#I need to do a couple things like look up the cost of 2 classes I need to take/sign up for them/ set an appointment for the driving test/etc

[galariangengar]

One of my former college professors that I was close with and had classes with for my last 2 years got back to me recently about my email updating on me trying to get into a nursing program & saying how I appreciated them for their continued support. He told me not to worry, that he still has letters he’s written the past couple years and to apply to more schools. I knew this specific professor would be understanding and supportive, he always was towards me and I’m glad to hear that from him.

[teddywesworl]

ok y'all said you want director's commentary so I'm gonna start by saying a couple things about 🪑 since it recently celebrated 2k kudos

🪑DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY LET'S GO

1.

A fun fact about the poems at the beginning of each chapter is that I took two of the poet's classes in college, and she might be solely responsible for convincing me I was a good writer and should pursue the skill. I don't know how she'd feel about me using her poetry to thematically frame an explicit fanfic, but that's neither here nor there.

As a poet, she (I'm not naming her here in case she might possibly name search on tumblr, lol) is obsessed with transformation and with the discord between the material and spiritual self. Blackberries, Brambles in its entirety goes as follows:

Akhmatova wrote, "O look!—that fresh dark elderberry branch is like a letter from Marina…" And she was right, branches criss- cross, words sharpen. We lop them down, fit them into envelopes. But I forget: you don't do letters: Too much tangled in thickets and desperation. Did I say envelopes? I meant elevators. See, I've snagged favourite sweaters in high rises, snarled hair in hedges, given up skin scrapings for blackberries, tongueburst, the sweet stain, explosion under light canine pressure. Don't you just wish you were a dog sometimes? No panic. Romping through brambles. Even in delirium, near death, Akhmatova remembered. Her bitter friend had been dead a long time. Love. Don't think I'm thinking about you. Anything but you.

Akhmatova here being Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, and the Marina in question is Marina Tsvetaeva. You can go on as much or as little of a research spiral about them as you like; many of the layers of this poem are in the reference to Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva, but I was mostly interested in the commentary on the cost of pleasure. I've snagged favourite sweaters in high rises, snarled hair in hedges, given up skin scrapings for blackberries. What are you willing to pay for happiness? Wouldn't it be nice not to think about it? Wouldn't it be nice not to be afraid to pay?

2.

Obviously the other major literary framing device is A Room With A View. The movie, specifically, but obviously the Forster novel as well. A Room With A View is about the clash between tradition and modernity, familial duty vs. adventure and romance, etc. etc. etc. And like, listen, the Duffers have not put this much thought into Steve Harrington, but his arc, despite them, is that of the ultimate privileged 80s all-American masculine symbol taking a slow, deliberate turn toward Otherness. He was supposed to die a static character. He did not, and now we're all writing fic about it.

I probably didn't need to have Eddie literally whack the point home with a hammer with the you're Lucy line in chapter 2, but here we are.

3.

The other bits of ~Art~ in the Steve chapter are Elton John's The Fox and Bruce Springsteen's The River. As follows:

But if you’re wily, you will leave them lying, snared up in the traps that they set for you, Elton sings. And it’s an evergreen affair— Steve lifts the record out and replaces it with The River. Springsteen sings, you're walkin' tough, baby, but you're walkin' blind and that’s not really better.

The Elton John record, you may recall, was a compromise between Eddie and Nancy. The inclusion of these lines in particular was very vibes-based, but hopefully the vibes are semi-coherent. Snares. Traps. The hunter, the fox. Btw the next lines after these are:

As temptation taunts the fox Into the hunter's waiting lair

Which, okay. Teasing out the vibes just a little. Argyle interprets Nancy as Lucy (and implies, without meaning to, that Steve is Cecil--a character that represents old money and tradition and duty and, like. Being trapped). Nancy would probably also view herself as the titular Fox. And Steve has bought into this line of thinking! He sees himself as the snare! He has internalized the idea of life with him being a trap! He is Bullshit, etc.

Eddie complicates this self-concept. Through him, Steve becomes the Fox and Lucy. Temptation taunts the fox into the hunter's waiting lair, after all. And, you know: 🪑🪢

(The Springsteen lines are just. All Steve.)

Ok I have to go feed some horses. More.... later. eventually.

