Cameron Esbenshade

She/her. Horror writer in Portland, OR. the bad tiny video app: @cameronesbenshade

[cameronesbenshade]

Once again cafe Bustelo’d too close to the sun and now the walls have hands

[cameronesbenshade]

Was listening to an audiobook for work about object permanence in child development and the fear of annihilation when parents leave sub-2y/o toddlers alone and that was Too Horrifying and I had to retreat to writing my scary stories about iguanas or whatever

[cameronesbenshade]

Love to end a sensible day of Avoiding Trigger Foods by scarfing a handful of honeymustard snyders of hanover minutes before bed. 65% chance of nightmare that I’m being (Alien 1979) chestbursted but the powdery spice must flow.

[gayrobot9000]

"No one should brave the underworld alone" - Poe; Minecraft Magazine

[bingusandelf]

I’m convinced we already live in a dystopia…

[cameronesbenshade]

We already live in a cyberpunk dystopia.

Happy hour at the ramen place because the algorithm auto-rejects all your job applications and you can't afford to eat there otherwise.

Your cybernetic implant (insulin pump) costs you $400 a day because your online bank glitched and didn't send your insurance premium through auto-pay on time.

The TSA officer stares past you as a black screen takes a scan of your face. It's mandatory even though the faded sign says you can decline.

[oneheadtoanother]

[cameronesbenshade]

(tune of Your Best American Girl)

I never understood chaotic neutral before

But I do, I finally do

[solar-sunnyside-up]

"Solarpunk will never happen!"

As if it's not already coming, already here and starting to bloom before our eyes.

Neighborhood cooking clubs and libraries lending out more then just books, it's the art club that the community garden started, it's the funky gardens my neighbors have.

It's the DIY projects ppl wear with pride and ones that hide in the back of their dresser drawer. It's in the magazines and podcasts and in passing hope forward.

Like gruella gardening alone is enough for proof of concept for me, but the rise in community events and potlucks and fighting for rent caps and UBI and decentalizing energy and gardening is happening now.

And yea I gotta fight nazis and dickwards daily for it, and I gotta spend the time to educate and build up as I take down, but they can't say this future isn't coming. I'm here with you right now in it.

[cameronesbenshade]

Thanking my oldest friend for offering to beta read my manuscript and saying "please don't hold back, I appreciate your criticism even more than you liking it outright" and she replies "'liking it outright' doesn't describe anything I've ever felt in my life, so, don't worry."

I won't. <3

[from-a-spiders-web]

Flowers in Her Hair

[cameronesbenshade]

I just watched a little video of a food writer touring the camera around his post-it sized kitchen, lovingly sharing the time-tested kitchen equipment he owns. "They'll outlive me," he says of the enamel stock pots, laughing. "Someone will be picking them up at my estate sale."

And. That.

I don't have children and I won't. I think about who will remember me and sometimes I worry, or I feel a sad loneliness about it.

How can I have worried, ever, when my own kitchen is full of the good, capital-lettered PYREX, silverware from the 70s, a set of decades-old linen dish towels that could withstand a bomb blast. How many estate sales did I go to when I needed things for my kitchen, when I was too young and disorganized and broke to buy an apple peeler retail. And how treasured, how prized a find it was, to pick one up for fifty cents, knowing it had been used by someone before me.

I hope that, in my drifting, some part of my ghost will wing its way with my vitamix into a young person's house. I want to watch them make margaritas with the ice blended into slush, proudly reporting that they found it at an estate sale. And how happy will I be, whatever wisp I am, to have the sturdy machine outlive me.

[andydominiquerak]

MASS SURVEILLANCE --

Unblinking, ever-present eyes, everywhere.

____

Piece part of my first-ever Motion exhibition, which I had the privilege of hosting last year in my home country. In this work, I explore the pervasive nature of surveillance in modern society, reflecting on the omnipresent watchful gaze that has become a constant part of our daily lives.

