#I also have to learn coding again to get a website ready | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fiercestpurpose · 27 days ago

Text

So you want to go to grad school: An FAQ for people considering a humanities PhD in the US

There’s a lot of qualifiers in the title of this post and that’s because I can really only speak to the specific experience that is humanities PhDs in the US. Science PhDs are different, PhDs in Britain are different, getting a master’s is different.

I’m an English PhD student. I have friends in the comparative literature, Middle Eastern studies, religious studies, classics, history, and art history departments. My information is based on my own experiences as well as theirs but should not be taken as 100% true in all cases.

The following questions are addressed under the cut:

What does getting a PhD involve?

Where should I apply? / How should I decide where to apply?

Should I get a master’s degree first?

What does PhD funding look like?

What kind of jobs can I get with a humanities PhD?

Why should I not get a PhD?

1. What does getting a PhD involve?

Broadly speaking, there are three stages to getting a PhD:

coursework

exams

dissertation

The requirements for these will be different at each university/in each department.

Coursework means taking classes; sometimes these will be grad-only classes and sometimes they will be grad/undergrad combined classes. How many classes and which classes you’re required to take will depend on the program you’re looking at.

Additionally, many programs will have foreign language requirements. They might require that you learn German and French or they might require any three languages; it depends.

The exams are the tests you take to prove that you are ready to be a PhD candidate. These vary from school to school and department to department. (Are you sensing a theme yet?) Exams can be written (whether that’s a standard short-answer exam or a longer series of essays), oral (answering questions posed by faculty or giving a presentation), or a combination.

The dissertation is the long paper that proves you’re ready to do academic work. Typically, this is a book-length document (roughly 200 pages, but again, it depends) that presents a research project. Some departments allow students to do alternative dissertations (video projects, coding projects, creative projects), but that depends on the school and the department. Finishing and defending/presenting your dissertation is typically the last step to getting your PhD.

All requirements vary by school and department, so make sure you check what each school you’re applying to would require of you.

2. Where should I apply? / How should I decide where to apply?

The key here is FIT, not prestige.

The main thing to consider, in my opinion, is what you want to study. If you’re really into Judaism academically, you don’t want to go to a religious studies department that doesn’t have any Jewish studies scholars, even if it’s a really good department! Look at what classes are offered, what the professors are interested in, and what the current grad students are interested in. This should all be on the website.

Also, I recommend talking to your advisor in your field/the person who will be writing your recommendation letters. They probably have some knowledge of the field and what schools are good for what you want to study.

Besides that, some other things to consider:

Location — You have to live there for around five years or more, so you want to make sure it’s somewhere you can tolerate. The political climate of Florida or the literal climate of upstate New York might put you off of those places.

Department size — Small departments can be hotbeds of drama; large departments can make you feel like you’re getting lost in the shuffle. What is going to work best for you?

Vibe — What’s the grad student culture like? Do the graduate students hang out with each other outside of classes? Is it cliquey? Is it cutthroat? The best way to figure this out is to talk to some current grad students in the department.

Degrees — Does the school give you a master’s degree on your way to a PhD? This is important because you might change your mind after three years, and you want to have a master’s degree to show for those three years.

Funding — This one is less for applications and more for picking a school once you have your offers because it’s hard to know about funding ahead of time, but you can ask how funding is typically handled.

I applied to twelve places for undergrad but only five for grad school. The “safety school” logic of undergrad doesn’t really apply to PhD programs, and there’s usually not a point to applying anywhere you feel wouldn’t be a good fit. If circumstances permit, it’s better to take a year off for a job (or to stay in your current job) and apply again next year than to go somewhere that wouldn’t be a good fit.

3. Should I get a master’s degree first?

Ehhhh maybe? It depends on your circumstances.

Pros of getting a master’s first:

It makes you a more competitive candidate for PhD programs.

It’s a good way to feel out the field and get an idea of what you might want your area to be without committing to a full PhD program (which is usually at least a five-year commitment) immediately.

It can help you become more confident in your knowledge and your writing and research skills.

If you find you don’t want to continue with academia, you will still have a master’s degree, and they can be useful.

Cons:

Master’s degrees cost money (usually).

If you do two years of a master’s degree, you might still have to do two years of coursework in your PhD program, so it adds to the overall time until you have your degree.

For me, the extra time and money were really big strikes against the master’s degree, but that was based on my specific circumstances. Your circumstances may be different.

To be clear, master’s degrees don’t always cost money - it’s possible to get fellowships that cover the cost of tuition completely. But, based on what I’ve seen, master’s funding usually happens semester by semester, while PhD funding is based on a contract, so you know ahead of time how many years you’re guaranteed funding for. More about PhD funding in the next question.

4. How does PhD funding work?

It, like everything else, depends on the school and department.

Generally, funding is composed of two parts:

tuition remission — money you don’t have to pay the school for tuition

a stipend — money the school gives you, often in exchange for some labor (teaching or assisting a professor with research)

When you get accepted, you should get an offer letter outlining what your funding looks like and how many years of funding you are guaranteed. Sometimes, the school will guarantee only four or five years of funding even though they know that it takes the average student more time than that to complete their PhD. Sometimes there may be opportunities for post-contract funding (funding beyond what is guaranteed) and sometimes there aren’t.

The advice you’ll hear is that you should not pay for a PhD. You should not have to pay anything in tuition and you should not have to take out loans to cover living expenses.

How feasible this advice is in the modern day is going to depend on your field, but I think it’s a good baseline to work from. Go in with the expectation that you won’t have to pay and then moderate your ideas from there. Personally, I did have to pay for one semester of tuition.

The amount of work you’re expected to do to earn your stipend and how livable a stipend it will be are also factors that depend on where you go. Some places expect you to TA for one class a semester, some places expect you to solo teach two classes a semester, and some places give you the money in exchange for you simply continuing your studies.

The best way to find out about funding at a particular location is to talk to current grad students.

5. What kind of jobs can I get with a humanities PhD?

Great question!

PhDs train you for a very specific job: doing academic research. There are not that many jobs out there that you can get that involve doing academic research. There are, very generally, three categories of jobs:

Faculty positions

Alt-ac positions

Other positions

The ideal job that most PhD students want is a tenure-track faculty job that involves both teaching and research. There are other faculty jobs that are not tenure track, such as short-term appointments like “visiting professor” or “adjunct professor.” There are also positions that are long-term contract positions but not tenured, like teaching positions.

Alt-ac stands for alternative academic positions. This means positions that are in academia but are not teaching or research positions. This includes writing center professionals, administrative positions, and academic advisors.

Other. This is everything else, and I’m not really the best person to speak on this, as I’m not super informed. One option is consulting, as consulting firms like to recruit humanities PhDs for their problem-solving skills, but that’s a very specific option (and in my opinion, a not-very-moral one). Another option is teaching at the high school level, which of course comes with its own problems. There are also field-specific opportunities. Art history PhDs, for instance, often end up working in art museums.

The best way to find out about what your options might be professionally is to talk to people who have recently gotten their PhD in the field or to faculty members who have been keeping tabs on the recent PhD grads.

6. Why should I not get a PhD?

To be honest, you probably didn’t ask this question, but I feel obliged to answer it anyway.

I have a couple of warnings about getting a PhD. First, grad school is hard for many people. Grad school may be difficult for your mental health, especially if you rely on having a set structure, have a history of depression, or suffer from impostor syndrome. This isn’t to say that people who have depression shouldn’t go to grad school (that would be hypocritical!), but just to say that you should be aware that it might present challenges.

The second reason is more practical, and that is that academia is not particularly healthy right now. The job market isn’t good, and funding is getting cut for all disciplines. It may be hard monetarily while you are in grad school, and it may continue to be hard even after you have a PhD. The current presidential administration has definitely made this worse, but we have been seeing trends in this direction for at least twenty years.

Getting a PhD is a lot of work, it can negatively affect your mental health, and it does not guarantee you a job at the end of it. I would encourage you to talk to PhD students in your field or any young professors to get a sense of whether or not getting a PhD is right for you.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me and I will answer to the best of my ability. Or ask a grad student or professor in your field!

#m.txt #i wrote this instead of doing my exam prep lol

38 notes · View notes

adventuringblind · 1 year ago

Text

AUS24 (3k words)

Oscar Piastri x Liam Lawson x Reader x Logan Sargeant

Genre: Angst, fluff, spice, A/B/O AU

Summary: James Vowels takes things a step further when covering his ass in the media. Logan and his mate pay the price but Oscar and Liam are there to help.

Warnings: A/B/O dynamics, heat/rut cycles, James Vowels is the bad guy in this one, Alex being a king, Thigh riding, other alluded to sexual things but not specific so IDK what else to put

Notes: This one was a lot and I hope I filled the request okay! I struggled... Therefore y'all should feed my praise kink in order to motivate me. Jk...... unless?

Side Note: My ABO dynamics and how I write it is different so be forewarned ig. Also, NSFW under the cut. MINORS AVERT YOUR EYES!

Masterlist // Request Form // My Website // buy me a Ko-Fi

Oscar didn’t think much of it when he jumped out of the car and didn't see Logan. He figured he’d rushed off to make sure Alex was okay after that nasty crash and see if the team was going to be able to fix the beta’s car.

Practice had gone pretty decent. He should probably meet up with Lando to talk about how he’d felt in the car. All things considered, he’s mildly optimistic.

The itch in his neck leaves him wondering which of his three mates could possibly be annoyed. Oscar usually assumes Liam, given the nature of the omega. Oscar had to learn to pick his battles early on. He understands that in entirely alpha or omega families, dynamics have to be flexible. Liam is more alpha coded then he is omega. Unfortunately for the mess of things that is the paddock, people give him shit for it and Oscar has had to haul the kiwi away before he killed somebody.

Oscar, because he’d prefer not to spend his home race weekend bailing Liam out of jail, speeds off towards the RB garage. He doesn’t have to go far since Liam is also sprinting in his direction. “Oscar! Are you alright? I thought maybe something happened when you got out of the car since I feel all prickly.” The blonde smells both annoyed and concerned.

Oscar shakes his head. “I thought you might be trying to take the head off Helmut again…” He shakes his head and continues his walk down to the Williams garage with Liam on his heels. “Have you seen the other two at all?”

“Her and Logan walked down to the William's garage together. That was about twenty minutes ago.”

On their trek to the end of the paddock, They end up running into George. The second British Omega on the grid. He’s pacing outside of the garage and Oscar has to bite back a gag at how distressed he smells. “George?”

“Oscar! They won’t let me in.” He’s raking fingers through his and getting increasingly more distressed the longer they are stuck outside. “He sent me a text saying something happened, but didn’t elaborate. I can feel his anger.”

Oscar, because he has no idea what to do in this scenario, sends Liam with George to find Lewis, or Carlos, or Max, or Lando, or anyone else who might know what to do right now because he has no idea. He just needs to see the other half of his mates or he’s going to lose it.

He tries to flag down anyone in the vicinity, only to be ignored. He’s about ready to come unhinged until he gets the attention of James. The alpha team principal keeps his distance - the invisible boundary line the only thing keeping Oscar from shaking the information out of him. Only, James doesn’t just smell like James. No - he smells like Oscar’s other two omegas. Both of which must be in heat.

He tries to breathe; reign himself in so he doesn’t lose it and end his entire career (though he will if it comes down to it). “Where are they?” If there is a growl laced within the question, he can’t be bothered to care.”

James looks like he might jump into an explanation of some kind, but gets foiled by Alex. The beta looks pissed. The kind of anger that shows in every movement.

“JAMES!” While Oscar flinches at the olders tone, James remains calm. It's aggravating in a way. “Tell Oscar what you did or I will.”

James sighs and motions for the Australian to follow him. Alex can't growl, but the way he's seething tells Oscar that he would if he could. It's ironic to think that between the three of them, Alex is the most angry compared to the two alphas trudging through the garage.

James gestures for him to go inside. The scent leaking through the cracks in the door is terribly seductive and Oscar has to dig his nails into the palm of his hands to ground himself. “Neither of them were supposed to be in heat this early. All four of us are synced and just went through this a month ago.” he stares down the older alpha for an explanation.

He takes an inventory of his own body. His own reaction to his mates in heat is more… intense. Like he can't keep himself off them. Currently he feels more protective than anything.

“since James won't tell you, I will-”

“It's team business!”

“Not when the safety of others is concerned!”

James makes a lunge for Logan but Oscar matches his speed and steps in front of him. He wants to retch at how awful James smells at the moment.

Four pairs of footsteps from the direction they had come from. Liam and George have managed to find them and dragged Carlos and Lando as well. It's terribly comforting to have more people around.

“what's going on?” Lando whines at the door the closer he gets. “Is Logan in heat? But didn't he just have one?”

Alex is much taller than Oscar, but the beta appreciates the gesture given the nature of how betas usually are towards anyone else. “Oscar, why don't you, me, George and James speak about this in his office. Carlos can come too, if you'd like.”

“yeah - yeah okay. I need to know what happened.” He looks around for Liam and pulls him away from James. “Sorry - I don't know what's happening. I didn't mean too-”

Liam attaches himself to the alpha and noses at his neck. “I'll take care of them while you're gone. Lando is going to stay also.”

Oscar nods, kisses his head, and drags himself away. He doesn't want to go anywhere but inside that room. Be it biology or his own mind, clearly something is wrong and he would desperately like to be there for the people he loves. Still, Liam is here and that makes things better. They aren't alone.

They settle into chairs in James’ office. Carlos opts to stay by the door watching everything going on outside. “Why are they taking apart Logan's car?”

Oscar blinks at him. They're what?”

“I crashed the car and broke the chassis. James decided to punish Logan for it. But that's not even the worst part!” Alex looks expectantly to his team principal. A silent urge for him to tell his own story. He gestures for Alex to come continue on and the beta rolls his eyes. “Logan and y/n walked here together. James summoned them into the office together. He told Logan he was going to give me his car. Obviously, I said no and…”

George shuffles his way over to Alex. The physical contact between the two seems to lessen Alex's rising emotions. “It was probably my fault, since I kept saying no.” Alex throws a packet of heat inducers on the table. “I was restrained. James didn't show he had a whole package - just dissolved way over the recommended amount into a cup and commanded Logan to drink it. She got to it first so he didn't have to drink it, and downed the entire thing in seconds.”

“That doesn't explain Logan’s-”

“He had more and just repeated it. Then he used that fucking voice to get them to not tell anybody and lock themselves away.” Alex looks like he's on the brink of tears. “I'm sorry, Oscar.”

Oh - the rage that's building beneath his skin. He moves to throw himself at James, but is foiled by Carlos. “You can't help from jail.”

Which, the Spaniard isn't wrong, so Oscar goes limp in his hold. He takes a few ragged breaths to force himself to calm down. “It's not your fault Alex, at all. Sounds to me like it's a move to cover his own ass.”

“Alex is out best chance-”

“Bullshit! I just murdered my car!”

The door to the office is thrown open and Oscar has no time to react to the fact Max and Daniel, his pack alpha and omega - respectively, got word of this.

“Did we need to alert the entire grid, Alex?”

Max openly, and without hesitation, growls at the team principal in question. Daniel hits him upside the head to get him to stop. “Where’s Logan at?”

“My driver doesn’t need anymore assistance, Daniel-”

All of them (aside from Alex) Descend into a fit of threatening noises. “Really? Because heat inducers can fuck up anyone’s body on a normal dose. Trust me James, I’ve been in this scenario with my own team.”

