering

Partner (pooping): wait I'm pooping

Me: ok ill come back on August 9th.

Partner: wtf

Other poop stories

Ask and ye shall receive: https://www.tumblr.com/drenamigmo/801675620894572544/eyeballs-taste-like-steak-pt-2

Eyeballs Taste Like Steak Pt. 2

part 1

In hindsight, this story is the real eyeball licking story, and part 1 was just the lasik story. I should've linked this one to @foldingfittedsheets's eyeballs post.

When last we left off, the forbidden knowledge that burning eyeballs smell like steak was bestowed upon us. Addled by Valium during my Lasik surgery, the smell blazed into my memory, and I was left with an urge to confirm this with my own senses. This urge would stay embedded within my subconscious like a sleeper agent, waiting to be activated by the right sensory triggers.

Many years later, after I started dating my partner, she was crying one day for some reason which is now unimportant to the story. Like an idiot romantic, I wanted to kiss away her tears, so I grabbed her cheeks and smooched her forehead, smooched her nose, smooched her cheeks, and went to smooch her eyes.

It was at this moment that the devil took hold of me.

Before I could register my own actions, her eyelids were suddenly struck with a wet and meaty slap.

My tongue, entirely of its own accord, reached out across the gap and gave her eye the gentlest of caresses, like Adam touching hands with God.

...

"Did ... did you just lick my eye?"

With the crime thus committed, I hastened to explain forthwith, and regaled her with the tale thence told in Eyeballs Taste Like Steak part 1.

Partner was not amused. Well actually, partner was a little amused.

"So you had to taste my eyeballs? What did it taste like?"

"Well, tears are salty, and steak is salty, so it was like pretty much like halfway there."

It did taste a little bit like steak.

GiantGrantGames just came out with a 4 hour retrospective of the command and conquer franchise. These RTS games were quintessential childhood memories for me and I have incredibly fond memories of Red Alert 2 and Tiberium Wars. I loved the campy humor, and was a little confused by how weirdly horny Red Alert 3 was. Like all other fans, I was extremely disappointed by Tiberium Twilight.

I hope they remaster RA2.

On Knives and Chinese Cleavers

Lots of people have different knives for different purposes when cooking, and my household does too. I used to use a decent quality Japanese santoku blade until I found myself a heavy Chinese cleaver.

Almost everything you can do with other knives, you can do with a cleaver. The only exception is things that require the fine point of a knife, which is rare. You can chop, slice, smash, dice, whop, crush, bash thrice with a cleaver. Your mise en place is accomplished with a versatility other knives can only dream of.

I've seen chefs on YouTube use their regular knife to process, and then a bench scraper to transfer to their cooking vessel. Bow before my two-in-one tool that can chop and carry.

The best thing is that I don't have to treat this thing with any delicateness at all. If I nick the blade, I've got four inches more blade behind it and I can grind myself a new edge in a minute. Can't do that with my nice Japanese sushi knives.

The unrivaled versatility of this swiss army cleaver makes it the most useful tool in my kitchen.

Chicken needs to be served? Slice it.

Garlic needs to be peeled? Smash it.

Bone needs to be broken? Whack it.

Nail needs to be hammered? PING PING PONG PONG PING PONG

Eyeballs Taste Like Steak

In light of recently seeing the eyeballs post by @foldingfittedsheets, I thought I'd contribute my own.

A few years ago, I got Lasik to correct my vision. This was an adventure worthy of a story. My best friend/roommate came up to me one day and was like hey you wanna go get Lasik and being the nonplussed acquiescent person that I am, I just went sure why not.

(it is worth mentioning that I did not entirely go and zap my eyeballs out of the blue. We'd floated this idea for some time, and since I had recently gotten contact lenses and struggled mightily with them. Touching ones own eyeballs is hard.)

Said friend also informed me that they'd gotten a buy one get one free deal, which I didn't even know was even possible for eyeballs. Do people just correct one eyeball? Apparently that's a thing. If you do two eyeballs you can just get surgery for another person for free?