[notcaycepollard]

I just saw your Barbie jacket and fell in love, such beautiful work!

I want to get into sewing but have no idea where to start, do you have any tips?

Yes! FYI, I had the privilege of learning to sew at a really young age, around 10-12, thanks to 1) learning the basics from my mum 2) having a second-hand sewing machine I could futz around on as I pleased. But I truly think anyone can learn to sew, it does not have to be a childhood skill.

If you want to try it out before committing to buying anything except fabric, there are almost always community or adult education classes or courses that can teach you basics on their machines. Depends where you live but you might find them through your local community college or high school night class, library, YMCA/community centre, or even by asking at a fabric/craft store.

I highly recommend taking a couple of classes if you're a complete beginner - they can teach things like laying out and cutting patterns, threading a machine, the basic stitch and finishing options, etc. Often they can also teach you how to use your own machine, if you've bought one but you're a beginner.

If you want to try at home, at minimum you will need:

A basic sewing machine - you can very often find good second-hand machines online (ebay, craigslist, local buy/sell Facebook pages). Mine is a Janome and I've had it for almost 20 years, but the old 70s steel Singer machines are fantastic in terms of longevity.

A pair of reasonably sharp fabric scissors. You do not need to pay a million dollars for the best scissors, but going up a level from basic craft scissors, and keeping them only for cutting fabric (no paper) will make your cutting-out experience a lot easier.

A packet of sewing pins. For pinning down patterns and seams. I like the glass-head pins since they don't melt if you iron over them.

A tape measure for measuring yourself and checking your seam width, hems, etc.

An iron and ironing board (or table with a thick towel laid down, if space is a real problem).

A flat surface to lay out and cut your fabric - dining table or floor both work fine.

A needle for hand-sewing - to sew on things like buttons.

A box of empty bobbins to wind your bobbin thread onto.

In terms of patterns - there are a huge range of indie pattern companies online now (meaning they're not the big commercial patternmakers like Butterick). Most often, you can buy their patterns as a PDF and print it out on your home computer. In all honesty I much prefer indie patterns to commercial - they're often a lot more up to date with style, and usually not as expensive - but they can also be limited in terms of sizing, the range of style options, and some people really like a printed paper pattern instead of having to print your own. I recommend Papercut Patterns as an indie option that's great for beginners.

Indie instructions can also sometimes be a bit confusing (I find Etsy patterns the worst for this) although often you can email them and ask - or Google "[name of pattern] sew along" for a video tutorial. You can also find step by step video or blog post tutorials for pretty much every sewing technique, including things like putting in a zip, sewing buttonholes, etc.

Once you've picked your pattern, you'll obviously need fabric. There are a million people online who espouse the virtue of sewing with old bedsheets from thrift stores; in all honesty I don't love doing this because 1) I get a huge amount of joy from beautiful fabrics 2) if you want to make things that look 'professional'/store-bought, bedsheet cotton is not always your best friend. BUT it is probably the cheapest option for fabric, and a very good way to start or to test that a pattern fits and you know how to make it before you cut it out in the nice linen that cost $30 a yard. Using thrifted fabric is also obviously really eco-conscious, although a lot of fabric stores (especially independent ones vs chain stores like Spotlight or Joann) make a point of selling 'deadstock' fabric - fabric leftover from a clothing designer's run.

That's probably enough to start, honestly just fuck around and have fun with it, screw up a few times, lean into the imperfection. I still regularly scrap projects that aren't working for me, no shame in doing so as long as you're enjoying yourself!

[devilbeez]

I Just got back from the recent twst manga update and I crave things.

