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phykios · 3 years

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honesty and promise me, part 3 [read on ao3] [co-written with @darkmagyk]

Several more weeks and hookups later, Annabeth thinks she should probably come clean. Some people might bury it deep, and for sure, Annabeth’s considered it, but, well. It is kind of embarrassing that she didn’t know Percy’s name at first. Stuff like that doesn’t usually bother her--she’s had nameless one night stands in the past, and despite Thalia’s ribbing, she knows that Thalia doesn’t really care either. It’s just that, you know, he’s Thalia’s family, and they’ve seen each other a few more times, and they are planning to continue to see each other a few more times in the future. Or more than a few times.

Anyway, she kind of feels like she owes it to him. Like he deserves this small nugget of truth, payment for all the times he’s fucked her blind. It’s nagging at her, and she hates feeling like she owes anyone anything.

Piper certainly seemed to think so, when Annabeth had told her over their monthly brunch date.

“It’s just common courtesy at this point,” she said. “Like, what if you guys end up married and then sell your story to Hollywood, they cast my dad as the male lead, and it comes out in interviews that you didn’t know his name for like a month? He’s gonna get the wrong idea.”

Annabeth wasn’t sure which part was more ridiculous: the movie, Piper’s dad being involved, or them being married.

Anyway, sharing some of her avocado fries, Piper had reminded her that being mean wasn't very punk rock, shutting her up effectively.

She’s out on site in the Lower East Side, taking measurements for plots of land, writing down sun angles and measuring the wind velocity between the brick buildings, when she gets a text from him.

I’m on a break and I’m starving 😩 Want to grab something to eat?

It’s 2pm on a Thursday and he wants to grab something to eat. If Annabeth didn’t know any better, she’d say that that sounds like a real, honest-to-goodness, bona fide date. (Meeting up at and subsequently leaving bars together does not count as a date, she’s pretty sure. Neither do the booty calls.) He’s been getting a little free with his texts, that boy, sending her selfies and memes and questions about her day, and now this? An invitation to their first, actual date? She should block him on principle, just for the sheer audacity.

sure, wya

520 8th, text me when you get here 😁

That’s another thing: Percy loves his emojis. If this is going to continue, they’re going to need to have a serious talk about that.

She doesn’t need to text him when she gets there; he’s already outside, leaning on the stone edifice of the building like a particularly jacked rent boy in his tight t-shirt and broody look, cigarette between his fingers. The sweatpants sort of ruin the image, though. He looks particularly comfortable in a way that warms Annabeth right from the inside out. “You know, when Nico said you smoked, I honestly didn’t believe it.” she says, not even bothering to say hi.

He looks up from his phone and smiles, the sun behind his teeth. “Hey!”

“Hey, yourself.” She doesn’t even hesitate--she plucks the cigarette out of his hand, taking a drag off it herself. “You been smoking for a long time?”

“Who do you think taught Thalia how?” He raises an eyebrow, bemused. “Is that a problem?”

It is, but it’s not like she can tell him that without losing some of her credibility. “Wouldn’t smoking fuck with your cardio?”

Percy shrugs, conceding. “A little. I used to be a lot worse, but I just can’t quite kick the habit. It’s mostly a stress thing, anyway.”

“Rough practice?” she asks, putting just enough effort into her lip wobble to make it abundantly clear that she’s making fun of him. “Were the other boys being mean to you because of your tights?”

He grins at her, saucy. “Annabeth Chase, do you really think that NYCB rehearses here? In the Garment District?” But he laughs before she can stammer out an answer (and thank God, she’s lived here three years and can barely keep the boroughs straight, let alone the neighborhoods). “I just wrapped up teaching a class. I don’t have to be at rehearsal until 5, I was thinking we could hang out? Bryant Park?”

A first date at the New York Public Library. She almost hates to admit it, but Percy Jackson might be kind of her dream man. “I believe I was promised food,” she sniffs, but she does hold out her hand, and when he takes it, lacing his fingers through hers, she’s sure that he can feel her heart beating, palm to palm.

Twenty minutes later they’re settled on a bench in the corner of the green, Annabeth halfway into a ham sandwich and Percy juggling a salad and an iced coffee. He’s been regaling her with tales from the more exciting side of ballet, a side she hadn’t even imagined could actually exist. “So by the time I land in Paris,” he says, taking a sip of coffee, “the guy’s foot has swollen up to, like, twice its original size, and when I finally managed to find some wifi to check my phone, there’s, like, eight missed calls from my mom and my agent, and an email from her that just says ‘READ THIS,’ in all caps, and of course the article is in French, which I didn’t really speak at the time, and I was so stressed that my ADHD made it so I couldn’t even read the Google translation, and I had to ask someone to translate it for me.”

“Oh my god,” she says, struggling to keep it in.

“And that’s how I found out that I’d been moved up to first cast in Le Corsaire, from the poor barista at a coffee shop in Charles de Gaule!” He laughs.

“That’s insane,” Annabeth says. “And the show was the next day?”

“It was that night! I had to haul ass to the opera house and get warmed up, because I was going on in about four hours. You should have seen the looks on everyone’s faces when I stumbled in, I’m sure that they all wanted to kill me.” Percy chuckles, taking a bite of leafy greens. “Now I wasn’t just the twenty-year-old upstart American, I was the twenty-year-old upstart American who skipped town when I wasn’t supposed to.”

“How did it go?”

“Killed it, of course,” he says, deservedly smug.

Despite her best efforts, she’s absolutely entranced; he’s a great storyteller. “I bet you break that story out at parties all the time, don’t you.”

He laughs. “Whatever gets the donors to open their checkbooks, right?”

“I can’t believe you lived in Paris. I’ve always wanted to see it.” She’d had a few chances to when she was in college, the semester she’d studied abroad in Rome, but she just never got around to it. Just another item on her long, long list of regrets, placed somewhere between the sketchy burrito from last week and not telling her mom to fuck off earlier when she’d had the chance. “If I were you, I’d never leave.”

Percy shrugs. “It was amazing, I won’t lie. But towards the end I just really, really missed it here. All my family is in NYC, you know? My mom, step-dad, and my sister live here, and Thalia and Nico and Hazel, too. I tried to come back and visit whenever I could, but being away from them was really hard.” There’s something soft and inviting in his expression when he says, “I’m really happy to be back home.”

“What are they like?” Annabeth asks. “Your family. Your non-mob family, I mean.”

He rolls his eyes, but he grins another one of those blinding grins, too. “My mom is the most amazing person you will ever meet. Not only did she support my dance habit, she did it as a single working mother who had to raise an angry, ADHD asshole of a son who didn’t always appreciate her. I don’t even want to know how many hours she had to work or how many scholarships and grants she had to track down in order to pay for me to go to SAB, but somehow she made it work, and managed to write her novel at the same time. She married my step-dad the summer I turned sixteen, and my baby sister was born the next year.”

Even Annabeth, cynical and black-hearted as she is, has to smile back. The love he has for his mom is so palpable, so tangible, she can practically see him glowing. “And the…” What had Thalia called them? “The ‘Cousin Consortium’?”

At that, Percy laughs, full-bellied, unrestrained. “The name was Nico’s idea. I didn’t really have many close friends when I was a kid, apart from my buddy Grover--he had to wear this really gnarly leg brace and I liked to dance, so you can imagine how much we got picked on--but we were all really close growing up, since our dads were all assholes. They may have left us emotionally scarred, but at least we had each other’s backs the whole time.”

This is a very Percy thing, she’s starting to realize: he can not and will not hold back on his feelings. He simply refuses to. Where most guys might try to hide or downplay their affection for their friends, Percy’s is written all over his face. Maybe it’s a byproduct of doing ballet, but he’s so unashamed of his love for his friends and his family and his art, that maybe Annabeth kind of wishes she could be included in that love too, if it always feels this warm and joyful.

“I think it’s amazing that you guys are so close. I only had the one cousin when I was growing up, and we didn’t really talk all that much,” Annabeth says, almost without her permission. Something about him, it’s just so easy to talk to him. He makes it safe to open up.

“The med school guy, right?”

Annabeth nods. “Magnus. Fifth generation Harvard student. We’re all very proud.”

Ugh. Even she has to wince at the false cheer in her voice. Percy gives her a half-smile, sympathetic and soft. “Harvard not really for you, then?” he asks, picking up the threads of a long and complicated story, and one that she absolutely does not want to get into right now. Or ever, if she can help it.

“More like I wasn’t really for Harvard.” Which wasn’t entirely untrue. She had been good enough for the university in Cambridge, Mass--good enough for two degrees and graduation with honors--but she had never been good enough for her mother’s capital-H Harvard. Never good enough for her mother at all, really.

Percy takes her hand. His fingers are cold from his iced coffee. “Hey. It’s their loss,” he says, with a sincerity and an intensity that makes her blush.

Every part of her wants to pull away. His thumb is rubbing against the joint of her finger, soothing and sweet, and she thinks she may break out in hives from it. “Damn right it is,” she mumbles.

He is so nice. So nice and hot and sweet. Objectively, what she’s about to do is a terrible idea, and might torpedo a really good thing that they have, but if she doesn’t come clean now her own guilt is going to drive her insane.

“Okay, I have a confession to make.” Percy raises his eyebrows, slurping the last dregs of his drink. “When we met… and then when we hooked up the first time… I may have… thoughtyouwereJason.”

He blinks. “Pardon?” he asks, mumbled around the straw.

Annabeth buries her head in her hands. “Please don’t make me say it again.”

“You… thought I was Jason?”

“Well,” she sputters, glaring at him through her fingers, “you were being all bro-y with Thalia!”

He is valiantly trying to hold in a smile. “You know, I distinctly remember telling you my name that morning.”

“I was really hungover,” she whines, “and you were shirtless and making breakfast so I wasn’t really… paying attention.”

“For a whole week?”

This is so embarrassing, why couldn’t she just keep her stupid mouth shut? “Yeah.” She slumps her shoulders, stuffing her hands into her jacket pocket. “Sorry.”

She’s not entirely sure what she expected: at best a couple of weird looks and a tentative promise to meet up later that would end up not working out, at worst she thinks he’ll just get up and leave her here at Bryant Park. Either way, they’d be doomed to months of awkward interactions, until eventually they wouldn’t be able to be around each other, and Thalia would have to pick a side--and Annabeth’s seen what Thalia does to people who cross her family. She’s seen Thalia beat a dude to pulp for calling Nico the f-slur. Picking Percy over Annabeth? That’s nothing.

So when he starts laughing, Annabeth is completely at a loss. Slowly, at first, then all at once, he’s laughing so hard his shoulders are shaking, and he has to put down his salad so it doesn’t topple over onto the grass. His head is tilted back in joy, the grey, late afternoon light adamant that Annabeth can see all of his features clearly, from his screwed up eyes to his bright, white teeth to the single dimple in his cheek.

Of course, even his laughter is hot. Asshole.

“You thought I was Jason!” He shrieks.

Annabeth crosses her arms, scowling.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I really don’t mean to laugh,” he giggles. Annabeth can feel her own giggle rising in response, and she ruthlessly quashes it. “I can definitely say I’ve never heard that one before. You do know Jason is blond, right?”

“As a matter of fact, I did not. Besides, you and Thalia look exactly alike.”

He scoffs. “No we don’t.”

“Uh, yeah you do. You, Thalia, and Nico are all basically clones of each other.”

“Okay, Captain Glasses, whatever you say.” He rolls his eyes, but there’s no heat behind it.

“I’m sorry,” Annabeth feels like she has to say again.

He cocks his head. “For what? For thinking I was Jason? He’s a pretty cool guy.”

“No, for,” she blushes again. All this blood rushing to her head can’t be good for her. “For sleeping with you when I still thought you were Jason.”

Percy scoots closer to her, throwing her a grin and slinging his arm over her shoulders. Without even realizing that she’s doing it, she settles in beside him like she’s been doing it her whole life, slotted up against his torso, tucking her booted feet beneath her legs. “I am choosing to take that as a compliment,” he says, smirking. “You couldn’t resist my charms, even when you thought I was a brogrammer.”

Annabeth can’t help herself. She kisses him, wiping that smug grin right off his face, and when she finally retreats, after what feels like hours, he looks so dazed she could probably keep calling him by any name she wanted and he wouldn’t even realize it.

After their lunch, they meander for hours, headed in a vaguely southerly direction, holding hands the whole time, a steady, uninterrupted flow that took them all the way from Midtown to Greenwich Village. He tells her about his first day at ballet school; she tells him about her favorite monuments. “There are two architectural environments in America,” she says, ranting, speaking with enough force that she might forget the feeling of his hand in hers, “endless dead suburbia, or cities where every single building is either a concrete or a glass block--and not even Brutalist concrete, just shitty, poorly designed, paint-by-numbers concrete. It is an absolute travesty of modern government that they don’t fund any public works projects anymore.”

“That’s why all the gardens and stuff?” he asks.

“Nowadays everything is built by the lowest bidder. At least I get to add some beauty back into the city.”

“I know what you mean,” Percy says. “Paris is practically overflowing with public works, you almost forget about it sometimes.”

She sighs. “You’re so fucking lucky. Paris is so beautiful and everything in New York is just hideous.”

“Aw, come on,” he says. “Not everything. What about the Empire State Building, or Central Park?”

“Well, obviously, those,” she says, just a teensy bit flustered, but she’s not about to give up the argument without a fight. “I just mean like, normal, every day buildings: offices and apartments and stuff. It’s all so samey and boring.”

He looks to her right, pointing at the building they are passing. “What about this one?”

She turns.

If she had known they were headed this way, she never would have taken them past here.

“It’s… okay, I guess,” she mumbles, staring up at the arched windows, pedimented doors, and Rococo details of Miss Minerva’s Private Pre-College Prep School. A shudder goes down her spine, like someone walking over her grave. “There are better Beaux-Arts buildings.”

Sensing her discomfort, he picks up the pace, and changes the subject.

Finally, he stops outside a nondescript building, turning to face her. “This is me,” he says, a little bit mournfully, squeezing her hand. “Are you okay to get home safely?”

This man is ridiculous; it’s not even dark out. “I think I can manage a few blocks,” she says, lightly swatting him. “Isn’t it kind of early for you, though? It’s only four o’clock.”

He flushes faintly, one hand coming up to rub at his neck. “Uh, well, I always give myself a little extra time--you know, time blindness and everything.”

“You baked in extra time in case I wanted you to walk me home, didn’t you?” She mock-gasps, secretly delighted. “Scandal!”

“Guilty,” he grins. “You’ve been to mine so many times, I was curious.”

She just barely stops herself from laughing out loud at the very idea of Percy coming to her apartment--as if. Thalia hasn’t even been to her apartment. Nobody knows where she lives, none of her neighbors know who she is, and this is entirely by design. “Cut me some slack; a girl’s gotta have some mystery. Can’t make it too easy for you, can I?”

“I have a feeling you’ll never make things easy for me,” he says, white teeth gleaming.

“You better believe it,” she smiles back. “Now that I’ve foiled your plans, are you going to be too bored?”

“Oh, I’ll think of something,” he shrugs. “I’m very resourceful when it comes to boredom.”

Inspiration strikes, and she grasps his hand, pulling him down the alleyway. She almost hates to admit it, but she has something of a Pavlovian response when it comes to hanging out with Percy. Annabeth has come to expect some really excellent sex whenever the two of them meet up, and maybe spending all afternoon with him has made her a little bit horny.