My vision pre-surgery was pretty bad. I could not read the words you are reading right now without the display being a hands-breadth from my screen. Quite conveniently, it was still able to be corrected with the less invasive, faster recovering version of the surgery.

After the consultation, we decide to go forward with it and rolled into the surgery location where the doc gave me a little Valium to relax my eyeballs. The surgery itself was extremely fast, far exceeding my expectations.

The doctor first cut into my eyeball with a scalpel to flip up the top layer, then positioned me under the machine which fired the laser for a bit, and then flipped my eyeball flap back.

Et Voila, I could suddenly see.

It's moments like these where the marvel of human medical science and technology feel absolutely magical, completely overriding my discomfort of having my eyeball handled like a chopped cheese.

The process of having my eyeball cut into was made far less disconcerting by how fast and proficient the doctor was. I only saw the blade in focus for a split second before everything went blurry. I could barely make out the shape of the laser machine, a vague metallic oculus over my head.

The laser itself only fired for a few seconds, appearing to me as blurry flashes in my vision. Each little zap was also accompanied by a sound akin to a hammer rapping on metal, which I think was probably the aperture opening and closing.

I'm aware of the fact that the surgery is quite literally burning parts of my eye to fix the focus of my vision, but I was still not ready for the smell of my own flesh burning, which smelled inexplicably of steak.

I could see everything with 20/15 vision as soon as the little flap of eyeball was flipped back into place. The doc helped bundle us into an Uber back home with instructions not to open our eyes too much for the next 24 hours and a handful of antibiotic steroid drops to apply.

Roommate and I are both a little dizzy but pleased with the result, and we order sushi from our usual place. Without being able to see, eating sushi becomes a messy game of What Am I Holding? Did I Accidentally Grab The Hunk Of Wasabi. Roommate and I are giggling and fumbling over this platter of sushi when roommate's girlfriend comes home.

Imagine you are a girl. You come home. The lights are dim, and set to ominous hellfire red. Lex Fridman's podcast is playing in the background for some reason. Your partner and his best friend are crouched around a platter of sushi in the darkness, with sunglasses on, eating from it with their hands like blind mice gremlins.

There is a follow up to this story, which I will post when my brain finishes simmering it. I leave you with the forbidden knowledge that burning eyeballs smell like steak, and probably taste like steak too.

The Universal Translator

The words we say often aren't the ones we mean.

My newest short story!

Who can enjoy Mission Impossible?

A while back, partner and I went on a movie date. I picked Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning because they're cheap action and they're fun to watch. You don't really need prior context and they can be watched standalone for the most part.

For the most part.

Little did I know, MI: TFR is PART TWO OF TWO of the Mission Impossible series finale. We entered the theater, cuddled next to each other, and were promptly confused as heck. Thankfully, the movie has a short-ish recap at the beginning, and given that all MI movies follow the same script of saving the world from apocalypse, it's pretty easy to pick up, and requires little context to enjoy.

Movie: 3/10

Action: 8/10

It's pretty blazingly unrealistic, but I guess that's what you're watching it for. Stuntwork is cool, but at that point, you're really just watching Tom Cruise: Mission Hang From A Plane.

If I had a penny every time a 20-kiloton nuclear bomb appeared as a plot device, I'd have enough to fund a sequel because wow do they just appear out of nowhere.

Partner and I were two out of four total people in this theater, which I think speaks volumes to how much people cared about this franchise. I didn't really mind, until the two older men sitting behind us to our left started talking.

They were talking during the WHOLE DAMN MOVIE. Just nonstop yapping about what was onscreen with obsequious narration and commentary about the details. It was ridiculously annoying and multiple times I just wanted to turn around and yell at them to shut the fuck up.

Alas, I am a conflict averse person, so the both of us just sat there and tried to ignore them.

When the movie ends, we all get up to leave the theater. Walking out into the light of the hallway is when I notice, one of the men sitting behind us is walking with a white cane.

He turns to his friend and says, "That was a great movie!"

Okay. That makes a lot more sense. He's here with a friend who is narrating the entire movie to him.

The lesson to be learned here I guess is that the Mission Impossible movies are so bad you have to be blind to enjoy them.