Briefly, Oscar recalls Lando talking about McLaren trying to induce Daniel’s heat without his knowledge. Andrea is a much better team principal and He can vividly recall Lando near sobbing when they were assured that would never happen.

“In Logan’s room.”

“Great! Here’s what we’re going to do then.”

George has to drag Alex away from the Office and back up to his room. The British Omega throws a middle finger at James before he’s out of sight completely. Max is staying with James until things get sorted out. Which - unfortunately since the laws are so unfair - will mean James gets away scot free. Daniel says he’s going to be subjected to a lecture first. The rest of them head back to Logan’s room with the intent on getting out of the building.

“Should I call Andrea and Zak?” Oscar looks desperately at Daniel for instructions. He’s never had to leave so suddenly and has no clue if there is a protocol for these things or not.

“No worries, I took care of it. We just need to get them out of the paddock.” the older Aussie pats his shoulder reassuringly. “I’m assuming the four of you aren’t prepared at all?”

Oscar shakes his head. “We all synched just last month.”

“Anything you need then? I can send George and Alex on errands. Actually, I’m hoping for that seeing as Alex is desperate to help.”

“I hope he sees that this isn’t his fault.”

“He’ll come around, I hope you know it’s not your fault either.”

And here Oscar thought he was hiding it so well. He tries to shake it off, play his own insecurities down. “I’m-”

“Relax mate, Max felt guilty for weeks.”

“But it’s my job to protect them-” The voice crack was unnecessary and completely screwed him over in terms of hiding whatever feeling he had buried.

Daniel turns to face him right outside the door. “You can’t change the past, Oscar. You were never going to be able to stop this from happening. What you can do is help them now because they need you.”

Oscar nods with newfound determination, and opens the door.

She certainly wouldn’t say it was her greatest decision, definitely one of the easier ones in the moment. She’d downed the drink without a hesitation.

They’d attempted a nest. Tried to make the room comfortable. The amount of drugs in their systems was not making it easy. Instead opting to throw everything on the floor and try to sleep before they can’t.

They’d stripped down to undergarments within the last few minutes. The heat steadily building and becoming too much. Still, she lays plastered against Logans body; his scent intoxicating.

“You didn’t have to do that for me.” He noses at her neck, teeth nipping at the three scars lining her collar bone.

“Wanted to help, Lo.” She feels like crying. The odd lack of connection bombarded her after James used his stupid voice. “Wanted you to race.”

The door squeaks open sometime later. After a nap and the first round of what will probably be many. She peaks her head out from around Logan who’s gone defensive from the new intrusion. Only - Liam peaks his head inside and Lando follows before shutting the door again. She whimpers and tries to claw her way to Liam, but is pushed back gently by Lando.

“He’s grabbing a few things.” She can see him trying to smile gently at her.

Liam ends up between them, his own shirt off and one of Oscar’s sweatshirts in hand. She makes herself as small as possible to curl up into his side. “Do you two need anything specific right now.”

“Where’s Osc?” Logan beats her to the question.

“Talking with James, I believe.”

The whines are involuntary. That part of her brain still fighting for its life wants to know why he’s not here right now. The overthinking side is claiming it’s because she’s undesirable now. “Does he still want us?”

Liam coos at her, as does Logan and Lando. “You'll never not be undesirable.”

“But what about James?”

“What do you mean?” She can feel Liams muscles tense underneath her. She shrinks in an attempt to hide from the new angry scent permeating the room.

Thankfully, Logan takes over for her. “He used his voice on us. He wanted to give me inducers…”

She, despite the struggle, rolls herself over Liam and into Logan's lap. “Not your fault.”

“I know-” his desperate whine nearly kills her. And Liam - by the looks of it. He's restraining himself if the way his jaw is tensing is any indicator.

“Lando, would you mind possibly grabbing mine and Oscar's stuff so we don't have to leave here again if possible?” It's not fair really, that Liam can be bossy and she finds it attractive. Oscar is also bossy, but he’s the gentle bossy and Logan isn’t bossy at all. Wow - her stupid hormones have her drooling over this and she doesn’t even know what this is.

Liam makes up a list for Lando and the Brit runs off to collect the items. She wonders how long Oscar is going to be and if the ache in between her legs will let up until they can leave.

It’s the only thing on her mind. It’s also now all over her thighs. An unfortunate circumstance where there are no towels on the ground. At this rate she might die if she can’t do something about these feelings and the longer she waits the more desperate she becomes.

“Do you need something, darling?” Her hazy mind decides that now is a great time to register that she’s grinding into Liam's leg. She doesn’t stop though. If anything - she can’t, because he has a hand on her hip urging her to continue. “Only one of me at the moment, is this okay for now?” She makes a weak sound and makes a mess of herself and Liam’s poor thigh. Not like Logan is doing any better. They both smell good like this.

She has no idea how much time passes, the endless amount of work she’s having to do finally wears her out enough to relax for the time being.

“I guess I should’ve stripped all the way, huh?” She’s too tired to be embarrassed about Liam’s teasing comments. She barely even notices Liam attempting to clean her up. Her mind is too far gone. Enough that her and Logan are both ready to go again after a few measly minutes.

They don't get very far, instead scrambling under whatever is available as the door swings open. Liam is hissing at the intruder, only to see Oscar and Lando poke their heads inside.

“Hey Daniel, I think maybe we’ll stay here for the time being and then when the traffic of the paddock dies down we can try and leave.”

Daniel also slips into their space. She makes a lunge for either of the two Australians. Oscar is quick to react to her movements and get her to stay put underneath the little amount of covering she has.

Lando drops the bags of stuff he was holding and tries to smile at them before he leaves. Unfortunately, his sad scent gives away his true feelings. She wonders if he knows the full story now since Oscar definitely does.

It’s just her, her mates, and Daniel now. The pack Omega is hovering by the door and is clearly ready to leave them to their own devices. “Keep in mind that reactions to heat inducers are unpredictable but fast. You’ll only be in “heat” for about a day. Then you’ll just be sick, but we’ll take it as it comes.”

Daniel reminds Oscar to text him if they need anything and then leaves them alone. Which - she likes Daniel, but being able to jump the bones of her mates sounds all too appealing.

“James?” Logan looks pleadingly at Oscars for some kind of reassurance.

“Is going to get an earful from Max and Daniel. Aside from that, he will probably get a slap on the wrist. Alex is ready to kill him though, if that’s what you wanted.”

The three of them find humor despite the nature of the situation. It’s why she loves them so much. The way she can feel safe and taken care of, but still be herself and laugh and give into her own desires.

Oscar loses his own clothes. The fireproofs he was wearing around his waist come off in record time.

“You're still going to race, right Osc?”

“We’ll see-” Oscar nearly jumps when the three of them whine and pout in unison. “I take it that you want me to race?”

“We’ll make do without you.”

“Hey!-”

“Liam is good for something after all!” Logan wheezes in laughter. Only for Liam to grumble and decide enough is enough. He takes Logan by the hips and slams right into him.

She looks between the two of them and Oscar. She leans up to his ear, fully intent on whispering to him but gets a little distracted by his scent while shifting around.

“Need something?”

Finally, she surrenders herself to the haze knowing she has all her mates with her. “Just you three.”

383 notes · View notes

pitifli · 6 months ago

Text

Happy new year 2025! Hope you can achieve nice things this next year, and leave behind troubles and bad stuff!

** OK, it's official: I only put things on the Internets for New Year. **

Recently I made a new year's resolution, to kick away all the overwork and have time for myself and my stuff.

During these holidays I've been learning a bit of Eleventy and preparing the new website where to put all drawings and things. As soon as I have it ready I'll put in my site [www.maiuscomics.com], because YES, I'm old and I still pay for my own hosting, and I code it in HTML. Once built, I'll resume posting JRS stuff (I have some comics waiting in the eternal queue of lost web-comics).

Also, I'm thinking to open a BlueSky account and close the Twitter (D.E.P.) one, but before I need a "policy" to avoid doom-scrolling and FOMO.

Anyway, I'm still around, and trying to get out of the "pit of despair" (Just when I think I'm out, they drag me back in!) to post new stuff.

So, have a happy entrance into 2025, and hope to talk to you back again very soon!

El Pitiflí

#happy new year #furry art

3 notes · View notes

yvesdot · 1 year ago

Note

yves, if only theoretically wanted to break into publishing or lit mags, do you have recommendations or advice?

My primary advice is to get to know as many writers as you can, as well as you can, quickly. I’ve recommended joining Discord servers for this in the past and will do so again; the most active ones I’m in are Max's @goose-books server (I think you have to ask for an invite?), WTW, and writeblr garden. Participate in book events virtually and in person when you can. When you like someone's work, tell them! And mention that you're an author, too.

Disclaimer: I haven't made it into any paid magazines, largely because I find submitting and waiting for months at a time before working on edits exhausting, particularly in comparison to instant money on Patreon—so have that grain of salt at the ready! All I've done is publish the one book, twice, and release a substantial amount of short fiction on my own. People read it and liked it, and now I have lovely anons like you who seem to respect me enough to ask for industry advice. Thank you! Hope you like long posts.

The reason I say the above is that, in my experience, the entirety of publishing is just one big who-do-you-know. Utterly non-exhaustive list of ways "knowing people" has helped me in my writing career below.

I left a middling review on a trans author's book, and in the correspondence that followed we became friends. Rysz Merey went on to start tRaum Books, and because we were friends, we put out the Something's Not Right anniversary edition together.

When I was at my university, I was loudly opinionated about books and writing and art in all of my classes, and a professor's words about me in an email to an author they knew became the blurb for that same edition of Something's Not Right.

I read Tragic Accident (a flash piece originally rejected by an online magazine for, in my opinion, cisgender reasons) last night at Flash Fiction Forum, the heads of which I know personally because, after a high school internship, I was directed to a friend of theirs to volunteer at her writing camp. I sold a lot of copies of the original SNR to teens at that camp, and I've sold dozens of copies since by linking to the book in the Zoom chat and bringing physical copies to in-person readings.

Tragic Accident may have ultimately been rejected from the venue I sent it to, but I only had that venue on my list because my beloved friend Fer @asablehart posted in WTW a spreadsheet of places to submit. I still use that spreadsheet, filled with dozens of extra places I researched on my own, and pass it on to anyone who asks. Fer also read The Traveler Wife and gave extremely insightful feedback on it; we've since done tons of great critique4critiques together and they're still my go-to if I need wise words on a piece of writing.

When I held my event at Bookshop Santa Cruz, I marketed my ass off. I'd learned from my previous event at the Diversity Center in town and focused heavily on reaching out to individual people: posting in Discord servers, DMing everyone I knew, and telling everybody I met in December that by the way I would be reading at Bookshop Santa Cruz in January. I worked my job as an author and my book and my event into every conversation I had with a stranger that month. Everyone responded positively! People want to know what you're working on.

But at the end of the day, under a third of attendees were people I hadn't previously considered friends in some way. The majority of the people who came were family, friends, coworkers, friends-of-friends dragged along by someone I knew well, etc. One coworker couldn't come but invited their housemates, who bought books and left saying they would read Band Girls at home. One of the friends who came met me when we would ride the same bus every week to class, and I initially spoke to him because I fully thought he was a transgender woman (he turned out to just be an extremely fashionable individual). That guy helped code my website. Of the three people who interviewed me locally for promotion, two are people I'm friends with and one I cold-emailed due to his past work.

One of the major servers I used to invite people to both of my events is one I was only added to because I met a goth girl who invited me to her dorm to watch her inject E into her thigh and when I reported back on this to another transfem friend that friend instantly named her because they were in the server together and multiple people in it knew me from my creative writing efforts so everybody agreed to add me. I literally only had that space to network because I said "nice boots" to a girl whose special interest turned out to be DIY HRT at a protest party about the chancellor getting a raise.

Claire Oshetsky came to my event and I made a point of finally starting to read their book beforehand so I could honestly tell them it was cool when I signed their copy of Something's Not Right (it was cool, and everyone should read Chouette, and also Poor Deer, which I am on page 10 on and can already certify is fantastic). They were incredibly nice to me for no reason—well, because of those interviews I had, which led to them noticing another nonbinary author in the area—and ultimately reviewed SNR very positively on GoodReads. You can see what happened to the numbers afterwards. (I also sold a copy that day; when you sell roughly a copy of a book per week, you can absolutely make these connections directly.)

Tonight was Claire Oshetsky's event, so I showed up having read Chouette in full and asked a question during the Q&A and told them how cool their book was, and they invited me to a little post-event author dinner. (One of the authors introduced herself as "Karen" and described a prolific writing career very opaquely until her friend mentioned the name of her latest novel: Booth.) Everyone was incredibly nice and wanted to buy my book which was unfortunately sold out because of the aforementioned event, and a couple of people gave me email addresses so they could buy it later. I've been trying to meet local authors for over a year, and I met seven by accident because one of them came up to me to say it was nice to see Bookshop Santa Cruz had two nonbinary readers in a row.

Talking to David Sedaris at an event got me a job! He complimented my outfit, I said thank you I wore it for the interview with [x], and he did everything he could to help me network with the [x] people there. I was later told that my "chemistry" with Sedaris, among other things, helped me get the position. I would also find out that David specifically loves the last people in the signing line because they're the most patient; I happened to have waited until last because I wanted to have more time to talk to him.

I have emailed several authors with fanmail, and depending on how popular they are, I have gotten responses! I'm in a correspondence right now which netted me a behind-the-scenes look at an incredible draft, and thank you for reminding me because I need to respond and tell them how good it was.

Patreon is on pause right now, but I believe over half the subscribers are people I'm friends with in one way or another. I've tried nearly everything under the sun to advertise, and so far the only thing that's worked is "telling someone who has the disposable income."

The people who beta-read my latest release, Band Girls (18+), for me (which is the only reason it wasn't an unmitigated disaster) include my butch, who met me in a Locked Tomb server (naturally), a friend from a creative writing class in university who later became my housemate, and a good buddy of my butch's whom they rescued from the aforementioned TLT server. I literally didn't even notice that guy when we were in the server together and it turns out he's also a writer with a Giant Lesbian Women project who also wound up really liking Long Line (18+). Glories are all around you.

(Also, apparently my butch had that "how to write a blurb" post bookmarked and immediately recognized me, which is crazy. Imagine meeting some random author in a fandom server and they ask to see your [redacted] in DMs.)

Hell, my buddy Max Franciscovich read my book five years ago in the back of a car and had a transcendental nonbinary lesbian experience, and because he happened to be mutuals with a high school friend of mine, that friend sent me screenshots of him panicking about how he couldn't talk to me because I was too cool. I DMed him, and we are like each other's female husbands now. Undoubtedly we have each gained a substantive reader base from hyping each other's work at anyone in earshot. Maxserver, which I shouted out above, only has me in it because I know the darn guy. It's a lot more populous than yvescord in part because he is that much more active than I am, and can engage with other people's work more. I'm mooching off the labor of my best friend who pseudo-reached-out to me because I put a pronoun pin on a character's bag in the book I self-published in 2018.

Speaking of which: I self-published the original edition of Something's Not Right as a thank-you birthday gift to the Beta Reader. I seem to remember him reading my writing for the first time and saying something along the lines of "You do realize this is really good, right?" (I did not realize.) That was the first person to appreciate any of my original fiction, and it led to my entire career. We met on a class trip because he was the only person who would listen to me talk about Star Wars.

I try to never ingenuinely be nice to people. This is not particularly difficult, because I like people and give the benefit of the doubt to a pretty extreme fault. I will occasionally be nice out of politeness, but everyone I mentioned here is someone I genuinely like whose work is fantastic. It wasn't hard to honestly say I liked them and their writing.