She presses him up against the brick wall, hidden from the street by the long afternoon shadows, and kisses him. His hands flounder for a second, before coming up to rest on her shoulders, this thumbs tapping against the base of her neck, fingers fluttering on her jacket. It’s an intimate touch, kind of chaste and very respectful, and he holds her with precision and grace. He wouldn’t do anything she wouldn’t want to. This is a date with no expectation of sex on his part. But Annabeth does not want grace right now, spooked by the ghost of her old school. She does not want precision. She just wants him. She just wants to keep him on his toes, keep him interested, blow his mind a little.

She just wants to blow him, to be honest.

He squeaks into her mouth as her hands fly to his belt, deft fingers practically ripping it off of him in an increasingly familiar motion. “H-hey,” he says, squeezing her shoulders, “this is--”

“Do you not want me to?” she asks, one hand playing at the top line of his underwear.

“No--I mean, are you sure? I’m-I’m okay with this, I just want to--”

“I know.” She kisses his cheek, then drops to her knees. “But we’ve got some time to kill, don’t we.”

Afterwards, when she’s finished with him, Annabeth wipes her mouth, and he whimpers.

“Ho… holy shit,” he pants, flushed and trembling.

She tucks him back into his boxers, doing up his fly. “There we go. That was better than being bored, right?”

He nods wordlessly, swallowing, shaking. His eyes are glassy and glazed, stupid like he’s just shot out his brain through his dick.

In the short time they’ve been together (though, honestly, this might be the longest relationship she’s ever been in before… and they haven’t even broached the “dating” conversation yet) Annabeth has been on the receiving end of several different Percy looks. His face will light up with joy when he first lays his eyes on her, so happy to see her (though she can’t really fathom why), glinting like the sun on the water. His eyes will narrow, glaring, even as he furiously tamps down on his growing smile when they start arguing over something stupid, like Annabeth’s affinity for olives. He’ll grin at her, knife sharp and slanted, licking his lips and looming over her after she comes down from yet another orgasm via his mouth or his hands.

Percy looks at her now like someone took a bat to his head, and instead of seeing stars, he sees little miniature Annabeths flying around.

He pulls her to him and kisses her, entirely too sweet for what she’s just done to him, but that is also a very Percy thing. And when she leaves him with a final kiss on his cheek and squeeze of his ass, she can feel that look burning a hole through her jacket, following her down the alley and around the corner, and she finds that she doesn’t mind the weight of it at all.

#my fic #percabeth #pjo #the rivalry ends here #ballet au #darkmagyk #woot!!!!

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bitsandbobsandstuff · 5 years

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The (not naked) pin-up calendar

Summary: When you ask for a favor, Bucky (very) grudgingly agrees. What can you do to thank him? Return the favor, of course.

Characters: Bucky x Reader; a plethora of Avengers Warnings: Hardcore fluff. Soldiers wrestling like immature children. Steve being weirded out by nut sacks. Harry Potter references. A hint of naughty times at the end.

A/N: This is silly and fun and what can I say, writing sassy Bucky makes me happy. This is for @beckzorz 1k Writing Challenge (go follow this incredibly talented, beautiful lady), and my prompt was ‘Pin-up calendar’. Thanks a million for hosting Becca, I love you 3000! ♥️

Want to find all my stories? Search #bitsmasterlist or try the link in my bio!

*****

Overnight, the list gets tacked on the corkboard in the kitchen.

Bucky’s rummaging through the pantry, searching for his breakfast Doritos and a jar of salsa to dunk them in, when he glimpses his name from a distance. Snatching up a butter knife, he wanders over to the wall. When he sees the list header, he whirls around in a flurry of tangled hair and irrational grumpiness.

“What the hell is this?”

Bucky complaining first thing in the morning is par for the course, so both Sam and Steve, strolling in to search for breakfast, ignore him. Sam veers toward the sugary cereal cabinet, Steve heads for the oversize Ironman container housing granola, and Bucky stomps his foot like a toddler.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” Steve says seconds later, through an overflowing mouthful of flaxseed and yogurt. “You already agreed. You’re not backing out.”

Bucky spins around and reads the flyer again.

---

“Avengers Calendar Shoot”

See below for your name and photo call timing.

Monday: Carol (10am), Wanda (2pm), Scott (6pm)

Tuesday: Rhodey (10am), Sam (2pm), Steve (6pm)

Wednesday: Tony (10am), Bruce (2pm), Natasha (6pm)

Thursday: Thor (10am), Clint (2pm), Bucky (6pm)

---

Stomping his foot again, Bucky stabs the flyer with the aforementioned butter knife.

“Someone better be yankin’ my dick right now,” he warns. “I definitely didn’t agree to bare my wrinkly nut sack for the whole fucking world to see.”

Sam dry heaves over his Lucky Charms.

Steve’s now filling his Black Widow coffee mug and rolling his eyes.

“What is it with you always trying to be naked? It’s not a naked thing, it’s a charity thing. Innocent children who don’t know what an asshole you are will see this, so you better be wearing clothes,” Steve gives his mug an annoying slurp. “Besides - you already agreed. No takebacks.”

“Steve,” Bucky crisply pivots, launching metaphorical murder darts from his eyes. “We’ve talked about this. Don’t tell me how to live my life.”

“Well it was your girl who convinced everyone to do it, so good luck telling her you’re a liar.” Instead of responding, Bucky holds up a Dorito in front of Steve and peers around the silhouette. Draws a few angles in his head. “What?” Steve asks brusquely.

“Nothing,” Bucky mutters. The chip cracks between his teeth with a puff of toxic orange. “Just makin’ an observation.”

“Just wear your scary leather bondage uniform with your scary mask and stand there all scary. You don’t even need to smile,” Sam says. Spooning cereal in with one hand, his other is attempting to worm its way into Bucky’s bag of chips. Cradling the Doritos under his arm, Bucky twists away, blocking the attack.

“Good way to lose a finger. Don’t touch my things.”

Sam swallows his cereal, ignores the lethal look in Bucky’s eyes, and tries again.

Steve joins in.

And so, when you roll into the kitchen a few minutes later, here’s what you find: three Avengers, three veteran soldiers, wrestling over a bag of Doritos. Bucky has Sam in a headlock, Sam is kicking Bucky’s shins and hitting him with a milky spoon, and for some reason, Steve is dancing around trying to tickle them both.

Clearing your throat, the trio freezes.

You smile.

“Gentlemen.”

Flailing arms and legs instantly break apart. Sam and Steve have the good grace to look chastened, both stammering embarrassed apologies. Bucky simply shoves a fistful of Doritos in his mouth and smiles triumphantly. Striding over to you, he wraps an arm around your shoulders.

“Babe, take my side here. You don’t want the whole world to see my nut sack, right?”

“Stop saying nut sack,” Steve hisses. “Nuts are gross.”

“Maybe your nuts are gross Steve,” Sam pipes up, rubbing his shirt with a wet rag, trying to clear away Bucky’s orange powder fingerprints, “but my nuts are awesome.” After a few harsh scrubs, he sees the futility and throws the rag in Bucky’s face. Stalking from the kitchen, he shouts something about laundry wheels and Oxyclean.

When you pluck the bag of Doritos from Bucky’s grubby hands, he releases them easily and grins at your exasperation. Sidling close, he rubs up against you like a needy kitten, so you hug him tight, dipping your fingers down to squeeze his butt.

“Please do it Bucky, I already told them you would. Wear anything you want, you don’t even have to smile,” you murmur in his ear, knowing precisely which buttons to push. “And besides, I bet I’m not the only one who wants to see those pretty blue eyes. Right?”

Bucky purses his lips. Wrinkles his nose. Grumbles under his breath.

And because you’re looking at him all wide-eyed and soft, he gives in.

Like he always does.

“Fine,” he huffs. “Fine. I’ll do it for you.”

“So much drama,” Steve mumbles through his granola. Bucky lunges for him, but Steve drops his bowl in the sink and skirts past, rushing for the door. Looking back, he throws Bucky a challenging smirk, before smacking into the doorframe. There’s a brief ricochet and then he’s scurrying down the hall, laughing as he goes.

“Idiot,” Bucky mutters.

Folding your fingers behind his neck, you turn his face back to you and kiss his stubbly cheek. “Thank you. Reason number one billion and two why I love you.”

At the brush of your lips, Bucky promptly grabs the back of your thighs and hoists you in the air. Spinning around, he shuffles over to the counter and drops you on top. Settling between your legs, hands flat on the counter boxing you in, his mouth finds the open space above your shirt collar and he proceeds to kiss every square inch.

“The things I do for you,” he breathes, sucking his favorite spot along your neck. It makes you shiver, that thing he does with his tongue. “You realize now I gotta go on a diet.”

“What? No, you don’t. You look perfect.”

Disappointingly, he stops that whole talented tongue thing and leans back. Grinding your heels into his butt, you kick him, urging him to stay put. Instead, he sighs in that tragic, pay attention to me way that only Bucky Barnes can do.

“Obviously I’m perfect, so are you by the way, but the camera adds five pounds. I have to preemptively lose it.” Crinkling up his now empty bag of Doritos, he throws it at the trash can and misses by a mile. He gives you a hangdog, pathetic sort of look. “This sucks.”

Bucky Barnes, ladies and gentlemen. The most dramatic human being on the planet.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you don’t need to diet. You could weigh a thousand pounds and it wouldn’t matter, you don’t - “

“Maybe not, like, a thousand pounds,” Bucky interrupts. “That’d make sex super hard. And not good hard. Just awkward hard. You know? Like when Hagrid’s mom and dad had sex. Which I still don’t understand how that’s supposed to work and I’ve done a shitload of research on it, been on all kinds of forums and talked to some experts - there’s a guy at SHIELD who specializes in interplanetary species relationships, I don’t know if you knew that - but anyway it just makes no sense because she would have killed that little guy if he tried to bang her, and I’m sorry, that’s the tea and I’ll fucking fight anyone who disagrees.”

Pausing for breath, he looks so earnest you almost hate to stop him.

“Buck, maybe we try one day where you don’t reference Harry Potter? I know you’re a fan, but - “

“I drew some diagrams,” he continues. “Boning diagrams. But like, I still can’t get it to work.”

Staring into space, he lets his marvelous tactical brain run every scenario of sexual acrobatics required to establish the feasibility of human-giant sex.

This could go on forever. Once Bucky gets knee-deep in fan forum theories, hours will lapse before he swims up for air. Many a morning has found him still in his boxers, laptop on his knees while he smashes the keyboard, arguing with virtual enemies about the physical features of Hogwarts house founders or the complex nuances of international Wizarding trade law.

The truth is - Bucky Barnes is a god damn nerd.

Clapping your hands, you drag him back to real life.

“Focus please. You’re good to do this then? Without the diet?”

“I really really hate it,” he replies, matter of fact, “but I really really love you, so if you want me to, I guess I’m in. But I’m still losing five pounds.”

“You’re my favorite, you know that?” Slipping your hands up under his shirt, you massage the tight muscles alone his spine and he hums happily. Flashing a lazy grin, he boops your nose.

“You know what? I think you should do it too. Be so great to have a sexy poster of you for those long nights when I’m gone and can’t sleep,” he waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “If you know what I mean.”

“I’m going to pretend I don’t know what you mean.”

“Whatever. Like you don’t have a folder full of dick pics with my name on it,” he laughs.

“I wish you’d stop sending me those,” you say sternly. “You know this is my work phone.”

“So? You always need fresh material for your diddle box. Keeps the romance alive,” he says. Reaching up behind you, he tugs open the snack cabinet and rummages for a new bag of Doritos. The airtight blurp of a new jar of salsa follows.

“I’m sure I’ll regret this, but - what exactly is a diddle box?”

Massive Winter Soldier eye roll.

“All the pictures and videos and sexy shit you use to masturbate. Clearly.”

“Why do I ask you questions,” you sigh.

“I’m starting my diet tomorrow,” he answers instead, before dunking a fresh Dorito in the salsa.

*****

The next two weeks are spent with Bucky mostly eating raw vegetables and baked chicken breast and loudly commenting on the sorrows of dieting to everyone he encounters.

“You’re being ridiculous Bucky. No one told you to lose weight.”

“No,” he says glumly, crunching a celery stick with a martyred expression. “I need to be hot. Beauty is pain.”

“You are a pain.”

He sighs dramatically. Stares wistfully into the distance. Snaps a carrot in half.

“The things I do for you.”

“Jesus.”

*****

AVENGERS CALENDAR SHOOT THIS WEEK!

Remember to be on time, or we will choose the worst picture of you and print that.

We’re assholes that way.

Thanks,

Management

*****

MONDAY

(SEPTEMBER: Danvers, Carol; Captain Marvel)

Carol throws her bomber jacket over her red, blue, and gold uniform, and adds a sleek pair of vintage Ray Bans. Climbing into the cockpit of her fighter jet, she turns herself all glowy and golden, the color bouncing merrily off the control panel. Tipping her face down to the camera, she flashes the Shaka sign and gives the photographer a huge smile.

(FEBRUARY: Maximoff, Wanda; Scarlett Witch)

Wanda goes all out on all things red. Clad in a long red dress and long coat, surrounded by hundreds of red flowers - tulips and roses and carnations - she curls her fingers and everything around her begins to glow with a warm red light. When she smiles at the camera, her head tilts shyly.

(OCTOBER: Lang, Scott; Antman)

Is Scott actually in the picture or did someone spill coffee? The photographer sees a white sheet and a black spec, and scratches his head in confusion. Antman is kinda weird.

*****

TUESDAY

(NOVEMBER: Rhodes, James; War Machine)

Rhodey shows up dressed head to toe in gunmetal colored armor. When he snaps the faceplate down, the photographer timidly asks if maybe he wants to show his face. Rhodey flips the faceplate back up, reminds the photographer how badass this armor is, and says nope. He’s all good, thanks.

(APRIL: Wilson, Sam; Falcon)

Sam has spent the last few nights practicing his Zoolander pout in the bathroom mirror. He decides to wear a tight black t-shirt and comfortable jeans, with his wings spread wide, Redwing hovering beside him. At the last minute, his sultry pout melts into an animated belly laugh and they decide to use that one instead.

(JULY: Rogers, Steven; Captain America)

Steve goes back to his roots. Wearing a too small shirt and holey old jeans, he gazes pensively at the easel in front of him, glossy blond hair combed in a perfect wave. Fingers dusty with charcoal, he points to the picture he’s drawing and insists they capture it in the photo as well. They later realize he was drawing a picture of his own ass. That month gets labeled “Steve Rogers and America’s Ass”.

*****

WEDNESDAY

(MAY: Stark, Tony; Ironman)

Tony wears the bottom half of his suit and his favorite Black Sabbath t-shirt. Posing in his lab, he floats a few feet off the ground, crossing his arms and giving that trademark smirk. Scattered around him are random bits of technology and a few arc reactors, with Dum-E and a steaming platter of cheeseburgers in the background.

(JUNE: Banner, Bruce; Incredible Hulk)

Bruce looks a bit rumpled. The publicity shy scientist in him detests these things, but he’s a good sport for a good cause. Surrounded by microscopes and beakers of dazzling green liquids, he allows the teeniest quirk of his lips. Hands tucked in his pockets, messy curls fall over his forehead, and Bruce just feels happy to be included.