May I know your HCs for Ruggie X Riddle? Please? 🥺

I feel like they’re one of the token normal couple in the twst ships

Like it’s not chaotic or have a lot of banter, they’re just a regular couple

I just imagine them falling for each other an accident, like a complete florist/tattoo scenario where they just talk one day and things escalated

I also feel like Ruggie’s love language is very cat like where he just give Riddle random things, half it’s things that make him think of Riddle that doesn’t cost money, other times it’s food— well “food” like a bouquet of dandelion or something similar

Riddle will always try to bring Ruggie something in return but from the outside it seem very imbalanced cause on one side Ruggie is bringing Riddle what seem like regular weed and on the other side Riddle is bringing Ruggie high grade snack from Queendom of rose

I can definitely see Ruggie sneaking to Riddle’s dorm and appear on his balcony just so they can cuddle the rest of the night. At first Riddle was mortified cause he was breaking curfew but later on he would just pout cause he DO like the cuddles he just didn’t like that Ruggie’s breaking the rule. Riddle only letting it slide cause it was worth it but he’ll never admit that

Every time they have class together Ruggie will sit next to Riddle and brush his hand against Riddle’s and Riddle keep kicking him under the table going “stop it you’re distracting me!” Ruggie didn’t stop tho, instead he just straight up commit and hold Riddle’s hand making him even more flustered

Riddle and Ruggie also have this thing where when they’re stress they would lay on top of the other one and just snuggle into them.

I think Ruggie’s biggest sign that he trust and love is that 1. he give you his food 2. He buy you something with his own money and 3. He let you touch his tail/ear. He had all of that for Riddle and if you even just look at those food or touch those gifts, Riddle will have your head.

Riddle play with Ruggie’s hair to destress sometimes

I can see Ruggie pushing off their first date cause he was pressured by people around him that he need to do something special like expensive restaurant and he just feel out of place thinking about it. Then Riddle trick Ruggie into coming with him one day and they have picnic date where Riddle reassured him that they don’t need any luxury or high price date, he just wanna spend time with him.

Riddle go to Trey to learn how to make donut only for Ruggie. It ended in disaster but he made an attempt

I also feel like they have a lot of physical touch— like not just hand holding it’s all of it. They would take a shoulders being pressed against each other, a simple knees touching, if they’re together some part of them are touching

Riddle’s mom definitely did not approve of him and Ruggie doesn’t approve of her either but boy, oh BOY does the boy know how to sweet talk. Riddle was terrified that his mother gonna hate Ruggie because he’s a nobody then cut to Ruggie faking every part of his backstory to gain her trust and it is working

[boredw69]

Nurse's Office pt.2

Fluff

This is a part 2 to my previously requested fluff. It was my first post on here, and after re-reading I've thought that it would be worthy of a part 2! and possibly a 3rd with some smut *wink wink* ;)

Link to Part 1: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/boredw69/678942089244966912?source=share

(Please do not Repost copy and paste or steal my work in any way shape or form)

Warning: | emotions were shared and so were kisses 😌 that’s all.

Its been a few days since George had sprain his wrist. I've been fairly certain he had woken up and left a few hours after our encounter. My thoughts had drifted me into a deep sleep and I wasn't awaken until Madam Pomfrey opened the Office in the morning.

The next couple of days I had just been avoiding the twins as normal, except now I had different reasoning behind it; I did NOT want to continue the conversation with George. Then again, it kept nagging at me. I had replayed that night over and over in my head trying to find the courage in myself to believe what he was saying to me.

"y/n? I do believe it would be smart of you to pay. attention. in my class" Snape's slow agitated voice had scared me out of thought, but I suppose he was right.

"My apologies sir.." I mumbled and picked up my quill quickly scribbling down the note that lingered on the board.

6:08 PM

Mrs. Pomfrey and I had been cleaning the office for hours now, making sure it is sanitary and spotless for the Ministry to inspect tomorrow.

"Oh dear! Look at the time, I do believe you should be heading off to bed! You have the OWLS to prep for now don't ya?" She had spoke up lifting her duster from off the shelves.

I pulled my watch from my pocket and nodded looking up to her, "Yea.. I do need to do some more studying. Thank you" I bowed to her and snatched up my things excited to finally go up to the common room and rest.

I began my slow decent/accent to the y/h common room. As I turned the corner I bumped shoulders with the tall ginger. I huffed looking up at him; of course it had to be George. I didn’t spend long looking up into his gazing eyes before pushing past him; or until I felt his hand wrap around my upper arm yanking me back to him.

“y/n.” He turned me towards him frowning down at me.

I avoided looking at him at all costs; I was afraid that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to control my own words as they’d roll off my tounge in a fit of panic.

“Can you stop avoiding me. I mean, I’m tired of pretending nothing ever happened.” He mumbled.