I also recognize that much of this is kind of just me blathering about Ws with no actionable advice... but it might give you ideas for where to go or who to talk to about your writing. I also want you to feel just how much of writing is about "networking" in a way that is not cold and manipulative and moneyhungry but actually just involves being genuine friends with other people. I think the sheer quantity of evidence here is helpful to understand just how much you can do for yourself by talking to the people you like.

I also think it's good practice to own the fact that very little of my microcelebrity success has anything to do with how good my work is. I mean, sure, I think it's good, but this should make it clear that my greatest strength has been my perseverance and my friendliness.

(Also, obviously, I have the immense privilege to have gone to college, to live in California, to get to all these places and meet these people and work with them. I had the money in the bank to publish and promote a book. This is not a small factor. I'm hoping to do a full rundown of costs and efforts to promote Something's Not Right's anniversary edition sometime this year.)

I also don't think I'm particularly good at socializing—I have a knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, a difficulty with meeting people's eyes, and a mild stutter when I talk too quickly (which is often). A lot of people find me annoying or insincere because I act like a sentient powder puff, and when I'm not jumping up and down and meowing at people instead of saying "on your right," I'm complaining about the most widely-beloved pieces of pop culture and making two-hour rant videos about video games I think insufficiently scrutinize the concept of the nuclear family. I say all this to head off any concerns that perhaps I am just secretly very suave and social; I love talking to people, but I don't believe this is the case.

If I can summarize: nearly every time I've had any success with my writing, it's been because I made an effort to be kind to people I respected and share my passion for books and writing. I hit upon enough privileges and lucky circumstances to get the right circle of people to make all of the above happen. I think you can do it, too! I wish you the best. Thanks for asking ^__^

#yves talks #yves talks writing #txt #Good Lord this evil wall of text. Hope somebody enjoyed??#writeblr #writeblr advice #writing advice #asks #important writing updates #snr2 #something's not right

14 notes · View notes

lunieloon · 1 year ago

Text

Intro Post!

Heyo! My name is Emmet/LunieLoon! Welcome to my blog! :>

This is mostly a place to scream about my ocs, but I'll reblog other posts as well!

Basic Stuff to know:

● Pronouns: He/They

● 22

●YouTube , Twitter , Website

● Autistic, possibly with a side of ADHD (Various other things too, if you wanna know just ask :P)

● OCs and Infodumps are common here! Please ask if you have any questions! (Please I love talking about them XD)

Fandom Account: @tinycatlady

More details on OC storylines under the cut!

Storylines/Characters are divided into 2 groups! Lunieverse and The Sideline Continuity!

Lunieverse is divided into 10 main stories:

● SpaceAges 1: The story of a prince and an alien becoming friends after being washed out to sea together. It's also the story of family secrets being revealed and dealing with the consequences of them.

Main Characters: Stephenson Ken Royden and Spacey Cosmos

Supporting characters: Jackson Royden, Morgan Creek, Starlet Cosmos, and Comet Cosmos

Side Characters: Kingsley Royden, Harriet Creek, Juniper Creek, Lillypad Creek, Rosebud Creek

[Master Post Here]

● Color Coded: The story of a guy finding his own path in life instead of following the ones set out for him. Also the story of him and his friends adopting a kid from a dumpster and finding a secret library?? All while in high school.

Main Character: Blu Ponds

Supporting Characters: Glinda Lights, Petey Silvers, Alexander Ponds, Petal Thorns

[Master Post Coming Soon!]

● SpaceAges 2: The story of an alien taking a prince to his home planet to visit his sisters and show him how he used to live. Also the story of them realizing the societal structure they have is kinda messed up and advocating for changes to make a good life accessible to everyone.

Main Characters: Spacey Cosmos, Stephenson Ken Royden, Starlet Cosmos

Supporting Characters: Comet Cosmos, Howard Y'Doin?, Adorelle Curtsey, Delilah Fourpoints, Edwin Gilden

[Master Post Here]

● Let's Get Lost: The story of a college dropout who's best friend finally convinced them to run away with him. Friends to Lovers who build a new life for themselves away from their hometown.

Main Characters: Regio Corona, Lyall-Dean Kedves

[Master Post Coming Soon!]

● S.H.I.P. Kids: The story of a newly-turned immortal teenager trying to get the other immortal teenagers she's with to enjoy life again. Also the story of the oldest immortal there learning to like humanity again after all he's seen.

Main Character: Bea Lex

Supporting Characters: Salley Feist, Samuel Lex, Marty Libros, Betty Libros

Side Characters: Vance Armor, Zak Armor, Kyle Clementine, Ben Feist, Blaise Burns, Pheobe Davis

[Master Post Coming Soon!]

● SpaceAges 3: The story of a prince and an alien getting ready for their wedding. Also the story of them rallying people together to save humanity from extinction.

Main Characters: Stephenson Ken Royden, Spacey Cosmos

Supporting Characters: Jackson Brian Royden, Morgan Creek, Royden Allen Cosmos, Comet Cosmos, Starlet Cosmos, Kingsley Royden, Harriet Creek, Juniper Creek, Lillypad Creek, Rosebud Creek

Side Characters: Bea Lex, Salley Feist, Samuel Lex, Marty Libros, Blu Ponds, Glinda Lights, Petey Silvers, Alexander Ponds, Sunny Ponds

[Master Post Here]

● Pixelville: The story of a guy who's haunted by the ghosts of his ancestors trying to warn the world of impending doom. Also the story of the same guy being invited to the biggest content creator house ever because everyone thinks his videos is a very detailed ARG.

Main Character: Perplex Jones

Supporting Characters: Mimi James, Todd Tussle, Skylar Routina, A.K. Williams, Robert Jones, Rob Jones, and Robbie Jones

Side Characters: Sandra Boxx, Peter Carro, Alexis Caro, Charlie Carro, Lukas Liqueur.

[Master Post Coming Soon!]

● Red Velvet Cheesecake: The story of a disillusioned intern trying to move up the corporate ladder. Also the story of them reconnecting with their childhood best friend and getting swept up into a world of spies and conspiracy.

Main Character: Velvet Estrella

Supporting Characters: Charles Edam Chezboi, Lukas Liqueur, Flora P.W.

Side Characters: Luke Stonedge, Anne Sity, Daisy Duro, Ophelia Gemm, Stanley Rufus.

[Master Post Coming Soon!]

● Squad Of Lovers: The story of 4 young adults learning how to be functional adults and exploring unconventional paths after highschool graduation. Also the story of them searching for normalcy as tensions rise between the different planets in the solar system.

Main Characters: Mea Mine, Jerry Jar, Amelia Ace, Devin Dran

Side Characters: Aiden Arg, Miranda Dand

[Master Post Coming Soon!]

● Detainment Institute for Super Powered Youth: The story of a guy with time powers being thrown into a detainment unit on his 17th birthday. Also the story of him learning to trust people, and realize that his future is his own to create.

Main Character: March Calendar

Supporting Characters: Ener Gee, Faith Trutelle, Connie Miller, Agil Tyler, Speedi Zip

[Master Post Coming Soon!]

The Sideline Continuity is separated by casts of Characters!

I Am My Own Downfall!: The story of a guy named Louie who keeps finding alternate dimension versions of himself in his closet.

Golden Oath: The story of a fallen god finding refuge with other outcasts outside a small village

Harmony's Edge: The story of a violin player being transported to a world where music = magical powers

As Different As...: The story of two people who had nothing in common finding out they have god-like powers and having to work with each other to keep the balance of the world in check.

Mutiny Collectables: The story of a band of pirates searching for rare items that correspond to their special interests.

The Bridge: A mad scientist and his lover keep popping in at the right moments. They know more than they let on. Who are they? Why are they here?

Sideline is more of a concept/for fun project of mine- so updates on their stories will be sporadic and most likely will be in different media formats! The one thing to remember with it though: it is always in chronological order.

And that should cover it for now! Hope you peeps like my blog :>

#introduction #lunierambles #pinned post #pinned intro #lunieloon #oc blog #welcome to my blog #original chatacter

2 notes · View notes

keploy · 2 months ago

Text

What Is Rapid Application Development (Rad)?

Back in our college days, we studied about the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), right? In that, we learned about various software methodologies like the Waterfall model, Agile, etc. We also learned how these methodologies help us deliver software quickly. Rapid Application Development is one such methodology we forgot to study in college - no worries, now you can understand what exactly Rapid Application Development is and how it helps you and your business. Remember, in software, time and money are crucial. The RAD methodology is one such approach that helps us deliver software faster to the market.

In case you missed your Software Engineering class in college, you can read it here at your own pace:

What is RAD and Why is Everyone Talking About It?

First of all, Rapid Application Development (RAD) is a software development process or methodology (not a model) that prioritizes speed. It focuses on building prototypes quickly, incorporating continuous testing throughout the process, and actively seeking end-user feedback to refine the application.

I know it sounds complex. Let me break it down simply.

It’s a way of building software (like websites or apps) quickly and efficiently by focusing on doing instead of overthinking and planning everything in advance.

Instead of spending months writing down every detail before writing a single line of code, RAD teams jump straight into creating a prototype (a working example). Then, they test it, ask people for feedback, and improve it again and again. You can easily understand it by its name itself Rapid Application Development. Instead of just gathering the requirements, you build the prototype and show it to the customers.

Why Do People Use RAD?

Let’s say your Boss asked you to build an app for managing events. You’ve got 1 month to finish it. You don’t have time to write a 30-page plan. What do you do?

With RAD, you:

Create a basic version of the app in 1 week.

Ask your team members to try it out.

They say, “Can you add a calendar?” or “This button is confusing.”

You fix it, improve it, and repeat until it's ready!

That’s the RAD cycle: Build → Test → Improve → Repeat

How cool is this process, right? If your team members need different features or find any bugs, they can report them, and you can fix them. The cycle keeps moving. In RAD, speed and feedback are the key parameters.

Key Concepts of RAD :

These are the key concepts of the RAD methodology, which help us understand how to build software faster:

Prototyping over Planning Instead of spending weeks writing documents, teams build a quick prototype (a basic version of the app) to show how it will work.

User Feedback is Central Users test the prototype and give feedback what they like, what’s missing, and what’s confusing.

Iterative Process The app is improved in small cycles (called iterations). Build → Get Feedback → Improve → Repeat.

Team Collaboration Developers, designers, and users all work together closely and frequently.

Reusable Components Instead of building everything from scratch, RAD often reuses existing components, tools, or libraries to save time.

What are the Different Phases Involved in Rapid Application Development?

RAD isn’t just chaos it has clear stages that help teams move fast while staying on track.

1. User Modeling

In this phase, developers and users talk to each other to understand what the app should do. Think of it like interviewing your team members to find out what features they’d want in a event app.

What are their problems?

What features do they need?

How do they use similar apps now?

The goal: Know what to build before starting.

2. Prototyping/POC

Now it’s time to build a rough version of the app called a prototype.

It doesn’t need to be perfect.

It just needs to show how things might work.

Users try it out and give feedback.

Imagine building a UI version of a product just to see if the design makes sense!

ConstructionThis is where you take what worked in the prototype and turn it into the real app.

Build the actual features with code.

Polish the design.

Test and fix any bugs.

But unlike traditional methods, even in this stage, you’re still open to small changes.

DeploymentTime to launch

The app is released to users.

You keep collecting feedback and making updates.

RAD allows continuous improvement, even after launch

This is the one of the most important features of RAD unlike the traditional approach it is much more difficult to improve or changes something once It is deployed but with the RAD approach you can change it after the launch also.RAD Methodology in Today’s Software DevelopmentRAD is more popular than ever today, especially for:

Startups that need to launch fast

Mobile apps with changing requirements

Hackathons where speed is everything

MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) early versions of apps for testing ideas

It fits perfectly with modern tools like low-code platforms, APIs, and cloud services. Companies like Google and Facebook use RAD-like techniques to test and improve features quickly.When Should You Consider RAD for Your Business?RAD is a great fit when:

You need results quickly

Your app idea might change as users test it

You want constant feedback from users

You have access to tools or platforms that let you build fast

Your team is small but ready to iterate quickly

Not ideal when:

Requirements are 100% fixed and can’t change

Your team isn’t ready for flexible workflows

RAD vs Waterfall vs Agile: What’s the Difference?

Feature

RAD

Waterfall

Agile

Speed

Very fast

Slow

Fast

Planning

Minimal upfront

Detailed at start

Adaptive

User Involvement

High

Low

High

Flexibility

Very flexible

Rigid

Flexible

Suitable for

Prototypes, MVPs, apps

Long-term systems

Most modern software

Now you understand what RAD is, why people are using it, its key concepts, different phases, and how it is different from the Waterfall and Agile models.

There is another tool that also increases your software delivery speed just like RAD, which is Keploy.

Before talking about Keploy so you guys created an app using RAD but how do you test whether everything is working fine or not? Whether the requirements are meeting your customer's needs or not? For that, you need to test the application fast, right? Only then is it possible to deliver the software quickly to the customer.

That’s where the Keploy comes in

Why Do You Need to Try Keploy?

As I mentioned above, testing is crucial for any type of application. You need to write test cases for the application, whether it is unit testing, integration testing, or E2E testing.

But you are already busy developing the application how do you find time to test it? At the same time, you can’t ignore testing either.

No worries! Keploy will create test cases for your application. Keploy is an open-source, zero-code testing agent that automatically creates test cases for your application.

How cool is this, right? Zero time spent on testing so you can focus on the core application logic, get feedback faster from customers, and deliver the software quickly.

To know more about Keploy: https://keploy.io

Conclusion:

Rapid Application Development isn’t just a tech term—it’s a mindset.

Instead of waiting for the perfect plan, RAD encourages you to start building, get feedback, and improve as you go. That’s how some of the best apps and tools in the world are made today.

So the next time you get an idea for an app or website, don’t wait. Open your laptop, sketch a quick plan, and start prototyping. Who knows? You might just build something amazing the RAD way. Start building something cool. It doesn’t have to be perfect on day one.

That’s the whole idea of RAD: Make it real → Make it better → Keep going

FAQ:

1. How is RAD different from other methods?

As we know RAD focuses on speed, prototyping, and user feedback. It avoids long planning phases and builds real working versions fast unlike Waterfall, which is slow and rigid.

2. Are RAD and Agile the same?

Not exactly. Agile is a broad approach or philosophy. RAD is a specific method that fits within Agile principles (like fast delivery and feedback).

3. Is RAD good for beginners or students?

Absolutely! It encourages experimentation, learning by doing, and quick results. Perfect for class projects, startups, or learning app development.

4. What if my app keeps changing is that bad?

Not at all. In RAD, change is part of the process. You’re expected to tweak, fix, and even restart if needed. As long as you’re improving with each version, you're doing it right. RAD loves change it’s how good ideas become great ones.

5. Is Keploy free to use?

Yes, Keploy is 100% free to use. You can use Keploy to create test cases for your application in days instead of weeks or months.

#testing #unit testing #e2e #ai tools #code coverage

0 notes

meda-cat · 10 months ago

Text

Lost files and the future of my online creative endeavors

Morning, gamers. Yesterday I was devastated to learn that over 20 years worth of my art projects, music projects, YouTube videos, writing, journaling, photos, videos, and more, were lost to a hard drive malfunction. I am in the process of finding out if I can restore even some of the files, but until then, we have to assume they’re gone forever.