(JANUARY: Romanoff, Natasha; Black Widow)

Natasha asks for her photo in black and white. Dressed in shadows and tulle, she is nothing more than a dark figure against a white backdrop. On her feet, are a pair of ballet slippers, their satin ribbons looped and laced around her ankles. When she arches slowly up on pointe, her arms curve gracefully over her head and there’s an ethereal stillness about the image. Natasha is amazing.

*****

THURSDAY

(DECEMBER: Odinson, Thor; Thor)

Thor wears an enthusiastic smile when he arrives - and not much else. Dressed in a cherry red speedo, black boots, and his swirling red cape, he stands with one fist on his hip and Mjolnir held lovingly in the other. When the photographer asks about his outfit, Thor proudly describes something called “fan art” he saw online of himself wearing this outfit, mentioning how many “re-blogs” it had. He thinks he might wear this outfit more often, if that’s what the Midgardians want.

(AUGUST: Barton, Clint; Hawkeye)

Clint has a cup of coffee in one hand, a pot of coffee in the other. He wears purple sweatpants and a grey tank top and he yawns every five seconds. When asked what pose he’d like to use, he pretends his hearing-aids are broken. He lays down for a nap and the photographer goes with that.

(MARCH: Barnes, James “Bucky”; Winter Soldier)

Bucky leaves his leather bondage gear, his excessive collection of knives and guns, and his murder scowl at home. Instead, he arrives in black jeans and boots, a dark blue t-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders, his tousled hair brushing the collar of his jean jacket. Perched casually on the seat of his restored Harley, he looks carefree and sweet, offering that signature smile that always sets hearts aflutter.

*****

When the final photo is taken, Bucky ambles over to where you stand with the photographer, reviewing proofs. Snuggling up beside you, he moves in for a kiss and stops in surprise.

“What’s with the lipstick?” he asks, bemused. “That’s new.”

You seem momentarily flustered by the question, stuttering something about losing your chapstick and trying new things. Bucky shrugs and dives in anyway. It makes no difference to him. Painted red or completely bare, your lips are always his favorite flavor.

*****

“They’re here!”

The box of calendars lands with a thump on the kitchen counter.

“Excellent. Are we hot?” Steve asks, his mouth full of cheesy pizza.

“I’m always hot,” Sam answers, ripping into the box. “Yesterday I saw a Buzzfeed post about how hot I am, and it said 11/10 recommend.” Yanking out the pile of calendars, he throws one to Steve. “That means more than 100% would recommend. I’m beloved.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a national treasure,” Steve argues. Reaching for a calendar, he flicks impatiently until he finds himself.

Leaving the team to laugh and bicker and poke fun of each other, you grab your bag (and another small package), heading off to search for your favorite assassin slash model.

His door is cracked when you reach it, low music in the background. Knocking lightly, you push it open.

“Hey Buck. Are you busy?”

Surrounded a chaos of metal, Bucky sits cross-legged on his bedroom floor. A tin of gun oil lays open beside him, a shredded old t-shirt in hand, while he cleans and reassembles his guns. This particular task has taken him literally all day, because Bucky Barnes has yet to meet a gun he doesn’t need.

(Seriously. He needs them. All of them. Stop questioning him, Steve.)

At your voice, an adorable smile scrunches up his face. Bouncing to his feet, he leaps gracefully from the middle of the mess and scoops you up, twirling in a circle and stealing your breath with a warm kiss.

“Hey sweetheart, what’re you doin’ here?”

“Something arrived. Thought you might like to see.”

Handing over the calendar, Bucky wipes his hands on his jeans. A nervous energy makes his fingers fumble when he riffles through the pages.

He stops abruptly at March.

“Huh,” he says, observing his portrait from every angle. Turns it sideways, upside down, pinches his lip. Squints a little. Finally, he nods. “Yeah. Okay, yeah. I look pretty great. I think? Right? I don’t know, what do you think?”

It’s funny.

Sometimes, you hold your breath when you watch at him. There are these little things. The bright excitement in his eyes maybe, or the way he scratches his jaw when he gets nervous, or the absentminded way he tucks his hair behind his ear.

It does things to your heart.

“Yeah,” you say, mesmerized by those little things, “you really do.”

Bucky looks up. Sees your face and breaks into a wide grin. He loves when you look at him like this, like he’s the only thing that matters. Like he’s your whole world. Like you love him.

It does things to his heart.

Snapping the calendar shut, he flings it on his bed. Blue eyes rake you up and down and he pokes his lip out in an exaggerated pout.

“Still think you should’ve done it too,” he says. “Bet you would’a looked so hot.”

At his comment, you reach into your bag and pull something free. Silently, you hand over a second square, this one wrapped in black paper, a silver bow taped along the edge.

“What’s this?” he asks curiously.

Shrugging, your expression stays neutral.

“Open it and see.”

Like a kid on Christmas morning, he rips the paper away.

He freezes.

Blinking rapidly, he looks up. Silver fingers delicately trace the shiny picture and he swallows hard.

“Honey, is this - did you do this for me?” he asks softly. Flipping gently through each page of this special, one-of-a-kind calendar, he shakes his head in slow disbelief.

Because there you are.

Posing in March, holding his favorite confetti cupcakes adorned with birthday candles in front of your naked breasts.

Posing in July, dressed in a vintage red, white, and blue USO uniform, white boots on your feet and crackling sparklers in your hands.

Posing again in October, wearing a slutty pumpkin dress with cut-outs revealing slivers of your sweet, sexy assets.

Each picture is incredible. Full of vivid colors and your sunny smile. No air-brushing, no fake poses, just you. Indescribable and undeniably beautiful, bursting with love.

All for him.

Bucky rubs his chest absently, feeling his heart thumping with every turn of the page. And then he reaches the last month, and there’s a strangled squeak. He stares intently at the page. Looks up at you. Back to the page. Back up at you. Closes his eyes briefly.

This is it, this is his favorite, his absolute fucking favorite thing of all time, the image instantly wiping all other thoughts from his proverbial spank bank.

There.

You.

Are.

Damn.

Tacked above you is a sprig of mistletoe, a concession to the holiday theme. But it’s the outfit that does it. Black combat boots, lacy red lingerie, deep red lipstick, and an empty thigh holster. You’re pointing one of his favorite guns at the camera and giving a sly wink.

Mind-blowingly, devastatingly, breathtakingly gorgeous.

Bucky awkwardly adjusts the rising situation in his pants, raising lust-blown eyes to yours. Licking your lips, you give him a hesitant smile.

“Do you - um, do you like them?”

It makes you panic when he says nothing. He simply stares. But then he sets the calendar carefully, reverently, aside. Slipping a hand behind your neck, he hustles you backward until you bump the door, slamming it shut. His warm mouth slants over yours, that talented tongue returning to sweep over your lips. The kiss is hot and frantic, tinged with an edge of wild excitement. When he finally breaks away, his voice is low, dark gravel in your ear.

“Listen. I’m gonna need you to get all those outfits and put on every,” he kisses your throat, “single,” he trails his lips up to your jawline, “one,” and now he’s panting in your ear, “and then I wanna take pictures of me taking everything off, before I fuck you so damn good. How’s that sound?”

Sliding a hand between his legs, your answer makes him tremble.

“Sounds like a deal.”

*****

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #beccas1kwritingchallenge #bucky fic #bucky barnes fic #bitsmasterlist #bucky barnes

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lillianfromaccounting · 3 years

Text

This ended up being a very long post and I'm on mobile, so I'll fix the read more in the morning when I get on the computer.

TW: covid, depression, Thanksgiving, a lot of food talk

-----------

Today, we officially called off Thanksgiving with family (it had pretty much been decided but today we called the few people to confirm it).

Some background: my family only started celebrating Thanksgiving because I wanted to. We're Chinese, so growing up, it wasn't a thing for us, plus my mom wasn't fond of turkey.

At the age of 13, I picked up a bread baking recipe book at a Scholastic book drive. Up until that point, I had been baking stuff from box mixes, so making bread from scratch was a huge deal for me. Age 14, I told my parents I wanted to do Thanksgiving the American way. We qualified for a free turkey at our local supermarket anyway, so why not? To make it more palatable, I incorporated Chinese elements into the menu--various Chinese vegetables (choy) instead of green bean casserole, sticky rice (loh mai fan) stuffing--and i would bake fresh bread. There would always be white rice.

I have a huge extended family and on the weekends, my parents would have family and friends over to play mahjong, so Thanksgiving went over great because they loved trying all these new foods, and I loved trying new recipes. We always had a rotation of at least thirty people, so the food went. I think one year, I counted just over fifty people--it was like a revolving door at my parents' house, some people would pop in around lunch time and hang out until they had to go to their own family's Thanksgiving dinners, some came for dinner, and some came for dessert and coffee with a side of mahjong.

As the years went on, my menus got more and more elaborate, and I would enlist my younger siblings (I have three) to be my sous chefs. It was a THING. Thanksgiving was my thing.

The college I went to is very involved with the Macy's Thanksgiving parade balloons, and while it would have been an awesome experience, it required giving up your Wednesday night and most of Thanksgiving Thursday. That was a deal breaker for me. That's how much my Thanksgiving ritual meant to me.

Some of my favorite memories are waiting in line at DiPalo's (before they expanded, back when it was just the corner storefront) with my sister the weekend before Thanksgiving to get fresh mozzarella and ricotta and parmigiano (lasagna was a huge hit with my family). The longest we waited was three hours one year.

Another year, this was after I had graduated and moved out and was working. My work let us out early (around 2pm), but this asshat in another department ensured me that he needed these numbers so he can work over the weekend. I ended up running out to DiPalo's to pick up my order and going back to work, working to 9pm to get those numbers out, before going back to my parents' house to start cooking. The asshat didn't look at them that weekend (we get the Friday off too).

Mind you, it's not that I couldn't get the ingredients in Jersey, I just honestly had no idea where to go. My parents did the bulk of their grocery shopping in Chinatown and DiPalo's was right at the border of Chinatown and Little Italy.

As I said earlier, my menus got more elaborate over the years. Everyone kept eating the loaves of fresh bread for breakfast, so I made Thanksgiving an all day affair, with a breakfast, lunch, and dinner menu.

One year, the theme was fried foods (fried turkey legs, homemade mozzarella sticks, etc.). I always tried new recipes on Thanksgiving, because honestly, what I enjoyed most about it was the process, the production of creating something delicious.

My siblings started sending me recipes throughout the year. One year, I made a vegan raspberry cheesecake (the base was cashews and almonds).

My siblings also said that they knew my now husband was a keeper because he had not only survived Thanksgiving at my parents' house, but he rolled with it (I'm pretty sure I put him to work too).

After we got married and bought our house, I claimed Thanksgiving for both sides of the family (there were no objections, because I didn't care about Christmas, so they had Christmas). My husband's family had been getting their Thanksgiving meals catered for a few years at this point, so they didn't mind not cooking.

But including his family meant I had to start making sacrifices to my process. One person only liked Stove Top stuffing (don't get me wrong, Stove Top chicken flavor is amazing, but so is a sausage stuffing from scratch). The year my second child was born, I think I was a bit burned out by everything, so we ended up ordering a whole pig (think spit roast, but Chinese style) and some roast ducks that year. We were told the next year that some people would prefer to have turkey. One year, we decided to smoke our turkey, and the feedback we had gotten was that some people really preferred oven roasted. So the following year, we did turkey three ways (roasted, smoked, and deep fried) and we started getting feedback that we were doing too much variety. This happened with the sides too. Heirloom vegetable recipes (guys, I used to watch the Food Network religiously) were reduced to sauteed green beans or asparagus. We were told to reduce the variety of things, so the only pasta dish that kept making it onto the menu was mac and cheese, because that was someone else's preference. And I couldn't even play around with the mac and cheese, because the family's recipe used Velveeta (yes, I know I sound like a food snob, and it's because I was back then).

But year after year, the creativity of the menu decreased and decreased, to the point where my husband and I felt it wasn't enjoyable anymore.

This morning, after we had called the family (it was really just my and his parents, whom we have been seeing during this whole time because we live close and do shopping for them, etc.), part of me was excited to finally make a menu and my husband and I agreed on a very small menu, because it's just us and our two kids.

And by the time I went to bed, I was excited again for Thanksgiving because we will be cooking things that we want. There are three, possibly four varieties of scones on the breakfast menu right now. I haven't mentioned this yet, but my menus are always too ambitious. I almost never get every single dish on the table, but the important ones get there. The experimental ones get ranked in order of what I want to taste.

After all these years, we have established staples. We always have bacon cheddar scones with breakfast. My sons requested chocolate chip and vanilla, respectively, and I want pumpkin. We'll see how many varieties actually get made. I always make fresh cranberry sauce for the sole reason of baking it into a crumb cake for Friday morning. We also eat the Ocean Spray jellied (with whole berries), and I serve it in slices. My husband is the mashed potato king, so he handles that. The King Arthur masala chai pumpkin pie recipe has been a hit year after year, so that is a staple now. I was excited to be able to cook what we wanted again.

It even inspired a Thanksgiving chapter in the fic I am writing. (I am so, so, so happy and excited for this chapter now.)

But as I was going to bed tonight, I was thinking about those memories at DiPalo's and cooking with my siblings, and pandemic sadness hit me like a ton of bricks. I cried hard. I miss my siblings. I miss the hospitality of it all. Just like my parents' house was a revolving door, when my husband and I took over Thanksgiving, it was an unspoken rule that extended friends and family were welcomed. My siblings' friends from high school and college would stop by. My one sister's friend would even ask to be on the menu distribution list (I usually drafted a menu and my family members would vote on which dishes they wanted, and that was partially how the menu was created) and invite himself over lol.

I miss that company--the people who understood my Thanksgiving--my family. I haven't seen (in person) one sister since January and the other since March. And while we're constantly talking to each other and do the occasional video chat, it's just not the same.

If you read this far, thank you for your time and energy.

I don't have a point to this post, except maybe wear a fucking mask and stay home, so we can eventually beat this pandemic and resume some semblance of pre-covid life.

And I know this post is very much a first world problem. We have enough to eat and a warm roof over our heads. I am very grateful for that. But I am allowed to be sad too. This year would have been my 25th anniversary with Thanksgiving.

Writing all this out really helped though.

#personal #Thanksgiving #food #long post #depression #covid 19 #thanks for reading #i finally feel like i might be able to sleep now #also katiekeysburg would probably agree that my menus are ridiculous #and yeah some of it is excessive

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theda-rison · 4 years

Text

SO, Thursday I went outside and then used hand sanitizer and it was SO florally smelly that I had a migraine for the rest of the day and woke up with it on Friday as well. And then I cleaned all Friday because I had been neglecting it because of writing. So like… this it the “Saturday, Middle-Of-The-Fucking-Day Link Round Up.” It’s fine.

Anyway,

Why is it just soooo fucking weird to me when people are really just-- up their own asses about nostalgia? Please tell me, Renegade Cut.

youtube

I feel like I ghost wrote this video at certain parts. The Cult of Tradition is one of civil religion and a starry-eyed view of the past. I wanted to include that tumblr post about Columbus’ sailors mutinying him and writing about how shitty and horrible he was and how much they hated him and I can’t find it. Then I got stuck in my likes on my other tumblr account for like 45 minutes >_>

How to look at an argument to see if it’s Logical or Valid:

youtube

I always love Philosophy Tube’s choices when it comes to framing a topic. This video brought back many many Intro to Ethics feels and it sort of makes me wish I had actually gotten more into Ethics or Philosophy when I had the chance. Like, it’s probably easier to pivot from a philosopher to a writer than from a geologist to a writer, just saying lol.