I kept my mouth shut as he continued; “what are you thinking.?”

“I don’t know.” I whispered. “I want to forgive you but I just can’t; you fuck around too much, and to be honest I don’t even know if I can trust you right now.”

His eyes softened; and for a second I wanted to believe they were real, maybe they were.

He grabbed my shoulders holding me still in a nurturing way. “I’m sorry. And I promise you. I’m not fucking around when I say that.”

I looked down briefly watching as he shuffled closer to me. “George..” I sighed. “Thank you..but I just d-“

My eyes widened as he grabbed at my chin softly raising my head to look at him once again. “I-don’t know how to feel r-ight now.” I barely finished my sentence leaving my mouth agape in shock.

He looked down at my lips so briefly that I had almost missed it; and before I knew it, his lips were on mine.

Was this a way to confirming his apology to me? Because it was unfortunately working. I moved my hands to his chest and up his shoulder blades pulling him closer. He stiffened up like this wasn’t expected.

The kiss deepened for a moment but i started to feel hot and my stomach was fluttering.

Shit.. shit this is so awkward.. I thought before I pulled away gently.

His hand rested on the small of my back still keeping me close.

This feeling was insane, euphoric almost. Did I like George Wesley…? Merlin’s beard.. I liked George Weasley..

He looked down at me studying my face. As I looked up at him I noticed how relaxed and heavenly he looked. He looked at ease, happy.. a different kind of happy than the pranking people with Fred kind of happy.

Merlin.. what is he doing to me.

Finally after the moments of silence he spoke. “Y/n, I’m going to be terribly honest.. I really like you. And I’d like you to go out with me tomorrow afternoon after OWLS.”

I nodded anxiously. “Yes- of course.. I mean I’d love to!”

He stifled a smile before pulling me in for a hug. My heart melted aswell as my body as he pulled me in.

“Good luck tomorrow. Ya know, on your OWLS” he said as he pulled back turning to walk past me.

“See ya tomorrow.!” I stuttered out as he walked off.

I gulped and stared at the wall for a spell before continuing to my dorms.

[invincible-selfxmade-punk]

I'M OFFICIALLY OLD & I DON'T LIKE IT

@albrechtstarkarm

@elderberriesandarsenic @bitter1stuff

@gifsbysimplysonia

@allhailthe70shousewife

The abundance of technology and lack of humanity causes a longing for the past makes me feel like a fucking Luddite!

(Continue to read for Gen X bitching)

For the last couple of years, I have not been able to see that well through my current classes prescription. Every time that I would come close to getting a new prescription, I would face another eye surgery.

After the Corneal transplant, my surgeon refused to give me another prescription until a year had passed. Because, he said my eyes were changing too rapidly. In the meantime, I cannot see with this prescription at all. I only live about 7 blocks from my school and yet driving there every morning is. Terrifying, because I cannot see well enough. Every time I would go back for a checkup. I would beg the surgeon for refraction. Finally, the last time I wore the surgeon down and he said while he would not provide it. I was welcome to go to one of those cheap eyeglass places and get a temporary pair.

The place where I live does not have one of those places.

And it takes an act of God to get hubby to take me anywhere. So we waited until we were taking a trip to sea his mom, my MiL, four hrs away during Spring Break. And in an unfathomable display of generosity, he offered to take me on the way back to get my glasses.

We stop in Odessa and as luck would have it, there was a Stanton. Optical across the street from our hotel.

I go in and am given an iPad where apparently I have to write down my entire medical history by answering questions in a font so smallI cannot see it because my glasses are crappy.

It blew my mind that a place that people go to because they can't see was making people fill out their own paperwork on. Technology that was so small.

After playing around with it and having my information LIST 3 TIMES &HAVING TO START OVER, I figured out that I could adjust the font size---- but no one told me this.

In the end I had to just hand it over to my husband and have him fill it out!! All of this would have been completely avoided if they had an option for paper. RED FLAG #1

Because I didn't have an appointment. I waited about an hrs & a half. As people were going ahead of me, I am noticing the very young attendant that is taking them into the exam room is asking every single person the exact same saying set of questions quite robotically.

RED FLAG #2

Finally is my turn and as soon as I walk into the exam room red flags are going off AGAIN because nothing in that room looks like what you would need for a glasses refraction.