A good handful of those files were works in progress for things like upcoming music albums and YouTube videos. This is an enormous setback for me as the projects I was so excited to share in the near future now have to be scrapped completely or I must start over from scratch. It’s incredibly frustrating as I put in a lot of time and effort into these projects and some of them were near completion.

So what does this mean for me, for my online presence, and for future creative projects?

Well, on a personal level, this experience was a huge wake up call for me. I need to learn to back up my files and not rely solely on physical hardware to store things on. I was born in the 90’s, so suffice to say I’m a little old school when it comes to computers. I don’t enjoy using or paying for cloud services and I don’t trust that they’ll be able to keep my numerous files safe and secure. But I might just have to get over myself and use a cloud service to back up my files so that this doesn’t happen again in the future.

On an artistic level, this experience made me want to double down and work even harder to establish myself as an online artist and creator. No more switching back and forth between projects, leaving most of them unfinished. I want them to be finished and ready to be shared with the World Wide Web, where they will (hopefully) be preserved for as long as the internet continues to exist.

I will be more active online than ever before, posting WIPs and sharing my creative process with you guys. I’ll start posting on YouTube again, and I’m even considering making a Neocities website as a sort of headquarters for all my projects (all that html and css coding I learned from Neopets will finally be put to good use!)

Though this has been a devastating blow to my creative journey, this has also given me a chance to start over. I have been slacking in my creative works over the last several years and I think this was the push I needed to start taking it more seriously.

So expect to see a lot more of me in the upcoming years. Because I didn’t come all this way in my creative journey just to give up now.

#blog #update

0 notes

xpc-web-dev · 2 years ago

Text

Websites to practice Front-End

(22/02/2023)

Today I wanted to share websites to practice your frontend skills.

Front-end is complicated for my head (ask me to solve an algorithm with structure while but not to center a div HUEHHUE).

BUT at the same time I love a well done and coded design/ui. That's why today I want to share resources to help you train

1- Front-End Practice

They have 3 levels, beginner, intermediate and advanced. There's no "answer" so you can't copy the code, it's just you trial and error until you get to the template (which really is a website that exists)

One thing I thought was really cool here was that it tells you what you're going to practice the most in the exercise, color palette and search features.

It's very interesting for a front-end not to be dependent on a tutorial, because from what I've seen in interviews, they ask you to make a layout and you won't be able to make one yourself if you don't learn to break down a single layout from the beginning and try and making mistakes until it's perfect.

2- DevChallenges

I find the projects not only beautiful visually but also interesting to practice. Here you already have the solutions that other people recommend, but again I think it's best for us to try and make mistakes until we get similar.And it also sorts the levels.

Here an example:

Cool huh? Well, I hope this helps someone who is looking for projects to practice with. We can invest a lot of time trying to make a layout, so having something ready I know helps a lot.

I wish you good studies and a great Wednesday, drink water.

#front end #frontenddevelopment #html css #html5 #full stack developer #static website design tools #css3 #javascript #reactjs #software engineer #practice #studyblr #studyblog #codeblr #resour #study tips

306 notes · View notes

franklyshipping · 3 years ago

Text

In Space With Markiplier - Website De-Coded!

HELLO EVERYONE! Once again I have foregone sleep because, like when I went through all the routes and ending of In Space With Markiplier, I have been OBSESSED with the coded website associated with the series and have been working on decoding the site, as well as the cipher as a whole! So if you don’t want to know any of this then do not read on!

To those who do! Here are all my findings and decoding of the website to the best of my ability! Let’s do this!

Website URL: https://www.universalstabilityagency.space/

Password: THE UNIVERSE IS LITTERED WITH THE CORPSES OF YOUR FAILURES

The message that comes up when you type in the password is as follows:

!!ALERT!!

AN EMERGENCY EVACUATION IS IN EFFECT. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. IF YOU ARE READING YOU MUST EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY. DO NOT FOLLOW SHUTDOWN PROCEDURE. DO NOT TAKE YOUR PERSONAL BELONGINGS. DO NOT WAIT. LEAVE IMMEDIATELY.

ADDITIONAL IMFORMATION WILL BE DISSEMINATED PENDING SUCCESSFUL EVACUATION. ANYONE WHO DOES NOT EVACUATE IN TIME WILL BE LEFT BEHIND. THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING.

Then the following message then appears (click on this message to enter the website homepage):

SOMETHING WENT WRONG?

Now, onto the homepage of the site itself!

Website Homepage

Main statement: Welcome back Agent Apless.

Top far right link: LOG-OUT

Bottom link 1: DEPARTMENTS

Bottom link 2: AGENCYDIRECTORY

Bottom link 3: HELPCENTER

Bottom link 4: INHUMANRESOURCES

Bottom link 5: REVIEWS

Bottom link 6: LEGAL

Bottom link 7: DON’TPUSH

- The AD at the bottom of this page has two coded portions, the one on the left translates to ‘DO THEY THINK YOUR STUPID?’ and the two on the right translate to ‘HUMANS ARE REAL!’ and ‘become a member today’ – Clicking on any of it just brings you back to the top of the homepage.

- The links SCHEDULE, EATS, PARA.DOCS, MESSAGES, DEPARTMENTS, AGENCYDIRECTORY, HELPCENTER, INHUMANRESOURCES, REVIEWS and LEGAL all lead to the following message:

ERROR 404

The page you’re trying to access doesn’t seem to exist. The most likely answer for this is that you entered an incorrect url, the less likely answer is that the universe is in a paradoxical state and trying to reboot itself causing some things to act erratically [but that would be absurd! so it’s probably just the incorrect url thing].

- The links CASEDIRECTORY, LOG-OUT and DON’TPUSH are the only exceptions so far, but I’m going to leave CASEDIRECTORY until the end because it’s a friggin long one!

Clicking LOG-OUT leads to the following message (also when you’re on this page the top-right link changes to say LOG-IN and takes you back to the homepage):

YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY SIGNED OUT OF YOUR ACCOUNT!

Be sure to get a good night’s rest and come back ready to stabilise the universe tomorrow!

Clicking DON’TPUSH leads to the following message:

You have failed this test created by the Universal Stability Agency.

As stated in sect. 438382533 of your agent contract

$0013604

deducted from your next payMENT.

And remember rules are what keep the universe stable.

- Clicking CASEDIRECTORY takes you to a page with an alphabetised system of… some random crap, but also some references and links! Everything is clickable, though most send you to the aforementioned ERROR 404 page. There are some that don’t though, and I’ll get to those at the end!

- Firstly there are two ads on this page with lil snippets that require translation – both ads appear on the right side of the page as you scroll down. The first ad has a message that translates to ‘Click Here!’ whilst the second ad’s message translates to ‘Learn More!’ – Clicking on either of these ads doesn’t take you anywhere.

Now, let’s roll this massive list!

· Alien

· Alliance

The

· Asshat, The.

· Baboonies

· Bangers,

Oops Al

· Banner Born,

The

· Butterfly

Soldiers,

The

· Captain,

The

· Corn

· D

· Dude, The

· Everyone

Else

· Founders,

The

· Farum Azula

· Gruntilda

· Harold

Potter

· Illinois

· Invincible

Syndicate,

The

· Izzyor,

Iznty

· Jackson 5, The

· Jackson, Michael

· Jackson, I’m Sorry

Miss

· Karen, 6803

· Karen 6804

· Karen 6809

· Karen 6815

· Karen 6816

o Karen Archive

· Killeidoscope, The

· Kringle, Kris

· Lunky

· Man, Drowned

· Moriarty

· Moses, Norbert

· Nebuchadnezzar

· NoN

· Oracle, The

· Pantheon, Greek

· Pantheon, Roman

· Picks, Richard

· Purple Guy

· R. Rad

· Subtitle

#1, James

Charles

· Sync, N

· Terror,

Freya The

· Ulookitup,

Made

· Underdweller

The

· Valentine,

Vincent

· Wal-World

· World Wide

Web

· Warfstache,

Wilford

· Wu Tang

Clan.

· Xenophobes

· Youtube

· Yoloswag,

Hashtag

· Zenon

- Only THREE of the things in this massive list link to something other than the 404 page, and those things are ‘Invincible Syndicate, The’, ‘Man, Drowned’ and ‘Picks, Richard.

Invincible Syndicate, The

Clicking here takes you to a page entitled INVINCIBLE SYNDICATE. Below this text is a picture of the spaceship within a wormhole, with a caption underneath that translates to ‘Last known image of the spacecraft the Invincible II’. Below this are three links which translate to (going left to right) SUSPECTS, LOGS and EVIDENCE. LOGS and EVIDENCE lead to the ERROR 404 page, whereas clicking SUSPECTS takes you to a new page. This page has the title THE INVINCIBLE II syndicate, and then a series of images. These images either depict crew members, or an image with text that translates to PHOTO DOESN’T EXIST. Some of these images are clickable and lead to messages, which I shall go ahead and translate forthwith!

Image 1 (Faceless person with a cracked effect)

ALLEGED CAPTAIN

Being of otherworldly beauty and/or handsomeness. Great decision making.

Image 2 (To the right of Image 1)

Half cyborg, half piracy. Objects disappear upon arrival. Unauthorised use of Void.

Image 3 (Pam’s character)

Appears to be made of ice. Two sets of eyes, both for science. Secondary personality around MARK.

Image 4 (Eyepatch guy facing left)

fleshy combustion vessel with firearm appendages, trails exhaust fumes, shoots objects to submission

Image 5 (Matpat’s character)

Theoretical physicist, member of crew. No proof of work, just a theory.

Image 6 (To immediate right of Image 5)

Humanoid, mouthmeat in an upturn to signify a joyous nature. Upturn never ceases.

Image 7 (Two to the right of Image 6)

Multiversal being of sexuality and prominent arousal. Direct eye contact leads to procreation.

Image 8 (Guy with bandaged head and neck brace)

Tri-pedal humanoid, wrapped and bound to keep flavorful meats, presumably?

Man, Drowned

Clicking here takes you to an upload of Mark’s from some years ago, entitled “The Drowned Man – Chapter 1”, specifically to the timestamp of 13:47 where Wade is talking about the weirdness associated with the leaks he experienced in his house at this time.

Picks, Richard

Clicking here takes you to a page with the initial text of ‘RICHARD “The Unsolicited” PICKS’, underneath whi chis the rather glorious image of some kind of mechanical phallic… thing. At the bottom left of the image is some text, which translates to – ‘NAME: Picks, Richard’, ‘STARCRAFT: Class-H Orbital Defense Enforcer’. ALSO! When you click on the image it expands a little, and there is a secret additional message at the bottom that translates to ‘LasT known StarCrafT of The UnsoliciTed’. Then, underneath the image is a caption which translates to ‘Last known StarCraft of the Unsolicited’.

- WHEW! As of the 26th of April 2022 that is everything that is available on the website that I know of! There might be some extra secret hidden things in there that I haven’t noticed, maybe some clues to future puzzles with how certain things have alternating capital and lowercase letters, honestly I don’t know! I have a pretty much FULLY completed translation of the cipher, except from the lowercase “q” and the number “7” which honestly is super irritating, so if anyone else has those then I would be so grateful! I’ll attach images of my translation of the cipher here!

I hope people like this because honestly I’ve had some much fun with all this decoding stuff, like when I went through all the routes and stuff! WOOHOO BRING ON MAY 2ND... okay I’m going to sleep now 😆💜

#markiplier #iswm #in space with markiplier #iswm website #in space with markiplier website #website decoded #decoded #cipher #spoliers #iswm spoliers

29 notes · View notes

aeonmagnus · 4 years ago

Photo

Happy 20th Anniversary Robots In Disguise!

This year, and today in particular, marks the 20-year anniversary of Transformers Robots in Disguise airing in the United States. This was the official English language dub of the Japanese show Transformers Car Robots, which aired in Japan the year before. This show and it’s accompanying toy line were a big shift in the Transformers brand and affected how things moved forward in the new millennium. It was also a big influence on me and this website in it’s early years, so both the brand and TFW2005 may not be what it is today without it.

We hope you will read on after the break to check out our celebration of Robots in Disguise on it’s 20th!

Intro

The following is not a comprehensive article on the show proper, but rather a trip down memory lane from my personal perspective. It was a period of change in my life, in the fandom, in the brand, and in the world – all happening at once. Robots in Disguise was smack dab in the middle of it all and I think that’s why it still resonates with me all these years later. For a deeper dive into the world of Robots In Disguise you can check RIDForever.info, a site I maintain just about RID and Car Robots. The 2021 updates are here, and the 2017 round of updates are here. I’d also suggest checking the TFWe issue all about RID over on the 2005 Boards. Now, onto today’s festivities…

The Show

RID, and yes I say RID as if it is the only RID. If you must reference that other RID show and it’s off-shoots, refer to it as RID 201x, thanks. 😊 RID aired during the Fox Kids programming block on a Saturday morning, with additional episodes set to air each weekday during the afternoon hours. Instead of stretching the show out over the course of 30+ weeks with only a new ep each weekend, they were going to blaze through it non-stop. By the end of the first week, we would have been 7 eps in. That however hit a big roadblock due to 9/11 just three days later. While some local markets did air the episodes, many larger city networks, and especially east coast markets, stuck with news coverage. Many of us did not catch the early episodes on TV the first go around. In addition, several of the episodes got pulled from TV due to depictions of buildings being destroyed and other similar visuals which understandably could upset children that just experienced 9/11. So right off the bat, the new millennium and new era of Transformers were dealing with a new reality.

The show, for those that don’t know – was a weird one-off in Transformers history. We had G1 and then the G2 remixes for a bit. Beast Wars came on the scene and ran all the way through 2000 with it’s successor – Beast Machines. During the Beast Wars era – Japan did a couple of their own Beast Wars shows, non-CGI extensions of what we saw in the US. Their market wasn’t quite ready for full CGI so they stuck with traditional anime. When Hasbro decided to continue Beast Wars into Beast Machines, Takara went a completely different way – a traditional animated show which brought back Autobots and “Decepticons”, mixing them in with the beasts. They focused the toys on a couple new and complex molds, then filled the rest of the line with repaints of previous toys. Old 2nd tier Beast Wars toys, G2 Laser Prime, and even some Generation 1 molds in the form of the Combaticons got new life as new characters in this show, capped with the biggest TF of them all at the time – a repainted G1 Fortress Maximus, now Brave Maximus. It was the prototype for what the Transformers brand did for years to come – repainting old toys into new characters. Universe, Classics, Botcon, and even some Generations runs used this method to give us some great toys in the 00s.

While there is a very complicated and long explanation for how every single Japanese show is one continuity, to someone casually starting with Car Robots it was a refresh, a new story, a new arrival on Earth. The Autobots vs the Predacons, and eventually the Combatrons/Decepticons. It was a hard cut from the last 5 years or so of CGI Beasts. Hand drawn traditional animation featuring vehicle Transformers. It wasn’t G1, but many of the folks who grew up with G1 were just getting out of college around this time. They were rediscovering their childhood love of Transformers through Beast Wars, flea market finds, raids on their parents’ attics and basements, and for the internet savvy – imports of Japanese reissues from Takara. It was a perfect storm of nostalgia; a return to Autobots and Decepticons was welcomed by kids and adults alike.