There would be not nearly as much of having to be an autodidact about things that would help my writing game because a lot of that sort of intersects with philosophy (or anthropology or sociology, which I was also considering around that time) where it just doesn’t with geology. Things like...

How do class systems in popular stories work?

youtube

Ohhhhhh. That's how that works. I shall now make copious notes so I have something to reference for my own stories. Hello Future Me always has amazing videos that are just jam-packed with information. And I generally need to watch them more than once to get it all.

So I work at a college and my life is ruled by the semester schedule, and this past spring I was so busy with work that I had no time to write on the side or even think about writing on the side, and it sort of forced a Situational Depression on me that I’m recovering from… just in time for the Fall semester.

I ended up having to look up “how to make a writing schedule” because I had forgotten everything about writing from not using any of that knowledge for 5ish months.

youtube

This video by Heart Breathings was helpful. It gave me a few scheduling and planning things that I could add to my writerly toolbox. It think it also helped me a bunch with July Nano 2020.

And here’s some silly nonsense because I was making food and it popped into my head again XD

youtube

But I like to sing it SUPER out of tune, and MUCH louder than it needs to be sung. Ki-ko-man! KI-KO-MAN!!

Songs of the week:

Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - A Minute To Breathe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwwQ4uVGGSE

This is just a nice, pleasant song to chill to. Like, laying sprawled out on your bed in the middle of the day with all the lights off and the shades closed and then your cat comes over and lays on you and then you can’t get up so you end up taking a nap at 2pm and it fucks your whole sleep schedule up. That kind of song.

Aretha Franklin "Nessun Dorma" LIVE 1998

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k33sINjn9o0

This is just… amazing. Aretha Franklin apparently learned this song in a few minutes. Also, just look at how nervous Sting looks and she’s like, “Don’t worry, bb, I got it.” This song is just so gorgeous in her voice.

MC Hammer vs Eurythmics vs New Order vs Talking Heads vs Donna Summer - Mashup by FAROFF

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2eeB44rZU0

And here’s what’s new is “the reason why you shouldn’t click on youtube recommendations, I guess?” I really dig it, even though the constant changes give me some kind of anxiety I’ve never experienced before, lol.

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theonyxpath · 4 years

Link

Demi? Meaning partial? No, quite the opposite, actually.

The Kickstarter campaign for Scion: Demigod starts on this Thursday, September the 3rd, at 2pm Eastern US time! And unlike the Kickstarter for Scion: Hero and Scion: Origin, the writing for this book is finished before the KS.

There are actually a fair number of important differences, so, as promised last week, here’s a rundown of how this KS is different from the first one for Scion: Origin and Scion: Hero, since we have indeed learned a lot since then (the first Scion KS was our 22nd and we’ve done 24 more KSs since then):

1- Like I said above, the writing is done. In fact, it is at the stage where the writing is over and the heavy lifting for the developer is over. All those words are now “the text” and any changes are going to be tweaks and minor fixes. Errata stuff. More on that later. The writing that was ready when we did the Scion: Origin/Hero KS was at the Redlines stage, as stated on the KS page at the time, and we have learned that we need more finalized text before we go live on a Kickstarter.

2- The rules are done. Well, of course the rules are done if the text is done, Rich! Sure, yet the fact that during Scion: Origin/Hero‘s KS the Storypath System was still being heavily playtested by our teams, and was being developed for two different creative teams (for Scion and the Trinity Continuum) so that design decisions were still happening is actually very different than now. Storypath has been “battle-tested” in numberless games of Scion, as well as the Trinity Continuum, Dystopia Rising: Evolution, and the They Came From…! game lines.

3- The text will be previewed to backers in sections throughout the KS, you’ll have it all by the end, and can back out before we deliver. Almost exclusively, this is how we handle our Kickstarters now. It eliminates a lot of the fear that the game will develop differently as the writing and developing stages progress. And we get pretty solid discussions going about the text all during the KS, which can be a lot of fun for backers.

4- Our average track record (not including Dark Eras 2 which was structured very differently) for delivery of the Kickstarters after Scion: Origin/Hero‘s KS has been 1.6 months earlier than estimated. Part of that has been because we extended out our estimated delivery date, but the rest has been better internal systems, like:

5- James Bell runs our Kickstarters now. We call him the Kickstarter Concierge because his entire focus is managing our KSs and helping out our backers. He does a phenomenal job with getting folks answers and enabling fun conversations in the Comments.

Titanomachy art by Sam Denmark

6- One of our new processes is a set phase to contract and receive art for the KS, which then rolls right into getting art for rest of the book. This practice is also helpful in getting the art for the Stretch Goal rewards.

7- We have at least one Errata phase after the Backer PDF goes out, although in some cases, and possibly this one, other Errata phases can be included at the developers’ discretion. Rather than having backers write in to us on the forums or via Kickstarter, we now have an Errata system that includes a new form administered by one of our in-house development overseers. Not the developer themselves. In fact, the Text to Editing to Layout to Done process contains more than three times the number of eyes reviewing and confirming changes than it did when we were pulling together Scion: Origin and Scion: Hero.

8- There are more devs understanding the game and rules, with Neall as the lead dev as opposed to having to be deeply involved in every phase like for Scion: Origin/Hero because only he saw how all the pieces needed to come together. Meghan Fitzgerald, who developed Mysteries of the World: The Scion Companion that released recently, and Monica Speca, developer of Titanomachy (the Advance PDF of which releases on Wednesday), are just two of the devs who are able to develop Scion books now that the first two main books are available. Danielle Lauzon is able to bring her unmatched knowledge of how the Storypath System works if needed. This means that while Neall directly developed Scion: Demigod, he has other devs he can run ideas past or who can jump in now if real-life issues impact his work on Scion.

9- One book, not two. More focus, less stress on creators. Also, you’re only pledging for one book (although feel free to pledge for as many as you want!) so your pledge amount will likely be less for this KS, as will likely be our total amount.

10- Scion: Demigod presents concepts which are not just the next “levels” of power for our Heroes, but which expand on what happens once a Scion is more than a hero, but not yet a god.

I’m thinking there may be more differences, but let’s stick with these as we get a Top Ten List sort of thing going. We’re going to have a fun Kickstarter with Scion: Demigod, and we’re hoping all of you can join us for it.

Also, we’ll be including links to Scion: Demigod Actual Play sessions all throughout the KS if you want to get an idea of how great it plays!

Sunken Bones art by Pat Loboyko

And Was There More In the Monday Meeting?

Sure, there really was. And I can’t tell you more than that we looked at a list of future projects that the team was extremely excited about, and we had to only hit the highlights of our weekly reports as the energized creative discussion over the new projects took up so much time.

Yep, we sure love creating:

Many Worlds, One Path!

Blurbs!

Kickstarter!

Scion Demigod Second Edition! Coming this Thursday, September 3rd at 2pm EDT! See all my blathering above for more info!

Onyx Path Media!

This week: What’s Up With The Scarred Lands? Featuring an update and interview with SL major-domo Travis Legge!

As always, this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast will be on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

Vorpal Tales begin their Scion: Demigod actual play from 21:00 EST on the 8th September! It’ll be hosted on our Twitch channel, but please give them a follow too: https://www.twitch.tv/vorpaltales

We’ve got lots of Scion: Demigod interviews and actual plays coming in the next few weeks, so keep watching this section!

For anyone new to our media section, you can find us running and playing games over on twitch.tv/theonyxpath pretty much every day of the week!

Plus, if you’d like your games hosted there, just get in touch with Matthew Dawkins using the contact link on matthewdawkins.com.

Please give our Twitch channel a follow, as you can find a huge number of videos of all kinds of games being run!

This week on Twitch, expect to see these games and streams running:

Scarred Lands – A Family Affair

Technocracy Reloaded – Vorpal Tales

Scion – Behind the Screen

Danielle’s RPG Development Workshop

Hunter: The Vigil – Cold Cases Forsaken Spaces

Changeling: The Dreaming – The Last Faerie Tale

Mage: The Awakening – Occultists Anonymous

Vampire: The Masquerade – Boston by Night

Get watching for some fantastic insight into how to run these wonderful games and subscribe to us on Twitch, over at twitch.tv/theonyxpath

Come take a look at our YouTube channel, youtube.com/user/theonyxpath, where you can find a whole load of videos of actual plays, dissections of our games, and more, including:

Hunter: The Vigil – Hometown Heroes Episode 4 – https://youtu.be/QDwQXsSiGZ0

Scarred Lands – Purge of the Serpentholds S1E13 – https://youtu.be/PNUTWl3eJq8

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – They Came from Devil’s Reef 2/2 – https://youtu.be/hoyYsRLc6Jo

Hunter: The Vigil – Uptown Shadows Episode 3 – https://youtu.be/DWfboQk46RQ

Realms of Pugmire – Paws and Claws S2E13 – https://youtu.be/ARCZGvOKIpc

Subscribe to our channel and click the bell icon if you want to be notified whenever new news videos and uploads come online!

Tom Murr continues with his amazing They Came from Beneath the Sea! audio drama over on his YouTube channel! Radio ReScience Episode 2: Military Entanglement, can be found right here: https://youtu.be/qiTprIriV7Y and Episode 3: Spycraft is here: https://youtu.be/qqS5rM3GA5A

Systematic Understanding of Everything is a new Exalted Explainer Podcast by Exalted Dev Monica Speca and Exalted Writer Chazz Kellner that is breaking down Creation in 45 minute chunks in preparation for Exalted Essence.

Their most recent episodes are available over on https://www.exaltcast.com/, with their newest covering the stunning Sidereals!

The Story Told Podcast continues their Fall of Jiara Exalted chronicle, and you can find their newest episode right here: https://thestorytold.libsyn.com/fall-of-jiara-25

Chris Allen continues his excellent chronicle of Werewolf: The Forsaken over on Paleo Gaming‘s Twitch channel. Do check out Very Angry Dogs!

https://www.twitch.tv/paleo_gaming

Two new Occultists Anonymous episodes for you fans of Mage: The Awakening! Find them right here:

Episode 124: Vibe Check The cabal travel to Seattle with the intent of hunting down Mr. Graves, behind enemy lines, and with little local support. https://youtu.be/kHJ8BVcqDd0

Episode 125: Not Enough… With a single lead from Wyrd, the cabal works to see who they’ve even made contact with. Unsure of their intel, behind Seer lines, they’re given a task to complete. https://youtu.be/w8iEpJoVJUo

Windy City Kindred kicks off their Vampire: The Masquerade Chicago by Night chronicle right here for you: https://youtu.be/nlaJfpABsE0

If you’re a fan of Dread Names, Red List for Vampire: The Masquerade, check out our friend The Primogen‘s video on the Red List! https://youtu.be/_6hEtPIyBs4

GMS Magazine produced a review of Dystopia Rising: Evolution over on their channel! https://youtu.be/Q0Ih1KkUhS0

Please check these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games! We’d love to feature you!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

We’re told that the App Dev is currently creating an updated version for the latest devices, so keep an eye open for those!

Virtual TableTop!

Introducing a Virtual Tabletop adventure: the Gauntlet of Spiragos for Scarred Lands on Astral TableTop!

Scars of the Divine War, which ended less than 200 years ago, have still not healed. One such scar is the Chasm of Flies, a rent in the earth created when the titan Spiragos the Ambusher was smote down by one of the young gods, Vangal the Ravager. Now, the Chasm is inhabited by spider-eye goblins and their spider allies, but it is also thought to be the resting place of powerful artifacts from that elder age.

Gauntlet of Spiragos is a Scarred Lands adventure designed for 1st level characters, although it can be easily modified for characters of up to 5th level.

Astral TableTop is the easiest way to play any tabletop RPG online, free. Astral already supports popular systems like D&D and Pathfinder, and Astral can support virtually any tabletop roleplaying game. Get started quickly with built-in support for most popular game systems. Whether you’re brand new to TTRPGs or a veteran tabletop gamer, Astral‘s ease-of-use and built in automation is designed to streamline gameplay.

Astral is browser-based and uses the latest technology to streamline your storytelling experience. Connect with your party online and run your campaigns however you like. Astral offers tools optimized for phone, tablet, and desktop devices, no installation required.

Build epic battlemaps using Astral‘s enormous collection of scenery, props, and tokens or upload your own. Pro users gain access to over 12,000+ assets and fresh new packs every month. Add weather, visual effects, triggers, and so much more with easy-to-use tools

Build your own adventure, or choose from pre-generated game kits like Gauntlet of Spiragos. Create character sheets, craft maps, or just jump right in to connect with your friends and start your adventures!

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these latest fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to provide our traditionally printed books out into your local game stores. Game stores can order via their usual distributors, and can also contact Studio2 directly. And individuals can check out our projects via the links below!

You can pick up the traditionally printed Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau main books, screens, and the official dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

Now, we’ve added Chronicles of Darkness books such as Changeling: The Lost Second Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Our Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition books are also available from Studio2 in the US: https://studio2publishing.com/products/vampire-the-masquerade-chicago-by-night-sourcebook

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And now Scion Origin and Scion Hero and Trinity Continuum Core and Trinity Continuum: Aeon are available to order

It’s the LAST DAY of the DOG DAYS OF SUMMER SALE!

As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

The Cthulhu Mythos sale at DriveThruRPG finishes this week, and we’ll have some God-Machine PDFs included in the sale!

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, the Titans grab the attention in the Titanomachy book for Scion! Advance PDF on sale on DTRPG!

Scion: Titanomachy has everything a Storyguide needs to bring the Second Titanomachy — a phase in the eternal cold war against the Gods — to their Scion Second Edition games.

It presents new threats from the Titans to their servants, plus their fell powers and Birthrights — ripe for use as antagonists or as new material for players’ characters. It also provides adventure hooks to springboard Storyguides into the action.

Scion: Origin and Scion: Hero are required to use this book.

This book includes:

Titans for each of the core pantheons, to be used as enemies or strange allies.

Three adventure hooks to help Storyguides run epic games involving the Second Titanomachy.

Dozens of all-new antagonists from enemy Scions to fearsome monsters.

New, Titan-themed Birthrights and Knacks for players to discover and use.

Note: This is the Advance PDF version. We’re collecting errata feedback before preparing the final PDF and Print versions of the book. Everyone who purchases the Advance PDF will automatically get the final PDF added to their Library on DriveThruRPG, plus they will receive a discount link for the Print version taking into account that they purchased the PDF.

Also this Wednesday, we open up the They Came From Beneath the Sea! Community Content part of the Storypath Nexus! Now you too can design scenarios featuring the terrifying, tentacular, terrors of the seven seas! And even get paid for it!

Conventions!

Though dates for physical conventions are subject to change due to the current COVID-19 outbreak, here’s what’s left of our current list of upcoming conventions (and really, we’re just waiting for this last one to be cancelled even though it’s Nov/Dec). Instead, keep an eye out here for more virtual conventions we’re going to be involved with:

PAX Unplugged: https://unplugged.paxsite.com/

And now, the new project status updates!