RED FLAG #3

As someone who has had to go to an ophthalmologist three times a year since the age of 5 ,I know these things.

So the girl who starts bounding off her questions. Did I want glasses or contacts?

How many hours did I spend in one of the computer?

I told her 5.

About 30 seconds later she says "Okay. So you say you spend about 10 hours in front of the computer?"

RED FLAG #4

I didn't bother to correct her and then she starts telling me about all the different type of lenses they have, so I ask her how much those lenses would cost and she tells me that she doesn't know. But after I get my prescription, I can discuss that with people up front.

So you only have one job --that you do with as much passion as an android and you know nothing about the other parts of your organization?

RED FLAG #5

She then tells me she needs to take a measurement of my eye, which I would understand for contacts but i'm getting glasses and i'm not sure she understood me when I told her this the first time.

So she tells me to look into this machine, which I've looked into many, many times and each time that I have. They have put the picture in focus for me.. This time the picture state blurry

The girl then announces that the machine could only take a measurements of NORMAL eyes and since I'd had so many surgeries & eyetrauma, it could not take a measurement of mine. And I would have to be referred to a doctor.

I'm thinking okay......... well where is he?

"Oh, there is no Doctor actually here because we don't do actual glasses examinations, we just do virtual glasses ambinations.

WTF IS A VIRTUAL EXAM???

Anyway, that's when I left.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

The EU is Forever

April 25, 2014, was a dark-ass day for those of us who loved the Star Wars Expanded Universe canon. I was literally in the middle of the end of my first year as an MA student, and 2/3 of the bookshelves in the apartment my then-fiance, now-husband, shared held my Star Wars books. I'm not here to say that every book was great (lookin' at you, Splinter of the Mind's Eye), or even that every bad book was in so-bad-its-good territory (heart eyes at Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor), but the Star Wars EU got me through high school. So let's talk Young Jedi Knights.

There is no "these were the first Star Wars books I picked up and fell instantly in love with" story with these books, my journey to the Star Wars books was random as all hell, partly because this was the franchise that really taught me how to marshall and organize a sprawling set of books, do the research to read them in something like an order, and really start to engage deeply and take notes. (There may have been a 4-inch binder full of notes. It might still live in my Dad's house.)

I actually was first introduced to Star Wars (the original trilogy) when I was TA-ing in 8th grade and that teacher needed something to keep her class occupied for a couple of days. In the last week of school that year, I basically lived in the library and read the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy. Needless to say, I had QUESTIONS. Because I still hadn't figured out book research, I then picked up Vector Prime, and STILL had massive questions, once I got over *that* scene.

Young Jedi Knights wasn't the first Jacen and Jaina I picked up--I started with some of the novels earlier when they're younger--but I loved this series. This particular cohort of Jedi ended up being so crucial for so many reasons to the EU timeline, and seeing their training, their friendship, their mishaps, and how they interact with the galaxy made the later novels just so much more poignant.

There was a sense of YA speedrunning a lot of pretty common coming-of-age tropes (lookin' at you, Zekk... honestly, he and Kyp Durron needed to learn to BACK OFF and take no as a goddamn answer) and a boarding-school-in-space vibe, but there were also a few things that I thought were done particularly well. I wouldn't be me if I didn't call out with how much nuance Tenel Ka's arm loss was handled, particularly in terms of letting her have time to grieve and allowing her to adapt on her own without bowing to Ta'a Chume's frankly ableist attempt to use the incident to pull her graddaughter further into her Hapan heritage at the cost of her Dathomiri one. Seriously, for a YA book published in 1996, this was learning to live with a disability done really well. And I appreciated the hell out of Tenel Ka herself not letting Jacen do the guilty hovering and overcompensating with unnecessary and unwanted help. That was an excellent boundary to set, and quite frankly is something that people TODAY are terrible at, so this whole storyline was well done.

Equally well done was the fleshing out of Raynar and Lowbacca in the Diversity Alliance arc. Poor Raynar started so pompous and so absolutely unconsciously privileged, but watching your father self-sacrifice to protect humanity at large is a stiff price to pay to learn a little humility. (The absolute kicker is what happens during the Yuuzhan Vong War and subsequent Swarm War; poor Raynar does NOT have an easy run of life).