RID and TFW2005

In the years leading up to Car Robots, I was just getting into the internet, coding, design, some digital music, and all the possibility that came with it. Beast Wars, especially when it hit Season 2/3 and the inclusion of G1 lore, really got me focusing on Transformers again as a hobby. I eventually combined the two newfound hobbies into one and Transformer World 2005 was born. At no point did I ever think it would last 20+ years and take over my life in the way it did. I started the full version of TFW2005 around April 2000, with some starts and stops before that. That was right around when Car Robots started airing in Japan. Through the magic of 56k internet, I was able to connect with folks in Japan and get them to send me VHS tapes of Car Robots. Really nice, high-quality tapes too, I still have them hehe. To the younglings reading – try to picture this: no youtube, no video sharing. The concept of streaming anything did not exist yet. Napster and the eventual peer to peer stuff hadn’t fully kicked off. Plus, we were all viewing the internet on giant computers in our rooms at the speed of 1x on your phone. Less than 1 bar 3G mobile speeds today.

Yes, someone recorded episodes from TV to video tape over there, did that a couple weeks at a time, then physically mailed them across the world to me, who then got them on the internet. Can you imagine waiting weeks to watch an episode of TV the size of a twitter profile avatar? Crazy. Uploading a full episode to the internet was a big pain in the ass, not easily done. I decided to get a converter that allowed me to plug my VCR into the computer and encode the tape into digital format. From there, it was reduced using Microsoft’s WMV technology so that the episodes were about 5 MB each. 30 minute episodes at 5MB each. Dimensions – 176 x 144 pixels. 4k video today – 3840 x 2160 pixels. You can imagine that video looked like crap. But we didn’t care – we were blown away. Old school animation, vehicles, some cool Japanese anime vibes, it was what we as G1 fans kinda had in the back of our heads on what Transformers should be in a new era, and we were seeing it. Most of us had no clue what they were saying or what was going on. Also didn’t care. I still to this day think CR/RID is better like that.

So one of the first things TFW2005 did on the internet was provide these super small windows into Car Robots and what was going on in Japan. It helped get US fans hyped up for what Transformers could be. It got us wanting the toys, and importers bringing the Takara toy line over were moving serious product. It helped swing Hasbro, who was planning to return to Autobots and Decepticons again down the road, to move that schedule up. Instead of running Beast Machines until 2002 and then starting what we now know as the Unicron Trilogy, it was cut short. Robots in Disguise as a toy line and show came over in 2001, ran fast and hard for a year with non stop releases, got extended because it did so well, and then faded into the Universe line of repaints. The new millennium of Transformers was here and Robot In Disguise kicked it off with a bang.

Wrap Up

As we all continue with collecting Transformers now, regardless if you tagged into the fandom during G1, Beasties, the Unicron Trilogy, the Movies, or just yesterday – let’s take the time to give Car Robots and RID some props! It set the tone for what the new millennium of the brand would be. It gave us some toys ahead of their time. It solidified the repaint as an accepted thing in the hobby. And it gave us one crazy 39 episode run of TV that’s still a fun ride 20 years later.

For those that would like to learn more about RID and Car Robots – I still maintain a Robots in Disguise website that archives everything I have or came across. There is a lot there if you want to go on a tour of all the awesome Car Robots and Robots In Disguise era stuff. Check it out at RIDFOREVER.INFO! FIYAH!

Let us know what you think and remember from the good old days of RID on the 2005 Boards here!

Epilogue

If someone over there at Hasbro is reading – can someone please figure out who owns the rights to the show in the US market and then get it out on DVD in full, finally? Work all that funky licensing stuff out (if there is any) and get it done. The US has never had access to it via an official release. Maybe get it up on YouTube like G1? Something. Announcing plans for that before the end of 2021 would be a nice 20th anniversary tribute.

#Transformers #Transformers: Robots in Disguise #20th Anniversary #Robots in Disguise #Optimus Prime #Megatron #Car Robots #Transformers: Car Robots

57 notes · View notes

luqmannaik · 3 years ago

Text

How college students can earn money online in 2022?

A long story everyone in this world can earn money if he makes his mindset to earn money. There are crores of college who are making lakhs of rupees while studying in college by making the mindset to earn through a high paying skill.

If you also want to earn lakhs and crores you will have to first learn the high-paying skills otherwise you will earn money but the not decent amount will come in your pocket because you don’t have a skill.

Don’t worry I 4 some skills for you to earn money while being a student.

Freelancing

I am 100% sure you have to listen to this word “freelancing” somewhere or might someone have told you to start freelancing.

But Freelancing is a very big industry and because of that, you will have to pick one niche in this industry to be a specialist and not a journalist and to earn lakhs. Here are a few niches you can work in as a college student.

Programming: You don’t have to be an expert in programming to make money online as a student. You can code and write programs that will help you create apps. Later, you can monetize them depending upon the downloads.

Web development: You can learn Javascript, PHP, etc to develop websites from scratch. Again, there’s a lot of demand for people who develop sites.

Writing: Everyone with limited writing skills can start making money. There are a lot of writing gigs available online including Fiverr, oDesk, etc.

Data entry: Data entry is another big area where more and more people are now jumping in to make money online. I’ll talk about more on this later in the same post.

These 4 freelancing skills are very high-in-demand skills in the market and can make you millionaire in your college itself.

2. Create a niche site

I don’t know whether you are ready for making niche sites and making money from them or not but they are one of the easiest and fastest ways to make money online.

If you are a beginner and searching for online jobs as students, I’d highly recommend you to create your own niche site.

Here are few niche site ideas that are evergreen and can help you make money even after 5 to 10 years.

Fitness: Almost everyone wants to reduce their body weight, get slim, decrease belly fat, etc. There never-ending for this problem. So what can you do? You can start a fitness niche blog, start writing blog posts, get more traffic, recommend products that are related to fitness and start making money.

Smartphones: Smartphones, tablets, and mobiles are getting popular. Almost everyone has a smartphone and 90% of the people who own smartphones upgrade to better models within a year. This is a HUGE opportunity for niche site bloggers. They can start talking about the latest smartphones, and provide reviews and discounts to make more sales. And the earnings are really huge!

Book reviews: Are you a book lover who loves to read a lot of books? Then, you should consider creating a blog around it and sharing detailed book reviews. Make sure to use the affiliate links from Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, etc for the books you recommend to start making money.

And there are many more niche site ideas to consider. You just need to be patient and think about the latest trends in the industry to start making money.

3. Blogging

More and more people are now jumping into blogging because of one reason: blogging is one of the best ways to make passive income. That means you don’t have to work each and every day to make money online if you set up a profitable blog.

Although blogging is not a get rich quick scheme, but you can make really good money each month by providing different services, selling products and writing paid reviews etc.

The money you make from blogging depends on various factors like branding, content, promotion tactics etc. You can’t make money blogging if you don’t know how to sell your stuff. So make sure to learn how to sell stuff online without looking like a sales guy.

4. YouTube

Have you lately observed the new popular trend on YouTube? More and more people are now jumping into video marketing and making new videos. Do you know why? It’s because you can make money by posting videos on YouTube!

It doesn’t matter what topic your videos are related to. From cooking to shooting your own bike riding videos, you can make money from YouTube. You just need to create your own YouTube channel (it’s free), you just need Gmail account to start!

And you can start making your own videos to get more views on YouTube. So how can you make money by posting new videos on YouTube, you may ask.

Once you generate more likes and views on your YouTube videos, you can start getting paid $1 to $2 for every 1000 views you get. Let’s say if you get 1 million views on any of your YouTube videos, you will earn something close to $1000 to $2000 easily! Click on this if you want to know more about how you can earn money online.

2 notes · View notes

myofficelife · 3 years ago

Text

How anyone can prepare for the first day of the internship? Everyone is always so anxious about their first day of internship or job. Because it's a new phase of life. And being a little bit anxious is normal. But don't get too anxious. I have some tips to kick start your first internship with confidence.

This is a great question. The first thing I would say is not to stress! You were hired for a reason so your skills is probably quite solid and a huge part of an internship is learning, so expect your boss and other company peers to help fill in the other gaps.

As far as how to prepare, there is a lot you can do:

1.) Read up about your news channel in the press and on their websites. Try to get a feel for their culture, big product focus, what milestones they have hit and what they were excited enough about to share in the press. Having a basic understanding of the channel will help you understand internal conversations and lingo more quickly.

2.) Read newspapers and blogs to be up to date. In an area Having a feel for the competitors in the space and being up to date on the hot topics surrounding the channel helps you look more informed and allows you to fit in more easily.

3.) Talk to peers and mentors who have been through a similar situation. Ask friends what the hardest part of their internship was, ask mentors or professors what they think you should try to get out of your internship. The more professional conversations you have now the better prepared you will be for having them at your internship.

4.) Relax and enjoy yourself. Being an intern can and should be hard work, but it will also be an enourmous amount of fun. You will be in a new professional environment, learning a ton of new skills and meeting lots of other talented people. This is going to be an exciting opportunity and you should look to overachieve in your internship. So leading up to it you should try your hardest to relax and get ready for a fun work filled fall.

5.)Make sure you are aware of a few things before your first day namely the exact time you are expected to reach there, any dress code that you need to adhere to and your first point of contact. It's a good idea to get an overall sense of how your internship is going to be like on the very first day itself. That might require asking questions along the lines of:

6.)Are there fixed working hours? If the company follows a flexible policy, then what are the working hour's?

7.)Try to know about the organizational hierarchy and the norms followed for salutations. There are some offices where calling your seniors "Sir" or "Madam" is an absolute necessity whereas in some places, first name would suffice. Clearing your doubts on this issue would save you from potentially embarrassing situations!

8.) What kinds of projects have the previous interns done? This would again, give you an idea of what to expect in terms of complexity and scale of the project you would be undertaking very soon.

9.)On a lighter note, if you have moved to a new city for your internship, you can ask a ton of questions regarding good places to eat, nearby shopping malls and multiplexes, affordable PG accommodations etc.

10.) Be confident and relaxed you got this!

This is my first trip coming back home from the office. It was a good first-day experience.🌸

#aesthetic #writing #intership #great experience

3 notes · View notes

sheerfreesia007 · 4 years ago

Text

Finding Love In Legacy Oaks pt. 11

Title: Finding Love In Legacy Oaks pt. 11

Fandom: Kingsman

Pairing: Agent Whiskey x OFC

Author: @sheerfreesia007

Words: 7,484

Warnings: Mention of injury

Permanent Tag List: @paintballkid711, @fioccodineveautunnale, @phoenixhalliwell, @linkpk88, @weirdowithnobeardo

Author Notes: So Bunny’s life isn’t all rainbow and sunshine, I’m just trying to write relatable things into this story and loved the idea of this happening to Bunny. There’s a method to madness for putting Bunny through a little bit of pain. Jack opens up a little bit about his family finally! We get a bit of family history from both Bunny and Jack. I can’t wait to show you how I draw these two idiots closer together! Hope you enjoy!

Gif Credit: Google

Blinking her eyes rapidly Bunny sighed softly and rubbed at them feeling how strained and tired they were. Quickly saving her work on her laptop she closes down the web design program and powers down her laptop closing the lid. She turns in her desk chair and spots Butter sleeping in the plush dog bed that she keeps in her office, his tongue as always hanging out of his mouth as he lays on his back with his feet in the air. She chuckled softly, shaking her head as she heard him snore loudly from his comfortable spot. Just then her cellphone began ringing and she saw that Jack was calling her. Furrowing her eyebrows she answered the call and pressed the phone to her ear.

“Hey Jack, everything alright?” she greeted him and heard his soft warm chuckle on the other side of the phone.

“Hey Bunny, everything’s good. Just got a few moments to kill, you got time to just chat?” he asks warmly and Bunny can feel a warmth start to develop in her chest at the idea that he just wanted to call her to talk. Brining one foot up to rest on the desk chair she leans back and gets comfortable in the chair.

“Of course, you’ve got impeccable timing Jack.” Bunny replied with a soft chuckle.

“Work dragging you down?” he asked curiously and Bunny could hear shifting in the background on his end of the call, he was probably getting comfortable himself.

“Not dragging me down, but I’ve been staring at my laptop screen for the last few hours and it’s starting to do a number on my eyes. Thankfully I was able to get a good chunk of this project planned and mapped out.” She explained easily as she snuggled further into her desk feeling the cushions sink and surround her.

“Does that normally take a long time to get done?” Jack asks and Bunny is was pleasantly surprised at his questions, normally people didn’t really care to learn about the process of designing a website.

“Depending on what the client actually wants it could take a few hours to code the links and pages to open the right way. But normally it takes about half a day to plan and map out the website.” Bunny explained in layman terms so that she wouldn’t confuse him.

“And what’s the next step after that?” Jack asked curiously. Bunny smiled as she thought about the next part of the project that she would have to work on, it was her favorite part.

“Designing the face of the website. See the planning and mapping of the website is the background work, it’s how the website is coded to work. If you click on a link and it brings you to another page that’s the mapping part of it. The design is how it looks to the client. I can make it look a certain way based on what the client has requested.” Bunny explained passionately as she started getting even more comfortable in the conversation about her work.

“What was the most outlandish website you’ve been asked to design?” Jack asks with a soft chuckle and Bunny sits for a minute to think.

“I had a client come to me and request a website be made for his young daughter. Apparently she wanted a place to be able to post all about her latest obsessions. But there was no rhyme or reason to the website, random music played on different pages and the mouse would be different shapes for different pages. And it would randomly have sparkles falling like snow on the pages. Think of that Myspace era and dial it up to thousand percent. That project gave me so many headaches I think I invested in the aspirin companies.” Bunny explained with a groan and Jack laughed loudly on the other end of the phone call.

“Oh goodness, I remember those fads. They were horrible now that we’re well past them. I’m lucky that Es wasn’t old enough for that back then otherwise I’d be tortured by all of that. What was your favorite website design?” he said as he still chuckled.

“Oh yeah she’d have loved all of that stuff. What with her love of sparkle I’m surprised she hasn’t gotten you just let her glitter her whole room.” Bunny laughed happily and Jack scoffed softly.

“Don’t you dare give her that idea! She’s already tried to convince me to let her get more sparkly items for her room. I think my eyes are constantly blinded whenever I have to walk into or even past it. Bunny, too much sparkle.” Jack bemoaned to her and Bunny burst into laughter.

“Alright, alright I won’t mention glitter to her.” Bunny conceded as she laughed delightedly. She grinned as a lull in the conversation happened naturally and they both calmed a little.

“So favorite project?” Jack asked again. And Bunny grinned as she remembered her favorite project that she worked on.

“I have an annual client who comes to me to design her family reunion website. Nice elderly lady with a very large family, I’m talking like the last reunion two years ago had I think twenty grandkids. She normally contacts me in the beginning of spring to start designing the website so that it’s ready for early summer and their reunion is towards the end of the summer. It’s a week-long event for them where they go to the family lake cabin and just spend the week doing boating activities, there’s competitions between each branch of the family and there’s nightly outdoor movies and bonfires. It’s a lovely affair and all their pictures are so funny to see when she sends them to me to place on the website. It’s my favorite project because she’s such a sweet woman and I love listening to all her stories she tells me.” Bunny said warmly as she leaned further into her desk fondly remembering all the conversations she’s had with the woman.

“Have you ever met her in person?” Jack asks curiously and Bunny’s smile falters a little bit. “I only ask because you sound like she’s gotten close to you after being a client for a while.”

“Yes, I’ve worked with her for about five years now and have met with her in person every year while working with her on the websites. We usually go out to a long lunch and just spend the day talking about life and how we’ve been and also about the project. She’s truly a wonderful woman and she’s become kind of like a surrogate mom to me since mine lives so far away. But her family reunions are always fun to hear about and all the crazy adventures they get into.” Bunny says wistfully.