Development Status from Eddy Webb! (Projects in bold have changed status since last week.):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep.)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

The Devoted Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

Prometheus Unbound (was Psi Orders) (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

No Gods, No Masters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion Fiction Anthology (Scion 2nd Edition)

TC: Aeon Novella: Dawn (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

TC: Aeon Novella: Meridian (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Legacies of Earth (Legendlore)

Redlines

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

CtL 2e Novella Collection: Hollow Courts (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Adversaries of the Righteous (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Squeaks In The Deep (Realms of Pugmire)

Trinity Continuum: Anima

Second Draft

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Hundred Devil’s Night Parade (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Novas Worldwide (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Exalted Essence Edition (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Saints and Monsters (Scion 2nd Edition)

M20 Technocracy Operative’s Dossier (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

Wild Hunt (Scion 2nd Edition)

Development

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Assassins (Trinity Continuum Core)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

V5 Forbidden Religions (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Adventure! core (Trinity Continuum: Adventure!)

M20 Rich Bastard’s Guide To Magick (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

Manuscript Approval

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

V5 Trails of Ash and Bone (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Dystopia Rising: Evolution Fiction Anthology (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)

The Clades Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

V5 Children of the Blood (was The Faithful Undead) (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Post-Approval Development

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Mission Statements (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Editing

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

TC: Aberrant Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

LARP Rules (Scion 2nd Edition)

The Book of Lasting Death (Mummy: The Curse 2e)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Dearly Bleak – Novella (Deviant: The Renegades)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Under Alien Skies (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Dead Man’s Rust (Scarred Lands)

Post-Editing Development

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (They Came From!)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Indexing

Art Direction from Mike Chaney!

In Art Direction

Tales of Aquatic Terror – LeBlanc art in and getting fulls.

WoD Ghost Hunters (KS) – KS page to Paradox for approval.

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Mummy 2

Deviant – AD’d.

Legendlore

Technocracy Reloaded

Cults of the Blood God

Scion: Dragon (KS)

Masks of the Mythos (KS)

Scion: Demigod (KS) – Ready for Thursday.

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (KS)

TC: Adventure! (KS)

Geist: One Foot In the Grave – Artists are working.

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness) – Sending art buy sheet to Dixie for notes.

In Layout

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad

Vigil Watch

Trinity Core Jumpstart

Aberrant – Gonna start layout with the power section

Proofing

Cavaliers of Mars: City of the Towered Tombs

Yugman’s Guide Support Decks (Scarred Lands)

TC Aeon Terra Firma – Sent back to Josh, looking good.

V5 Let the Streets Run Red – Inputting corrections.

Pugmire Adventure – Need map finished.

At Press

TCFBTS Screen and Booklet – Files at press.

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – Shipping from printer to KS fulfiller.

Pirates of Pugmire – Shipping from printer to KS fulfiller.

Pirates of Pugmire Screen – Files at press.

Dark Eras 2 – Files printing.

Dark Eras 2 Screen and booklet – Files at press.

Contagion Chronicle – Press prep.

Contagion Chronicle Screen and Booklet – Files at press.

Lunars Wall Scroll Map – Shipping to KS fulfiller from printer.

Lunars Screen and Booklet – Files at press.

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate – Prepping files for PoD and press.

Scarred Lands Creature Collection – Shipping from printer to KS fulfiller.

Magic Item Decks 1-3 (Scarred Lands) – PoD proof decks ordered.

Scion Titanomachy – Advance PDF on sale Weds on DTRPG!

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Over the weekend we learned of the unexpected and sad death of Chadwick Boseman, the actor best known for portraying King T’Challa of Wakanda, the Black Panther, although in his relatively short career he also played several great and inspirational historical figures. The impact of his work portraying a comic book hero far outweighed the basic idea; we celebrate that his Black Panther embodied an ideal and inspirational place needed by many people around the world. As stated by former President Obama: “To be young, gifted, and Black; to use that power to give them heroes to look up to; to do it all while in pain – what a use of his years.”

#Onyx Path Publishing

3 notes · View notes

sumastudies · 4 years

Text

so, this is how it’s going (for me)

it’s currently day 20 of my self-isolation journey. my department in uni had us do one last day (friday the 13th) of normal classes because i had 2 labs and quizzes that, so we did those and then the isolation began. and now im losing my mind.

a little background: i got sick the week the government here came out with the announcement that uni is gonna be off for 3 weeks (now extended for the rest of the semester being online). that decision didn’t come out until thursday the 12th. the thing is, i usually dont get too sick? like, it’s pretty normal for me to start feeling sick, have a bit of a scratchy throat and maybe a headache, stuffy nose too, but my immune system always always manages to fight it off in a couple of days. so since it’s pretty rare for me to get sick enough to want to stay home. in the beginning of that week, i thought that was what was gonna happen too, but by wednesday, it seemed that yeah, im sick and my body is too tired to fight it off. see, i sort of didn’t consciously think about going to uni - it was a given that i had to. i had a lab midterm i HAD to do on tuesday, and then i couldnt afford to miss my classes for the rest of the week (for the sake of material and i didnt want to go over my nonattendance allowance), but then on thursday afternoon at like 2pm, after a full day of classes since 9am, i fell asleep in class out of pure exhaustion, and that’s when i knew that i absolutely HAD to stay home. imagine the frustration. if i’d stayed home that morning, or at least skipped 1 class, i’d have felt marginally better, at the least.

but i couldnt. my classes wouldnt end til 7.30 that evening, and i had the 2 labs and quizzes to prepare for and go to the next day from 9am-6pm - only then could i let my body rest.

so i got through both classes that day, and got back home so tired all i could do was lay in bed so tired i didnt even change out of my clothes, with guilt weighing down on me because i wasnt studying for the next day’s labs. by 12am, i was so frustrated and bone-achingly tired that i just gave up and texted a friend to ask the TAs in the morning lab if i could do anything to compensate what i’d miss if she didnt see me in the morning. then i took finally go to sleep with alarms for 6am that i would get up to if i heard in the morning to study. here’s when the sobbing starts out of nowhere.

in hindsight, i dont know if it was just a normal flu that my body couldnt fight off due to physical exhaustion, or if it was something else. (bear in mind, that was the week when only the first case of covid19 was reported here, so logically it couldnt have been but the paranoia was definitely there and definitely scary as hell)

fast foward to now: it’s been 2 weeks of online classes, and one more before that of netflix only, and im just about losing my mind. i came to stay over at my friends’ after only the first weekend and now idk if i wanna go back to my apartment alone or if it’s just because my mind is generally restless and i just wanna go back to be with my family. (that’s a whole other story tho)

even worse, i cant bring myself to focus on my classes, even though i wanted them to start so bad that first week i had to do absolutely nothing, for the sake of some structure. my uni plans to give some projects/homeworks to replace midterms at least, the fate of finals is still undecided, and labs might be done in the summer, and i cant get myself to study even for myself and my own growth. the way i’ve been wanting to since winter break in jan.

this unmotivation is killing me, and i know im not the only one feeling this way, i know that literally the whole world is in this situation and mindstate right now, but i feel like i want to explode. i cant help but blame myself and my own fucked up brain for not being productive and being good for myself, just like i always do.

i want to do more with my life with all the time that i have now, work towards my future career somehow. even the internship i was supposed to start planning for this summer is probably gonna be suspended or whatever.

i study both pharmacy and business admin, and i feel like it’s more accessible to try and do something with my business degree in some way, but my brain has never been trained to be of the entrepreneurial type.

im just. so sick of being in limbo like this.

i havent even been able to get myself to write (anything, of any sort) in MONTHS

i dont even know when i can get back home to my family, since no one’s accepting any incoming flights and im not even a permanent resident so. fuck all this shit.

#suma talks #suma rants #personal #long post #mine #im sorry this is so long i just needed to get it out somewhere

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nox-bones · 4 years

Text

Little bit of a rant here..might put under read more bc idk how long it’ll be. Gonna be mentions of covid-19 *no one has it just mentioning it* but yeah. Just having a lot of anxiety about shit and I need to vent it out.

So Tuesday morning I got an email from my boss asking for my new availability so they can start making up schedules for all the therapists (and I’m assuming front desk too) when we re-open, so that we get the most optimized schedule that’s as fully booked as possible.

The problem is. We don’t know when we’re gonna be able to re-open - Originally they slated April 17 (so this Friday) to open back up, and now they’ve pushed it to April 26 (which, okay, but Florida is under a stay at home order until April 30th soooooo idk wtf they think about opening before that but okay).

The othe problem is - THERE STILL ISNT A FUCKING VACCINE FOR THIS STUPID CORONAVIRUS BULLSHIT!! WHY!! THE FUCK!!! WOULD YOU!! RE OPEN A CLINIC!!! OF MASSAGE THERAPISTS AND ESTHETICIANS!!! TO THE PUBLIC!!! WHILE THERE IS NO FUCKING VACCINE ?!?!!?!?!?

Like I get we can clean, wipe down, sanitize, and all that mumbo jumbo but none of us truly KNOWS where these clients are coming from, who they’ve been around, if they’re sick or not (they may not even know themselves), how often they wash their hands or keep up general cleanliness, etc. WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THEIR HABITS AND WHERE THEY’VE BEEN.

WHY would you fucking RISK the lives of (a) your employees, (b) your clients, and (c) everyone’s family and friends who end up getting exposed to all the above?!?!! Like I know businesses really only give a fucking fuck about money and profit and shit, but peoples’ LIVES are fucking more important than your goddamn business.

I am so fucking sick of how society runs with business. Money is NOT everything. I know we need it to do things and have homes and food and shit, but I for one am not gonna risk my fucking life or anyone else’s lives for money. I’ll find some other remote fucking job where I don’t have to be around people and possibly contract the virus.

It’s not to say that our clinic WILL open in April - we might not even open again for another year depending on how everything goes, but I’ve made up my mind to just...not go back.

I’ve wanted to quit for a while, long before this pandemic even started. I want to move on with my life, and move out of Florida, and finally start living the life that I want to live. This pandemic has given me the opportunity to do just that (minus the moving bc gotta wait until after vaccinations start happening and it’s safe again), and I am gonna grill myself so hard to get a new remote job (it might take a while, but I’m determined to get something going for myself because I need to get OUT asap).

I’m supposed to be having a call or conversation sometime later today (thursday - it’s currently 5 AM that I’m writing this...and they want the schedule by 3pm...but I probably won’t wake up until 2pm lol). I am prepared to have “the talk” with them about not returning when we re-open (especially if we re-open before a vaccine is released bc I am just not willing to risk it). I might share my sentiments about it (in a professional calm manner), but ultimately I have decided to quit my job.

I’m finally gonna file for unemployment (god that took fucking forever but I’m gonna be mailing it out either this weekend or monday). I also just got the $1200 stimulus check, and I still need to file my taxes, so I’ll have some money for a little bit to hold me over and save on, but I do need to find a remote job either part time or full time so I can get myself out of Florida when the time comes.

But when I read that email from my boss, I had such a horrible anxiety attack. I was not prepared in the least to hear that we may be re-opening in the next few weeks, and that they want a new availability. I haven’t had a chance to think about work because I’ve been dealing with a bunch of other bs. :/

Now suddenly it’s in my face, and we only had 2 days notice? I mean, I understand if my boss only had a 2 day notice, but the people above them shouldn’t fucking plan so horribly. 2 days to figure out what everyone wants to do is not enough time. Even if I was gonna go back to work for them, it took me a whole fucking month to figure out what I wanted my full time schedule to be...how do you expect me to do it in less than 2 days?!?!

I’m just so irritated, frustrated, stressed, anxiety-ridden, and I just can’t handle it. I mean, I will handle it and I’m doing my best, but it’s fucking hard and I don’t talk about it enough about how much I’m struggling emoitonally/mentally with everything. I’m no good at telling people how I really feel. I never have been (I mean, I type up posts and shit but that’s different than directly talking to someone). I’m not gonna say it outright, but that thing that depression often leads to when someone is at their point of no return...yeah..I’ve been down here for a while and fighting back and forth. I’ve been pushing through, and I think I’ll be able to keep fighting it and pushing myself, but it’s still there in the background of my thoughts. I think about it a lot now.

Sigh T_T :(

I think I’m done ranting now. I don’t know if I feel better or not, but eh.

I think the only things that will suck about not returning to my current workplace is not seeing my coworkers again, and not seeing my regular clients (who I’ve seen for the past 3 1/2 years) again :/ but sometimes that’s how life is I guess...

let’s see if I get any sleep today ;--;

#long post #read more #coronavirus #coviid-19 #only mentions of it but ya #pp #im so tired #mentally #emotionally #just ugh #:(

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imagines-mha · 5 years

Note

I've been hOLDING THIS ONE BACK FOR A WHILE EVER SINCE I SAW THAT SHIN CALLED HARI HIS HUSBAND IN ONE OF YOUR DELIVERIES S O; HariShin marriage proposal, extra points if either of them (or both) break into tears from overflowing joy - headcanons or writing, please, my heart needs it -Lion anon

THIS IS THE BEST REQUEST IVE EVER GOT WTF THANK YOU SO MUCH MY SON!!! HOPE U ENJOY 💕💫💕💫

Thursday, August 8th

The day was a panther. It prowled up behind him and pounced whenever it was least expected to.

He couldn’t believe tonight was the night. Was it really August already? Surely it couldn’t be....it still felt like April was barely on the horizons, let alone August!

He wanted this day to come as fast as possible, and every passing hour since he decided this would be the day, he itched it would speed up. Now that it was here however, he had an inkling his wish had come true...because time with his lover sped by so damn quickly, suddenly it was August 8th.

The day Shin Nemoto would propose to Hari Kurono

He was more than excited, to say the least. Tonight he would be engaged, after all. What wasn’t there to be excited about? Especially since he was going to be engaged to the man who made him whole, who made him happy, who made him him

Honestly he prided himself more than a man of his age and stature should have, but he very seldom cared. Everyone had thought Hari would be the first to propose (and had placed copious amounts of bets on it, thanks to Sakaki)

How could he blame them though? Hari was the more romantic one: the one who always held his hand, showered him with fluttering compliments and expressed his love like he was in a play

Shin on the other hand, was the mature one- the hardworking, stoic one who expressed a small love rather than a grandiose expansion of it. But he made sure Hari knew how much that small love meant to him

And surely after he proposed, the oversquad would know how serious he truly was about he and Hari

The latter was at work today, going about his daily duties alongside Overhaul as per usual. Shin luckily got the day off, “for being so hardworking” Overhaul stated with a smile, “you deserve it”

He was thankful his boss was on his side for once

He checked the time. 2pm

Thankfully his mind was logical and worked in a system that had a perfect timetable for everything. Hari was home at 6pm. He had 4 hours to clean, shower and make dinner. Hari often took approximately 45 minutes to prepare himself for the night, so dinner should be ready at around 6:50pm. Then, by at least 7:30pm- he would be an engaged man

Shin felt like he was keeping a secret, and it was one he couldn’t wait to share with the love of his life

////////////

5:37pm

Shin was sat on the couch, speech in hand. It had been memorised for months now, but still he spent the remaining minutes correcting any grammar mistakes (which he knew he didn’t need to do, but it helped him forget about the nerves)

With every second more nerves rose in his body. They made his heart race and his stomach do frontflips, and he wasn’t used to feeling all this emotion at once- so he didn’t know how to handle it. He focused on breathing straight, and made his way into the kitchen to finish up dinner.