Buy One Get One Free

My mom, like any Asian parent, can be instantly lured anywhere by the prospect of buy one get one free, like a moth to a flame, like a bee to nectar, like a white person to cheese.

Most of the time, this makes sense. I'd say that my experience growing up matches that of most middle class families, and this was no small contributor. My parents were frugal but shrewd spenders, and I never felt hungry, never felt a need for anything.

I grew up surrounded by abundance and love.

Maybe a little too much abundance? Buy one get one free resulted in hoardloads of toilet paper, laundry detergent, costco popsicles, coconut milk, and canned goods piled in our basement storage.

I remember going shopping with her in Asian supermarkets, and she would tap me on the shoulder and point.

mom: "jai (son) you see that? buy one get one free"

me: "yes mom, that's a gallon jug of soy sauce."

I distinctly remember my mom coming back from costco with BOGO packs of bulk hand sanitizer refill as well, enough to last until the heat death of the universe.

me: "mom why do you need so much hand sanitizer"

mom: "buy one get one free!"

me: "we don't have space anymore. what are you using it for?"

mom: "ah jai (son), you never know"

Jokes on me, covid hit a month later.

---

I've never been open about being bisexual to my parents either. They never asked. I think things were easier that way, up until I kissed a guy the first time. We didn't stay in a relationship, but it was a lovely experience, and shared joy can only grow.

I never asked why my mom thought the way she did, but I did try to share my joy. I showed her pictures of us smiling together in a climbing gym, to which she would just furrow her brow and shake her head, as if rebuking the thought.

In other conversations, she wants me to continue the bloodline. Maybe that means something to her, but I have no such inclinations, nor any special attachment to my "bloodline".

I tried to explain to her that the only thing that matters in my worldview is consent. I think my views loosely fit in the framework of polyamory (specifically closed polyfidelity relationships) this way. I personally wouldn't mind having multiple partners, as long as we were all consenting individuals mutually engaged in each other's well being.

It's not less for me. It's more for us all.

mom: "so does that mean you don't date girls?"

me: "no mom, im bisexual, i like both boys and girls."

mom: "so does that mean you could come back with a boyfriend?"

me: "yes, i could come back with a boyfriend."

She does some processing, and furrows her brow, but doesn't shake her head. I think the explanation of polyamory clicks into place for her.

mom: "does that mean you could come back with two boyfriends?!?!?!?!"

Of course that's a possibility, but I couldn't resist it anyway.

me: "why is that a problem? buy one get one free!"

On Gender And Pronouns

This is kind of just interesting backstory for me. In public and in general, I look like a normal cisgender straight male. I'm bi, and I've never put much thought into gender, mostly because I'm lazy.

I've also gone through the thought experiment of "how would I feel if I suddenly woke up one day in a different body?" I came to the conclusion that I probably wouldn't care as long as I could still do the things that I regularly enjoy doing, like woodworking and rock climbing. I generally perceive the essence of who I am to be a function of my experiences and thoughts, and not my physical form (and I'd totally be a robot girl a la Penny Polendina if I could).

Because of societal influences on the meaning and connotations for masculinity though, I feel the ick for being attached to that particular term. If being kind, compassionate, and caring are feminine attributes, then I'd much rather be attached to that label.

On discord servers where I don't share my real identity, I've noticed that I get gendered according to the activity. In writing communities, I've noticed that people will more commonly use 'she'. In programming communities, people will assume 'he'. In Minecraft modding programming communities, people will assume ... 'she' (which is a long and funny aside because the Minecraft development community I'm a part of is filled with trans people, script kiddies, bi people, hermits, ace people, and crabs of various shapes and sizes).

When I shared Impossible Causality with my friend's mom, she remarked to me that "this was written by the hand of a woman," which was one of the most interesting compliments about it that I've received. I think about that a lot, and I like it very much.

In part, this is why I don't put my pronouns because I think it's interesting to see what people assume, and I don't care either way. I've noticed that tumblr users tend to default to using the gender-neutral 'they', compared to other communities.

Anyway, all this to say, I answer to he/she/they. Take your pick. I know someone on said Minecraft discord who rolls dice to pick one to refer to me.