“You like the outdoors Bunny?” Jack asked warmly and Bunny grins widely at the question.

“I do, my family was always big on camping when I was growing up and while I don’t get to go as much now I still love to go camping and hiking. Butter and I have done a few mountain hiking trails together.” Bunny said fondly as she remembers her adventures with Butter.

“No way! Butter can hike? I’m surprised that little sausage roll can make it up your steps every day.” Jack teases and Bunny laughs into the phone.

“It’s all fur, don't let that fiend fool you.” Bunny said in a quiet confession and Jack laughed happily.

“Do you like outdoor activities?” Bunny asked curiously and Jack’s laughter faded in her ear.

“I do but it’s a little different than your idea of outdoors. My family back in Kentucky owns a large farm and I grew up there. Worked on the farm until I went to college and whenever I had a break I would come back home and help out when I could. Unfortunately when I started my career in security I wasn’t able to come home as often and help out. But the family still has the farm and it’s prospering so they’re all doing well for themselves.” Jack explained easily and Bunny nodded her head loving that he was actually sharing some information about himself with her. “We used to go out into the pasture a lot during the summers and sleep under the stars with a small campfire. It’s one of my favorite memories about the farm and my siblings.” Jack confessed warmly and Bunny felt that warmth that had started to grow in her chest began to spread and consume her body as she listened to Jack talk about his family’s farm.

“Do you have a lot of siblings?” Bunny asked, wanting to keep the conversation going and gather as much information about Jack as she was able to. He was still a mystery to her and while she knew he was a good man and cared greatly for his daughter she still didn’t know much about him. She wanted to begin a friendship that could hopefully turn into something so much more. And while they had begun flirting and teasing each other Bunny was ready to wait to see how this relationship blossomed. After the hell that she had been put through by her ex-husband Bunny was more than happy to wait and see how a relationship now panned out.

“I’ve got two sisters, one older that’s Rebecca or Becca. She's I think a year or two older than me. Then there’s Amelia, she’s the younger one, she’s five years younger. And finally there’s the baby of the family Will, he’s the youngest but don’t tell him that sometimes he acts like the oldest out of the four of us.” Jack replied easily and Bunny could hear the affection full in his tone over the phone. She could easily tell that he loved and cared deeply for his siblings. She smiled softly as she nodded her head. “What about you? Is it just you and your sister?” Jack asked.

“Actually I’ve got three siblings. There’s Sasha that you know about, she was adopted when I was eight and she’s two years younger than me, she’s the only one of us who’s got kids. Then there’s Jake, he was adopted when I was eleven he’s three years younger. And Freddie is five years younger than me and he was adopted when I was sixteen.” Bunny said smiling as she thought back to when her siblings were adopted and the parties that were thrown.

“So you’ve been through the adoption process?” Jack asks curiously and Bunny has to stomp down the urge and desire to be Esme’s mom that she had the other night at the sleepover.

“Yeah it was a bit hectic as a kid because my parents fostered a lot of kids while growing up and it was both good and bad. The kids that we were fostering, some had some serious mental health issues, like Sasha she has horrendous panic attacks and anxiety attacks all throughout her foster life with us. She still gets it sometimes but they’re not as severe she’s told me. And Freddie has bipolar disorder that he’s managing with a team of doctors, he’s got his good days and then he’s got some really bad days. I check up on him a couple times a month just to see how he’s doing and if he needs anything.” Bunny explained feeling a dull achy pain in her chest as she talked about her siblings’ mental issues. She hated seeing them troubled and if she could take away their pain she would in a heartbeat, Sasha and Freddie were the best type of people and the fact that they had to deal with these issues pained Bunny. She knew they were dealt a hard life but she hoped that by joining her family they had found some sort of peace, and while they had told her this before she hoped it was true.

“Wow, I didn’t realize that the foster kids your parents helped were dealing with those types of issues.” Jack said solemnly.

“Yeah there were others who needed more help than my parents could offer or give and those were the ones that were either placed with another foster family or the state government eventually took custody of them. They became a ward of the state.” Bunny explained softly.

“Well I’m hoping they got the necessary care they needed wherever they ended up.” Jack said in a calm, easing voice.

“I do too.” Bunny replied easily before her mind turned back to Esme once more and the sleepover fiasco was in the forefront of her brain again. “Hey while we’re talking about this stuff. I-uh wanted to let you know that Es had a run in with Cynthia and it wasn’t pretty.” Bunny began to explain. She took a breath in and heard absolute silence on the other end of the call and for a moment she thought the call had dropped. She began to move the phone away from her ear to check when she heard Jack’s deadly calm voice speak up.

“What did Cynthia do to Esme?” he asked in such a harsh cold tone that Bunny physically shivered in her seat.

“Es got caught up in all the excitement with the other girls at the sleepover and called me Mom in front of everyone. Cynthia heard and was a bit of a nasty witch to her and to be honest I can’t remember the exact words because I only saw red and ripped her a new one for her shit talking, but anyway she said something about needing to talk to you about her hanging out with me too much that she was thinking I was her mom.” Bunny explained in a rush as she felt the white hot blind rage she felt after Cynthia snapped at Esme.

“Easy Bunny, easy.” Jack said softly and Bunny took in a deep breath before letting it out slowly. “Es called you mom?” Jack asked quietly and Bunny felt her heart clench suddenly at his question.

“She did. And Jack I don’t mind one bit. She just got caught up in the chaotic energy the girls were causing and it was just a slip of the tongue. Honest.” Bunny said quickly to try and ease him if he was having second thoughts of her being around Esme so much. “And I talked to Es about it. Told her it’s no big deal and that I’d be lucky to have her as a kid. But I told her what Cynthia said was uncalled for and that she didn’t have to listen to her since she was mean to Es.”

Bunny felt uneasy as if she was rambling as she tried to explain to Jack what had happened the other night and as the silence fell over the phone conversation she felt her anxiety skyrocket inside her. She tried to wait patiently for Jack to say something but when he didn’t say anything after a while she sighed softly, figuring that he’d want to put a stop to them spending so much time together.

“I understand if you don’t want me watching her anymore or taking her to yoga.” Bunny said softly and dejectedly.

“Now hang on.” Jack said suddenly and confidently. “That’s not at all what I want.” Bunny heard his firm words and she felt hope unfurl in her chest making her breath catch silently. “You have been the best thing that has happened to both Esme and myself. You’ve helped me out so much with watching her for me. And Esme has had a rough time making friends in her new neighborhood and school but you’ve done wonders for her confidence that she now has a few friends. Bunny you not being in our lives is the last thing I would want.” Jack stated vehemently and Bunny felt tears prick at her eyes. “I’m more upset that Cynthia had the nerve to say something to Es about calling you mom. I can’t believe that woman.” He said honestly and Bunny sighed softly as she nodded her head.

“Yeah Cynthia I think has it in her head that the two of you are becoming a hot item.” Bunny said thoughtfully and Jack scoffed over the phone.

“She’s married Bunny.” Jack lamented softly to her and Bunny nodded her head at his words.

“I know that, but I don’t think she cares. Ever since I’ve met her she’s always been looking for the next best thing for herself.” Bunny said truthfully.

“She’s always been like this? It’s not just because of me?” Jack asked seriously and Bunny smirked softly, seeing an opportunity for her.

“You’re handsome Jack but you’re no Mark Strong.” Bunny teased him as she grinned widely.

“Oh ho! So you dig the older men huh Bunny?” Jack teased right back and Bunny blushed deeply.

“What can I say, he's dreamy.” Bunny said dismissively and Jack laughed softly.

“Well now I know who my competition is then.” Jack said sultrily and Bunny felt desire jolt down her spine making her gasp softly.

“C-competition?” she stuttered out softly before she heard muffled talking in the background on Jack’s end of the phone call. She could hear Jack responding to whoever was with him distantly as her mind began to race with the thought that Jack was competing for her affection.

“Hey listen Bunny I’ve got to get goin’. Thanks for taking my call and chattin’ with me. Tell Es I’ll give her a call at dinner time alright?” Jack said and Bunny let out her breath slowly through her nose.

“Yeah of course. I’ll let her know. I’ve gotta start getting ready to go get her from the bus stop anyway. We’ll talk to you then.” Bunny began to quickly ramble and she cringed softly as she heard his soft chuckle.

“And yes competition. Can’t let a Brit git one over the good ol’ American boy. Talk to you later Bunny.” Jack said in a low gravelly tone that made Bunny suddenly tense with arousal as she heard his tone and words. And then the line was hung up.

Huffing softly she slouched in her chair and pulled the phone from her ear slowly. Setting it down on the desk gently she turned and saw Butter was still passed out in his bed. Running a hand through her hair Bunny sighed softly.

“That man’s got a seductive tongue.” She said softly to the quiet office and Butter huffed in his sleep making her chuckle softly. “You said it Butter.”

*-*-*-*

As soon as Esme walked down the bus steps Bunny could tell that she was feeling down. Tilting her head to the side she watched as Esme walked down the sidewalk towards. The two older girls from the last bullying instance were walking behind her giggling and whispering to each other and Bunny felt rage rush her body with red hot anger. The girls looked up from Esme’s back and both instantly stopped talking as they spotted Bunny glaring at them.

“Girls.” Bunny said stiffly as Esme came to a stop next to her and the girls both gulped silently before one hesitantly let out a smile before the two made a dash for their houses. Bunny sighed softly and looked down at Esme who was dejectedly scuffing her sneakers on the sidewalk. “Bad day at school?” Bunny asked softly.

Esme shrugged her shoulders and continued to scuff her sneakers on the sidewalk. Butter looked up at Esme curiously before head-butting her calf with his head. Esme moved a little bit before stepping to the side to avoid Butter doing that again.

“Yep, bad day at school. Why don’t we go for a walk and if you wanna talk I’m all ears. If not, it's no big deal.” Bunny said softly as she looked down at Esme. Esme shrugged her shoulders once more and Bunny nodded her head before gently holding out her hand for Esme. The little girl took a hold of it after a moment's pause and Bunny began leading her and Butter towards the main park area of the community.

The three of them walked in silence and Bunny kept her head held high not wanting to constantly look down at Esme. She was worried it’d upset the little girl more if she constantly tried to check in with her. As the three of them finish crossing the street to the park area Esme starts to slowly perk up.

“Hey Bunny?” she asks suddenly and Bunny hides her smile as much as she possibly can and looks down at the little girl at her side.

“What’s up Es?” Bunny answers in a question and Esme smiles softly at her.

“Have you ever called someone Mom who wasn’t your mom?” Esme asks softly and Bunny nods her head adamantly.

“Oh yeah! So many women.” Bunny said with wide eyes and Esme giggled softly. “I’ve called a bunch of my teachers in school Mom. Let’s see who else, oh! I called Molly’s mom that once and she wouldn’t let me live it down. Wouldn’t stop insisting she was my mom now. And then there was that time that I accidentally called Mr. Quinten dad and it was a whole big thing with him.” Bunny confessed as she sighed and rolled her eyes. Esme giggled brightly as she walked next to Bunny as she began to skip alongside her. “Look Es, there’s nothing wrong with calling someone Mom. It happens all the time.” Bunny stressed earnestly as she stopped walking and bent down to Esme’s level.

“Really?” asked the little girl as she looked at Bunny with a lost expression on her face.

“Yep. Sometimes we just forget where we are and the name just comes out. Other times we see the person we called Mom as a mother figure. It just means that you see that person as someone who you can trust and go to for anything. And I’ll let you in on a secret, come here.” Bunny said surreptitiously as she gestured Esme closer to her. “It means so much to me that you could think of me like that. And I will do my best to be there for you no matter what, understand? You’re stuck with me kiddo.” She said fondly as she nudged Esme under her chin making her giggle. Just then Esme launched herself against Bunny and Bunny caught her easily in her arms holding her close to her.

“Thanks Bunny.” Esme whispered softly.

“Any time kiddo. Any time.” Bunny said softly into the little girl’s hair. “Now what do you say to go for a walk and just hang out before we crack down on homework and then dinner?” Bunny asked hopefully that the little girl was feeling a little bit better.

“Yeah! Oh can we roll down that hill over there?” Esme asked, suddenly excited as she pointed to the medium sized hill that obscured the soccer field from view. Bunny shrugged her shoulders before grinning at Esme and taking off with Butter running besides her.

“Beat you to the top!” Bunny called and Esme shrieked with indignation as she began running as quickly as her little legs could carry her after Bunny.

“You cheated!” Esme cried as she began chasing after Bunny.

“Only if I win!” Bunny called over her shoulder laughing heartily before she began huffing dramatically as Esme caught up to her. Esme giggled as Butter barked chaotically at Bunny’s side as if he was trying to get her to pick up her pace. Once Bunny saw Esme pass her she began to overtly huff and puff as she chased the little girl up the hill.

“I win!” called Esme and began to dance in celebration as she reached the top before Bunny. Bunny made a show of bending over and gasping for breath which made Esme laugh harder. Butter hopped around Bunny barking at her and Bunny laughed softly at the dog as he did his best impression of an angry coach. “Ok, ok. Let’s do this!” cried Esme happily as she threw her back pack to the ground and began to lower herself down to the ground at the top of the hill.

“Alright you go first and then when you come up I’ll go.” Bunny instructed and Esme looked up at her gleefully. “What? You thought I wouldn’t roll down a hill? I’ll have you know I’m an expert roller.” Bunny said self-importantly and Esme burst into happy laughter before she shook her head.

“Bunny!” The little girl drew out the name in an exasperated tone and Bunny laughed softly before gesturing for Esme to go. Butter began to bark excitedly and was jumping around Bunny’s legs as Esme prepped herself to roll down the hill.

“Alright I’m gonna time ya. On your mark!” Bunny called happily and Butter began to jump more furiously around her. “Get set!” was the next call out and Esme prepared to begin rolling as Butter began barking like crazy. “Go!” called Bunny and instantly realized her mistake as Esme began rolling down the hill at a moderate speed.

Suddenly Bunny’s legs were knocked out from underneath herself as Butter took off down the hill dragging Bunny along after him. Shrieking in surprise Bunny heard a distinct crack and felt the back of her head bounce on the ground when she met the ground. Groaning in pain she raised her hand to her head before feeling her arm being jerked after Butter as he dashed down the hill after Esme. Bunny felt every hit with the ground as Butter dragged her down the hill and she moaned softly as he finally came to a stop at the base of the hill.

“Bunny!” cried Esme worriedly and Bunny peeked one eye open to stare over at the little girl as she got up and rushed over to her. Bunny could feel the aches in her body from when she had collided with the ground. Gritting her teeth and hissing softly as she shifted on the ground trying to sit up.

“I’m okay Es. Butter just got a little too excited.” Bunny began to reassure Esme as she saw the little girl’s face filled with worry and concern. Bunny set her hand down on the ground and moved to sit up on the grass. Hissing in pain Bunny quickly pulled her wrist up to her chest and clutched it there for a moment feeling the sharp pain coursing through her wrist. She laid there for a moment with her eyes shut clutching her aching wrist to her chest trying to breathe through the pain.

“Bunny?” Esme asked softly and Bunny opened her eyes to see Esme now kneeling next to her body as Butter crawled along the ground towards the two of them.

“I should be okay just banged up.” Bunny reassured her and sat up completely still keeping her wrist close to her body to limit the chance of irritating it further. Shifting on the ground to get into a better sitting position she felt a sharp twinge coming from her right ankle. Moaning softly her right hand fell to her ankle to try and steady it as pain jolted quickly up her leg making her muscles seize. “Nope, nope. Not okay. Let me just see if I can stand up for a second. Hey Es, can you come hold Butter’s leash for me?”