The nerves couldn’t hurt him, he felt them before on his first date with Hari... he would get over them

After hiding his fears in cooking for a bit, he felt himself calm, thankfully- and he didn’t even notice the time, or hear the click of the door when it opened

“I’m hoo-ooomeee!” The adorable singsong voice of Hari sounded through, and soon his silhouette came into view

There he stood: His happiness. His Hari. His other half. His future.

And he had no idea what was coming to him...

After a quick kiss on the cheek and a small moment of love shared between the two, Hari excused himself to get ready for dinner

That gave Shin all the time in the world to ensure everything was perfect. He had the ring in one pocket, the speech in his other, the house spotless and the dinner ready to be served.

All that was left was the big moment...

////////////

7:12pm

Shin knew he was stalling. He and Hari were sat at their table for two, laughing about their days as per usual. Today, Hari was sharing a typically funny story about Tengai and Hoji, which created laughter throughout the small home

He waited until Hari was finished, the nerves kicking in like a timebomb. Thankfully, he was sat down, because his knees were weak. His palms were sweaty, face paling, and heart pumping

Luckily he hid it well through his exterior, and waited until he physically couldn’t anymore. The speech was ready to be read. The ring was pleading to be presented. His heart was craving to be claimed

“I love you, Hari-“ he began with a soft smile and vulnerable eyes, and watched as his partner chuckled

“That was random-“ he grinned, resting on a palm, “has someone gotten soft?”

“Hush, you know you’ve made me soft from the moment i met you-“

“That i do know, but hey?” Hari prompted, and Shin tilted his head

“I love you too-“ he puckered his lips playfully, an act than Shin knew all too well. He leant over the table and kissed him quickly and the smaller male grinned in response

“I can’t believe you’ve made a man so cold and emotionless turn into someone who gets excited in the mornings just to feel your warmth” Shin continued his speech and Hari only blushed with a smile, reaching down to intertwhine their fingers

“I always dreamt of living life alone.... working for Overhaul until i died...i never really had a purpose, did i?” he chuckled, “until i met you...”

“I feel the same...” Hari commented, and you could see already the glistening in his rounded eyes. He was in love.

“It’s been the greatest thing to find you dear... i thank every single God for giving me another chance at life, and to find love” he nodded, letting his heart pour out with all the sentiments he’s bottled up for so long

“I almost couldn’t imagine a life without you in it by my side....”

“I feel the same-“ Hari reassured, “i want to grow old and die right next to you Shin” he nodded, his serious side coming to head, “there’s no one else i’d rather have...or rather love than you...”

Shin heard Hari’s contribution to his speech, and suddenly it was more of a duet than a speech at all

Now Shin just had to finish the love song

He released Hari’s hand and hoped his knees wouldn’t buckle under the sheer weight of nerves, but he was ready nonetheless

He stood from the chair, then dropped to one knee, “that’s why i want to secure us...”

Before he could say or do anything else, Hari began to cry. He stood up in front of Shin and covered his face, trying to keep his whimpering and sniffles low while he held onto Shin’s every word

“You’ve made me a new person...i was so empty without you by my side and i...” he stopped to gulp, suddenly feeling a hot tear slide down his cheek. He didn’t even realise he was crying until then....

“Will you marry me, Hari?” He sniffled, smiling wider than he ever has before as his soulmate wiped his waterfall eyes, nodding with sheer excitement and confirming it with the word ‘yes’ stringing out of his mouth on repeat

Shin took the ring and placed it on Hari’s finger, before getting back to his feet and swooping him up into his arms- both of them still crying tears of utter joy

“I can’t believe you’re crying...” Hari sniffled, kissing his lips for what must have been the 8th time that second

“You make me come undone...” Shin giggled, and kissed Hari back, “i’m so in love with you...”

“And i’m so in love with you...” Hari reiterated, wrapping his arms around his soon-to-be husband

And everything fell into place

#my hero academia #shin x hari #shin nemoto #hari kurono #oversquad #eight precepts of death #shie hassakai

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mrsbenhardyx · 5 years

Text

Love, I’m home - Chapter 1

Pairing: Ben Hardy!Roger Taylor x reader

Summary: You have a great job at the BBC and you love writing scripts and shooting episodes. But one day, your boss asks you to go to France for 2 months to shoot a special reportage. You are excited, but also scared to leave Roger for so long...

Warnings: fluff, maybe angst

Word count: 2903

A/N: Guys, this my very first fanfiction so don’t shoot me if it’s not 100% perfect yet. I hope you like it! Let me know when there is anything you want to tell me about the story. Love <3

Disclaimer: English is not my main language. There probably are some words that are used incorrectly and there will be some grammer mistakes in there too. Please forgive me for that.

You always thought that working for television was your dream job, and when you got the job at BBC three years ago, you were absolutely thrilled. You worked at the office every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday to do the administration and write scripts with your colleagues and on Wednesday and Friday, you were in the studio to help shooting the episodes that you had written.

But on this particular Friday, they didn’t need you to help shooting a new episode, so you decided to do some more administration that had piled up on your desk. Half way in the administration, your boss walked over to you.

“Y/N, could you come with me for a second? I need to speak with you in private”, he said while looking over your shoulder. You nodded and followed him obediently to his office. You sat down on in a little chair in front of your boss and you started to pull the tips of your hair. Something you often did when you were nervous.

“Y/N, you absolutely do not have to be nervous. And in case you are worrying, don’t be. You are not here to get fired,” he grinned. “I actually have a very important question for you.”

You looked at him with a questioning look. “And what may that very important question be?”, you asked.

“Have you ever been to France before?” You shook your head to say no. “Well, then this will be your first time. You are going to France with Rachel to make a reportage about the presidential elections in France,” he laughed at you, but you did not really understand what he was saying. “Did you hear me, Y/N? You are going to France in three weeks. Aren’t you excited about that?” You nodded your head, but you still were not sure about what he had told you a minute ago. You were going to France, but why? You did not work there to write and shoot reportages about presidential elections.

“But-“, you started, but your boss interrupted you immediately.

“Don’t worry. You do not need to write the whole reportage by yourself. Rachel and a whole crew will join you on your trip. You are just there to present the show,” he said when he saw that you were thinking about the whole thing. “Here are some papers with all the important information you need to know. You will leave in three weeks and you will stay in Paris for 2 months, but you can find all the information right here.” He handed you a thin folder on which ‘France’ was written.

“Thank you very much, sir. Can I leave now? I still have to do a lot of work before I can go home,” you asked him while getting out of the chair and heading towards the door.

“Of course you can. We will have one last meeting about this trip the week before you leave. Make sure that you have read everything that’s in the folder. I’ll see you on Monday, Y/N”, he answered with a soft smile.

“Thanks. Have a nice weekend, sir”, you replied and you shut the door behind you.

You let out a little sigh when you where back at your desk, because you still had to do a lot of work before you could go home and it was already 2pm. You would read the folder when you were at home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When you arrived at home after a long day at work, you opened the door to see that there was nobody at home. You put your bag and purse on the ground and slipped out of your shoes while thinking about the trip to Paris. You hadn’t had the chance to think about it until you were driving home in your car. On one side you were really excited, because you never went to Paris or France before and you could go on a little vacation with your best friend, but you were also a little sad and scared about staying away from home for so long.

You wanted to lay down on the couch and read the folder your boss gave you, but the telephone started ringing and since you were the only person in the apartment, you stumbled to the kitchen to pick of the phone. “Hello, you are speaking with Y/N”, you murmured into the telephone.

“OMG, Y/N, I can’t believe this! We’re going to Paris together in three weeks.”

You laughed when you heard Rachel shouting through the telephone.

“I know, I can’t believe it either. I am really excited.” You tried to be convincing, but lying to your best friend never worked.

“Y/N, what’s wrong? You do not want to go to France with me?” she asked worried.

“Of course, I want to come with you Rachel. I am just very tired. I had a very long day at work. It’s nothing”, you tried to lie while playing with the telephone wire.

“Y/N, I know you for almost three years now and you still do not know that lying to me is impossible. Tell me what is bothering you.”

You sighed, but decided to tell her anyway, because she was and still remains your best friend. “I really am excited Rachel, because I never went to France or Paris before. But two months is really long and I don’t know if I can stay away for so long. I am scared Roger is going to do something stupid and that my heart will be broken when I come back.” And just when you were done confessing your doubts to your best friend, you heard someone call your name. You immediately knew it was Roger.

You and Roger Taylor where in a relationship for more than a year now and you loved him more than anything else in the world. You loved his blue eyes that would watch you every time you were together. You loved his blond hair that always smelled like your favorite shampoo. And of course his smile. His smile was amazing. You were totally in love with your blond drummer boy. And he was totally in love with you.

“Love, I’m home. Where are you?”, he shouted while he was searching for you. You took the receiver from your ear and looked through kitchen door into the living room. “Rog, I am here. I’ll be right there!”, you answered.

“Y/N, are you still there?”, you heard Rachel’s voice through the phone.

“I’m sorry, Rachel. Roger just came home and I quickly wanted to say hi”, you answered when you put the phone to your ear again.

“Go talk to him about it and tell him how you feel. He will understand. I am sure everything will be okay. I’ll see you Monday at the office, Y/N,” she reassured you.

“I’ll see you Monday, Rachel. I love you,” you whispered before ending the call.

You quickly made some tea, before going over to Roger. You saw him sitting in the couch with the thin folder about the trip in his hand.

Shit.

This was not how you wanted him to find out that you would be leaving in three weeks.

“Y/N, what is this all about?”, he asked with a sad look in his eyes.

You sighed and sat down beside him in the couch. You crossed your legs and started to talk. “Well, Rog, my boss asked me to go to France for 2 months to make a reportage about the elections. I am leaving in three weeks with Rachel and a crew to help me shooting the show.”

“But you don’t know anything about politics or are there other things I don’t know about you yet?” he grins, looking at you.

“No, you’re right. But the crew will be writing all what I’ll have to say about the elections.”

“But, you’ll be in France for almost two months. I’ll miss you like crazy. You know I can’t be without you for that long, love,” he said, both sad and doubtful.

“I know, honey, but we can call every day and those two months will be over before we know it. Don’t worry, I’ll miss you too,” you replied and you sat closer to him to lay your head on his shoulder. He kissed you on top of your head and suddenly came out of the seat.

“I have an idea! I’ll come with you. Then we can be together the whole time!”, he almost shouted through the apartment

“But, Rog-“, you wanted to return, but he interrupted you before you got the chance to say anything.

“Why not? We won’t miss each other and we can go on a little vacation at the same time. Doesn’t that sound wonderful to you then?”, he asked me.

“Roger, stop it. You can’t come with me. I need to work there and you need to stay here. Queen needs you. Brian, Freddie and John need you. You can’t just leave for two months You have a very important show in a month. You need to stay here for the boys.”

“You just don’t want me to come, don’t you? What are you going to do there that I am not allowed to know about?”

“Roger, honey, I am just there to shoot that reportage. That’s it! You can read everything in the folder my boss gave me if you want to know so badly!” You had to repress some tears because you saw that he was almost heartbroken.

“But I just want to come with you!”, he started shouting even louder than before.

“Roger, just stop it! You can’t come because of the shows you have to perform with Queen, don’t you understand? You are needed here! And of course I’ll miss you, but it’s only for two months. We’ll get through it!” You only realized that your voice was shaking when you stopped shouting. ‘Just leave me alone for a while, I need to think.”

“No, Y/N, please stay. We can talk about it, love”, he walked towards you and took your wrist in his hand. “Please, don’t go!”

“Roger, please. I have to be alone for some time. I will be back before it gets dark,” you said, while pulling your arm out of his grip. You started walking towards the door to the hallway, when a few tears started running down your face. You took your purse from the ground, when your legs suddenly gave up and you dropped to the floor. You tried to find support against the wall, but it was too late. You were sitting on the floor now, crying and sobbing. You absolutely hated it when you and Roger had a fight. It had happened a few times before and it always ended with you, sobbing, on the floor or against a wall. And Roger always was heartbroken when he heard you silent sobs.

And that also happened this time.

Roger heard your sobs in the hallway and immediately walked over to you. He saw you sitting on the floor against the wall, with your knees pulled up and your head on top of them.

“Y/N, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry. I’m sorry, love”, he whispered while sitting beside you. You had not noticed his presence until he put his arm over your shoulders and pulled you closer to him. You did not feel like working against it, so you placed your head on his shoulder. And so you set there, together without saying anything, until it was time to go to bed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning , you were scared that Roger would still be mad at you because you did not want him to come with you. But when you woke up, you smelled fried eggs and bacon. It wasn’t your favorite, but you knew that Roger was a terrible cook and this was the only breakfast he could make without messing it up.

You stepped out of bed and walked over to the bathroom to put on the pants and sweater that you had left their yesterday. When you were done getting dressed, you walked into the kitchen and you stopped at the door to see Roger behind the counter, while he was putting your and his breakfast on a plate. He turned around to take the cutlery, when he saw you. A smile appeared on his face and he came to you. He took your face in his hands and kissed your lips with a gentle kiss. You laughed against his lips and you kissed him back.

“How did I earn all this?”, you asked while you took Roger in your arms.

Roger stood right in front of you and looked you right in the eye.

Oh god, his eyes, his beautiful deep blue eyes. You could look at them forever.

“Y/N, I totally messed up yesterday. I didn’t mean to make you cry. I love you, never forget that,” he said and he kissed your forehead. “And I understand why I can’t come with you. You’re right, Queen needs me and you have to stay focused on your job when you are there.”

“Really?”, you asked, looking up at him.

“Of course, love. But we have to call every day, otherwise I can’t take it here without you for two months.”

“I love you, Roger.”

“I love you, Y/N.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

3 WEEKS LATER

The moment to leave had arrived. You had been looking forward to it for the past three weeks, but you were sorry to leave Roger for so long. You promised to call each other as much as possible and that you would write each other one letter a month.

But now you were at the airport, together with your large suitcase and hand luggage. You held Roger’s hand while walking to the check-in. You two were followed by Rachel and the other members of Queen. They all wanted to say goodbye because you had become a close group since you were dating Roger. You arrived at the check-in counter and turned around to face Brian.

He had become one of your best friends. You had a special connection with him. A connection you did not have with John or Freddie. He was always interested about your work at the BBC and he would ask a lot of questions about it. And if you had another fight with Roger, he was the one who would always listen to you when you were in need of a good friend.

“Y/N, take care of yourself and enjoy your time in France. I’ll miss you,” he said, while hugging you.

“I’ll miss you too, Brian.”

Then it was Freddie’s turn to say goodbye. “Y/N, darling, you’re a lucky girl. France is a beautiful country. Enjoy your trip and take care. We’ll miss you!”, he laughed and kissed you on your cheek. When Freddie was ready, John walked over to you.

“Y/N, we’ll miss you. Have fun in ‘La Douce France’.” He hugged you and quickly walked back to Brian and Freddie.

And then it was time to say goodbye to Roger. Something you had been looking up to for three weeks.

He took your hands and started to talk to you. “Y/N, I’ll miss you like crazy and -“

You put a finger on his lips and said “Roger, stop talking. Just hug and kiss me.”

He laughed at you and pushed your chin up with his finger. “All right, if you say so and he kissed you for the last in two months. You tried not to cry, but it was actually impossible to stop the tears that ran down your cheeks. When you looked up to Roger, you saw him crying too.

“I’ll miss you, Y/N. Do not forget that I love you more than anything else in this world!”