[cameronesbenshade]

Something about pushing the medium to its limit. Rauschenberg with the canvas, Pollock with the paint. This is that.

[cameronesbenshade]

But what if the denouement crushes me? What if I'm flattened under its weight like a slurpee cup on the highway?

[cameronesbenshade]

Ten years ago I overheard my coworker ask her four year old son if he would like a beverage from our office’s cafe. Straight up “would you like a beverage?” and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

[panic-at-the-disco-elysium]

Fundamental life advice: never trust a product from a youtuber/influencer sponsorship

[panic-at-the-disco-elysium]

Raycons - overpriced repackaged cheap bullshit

Hello fresh - last years workers were on strike for shitty work conditions and there’s reports of union busting. Never have i seen a youtuber acknowledge this at all

Adam and Eve - the dildos aren’t all from body safe materials. Don’t risk it with cheap dildos it can fuck your body up

Audible - owned by amazon

Idk which one but one of the vpn ones mined bitcoin from ur computer and they’re useful but generally falsely advertised, not a big tech person but this guy talks about it

All the fit teas and shakes etc are bullshit that just makes you poop and loose water weight short term

Raid shadow legends - lol do i even need to explain this one

All the loot crates - filled with cheap junk they’re getting wholesale

The online coupon thingies are a data harvesting scam. Just google the shop name + coupon when shopping

The online therapy better help was a whole big controversy and i still see this shitty company being promoted

Idk maybe the learning platform ones are the exception but i never looked into them

[highly--distractible]

Adding on to this. Skillshare is hard to cancel. There’s a slight chance this has changed but when I looked into subscribing, there was a lot of people complaining about having to email the company multiple times to cancel.

Since Squarespace is templets, they legally own whatever you make. If you decide to change providers, you can’t take it with you. You’re stuck with them forever or have to rebuild your website from the ground up. You at least own the domain name so there’s that, but for me it’s not worth the work if I have to restart should I ever decide I hate the company.

I want more people to know this because every time I’ve looked into something advertised by youtubers, it’s never been good.

[badgraph1csghost]

Time to talk about SponsorBlock again.

This is a Firefox extension that automatically skips sponsorship messages in Youtube videos. The fact that these small-time corporations feel the need to make Youtube creators behave like trained animals for a tiny contribution is stupid in the first place.

[cameronesbenshade]

BetterHelp is a terrible platform for therapy, overworks its contractors and encourages its therapists to violate state laws and ignore their licensure rules (practice across state lines, offer sessions shorter than recommended) and was found to have allowed a breach of client confidentiality information a couple years ago. Therapists avoid it like the plague and ostracize colleagues who choose to work with it.

[bermudarhombus1]

this garbage came to me in a vision

[cameronesbenshade]

Never seen a more accurate house of leaves post

[hauntedraggedyanne]

Creepy things to add to settings

Just to make things a bit more interesting

—Water stains from flooding

—Withered down machinery resulting from weather

—Torn fabric caught on spikes

—Attempting to find a hiding spot, only to turn around and find the skeleton of the last person who tried to hide there

—Expecting to see spiders and other bugs, only for them all to scurry away as a new presence enters the room

—Fog slithering in through holes in the walls or open windows

—Stepping on the dead, crunchy leaves of plants that started growing inside

—The characters knowing the floorboards will creak, so they try really hard to keep quiet as they travel. Make them all freeze when they hear something else coming at them and decide if they should stand still to keep from attracting any more attention or if they run for their lives

—The wallpaper and paintings on the wall torn off and scattered against the floor, leaving the walls barren and lifeless

it’s all about how you describe it! Find things that get under people’s skin (bugs, snakes, certain sounds, etc) and connect them to whatever you’re trying to make creepy

[cameronesbenshade]

Or the floorboards suddenly, unexpectedly not creaking.

[cameronesbenshade]

having a Book Reason to google "is 5g a radio wave" doesn't make it feel any less catastrophically, apocalyptically stupid to do