Es stood quickly from her kneeling spot and gently unwound Butter’s leash that was wrapped around Bunny’s left wrist and arm. She led Butter a step or two away from Bunny as she stood there watching silently with worried eyes.

Bunny rolled onto her knees and gritted her teeth as she felt the pain in her ankle begin to throb. Slowly blowing out a breath through her mouth Bunny used her left leg to push up from the ground. Taking in a few quick breaths Bunny stood on her left leg and tentatively placed her right foot down flush with the ground. Placing a little more weight on it she felt it suddenly give out and she collapsed to the ground on her knees groaning in pain at the impact.

“Definitely not okay.” she said softly and felt tears prick her eyes as the pain consumed her suddenly. Quickly blinking the tears away she looked over and saw Esme shifting on her feet with watery eyes. “Hey it’s okay. We just need to go to the hospital. I'm pretty sure I broke my ankle.”

“Oh Bunny!” Esme cried softly and Bunny shook her head as she settled back onto the ground.

“Es do you see my phone anywhere? I need to call an ambulance, I can’t stand on my right leg.” Bunny said as she began patting down her pockets not feeling her phone. Esme looked around the ground in the area that they had landed before darting over to the side where the phone laid in the grass. Bunny grimaced as she shifted on the ground and grunted softly in pain as her ankle was jostled before turning to see Esme already holding her phone to her ear. Bunny watched in surprise as Esme effortlessly called 911 for her.

“Hi, I need an ambulance to Legacy Oaks community. My babysitter fell down a hill and she can’t stand on her right leg and her left hand hurts.” Esme explained easily and Bunny tilted her head slightly at how calm Esme was as she talked to the 911 operator. “Yes she’s breathing and sitting up. We are at the main field area by the soccer field. Closest intersection is Main Street and West Legacy Boulevard. Ok hold on.” Esme relayed easily before moving closer to Bunny and holding out her phone to her. “They want to ask you some medical questions.” Esme said hurriedly as she came to Bunny’s side and handed over her phone.

“Hello?” Bunny asked, still in shock at Esme’s behavior as she watched the little girl take a seat next to her and began to coo at Butter.

“Yes ma’am, we have an ambulance on their way to you and I just need to ask a few more questions.” Said the operator and Bunny nodded her head slightly.

“Of course.” She replied as her eyes stayed glued to Esme who was sitting there rubbing Butter’s back letting her fingers drag through his fur.

“So it’s your right ankle that is injured?” asked the operator and Bunny could hear keyboard keys clacking in the background and other voices relaying information about other calls.

“I can’t put any pressure on my right ankle, my leg gives out when I try to. And my left wrist is throbbing with pain whenever I move it.” Bunny relayed to the operator and heard the clicking of the keyboard as she talked.

“Ok, I’ve already let the ambulance crew know and they are on their way. Is there any special directions for them on how to find you?” asked the operator.

“No, we’re the only ones here in the main park area. They’ll be able to see us.” Bunny said and watched as Esme looked over at her silently.

“Ok, if anything changes, call us back but the ambulance should be there shortly.” Said the operator and Bunny thanked him before hanging up the phone.

“I have to call Jeremy and see if he could come grab Butter before the ambulance gets here. Are you okay?” Bunny explained as she looked down to her cracked phone screen and pulled up Jeremy’s contact info with a little difficulty before she looked up at Esme. Placing the phone at her ear she watched Esme look at her with slightly teary eyes and a worried face.

“Hey Bun-Bun!” cheered Jeremy happily as he answered the phone after two rings.

“Hey Jer, I have to go to the hospital. I’m okay but I think I broke or sprained my ankle and wrist really badly. Es and I are at the main park with Butter, would you be able to come get Butter before the ambulance gets here?” she quickly relayed to him hoping he’d be able to help her out.

“Of course, I’m just getting ready for work so I can swing by now and grab him. No problem. Are you sure you’re okay? Is Esme okay?” he responded easily before asking about the well-being of her and Esme.

“We’re okay, I think just a little shaken up is all.” Bunny said softly as she watched Esme sniffle softly and swipe her hand under her nose.

“Okay, I’m on my way. I'll be there in two minutes.” Jeremy said quickly and Bunny said goodbye before hanging up the phone.

“Are you okay sweetheart?” Bunny asked softly as she focused fully on Esme. The little girl looked at her with such saddened eyes that Bunny felt such a severe urge to pull her close and reassure her, but when her body shifted to move closer to Esme she gritted her teeth as pain shot up her leg and arm. “C’mere.” She cooed softly to Esme and the little girl moved closer to her side and pressed gently into it resting her head on Bunny’s right shoulder. “I promise I’m okay. Just probably broken bones. No big deal, okay?” she reassured the little girl as she gently wrapped her right arm low around Esme’s lower back.

“It’s my fault.” Esme said sorrowfully in a low tone and Bunny immediately shook her head at the girl’s words.

“No it’s not sweetheart. Accidents happen and it’s more my fault.” Bunny said easily as she kept shaking her head. Esme turned to look up at her confused. “I said ready, set, go and Butter knows those are play words. So I should have known better. It’s not your fault Es. Don’t think that it is because that’s the farthest from the truth.” Bunny said adamantly as she watched Esme closely.

“But if I didn’t want to roll down the hill then this wouldn’t have happened.” Esme said softly in such a heartbroken tone that Bunny felt her heart clench in response.

“Uh if you recall I also wanted to roll down the hill missy.” Bunny teased softly and Esme scoffed softly as her shoulders slumped forward. “Hey, I’m serious. It’s not your fault that I got hurt. It was just something that happened, it’s really no one’s fault.”

“But Bunny!” Esme cried indignantly as she tried to convince Bunny once more that it was her fault.

“Look, you couldn’t have predicted that this would have happened. And it’s not like you wanted me to get hurt when we decided to roll down the hill, right? And you didn’t push me. So it is not your fault. Accidents happen, we just have to deal with them and move on. Okay?” Bunny said firmly as she stared down at Esme. “Trust me I’m not mad or upset. My bones will heal and maybe if it’s broken I’ll get a cool cast and you can draw and sign it for me.”

“But-“ Esme began again and Bunny quickly shook her head as interrupted the little girl.

“Nope. No buts. It’s no one’s fault. I won’t hear anything else about it.” Bunny insisted as she shook her head at the little girl.

“Fine, but I still feel bad.” Esme huffed out softly and Bunny smiled warmly at her.

“You can feel bad for me all you want. It’ll help me lay it on thick to Jeremy and your Dad to help me out if it’s broken.” Bunny said, nodding her head eagerly and Esme giggled softly.

“I can help you too.” Esme said cheerily and Bunny nodded exaggeratedly making Esme giggle again.

“Uh duh. You’re definitely gonna be my number one helper.” Bunny said fondly and Esme nodded her head confidently as she watched Bunny determinedly. “Oh reminds me I should call your Dad and let him know what’s going on.” She said absentmindedly when suddenly Jeremy’s bright yellow jeep pulled up to the curb and Butter started barking excitedly as he recognized the car.

Bunny sat next to Esme as the two of them watched as Jeremy hopped out of the jeep in his security guard uniform and rushed over to them. He had a concerned expression on his face as he walked over to them and his eyes were darting first around Esme and then landed on Bunny.

“Are you okay?” he asked worriedly and Bunny nodded her head as she gritted her teeth when her wrist protested with her shifting movement on the ground.

“Yeah, just banged up. Took a tumble down the hill that’s all.” Bunny said as Jeremy came to a stop standing in front of her splayed legs. He looked down at her with a soft fond look in his eyes after he heard her explanation.

“You’re always getting up to something aren’t you?” he teased softly and Bunny stuck her tongue out at him making Esme giggle softly.

“First time it’s because I wanted to roll down a hill.” Bunny retorted and Jeremy scoffed softly.

“First time for everything trouble maker.” He quipped back and Bunny laughed as she shook her head at him.

“Whatever man.” She bemoaned to him as she shifted again on the ground and gritted her teeth as pain coursed through her again.

“So what hurts and how can I help?” he asked kindly and Bunny smiled in thanks to him.

“My right ankle and leg are in a lot of pain whenever I move it and I can’t put pressure on it. And my left wrist is in a lot of pain too. Not sure but I might have a concussion too, banged my head a few times on the ground as I came down.” Bunny relayed to him and Jeremy whistled low, Bunny nodded her head in response to his whistle and gritted her teeth as a dull ache began to form in her brain.

“Man you know how to fall hard when you do huh?” Jeremy asked teasingly and Bunny chuckled at him.

“What can I say? Gotta do it right the first time right?” she asked and Jeremy shook his head at her. Just as Jeremy was moving closer to her and Esme they all spotted the ambulance driving down the street. Jeremy turned and waved them down as Bunny shifted again and felt Esme lean slightly closer to her. “I’m okay. It’s gonna be okay, I promise.” Bunny reassured her softly as the paramedics parked the ambulance and hopped out.

“Hey guys, she’s over here.” Jeremy said easily as he directed the paramedics to Bunny.

“Are you her husband?” asked the male paramedic as he looked from Jeremy over to Bunny and Bunny grinned as she fluttered her eyelashes at Jeremy who laughed at Bunny’s antics.

“No, just my best friend.” Jeremy said fondly as he walked over with the paramedic.

“So what happened miss?” asked the younger female paramedic who was now kneeling down at Bunny’s other side with the medical bag set on the ground next to her. Bunny watched as she looked across Bunny to Esme and smiled softly at her. “Don’t worry honey, we're going to take good care of your babysitter.”

“Got knocked down the hill by my overly excited dog.” Bunny said as she gestured with her chin to Butter who was now rolling in the grass on his back trying to get the paramedics’ attention. Both paramedics laughed at Butter and Jeremy just shook his head as Esme giggled softly. “Banged my head a couple of times on the ground, did something to my left wrist, it's throbbing in pain, and my right ankle is in a lot of pain too. Can’t put any weight on the right leg either, tried to stand up and my leg gave out.” She explained as they all looked at her and Esme who was still cuddled into her side.

“Ok, well I suggest we take you to the hospital to get your wrist and ankle checked out to see if you just sprained them or broke them. Also if you choose to let us take you we’ll check for concussion in the ambulance. We can’t force you but that’s what I suggest.” Said the female and male nodded as he stood next to Jeremy.

“Yeah, let's go to the hospital.” Bunny said, nodding her head.

“Okay, Chase, can you grab the stretcher while I start her paperwork?” the female asked as picked up her metal clipboard and began filling out the paperwork with Bunny right there. “Do you want us to take her in the ambulance as well or will your friend be taking her?” the woman asked as she nodded her head at Esme. Bunny felt Esme’s hands come up to clutch at her bicep and she leaned closer to her silently.

“She’s gonna go with me if that’s alright with you guys.” She replied and felt Esme relax against her a little bit. The woman nodded her head and winked at Esme who smiled softly and relaxed further against Bunny.

“No problem with us.” She answered with a smile and finished filling out the paperwork. Bunny’s eyes darted over to Jeremy who was walking with Chase as he wheeled the stretcher over towards them. Once it was lowered to the ground Bunny looked over at Jeremy for some help which he gladly stepped over.

“I’m gonna just lift her up onto the stretcher. It’ll be easier.” Jeremy explained as he squatted down next to Bunny and Esme. “Hey Es, do me a favor and just hold onto Butter for me while I put Bunny on the stretcher okay. Once I’m done and they load her up in the ambulance you’ll be able to get in with her.” Jeremy said softly and kindly to the little girl who was still pressed up against Bunny’s side. Bunny could see the worry flash across Esme’s face and Bunny nodded her head at her.

“Don’t worry, I won’t let them leave without you. You’re coming with me.” Bunny reassured her and Esme looked up at her with concern. “Here take my phone that way you know for sure you’re coming with me since we still gotta call your Dad and let him know what’s up.” Bunny said as she handed over her phone to Esme who quickly took it and Butter’s leash leading him a few steps away from the stretcher.

“Alright c’mon lady let’s get you up on that stretcher.” Jeremy said as he slid his arms underneath Bunny’s knees and behind her back before standing up with her cradled in his arms. Bunny gritted her teeth lightly when her ankle fell with gravity as Jeremy lifted her. “I got you sorry.” Jeremy apologized and Bunny shook her head at him.

“No worries, it's okay.” Bunny said softly as he set her down on the stretcher and Chase lifted it up gently.

“Hey call me if you guys need anything and when you get done with everything and I’ll come pick you two up. That way you won’t have to worry about anything okay?” Jeremy said as Chase began to wheel you towards the ambulance.

“Okay. You sure? I’m sure I could call a taxi or something.” Bunny said as they all began walking towards the ambulance behind her.

“Yeah, call me and I’ll come pick you up. You’re already gonna have a lot going on so just call me.” Jeremy insisted and Bunny nodded her head as she watched him turn to Esme and held his hand out for the leash. “C’mon sweetheart let’s let them get her loaded up and then I’ll help you up there.”

“Thanks Jeremy.” Esme said softly as she hung back with Jeremy as the paramedics loaded Bunny into the back of the ambulance. Once they were done Bunny looked out at Esme and gestured her up once the female paramedic got situated in the back with her.

“Alright honey you’re gonna come sit on the bench over here okay?” she said as pointed to the bench seat next to Bunny’s stretcher on her left side. Bunny watched quietly as Esme climbed into the back with Jeremy’s help and came to sit down on the bench. When she was finally settled in her seat she gripped onto the stretcher railing and watched anxiously as the woman began to get a blood pressure cuff secured on Bunny.

“Alright we’re good to go. We’ll be heading to Three Sisters’ Hospital.” Chase said easily to everyone as he began to close the back of the ambulance. Bunny smiled at Jeremy as he nodded at her and then turned to Esme trying to ease her as they began their trek to the hospital.

#kingsman the golden circle #agent whiskey x ofc #agent whiskey #FLILO #my writing

14 notes · View notes

forestwater87 · 5 years ago

Note

How did you become a university Librarian? Did you do an English degree? Sorry if this is a weird question it just really interests me as I’m not sure what to do when I’m older

Eeee I got really excited about this question!

Okay, the fun thing about librarianship is that all roads can lead to it: as long as you get an ALA-approved (assuming you’re American; if you aren’t I cannot help you) graduate degree you can do just about anything for undergrad. English majors are extremely common, just by the nature of who’s into the job, but literally it doesn’t matter; in fact, weirder and more specialized degrees can actually help in certain jobs, because they give you a ton of background info and qualifications than most of your contemporaries have.

I fell into it because I worked at a library in high school and fell in love with the environment, and when I realized I’d rather die than work in publishing (my previous life’s goal) I gravitated toward library school. I knew from the beginning that I’d need a Master’s -- and a very specific one at that -- so mostly my undergrad was just “grab a foundational degree and have fun with it.” That was really freeing, honestly. I had a ton of fun in undergrad.

Now, if you, Anon, were interested in getting into librarianship I’d have a handful of recommendations. These are all based on my very American experience, and there are probably smarter people than me with better advice but I’m the only one on this blog so heeeeerrreeeee we goooooooooo!

Undergrad

You need a 4-year degree. Full-stop. It doesn’t matter what kind, but you gotta have one to get into grad school.