“I won’t, honey and I love you too.” You whispered “I will call you every day and I’ll write you my first letter in three weeks. Don’t worry, those two months will be over before we know it.”

“Y/N, we need to go. The check-in counter will close in ten minutes.” You heard behind you. “The crew has already checked in.”

“I’ll be there in a minute, Rachel”

You turned around again and you saw Roger smiling at you, while tears were running down his face. “Go, before you are too late.” He pulled you to his chest for one more hug. “Y/N, I love you.”

“I love you too, Roger.” You whisper in his ear.

You turned around to walk to the check-in counter. You pulled your suitcase behind while taking your hand luggage with you. You wave at the boys and said a silent ‘I love you’ to Roger.

You were at the gate, when Rachel saw the look on your face. “Y/N, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I’m fine.” You answered, when the woman behind the counter handed you your boarding pass and passport.

“Y/N, don’t you dare lying to me. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“I’m just really scared Roger is going to do something stupid without me to look after him.” You sigh

“Y/N, don’t be. He’s a grown up man and the boys will also look after him. There won’t happen anything. He loves you.”

You looked at here and tried to smile a little. You hoped that she was right.

Chapter two

#fanfiction #queen #bohemian rhapsody #bohemian rapsody movie #ben hardy #roger taylor #brian may #gwilym lee #john deacon #joe mazzello #freddie mercury #rami malek #ben hardy!roger x reader #ben hardy! roger taylor #ben hardy!roger taylor x reader #ben hardy imagine #roger taylor imagine #i hope you like it

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hollenka99 · 5 years

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The Amount of Work Writing Takes

Alright, I’ve been thinking about how much time I spend writing. Because I spend a crazy amount of time writing or looking stuff up for my fics. I am usually a slow typer so it might not seem it but I do.

I write all my stories on Quotev, it is pretty reliable and I can keep my WIPs there indefinitely. It isn’t perfect obviously (for instance, unlike AO3, you can’t put books in a series) but for actually working on WIPs etc it’s great for me. I signed up for my account on April 20th 2014. It has been (coincidentally) 2014 days since then as of October 25th 2019.

Well, seeing as I write a lot, what if I worked for 12 hours a day every day since then?

2014 x 12 = 24,168

For context, 24,168 hours is 1007 days exactly. Three years is 1095 days. Say I started working on my writing at midnight on January 1st 2000 and didn’t stop for a second until I’d completed the 1007 days. That means I would finally be able to stop once midnight struck on October 3rd 2002.

But that is a gross overestimation. I haven’t worked for 12 hours for over 2000 consecutive days. I’ve had work shifts, school, exams to revise for, holidays, so on and so forth. There are also days where I just don’t write at all for a variety of reasons. So what if I only wrote for an hour a day?

2014 hours is two hours short of being a full 84 days. Even at 1h/day, I would still be spending approximately 2 months 3 weeks worth of writing. That’s still a lot.

So how about we find a middle ground. Let’s say... 6 hours.

2014 x 6 = 12,084

That is 503 days and 12 hours. Using the ‘NYD 2000 to DD/MM/YYYY’ analogy, that would mean I stopped writing at noon on May 17th 2001.

5 hours = 10,070 (419d 14h or 2pm February 22nd 2001)

7 hours = 14,098 (587d 10h or 10am August 9th 2001)

Look, I could go on but my point still stands. I’ve been writing for over 5 years now. At first it was One Direction (yeah, yeah, I know. I was 14/15 and it was the early to mid 2010s. Sue me), then I got into Supernatural in 2016 and wrote some stuff for that. Now, as of roughly summer last year, I’ve been writing Jacksepticeye-related fics.

I honestly started looking into the numbers out of curiosity. It goes without saying that I’ll never know the true value. But look at the numbers above. Over 10,000 hours??? Over a year’s worth of time spent at my keyboard typing and researching??? Like, holy shit, that is absolutely insane!

And that’s just me, messing around with ideas and wanting to share them with other members of my fandom/community since I was 14. Other writers have been doing this for longer or have better work ethics so their numbers will be even higher.

I didn’t intend for this to become a ‘show fan creators more love’ type of post and I don’t really want it to be because they kinda feel like they’re pressuring you and almost shaming you for not interacting more.

I understand, life can be busy or you have things that take priority. I’m as much a consumer as I am a creator. At the start of this year, there was a whole bunch of ‘reblog more’ discourse. I saw it and thought ‘Okay, yeah, they’re right actually. I’m going to use 2019 to improve on the amount of stuff I reblog’. Only... I seem to have taken it too far. I reblogged over 70 Schneep art week posts this summer and I had over 100 JJ art week posts in my likes before I whittled them down into the slightly more manageable ~75 posts that are sitting in my drafts.

I put way too much pressure on myself to reblog and leave nice tags while I do so. I’ve felt more pressure to do so after someone mentioned it in an appreciation shoutout. Leaving all those tags takes time. There is literally not enough hours in a day/week/month to reblog all the stuff I want and also write more of my own content. It’s stupid how much guilt I build up because of it. It is nowhere near healthy.

Yet even now, my brain is yelling at me because every second I spend on this post is a second I’m wasting due to it not being dedicated to writing the three large fics and two smaller fics I want to have finished by Halloween. You know, that holiday that is SIX DAYS AWAY. I nearly had a panic attack yesterday because someone I follow posted an excited reminder that JJ’s birthday was a week away. I spent the past couple days relaxing while my head screeched that I should stop and work on the fics.

And if I’m going to waste time not writing, I’d better spend that time writing the tags for the 75 odd JJ posts in my drafts.

In short, trying to do 1001 things is not healthy. Nor is telling yourself you should not be taking a breather from all the optional things you want to do. Those three larger fics can wait. I’ll be disappointed to not being able to finally finish them, sure, but they’re too much for me to handle at the moment. Those smaller fics are way more manageable in terms of completing them by next Thursday. Especially seeing as they’re been half done for months anyway.

So all I’m going to say is this:

If you’re doing all you can to show creators your love for their works, then great, fantastic, thank you so much. You are appreciated beyond belief by that creator. Keep up the good work (to a sensible degree).

If not, that’s okay. Maybe go into your likes if you have the time over the weekend and reblog a post or two of fan art/fanfic. It’s been said countless times before but your reblog could lead to that post getting a much larger chance of being spread by multiple people. You don’t need to go on binges or be a frequent face in the notes to be appreciated by creators.

TL;DR Creators spend countless hours working their butts off to make their art, fics, edits, etc. Please do what you can as a consumer to show your appreciation for creators and their works but don’t pressure yourself to go over your limit. As much as we like reblogs, comments and the like, we don’t want it to be at expense of your wellbeing. We’ll try to do the same.

#my writing #writersofjack #writing #creators love interaction #and they do work hard #but that doesn't mean you should sacrifice your mental health to do that #jacksepticeye #seeing as that is the community I write for now

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lindafrancois · 3 years

Text

How to Stop Stress Eating: 3 Uncommon Tools for Ending Emotional Eating

All of us have plenty of stress in our lives.

After the last year we’ve had, your stress level may have quadrupled.

If you find yourself responding by “stress eating,” know that you are not alone.

One of the top issues faced by clients in our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program is emotional or stress eating. After 2020 being all 2020 like (and 2021 having its own challenges), these episodes have only increased.

You’re not alone in this. Learn how a Nerd Fitness Coach can help.

Today, we’re going to show you exactly how we address emotional eating with our clients, including when it’s – GASP – actually okay to stress eat.

Here’s what we’ll cover in today’s guide:

What is stress eating? (a video from NF Kitchen)

What causes stress eating? (Lesson #1: Playing Detective)

How do I stop mindless eating? (Lesson #2: The Stress Response Menu)

How common is stress eating? (Lesson #3: Learning Self-Compassion)

Is it ever okay to stress eat? (Next steps)

Let’s jump right in.

What Is Stress Eating? (A Video from NF Kitchen)

youtube

The above video from Coach Justin comes from the Nerd Fitness Prime “Mindset” video series.

Justin covers three important lessons I want to highlight, but before we do that, we should ask ourselves a question:

“What exactly is stress eating?”

Stress eating is consuming food in response to negative emotions like fear, anger, or sadness.

When we stress eat, food is being used to solve a problem. Now, unless we’re actually hungry, it’s likely a problem that food itself isn’t meant to solve.

That’s stress or emotional eating.

Here’s what compounds the whole problem: stress eating itself can make us feel guilty. We often feel terrible once our spoon hits the bottom of the pint of ice cream.

This can drive more negative emotions, which can trigger even more stress eating.

And the pattern continues.

We’ll talk about ways to break this cycle in a moment, but before we do, we need to create some tools to identify it in the first place.

What Causes Stress Eating? (Lesson #1: Playing Detective)

You may have been surprised in our video above when Coach Justin gives permission to stress eat.

Counterintuitive and seemingly counterproductive, I know. But this is going to be important for two reasons.

How to Approach Stress Eating Step #1: we need to curb the guilty feelings about stress or emotional eating.

I started this guide off by highlighting the frequency of stress eating amongst our Online Coaching clients.

You are not the only one struggling with this.

Most humans do.

And robots with human-like emotions and taste buds

We’ll come back to this idea again, because ending the shame of emotional eating will be critical for moving forward.

How to Approach Stress Eating Step #1: allowing ourselves to stress eat will help us learn why we do it.

We’re going to be playing detective here, to see if we can piece apart your actions and routines.

At the end of the day, our lives are a cumulation of habits. Stress eating is one such habit.

So let’s learn about it!

To do so, we’re gonna need to record some Emotional Eating Notes.

During an episode of stress eating, it’s important to ask ourselves:

What am I doing?

What am I feeling? (Both physically and emotionally)

What am I thinking about?

What time is it?

Where am I?

Who am I with?

Ideally, we’ll start to ask yourself these questions:

An hour or two before the eating episode

Right before it

During it

Right after it

The purpose of these Emotional Eating Notes?

To look for patterns!

Perhaps you’ll notice some of the following:

“After my recent Tuesday morning conference call, when I got grilled by my company’s leadership, I grabbed some chocolate chip cookies. This happened the week before too.”

“Around 2pm, when I get the ‘afternoon slumps,’ I normally grab a Coca-Cola. This little boost gets me through the end of the day. This is almost a daily practice.”

“Last Sunday evening, when thinking about the start of the workweek, I had a couple glasses of wine. When looking back at my notes, this takes place at the end of most weekends.”

We’re looking for patterns to help us understand what drives our stress eating.

The most important thing about this process: withholding judgment.

We’re looking at our notes for clues into our psyche. Whatever we captured is okay.

If you order pizza every Thursday after talking with your overbearing mom (of course, she means well), step one is to recognize it.

Oftentimes, this awareness step alone can help shift behavior. “Oh, I’m reaching for a beer like I normally do after ending my workday. Typical Me.”

After creating some notes on what spurs our emotional eating, it’s time to think about some alternatives for coping with stress.

How Do I Stop Mindless Eating? (Lesson #2: The Stress Response Menu)

After documenting what sets off our stress eating, we need to formulate a plan on what to do when our anxiety rises.

That means it’s time to build…a Stress Response Menu!

Our Stress Response Menu will be a list of actions or activities you can do to de-stress outside of eating.

Ideally, you’ll do them before an eating episode, but they can be done during or after the fact too.

In other words, if you only realized you were stress eating when your hand reaches the bottom of the Doritos bag, no problem, you can do your stress response activity right then.

The purpose of the Stress Response Menu is to reward yourself with a small moment of self-love, whenever your anxiety levels are too much.

Here are some ideas for activities to place on your Stress Response Menu:

Close your eyes and take five deep breaths (Coach Justin’s go-to move)

Drink a large glass of water

Take a short walk

Go listen to one of your favorite songs

Do a quick stretching routine

Write in your journal

Play with your dog

Shout at the sky

The more the activity from your Stress Response Menu can match your personal goals, the better.

In other words, if you’re trying to build muscle, some push-ups might be the perfect de-stresser.

Just make sure it’s something you won’t dread doing.

A combination of a “de-stressor” and a “reward.”

This is important, as Coach Justin mentions that many of his clients only reward themselves with food. The self-love they practice only takes place in the kitchen.

Our menu above will help us develop some more options, not solely based on food.

To make the most of your Stress Response Menu:

#1) Make the activities short and easy.

You should feel confident that you can do every item on your list. So avoid activities that will take longer than 10 minutes to complete.

Also, set yourself up for success by hacking your Batcave:

If you’re going to journal when stressed, keep your diary open on your work desk.

If you’re going to drink water before any emotional eating, keep your full glass near you.

If you’re going to take a short walk, keep your kicks near the door.

Don’t set yourself up for failure by picking overly complicated or burdensome activities.

#2) Place your Stress Response Menu somewhere visible.

Once you make your list, print it out and place it in your kitchen or pantry (or wherever you typically stress eat).

You could also write out a couple of your favorite activities and attach them to your refrigerator.

If it’s right in front of you, it’ll be harder to ignore (however, it’s okay to ignore it from time to time, as we aren’t striving for perfection).

Just please don’t write it and then stick the list in the junk drawer that opens to another dimension.

You never can find anything in that drawer.

#3)Track your usage of the Stress Response Menu.

This will help us in two ways:

First, by tracking your usage, you’ll start to feel better about using the SRM. You’ll see an accumulation of all the times you successfully deployed a stress response, helping you visualize the momentum you’re building.

Second, the data will help you understand your patterns of emotional eating. Maybe five deep breaths steered you away from ice cream but the large glass of water did not. You can then use this information to update and revise your response plan.

For the first point, Coach Justin has his clients keep a “Jar of Awesome.”

Every time they have a small win in the day, like taking five deep breaths instead of chugging soda, they place a marble or small token in a jar. After a while, the jar will have a decent amount of marbles or “small wins” in it.

This will then stand as a visual reminder of all the progress being made, proof of their ongoing wins.

Want to start a “Jar of Awesome” with a NF Coach? Learn more here!

How Common Is Stress Eating? (Lesson #3: Learning Self-Compassion)

The American Psychological Association has found that about a third of Americans respond to stress with food.[1]

This research was done BEFORE our global pandemic.

So if you find yourself binging in response to the stress of our global pandemic, know that you are not alone here.

Our coaching clients, and the NF Coaches themselves, have all found themselves turning to food and alcohol for comfort during quarantine.

Heck, recently I mindlessly devoured an entire tub of Animal Crackers too. It was only when the bag was gone did I understand what just happened.

Many of us, even fitness “experts,” are prone to stress eating.

Now, don’t take this as a free pass to stress eat.

If the behavior goes against your goals, it’s something we want to work towards improving.

But there’s a reason they call it “comfort food.” Food can often be used to make us happier, pandemic or no pandemic.

And we’re all emotional bags of meat of this floating hunk of space rock, and we’re doing the best we can.

So give yourself a bit of a break, my friend.

You’re here, you’re reading, and you’re trying. That’s great!

This will bring me to my last point with our handy guide:

Is It Okay to Stress Eat? (Next Steps)

There are times when food is the perfect response to stress.

It’s something Coach Justin mentions in his video.

“Stress eating” might be appropriate if:

After a long workday, a glass of wine with cheese helps you unwind.

To celebrate the coming of the weekend, you have an ice cream party on Friday night.

The week already seems long, and it just started, “Taco Tuesday” might help you survive until Friday.

The important thing here?

“We are making a choice.”

We are choosing to deal with stress or anxiety with food. By making it an intentional activity, we can remove the guilt around emotional eating.

Food can be fine as a reward, as long as it’s us controlling the behavior, and not the food itself.

In addition, if we can recognize the action (or plan for it), we can then adjust our calories before and after and not go off the rails.

(You can calculate your recommended total daily calorie intake here, by the way!)

If it seems like you aren’t quite there yet, start with your Emotional Eating Notes and your Stress Response Menu.

Even just the process of taking notes on specific episodes of stress eating may be enough to slow down the behavior.

Remember, no matter what happens:

You are not a bad person if you stress eat.

You are not a bad person if you forget to take notes.

You are not a bad person if you ignore your Stress Response Menu.

You are not a bad person (unless you’re a Death Eater, but come on, you know what side you’re on).

If you need any help along the way, we are here for you.

We have three specific paths to continue with Nerd Fitness:

#1) Our Online Coaching program: a coaching program for busy people to help them make better food choices, stay accountable, and get healthier, permanently.

As I said before, “stress eating” is the number one issued faced by our coaching clients, so we know exactly how to help recognize and address the habit.

You can schedule a free call with our team so we can get to know you and see if our coaching program is right for you:

Our coaching program changes lives. Learn how!

#2) If you want an exact blueprint leveling up your nutrition, check out Nerd Fitness Journey! Our fun habit-building app helps you exercise more frequently, eat healthier, and level up your life (literally).

If you follow our Mindset missions, you’ll learn to de-stress while earning XP! Sah-weeeet.

Try your free trial right here:

#3) Join the Rebellion! We need good people like you in our community, the Nerd Fitness Rebellion.

Sign up in the box below to enlist and get our Rebel Starter Kit, which includes all of our “work out at home” guides, the Nerd Fitness Diet Cheat Sheet, and much more!

Get your Nerd Fitness Starter Kit

The 15 mistakes you don’t want to make.

Full guide to the most effective diet and why it works.

Complete and track your first workout today, no gym required.

Alright, I want to hear from you:

Have you been stress eating more over the last year?

Do you have any tips or tricks to interrupt the pattern?

What’s your favorite way to de-stress?

Let me know in the comments!

-Steve

P.S. If you’re struggling to keep a normal routine after the pandemic, check out How to Stay in Shape (Without Leaving the House).

###

Footnotes ( returns to text)

You can check out their report right here.

The post Blog first appeared on Nerd Fitness.

How to Stop Stress Eating: 3 Uncommon Tools for Ending Emotional Eating published first on https://dietariouspage.tumblr.com/

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theonyxpath · 4 years

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Our next Kickstarter is for the Legendlore RPG, and starts on this Thursday, March the 12th, at 2pm Eastern US time!

From the Kickstarter:

Legendlore was originally a comic, first published by Arrow Comics in 1986 and since procured by Caliber Comics, about four people who fall through a Crossing into the Realm. The Realm is home to fantasy creatures from elves to dragons, and the characters discover they too have ‘fantasy powers’ – the jock becomes a Fighter, while the bookish one becomes a Wizard, and so on. They go on adventures and some of them eventually find their way back to Earth.

This is the basic premise of the Legendlore RPG. You Cross into the Realm, where you become a hairfoot Bard, or maybe an elven Sorcerer. You can change any characteristics you like. For example if you have hay fever and glasses, you choose if your Legendlore self keeps or drops those. Your identity might not always match your outward physique, but your Legendlore character does. We’ve also updated the 1980s setting so Realmborn characters represent all ethnicities, genders, and sexualities. No one in the Realm will bat an eyelash at your agender panromantic self.

This comes hard on the heels of our fantastic Kickstarter campaign for Hunter: The Vigil 2e, which ended up at over 500% of the funding goal and just a couple of folks away from 2000 backers! Truly, the Vigil was a rewarding one, and we’re thrilled so many folks came along with us on the hunt.

Even though we’re jumping right into the new KS for Legendlore, Hunter 2e‘s campaign left us with a number of Stretch Goal projects to continue with, and, for us, Legendlore is such a different kind of project that creatively it is a nice break in our recent string of Kickstarters in the Chronicles of Darkness and V5 game worlds.

Legendlore will also be our newest game line to use the d20 system for 5e fantasy gaming, along with Scarred Lands and (much-simplified) the Realms of Pugmire, so that also gives us a chance to stretch some system creative muscles we like to keep toned up.

If you’re a fan of D&D, etc. then I think you’ll find a lot of fresh spins you’ll enjoy in how Legendlore treats genre expectations and tropes while still providing a sweeping setting ripe for adventuring in. And if you aren’t so much, I still think you may find value in supporting developer Steffie de Vaan and her creative team’s 2020 take on this multi-decade saga and setting.

Like almost every one of our Kickstarters these days, Legendlore is pretty much finished in the writing stages, and backers will get sections of the finished text during the course of the KS campaign. Steffie is working with at least one Twitch streaming group to create actual play episodes showing how Legendlore plays at an actual gaming table, and we’re really looking forward to airing those (and they’ll be linked on the KS page).

So, anyone interested is going to have multiple chances to check this project out in a way that works for them, as we’ve been working to set up with each of our KSs. And, James Bell, our Kickstarter Concierge will be back for this KS to once again provide information and guidance, as well as his patented affable banter!

V5 Chicago Folio art by Felipe Gaona

Items From Our Monday Meeting:

In no particular order, which is a lot like our meeting style!

DriveThruRPG‘s massive GM’s Day Sale has another week to go, and hoo-boy are there a lot of our PDFs for sale over there! All of our game lines are represented, as well as offerings from the Community Content sites!

This was a Twitter note sent out during our meeting by Eddy Webb:

“Thanks to Justin Achilli, I got to be in a work meeting where we talk about the aesthetics of urine and throwing bears at the moon.”

Which is pretty much true.

Mighty Matt McElroy was scheduled to attend Emerald City convention this coming weekend, but the whole con was postponed due to concerns about the Coronavirus (COVID-19). He’d already had a bunch of meetings cancelled out from under him and was figuring on cancelling, when boop! the convention cancelled instead!

You folks all take care of yourselves out there! We’re a virtual office, so aren’t going to infect each other, and we don’t have anything currently being manufactured in China, so I’m just encouraging all our folks to stay in and work 20 hour days at their computers. (I’m kidding.) (But not really.)

Mirthful Mike Chaney wonders how that’s any different than his usual day, anyway?

They Came From Beneath the Sea! Heroic Land Dwellers art by Brian LeBlanc

We’re still getting folks asking about whether projects that come out as Advance PDFs will be released in PoD versions or if Backer PDFs will be sold to the public, along with PoDs, on DTRPG. First, we’re always glad to answer folks’ questions, and second, yes, our sales strategy has always been to deliver PDFs and PoDs of projects on DTRPG and so we have been releasing them that way for the whole time we’ve been in business.

The only caveats to that are projects we might do like printed Screens offered on Kickstarters, which DTRPG can’t create in PoD form, and recently with the V5 Cults of the Blood Gods Stretch Goal rewards which will only be available in PDF as the V5 managers at Modiphius do not want PoD versions made available.

We’ve scheduled a nice surprise for the backers of Exalted 3rd‘s Dragon-Blooded KS that should put some folks’s concerns to rest about getting their rewards. So keep your eyes open for that, DB backers!

I’m out next Monday, so Dixie Cochran will be in as our guest MMN blogger! Please be nice to her as she wrangles the rusty and arcane controls for this blog, and I’ll talk to you in two weeks about our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

Kickstarter!

On Thursday, March 12th at 2pm Eastern US Time we start the Kickstarter for Legendlore!

Onyx Path Media!

This Friday the Onyx Pathcast Terrific Trio take a deep dive into Vampire: The Requiem 2e‘s Spilled Blood! Messy, but fun!

As always this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast will be on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

We’ve got a stupendous number of shows on Twitch this week! Tune in for V5, Chronicles of Darkness, Scion, Pugmire, Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition, Scarred Lands, MORE Vampire: The Masquerade, Changeling: The Lost, Mage: The Awakening, even more Scarred Lands, Werewolf: The Forsaken and a third Vampire: The Masquerade game! We’ve even got Eddy Webb’s Workshop, which takes you through the development process of our books! Hail Ming!

A big shout-out to our three Vampire: The Masquerade games running this week, which have been running week-in, week-out! You can subscribe to our channel over on twitch.tv/theonyxpath to catch up with any episodes you missed! This Ming’s a psycho.

Come take a look at our YouTube channel, youtube.com/user/theonyxpath, where you can find the following videos uploaded last week alone:

The Onyx Path News: https://youtu.be/zKo1h7bLPE0

Scion: Behind the Screen: https://youtu.be/v9Wo38rl5-Y

Changeling: The Lost – Littlebrook Reunion: https://youtu.be/hxSbemynBLs

Changeling: The Dreaming – The Last Faerie Tale: https://youtu.be/gKAm-zGxTW4

Even more Scion: Behind the Screen: https://youtu.be/QDSIS_ClFbE

A special shout-out to the Scion: Behind the Screen series, which has provided a wonderful entry point for people new to the game! Flying blind on a rocket cycle!

Do subscribe to our channel and click the bell icon if you want to be notified whenever new news videos and uploads come online! Spare me the madness.

In case you missed it last week, the Story Told RPG Podcast continue with their excellent Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition chronicle right here: http://thestorytold.libsyn.com/the-78-laments-episode-3-riders-in-the-sky

And back once again, the Story Told‘s review of Trinity Continuum: Aeon http://thestorytold.libsyn.com/episode-40-trinity-continuum-on-overview

Red Moon Roleplaying‘s V5 Cults of the Blood Gods “The Family” chronicle continues on their YouTube channel, Spotify, their website redmoonroleplaying.com and everywhere else good podcasts and New York City girls might be found! https://youtu.be/J1qCIhMPn7Q

Now, the tributes from Ardentia.

Even more shows from Occultists Anonymous for all you Mage: The Awakening fans out there!

Episode 86: Risky Business Wyrd the Seer prepares to found a legacy and shape her soul. Songbird makes contact with the Carthian Movement. Atratus meets with the Phantasm Society who have a daring plan.https://youtu.be/9XWLaxl_B-Y

Episode 87: New Lives Wyrd the Seer pays the price for tying herself to the Rookery. Songbird makes himself useful at the Arrow Armory. Atratus kills Emily Miller.https://youtu.be/ZZklb6-fC7o

Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!

Electronic Gaming!

Update: the devs are working on the updates for the roller in both Android and iOS – here is the rundown from them:

1) Redo the UI for system for android. It will look the same as the current design. My goal is to have something ready by Saturday to send out to the Facebook users, asking them if this fixes the issues. This will be a beta type thing. This will break several of the fancy dice.

2) If the above worked out and the android users give all the clear, we’ll redo the graphics system to fix the fancy dice that got broken. We’ll do another android beta through Facebook. This might take up to two weeks, as my schedule allows.

3) If everything worked well, we’ll release to android for real at that point.

4) Port all of the existing stuff to iOS and release on that.

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

Our selection includes these latest fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio2, and they have the 5e version, supplements, and dice as well!: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And NOW Scion Origin and Scion Hero AND Trinity Continuum Core and Trinity Continuum: Aeon are available to order!

The massive GM Day’s Sale continues for another week with huge savings on PDFs from all of our game lines!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/rpg_gmsday.php

As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, we will be releasing the Advance PDF of Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed for Mage: The Awakening 2e AND the electronic, PDF, and physical book PoD releases of Haunting Shadows: the Wraith20th fiction anthology on DTRPG!

Conventions!

Assuming these conventions are not postponed due to plague, here is our current list:

UKGames Expo: https://www.ukgamesexpo.co.uk/

GenCon: https://www.gencon.com/

Tabletop Scotland: https://tabletopscotland.co.uk/

Gamehole Con: https://www.gameholecon.com/

PAX Unplugged: https://unplugged.paxsite.com/

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

RUST (Working Title) (Scarred Lands)

Under Alien Suns (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Mission Statements (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Adversaries of the Righteous (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Novas Worldwide (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Exalted Essence Edition (Exalted 3rd Edition)

The Clades Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

The Devoted Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

Saints and Monsters (Scion 2nd Edition)

M20 Rich Bastard’s Guide To Magick (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

Wild Hunt (Scion 2nd Edition)

Redlines

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Hundred Devil’s Night Parade (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Adventure! core (Trinity Continuum: Adventure!)

Assassins (Trinity Continuum Core)

The Book of Endless Death (Mummy: The Curse 2e)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)

Second Draft

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (They Came From!)

Development

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Manuscript Approval

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Post-Approval Development

Scion LARP Rules (Scion)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Editing

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Buried Bones: Creating in the Realms of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Titanomachy (Scion 2nd Edition)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

TC: Aberrant Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Post-Editing Development

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Indexing

They Came From Beneath the Sea! (They Came From…!)

ART DIRECTION FROM MIKE CHANEY!

In Art Direction

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant – Awaiting replies to pings.

Hunter: The Vigil 2e (KS)

Cults of the Blood God (KS)

Mummy 2 – Starting to contract the rest of it.

City of the Towered Tombs

Let the Streets Run Red – Some finals in.

Deviant

Legendlore (KS) – KS prep of bits.

Technocracy Reloaded (KS)

TC: Aeon Terra Firma – Contracted.

WoD: Ghost Hunters (KS) – Cover in, getting rest of KS art set.

Tales of Aquatic Terror

Pirates Extra Adventure – Loboyko lined up for this one.

Scion Titanomachy – Contacting artists.

In Layout

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad – Ongoing.

Contagion Chronicle – With Josh, interior proof coming.

Vigil Watch – Ongoing.

TCfBtS!: Heroic Land Dwellers

TCFBtS! Screen and Booklet

Ex3 Lunars – Yep, pretty much my March right here.

Scion Companion

Proofing

Dark Eras 2 – Sending back to Aileen for errata input.

Trinity Continuum Aeon Jumpstart

Chicago Folio – Creating PoD files.

Pirates of Pugmire – Fixes in, working on cover.

CtL Oak Ash and Thorn – At WW for approvals .

Geist 2e fiction anthology – Backer PDF out to backers for errata.

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 – The Silence of Our Ancestors (Exalted 3rd Edition) – Backer errata being gathered.

Distant Worlds – Errata being gathered.

VtR2 Spilled Blood – Errata being input.

At Press

Geist 2e (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition) – Prepping to go live with PDF/PoD versions on DTRPG a week Wednesday (the 18th).

DR:E – Shipping to backers, PoD files uploaded.

DRE Screen – Shipping to backers.

DR:E Threat Guide – Helnau’s Guide to Wasteland Beasties

Memento Mori – PoD proof ordered.

Scion Mythical Denizens – PoD files uploaded.

Wraith20 Anthology – ePub, PDF, physical book versions all live Weds on DTRPG.

MtAw2 Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed – Advance PDF on sale this Weds on DTRPG.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Yesterday was International Women’s Day, and that’s certainly worth celebrating today as well! (Especially since here in the US we lost an hour from yesterday due to the return of our Daylight Savings Time. Typical).

Today, we heard of the death of actor Max von Sydow at 90. The man who played chess with death, acted in just so many roles in mainstream and genre films that I’m not listing them here, and, just for Matthew Dawkins, starred as Ming the Merciless.

#Onyx Path Publishing

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