Like I said, you can do just about anything for an undergraduate degree. Most of the time English is the BA of choice, because librarians love them some books, but some far less common ones that I think would be hugely helpful to a hopeful librarian would be:

Computer Science: Oh my god you need at least a baseline competency in computers/technology please you don’t have to code but you need to be able to turn a computer on and navigate just about any website/office application on just about any device at the very least you need to know how to Google

Business/Marketing: Particularly if you want to work in public libraries, where a bunch of your funding comes from begging politicians and convincing taxpayers to donate/vote to give you money

Law: If you want to be a law librarian

Medical . . . whatever, I don’t know what fields of medicine there are: If you want to work in a hospital or other medical library

History or Art History: If you’re interested in archives or museum librarianship

Education: School librarians in my state require you to be a certified teacher, and no matter what kind of library you end up in, you’ll end up teaching someone something a decent amount of the time

Communications: You’ll be doing a lot of it. Public speaking, too

Spanish/ASL/any not-the-common language: Hey, you never know what your patrons speak

Literally fucking anything I promise it doesn’t matter what you major in you will use it in a library at some point

Just be aware that you will need more than an undergrad degree. You’ll need probably 2 years of postsecondary schooling (more for certain types of librarianship), so get yourself comfortable with the idea of college.

If you’re like me (please don’t be like me), you might toy with the idea of getting a minor or two/double majoring to round out your skill set. Honestly I’d encourage it if you’re comfortable with the workload and have the time or money; like I said, there are no skills or educational background that won’t come in handy at some point. I promise. We see it all.

Along those lines, a wide expanse of hobbies can be hugely helpful too! You never know when your encyclopedic knowledge of Minecraft will be useful to a patron, but it absolutely will be.

Graduate School

All right, you’ve got your lovely little Bachelor’s Degree, maybe in something weird and esoteric for the fun of it . . . now you’re off to do more school!

It’s a bit complicated, because there are a handful of different titles an appropriate degree could have; my school called it “a Master of Science in Information Science” (MSIS), but other schools might just go with “Master’s of Information Science” (MIS), “Master’s of Library Science” (MLS), “Master’s of Library and Information Science” (MLIS) . . . it’s a mess.

What you need to do is make sure the degree is approved by the American Library Association, who decides if a program is good enough to make you a librarian in the States. (Again, if you’re not American, good luck.)

Here’s a list of ALA-accredited programs and the schools that offer them.

The nice thing is accreditation has to be renewed at least every few years, so that means your program is always updated to make sure it’s in line with national standards. I’m not promising you’ll learn everything you need to be a librarian in grad school (oh my god you so won’t not even close hahahaha), but at least in theory you’ll be learning the most up-to-date information and methods.

(I’m curious to see how things have changed; when I was in school from 2015-17, the hot topics in library science were makerspaces (especially 3D printing), turning the library into the community’s “third space,” and learning how to incorporate video games into library cataloging and programming. No idea if those are still the main hot-button issues or if we’ve moved on to something else; I imagine information literacy and fake news are a pretty big one for current library students.)

Anyway! You pick a school, you might have to take a test or two to get in -- I had to take the GRE, which is like the SATs but longer -- almost certainly have to do all that annoying stuff like references and cover letters and all that, but assuming you’re in: now what?

There are a couple options depending on the school and the program, but I’m going to base my discussion around the way my school organized their program at the time, because that’s what I know dammit and I will share my outdated information because I want to.

My school broke the degree down into 5 specializations, which you chose upon application to the program:

Archives & Records Administration: For working in archives! I took some classes here when I was flirting with the idea, and it’s a lot of book preservation, organizing and caring for old documents and non-book media, and digitization. Dovetails nicely into museum work. It’s a very specific skillset, which means there will be jobs that absolutely need what you specifically can do but also means there aren’t as many of them. It makes you whatever the opposite of a “jack of all trades” is. You’re likely to be pretty isolated, so if you want to spend all your time with books this might be a good call; it’s actually one of the few library-related options that doesn’t require a significant amount of public-facing work.

Library & Information Services: For preparation to work in public or academic (college) libraries. Lots of focus on reference services, some cataloging, and general interacting-with-the-public. You have to like people to go into library services in general, heads up.

Information Management & Technology: Essentially meaningless, but you could in theory work as like a business consultant or otherwise do information-related things with corporations or other organizations.

Information Storage & Retrieval: Data analytics, database . . . stuff. I don’t really know. Computers or something. Numbers 3 and 4 really have nothing to do with libraries, but our school was attempting to branch out into more tech-friendly directions. That being said, both this and #3 could definitely be useful in a library! Libraries have a lot of tech, and in some ways business acumen could be helpful. All roads lead to libraries; remember that.

Library & Information Services / School Library Media Specialist: This was the big kahuna. To be a school librarian -- at least in my state -- you need to be both a certified librarian and a certified teacher, which means Master’s degrees in both fields. What our school did was basically smushed them together into a combined degree; you took a slightly expanded, insanely rigorous 2-2.5 years (instead of the traditional 1.5-2) and you came out of it with two degrees and two certifications, ready to throw your butt into an elementary, middle/junior high, or high school library. Lots of focus on education. I started here before realizing I don’t like kids at all, then panicked and left. Back in 2017 this was the best one for job security, because our state had just passed a law requiring all school librarians to be certified with a MSIS/MLS/whatever degree. So lots of people already in school libraries were desperately flinging themselves at this program, and every school was looking for someone that was qualified. No idea if that’s changed in time.

No matter what concentration you went in with, you automatically graduated with a state certification to be a librarian, which was neat. You didn’t automatically get civil service status, though; for some public libraries you need to be put on a civil service list, which means . . . something, I’m not entirely sure. It involves taking exams that are only available at certain times of the year and I gave up on it because it looked hard.

No one did more than 1 concentration, which is dumb because I wanted to do them all, but it takes a lot of time and money to take all the classes associated with all of them so I personally did #2, which was on the upper end of mid-tier popularity. School library and database services were far and away the most popular, and literally no one did the business one because it was basically useless, so library and archives were the middle children of which the library one was prettier.

THAT BEING SAID! Some forms of librarianship require a lot more education. A few of those are:

Law librarians: At least in my state, you gotta be a certified librarian and have a J.D. This is where the “big bucks” are -- though let’s be real, if you want to be a librarian you have zero interest in big bucks; reconcile yourself to being solidly middle-class and living paycheck-to-paycheck for the rest of your life or marrying rich -- which I guess is why it requires the most work.

School librarians: Like I mentioned, depending on the state you might need two degrees, and not all schools smush them into one. You might need to get a separate Master’s in education.

College librarians: Now, this depends on the college and the job; some colleges just need an all-access librarian, like mine. I didn’t need to specialize in anything, I just showed up with my degree and they took me. (Note: these sorts of entry-level positions tend to pay piss. Like, even more piss than most library gigs. Just a heads-up.) However, if you’re looking to get into a library of a higher-end university, you might be asked to have a second Master’s-level or higher degree just to prove you’re academic enough to party at their school. (Let’s be real, Harvard is almost certainly gonna want someone with a Ph.D. at the very least. That’s just how they roll.) Alternatively, the position might be for a specialty librarian, someone in charge of a field-specific library or field-specific reference services; if you’re being asked to head up the Science & Engineering Library at Masshole University, it’s reasonable to expect that you’ll be bringing a degree in engineering or some sort of science to the table. Colleges have so many different needs that predicting what kind of experience/education you should get is a bit of a challenge. Good luck. Some schools will help you out a bit with this; my grad school had dual degree programs where you could share credits between the MSIS and either an English or History Master’s so you could graduate with both in less time. I . . . started this, and then panicked at the thought of more school/writing a thesis and bailed, but it’s great if you’re into that idea!

What’s the point of the Information/Library Science degree?

You have to have the degree. If you don’t have the degree, you don’t get the job and you don’t make-a the money. Resign yourself to getting a Master’s degree or you’re gonna be bummed out and unemployed.

In terms of what you learn? Well, obviously it depends on the program, but I found that a lot of what I learned was only theoretically related to what I do on a daily basis. My instructors were lovely (well, the adjuncts anyway; the full-timers really didn’t want to be there and wanted to be off doing research and shit), but every library is so idiosyncratic and there’s such a massive umbrella of jobs you could get in one -- god, I didn’t even get into things like metadata services, which I learned basically nothing about in grad school but are super important to some positions -- that it’s hard to learn anything practical in a classroom.

However, besides the piece of paper that lets you make-a the money, there are two important things you should get from your grad school education:

Research skills: My god, you’re going to be doing so much research. If you’re a public librarian, you need to know how to Google just about anything. And if you’re a college librarian, being able to navigate a library database and find, evaluate, and cite sources . . . I mean, you’re going to be doing so much of that, showing students how to do that. Like a ridiculous amount of my day is showing students how to find articles in the virtual library. Get good at finding things, because much like Hufflepuffs, librarians need to be great finders.

Internship(s): Just about every library program will require an internship -- usually but not always in replacement of a thesis -- and if the one you’re looking at doesn’t, dump it like James Marsden in a romantic comedy. Internships are hugely important not only because they look good on a resume and give you some of those delicious, delicious references, but they are a snapshot of what your job is going to look like on a day-in, day-out basis; if nothing else, you’ll learn really fast what does and doesn’t appeal to you. As I mentioned, I wanted to be a school librarian for about half a semester. You know what changed my mind? My class required like 40 hours of interning at schools of each level. Being plopped into that environment like a play you’re suddenly acting in? Super helpful in determining whether or not this shit is for you.

What else should I learn, then?

Besides how to research basically anything? Here are some useful skills in just about any library:

Copyright law. Holy shit, do yourself a favor and learn about publishing/distribution laws in your state. Do you wanna show a movie as a fun program? You need to buy a license and follow super specific rules or it’s illegal! Does an instructor want to make copies of their textbook to give to the students? Make sure you know how much they can copy before it’s no longer fair use! Everything in my life would be easier if I’d taken the time to learn anything about copyright. I did not, and now I’m sad. (I lost out on a job opportunity because they wanted the librarian to be particularly knowledgeable in that kinda thing, and I was very not.)

Metadata and cataloging. In theory, you should learn this in grad school, but I was only given the bare basics and it wasn’t enough. Dublin Core, MARC-21, RDF -- there are so many different kinds of metadata schema, and I took a 6-week class in this and still don’t understand any of the words I just used in this sentence. But basically, to add items to a library catalog you often need to know how to input them into your library’s system; to an extent that’ll be idiosyncratic to your library’s software, but some of it will be based on a larger cataloging framework, so familiarity with those is very useful.

Public speaking and education. You’re gonna do a lot of it. Learn how to deal.

General tech savviness. Again, we’re not talking about coding but if you can navigate a WordPress website? If you know how to troubleshoot just about any issue with Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, etc.? If you can unjam printers and install software and use social media you’re going to be a much happier person. At the very least, know how to google tutorials and fake your way through; your IT person can only do so much, and a lot of it is probably going to fall on you.

Social work, diplomacy, general human relations kinda stuff. You’re going to be dealing with all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds, with every political view, personal problem, and life experience under the sun. You need to get very good at being respectful of diversity -- even diversity you don’t like* -- and besides separating your own personal views and biases from your work, you’ll be much better equipped to roll with the punches if you have, for example, conflict resolution training. Shit’s gonna get weird sometimes, I promise. (Once a student came in swinging around butterfly knives and making ninja noises. You know who knew how to deal with that? Not me!)

Standard English writing and mechanics. It’s not fair, but in general librarians are expected to have a competent grasp on the Standard English dialect, and others are less likely to be appreciated by the general populace. Obviously this differs based on your community and environment, and colloquialisms are sometimes useful or even necessary, but as a rule of thumb it’s a good call to be able to write “properly,” even if that concept is imperialist bullshit.

*I don’t mean Nazis. Obviously I don’t mean Nazis. Though there is a robust debate in the library community about whether Nazis or TERFs or whatever should be allowed to like, use library facilities for their own group meetings or whatever. I tend to fall on the “I don’t think so” side of the conversation, but there’s a valid argument to be made about not impeding people’s access to information -- even wrong or harmful information.

Any other advice?

Of course! I love to talk. Let’s see . . .

Get really passionate about freedom of information and access: A library’s main reason for existing is to help people get ahold of information (including fiction) that they couldn’t otherwise access. If you’re a public librarian, you have to care a lot about making sure people can access information you probably hate. (If you��re an academic librarian it’s a little more tricky, because the resources should meet a certain scholarly threshold, and if you’re a school librarian there are issues of appropriateness to deal with, but in general more info to more people is always the direction to push.) Get ready to defend your library purchases to angry patrons or even coworkers; get ready to defend your refusal to purchase something, if that’s necessary. Get ready to hold your nose and cringe while you add American Sniper to your library collection, because damn it, your patrons deserve access to the damn stupid book. Get really excited about finding new perspectives and minority representation, because that’s also something your patrons deserve access to. Get really excited about how technology can make access easier for certain patrons, and figure out how to make it happen in your library. Care about this; it’s essential that you’re passionate about information -- helping your patrons find it, making sure they can access it, evaluating it, citing it . . . all of it. Get ranty about it. Just do it.

Be prepared to move if necessary: One of my professors told us that there was one thing that would always guarantee you a job that paid well -- this was in 2016 but still -- that as long as you had it you could do whatever you wanted. And that was a suitcase. Maybe where you live is an oversaturated market (thanks for having 6 library schools in a 4-hour radius, my state). Maybe something something economic factors I don’t really understand; the point is that going into this field, you should probably make peace with the idea that you’ll probably either end up taking a job that doesn’t make enough money or struggle a lot to even find one . . . or you’re going to have to go where the jobs are. It’s a small field. Just know that might be a compromise you have to make, unless you can get a strictly remote job.

Read: This sounds stupidly obvious but it’s true! Read things that aren’t your genre, aren’t your age range; patrons are going to ask you for reading advice all the goddamn time, especially if you’re a public librarian, so the more you can be knowledgeable about whatever your patrons might ask you about, the easier your life will be. If you’re considering librarianship you probably love to read anyway, so just ride that pony as hard as you possibly can.

Learn to be okay with weeding -- even things you don’t think deserve it: You are going to have to recycle books. You’re going to have to throw away books. You’re going to have to take books out of the collection and make them disappear in some fashion or another. There are a lot of reasons -- damage and lack of readership are big ones -- and there’s no bigger red flag to a librarian than someone saying “I could never destroy a book.” That kind of nonsense is said by people who’ve never had to fit 500 books onto a shelf built for 450. Archivists are different, of course, as are historians, and everyone should have a healthy respect for books both as physical objects and as sources of information, but you’re going to have to get rid of them sometimes, and you’re just going to have to learn how to do that dispassionately.

Have fun! No one gets into this because they want money; if you want to be a librarian, or work in any library-adjacent field, it’s because you really care about the values of librarianship, or the people in your community, or preserving and sharing as great a wealth of information as possible. Your job will often be thankless and it’ll sometimes be exhausting. There will be times where it’s actually scary. And unless you’re rich as balls, it will make you stare at your student loans and sigh with despair. (You may be living in your parents’ basement while you sigh at your loans because you can’t afford to live on your own, for an example that has zero relevance to any authors of this blog, living or dead.) I can’t tell you if it’s worth it -- though you’ll probably find out pretty quickly during your internship, because that’s what internships are for. All I can say is that I love it, and I can’t imagine doing anything else.

#ask forest #libraries #librarianship #information science #career advice #education advice #oh my god this is long #i have a lot of feelings okay?#there is no way on earth anyone will read all of this #if you do tell me bc i will not believe it #Anonymous

77 notes · View notes