Lowbacca was an interesting look at friends/siblings dragging you into an extremist perepecting and RAPIDLY getting in over your head. There is also an interesting look at those who choose to stay in those organizations and those who choose to escape. And again, this was 1997, so the massive resurgence in fascism, right-wing extremism, and incel-ness wasn't the monstrosity it is in the year of our lord 2022. The Diversity Alliance arc just got more relevant the older I got, not less.

The Solo twins are, objectively, the marquee characters in these books, because the EU objective was the Skywalker/Solo show. Just straight out, Jaina is my favorite Solo kid. No contest. Her entire arc over the EU was twisty, detailed, nuanced, and never anything less than fascinating, and that began from the first books that focused on the kids. Her training on Yavin 4 in these books really solidifies her as technical. Jaina likes machines; she likes to take things apart, put them back together, and make them better. She is, like her father and uncle, a pilot at heart. That said, I'd be lying if I didn't say that both she and Jacen are a little one-note 1990s YA protagonists. They have their one major things (she's a mechanic, he's basically the Star Wars Kratt Brothers) and their things and relationships drive everything. They are arguably not the most interesting characters in these books, but they do tend to drive the books because they are the Solo twins.

That said, the plots, side characters, and general vibe of these books made them some of my favorites, and the nostalgia is strong with these books.

[stellahikaru]

State of The Starry Path Hotel #4 (March 1st 2024)

Hello! Welcome to the fourth installment of the State of The Starry Path and the first one in March! I thought about doing a monthly wrap up but considering I didn’t get much done in February, I decided against it. OKAY NOW ONTO THE UPDATE!

Mini Life Update

It feels like I have so little time these days. I needed to help do some fixes for the main assignments of my capstone project so that took up most of my time and energy for the first part of the week. Then I was focused on assignments for my other classes for the rest of the week and before I knew it, it was Friday again. Man, I wish I had more time in general. 

On the bright side, I will be on break for next week! I can finally relax and take some time for myself. While I will need to do some school related things during my break, the fact that I do not need to go to class means I can focus on relaxing, playing video games, and content creation of course!

Content Creation Progress Update

So I ended up not really thinking about content creation at all this week. I feel terrible about it but what can I do besides move forward? Thankfully, I will be off of school for the following week so I can get some work done on YouTube videos.

This Week’s Goals

Make an ideas list and write down a minimum of 5 ideas: This goal is a holdover from last week but since I will not be in school, I will have more time to devote to it this week. 

Choose 1 idea and start a video script for it: Once I finish writing down some ideas, I’m going to choose one and start writing a script for it. Unfortunately I won’t be able to record any audio or gameplay because I won’t have my main PC with me, but 

Research editing software: I’m going to look for a free or low cost editing software that I can use to make videos. Even though I won’t be able to test it while on my break, I can still install it when I come back to my PC. 

This Month’s Goals

Make one YouTube video: I want to make a Youtube video this month even if it’s terrible. The majority of the weekly goals are going to be focused on this for the month.

This Year’s Goals

Get monetized on YouTube: I want to eventually make money off of my content so I’m hoping to get monetized on YouTube this year. This is going to be a tall order, but I hope I can keep working towards this with my weekly and monthly goals!

Become an Affiliate on Twitch: Despite making Twitch less of a priority, I still want to be able to become an affiliate on Twitch. While I do need to find a way to meet the seven days streaming requirement, I want to be able to draw in viewers first. 

Gain 100 followers on any social media besides YouTube or Twitch: I actually am over halfway to 100 followers on Twitter as of writing this, but I still don’t get a ton of engagement on my post. In addition, most of the followers I have gotten are those annoying GFX bots and it’s a little bit disheartening. I also want to build up a following on Tumblr and Bluesky as well! 

Make a community Discord server: Once I build up a community, I want to create a Discord server for people to hang out in. However, I want to wait until there is a demand for a Discord server. This goal is lower priority compared to the other goals but I hope that this does end up happening this year!

Final Thoughts

I can’t wait to be able to relax and not have to think about school all the time this week. Hopefully this month I can hit the ground running and actually be able to finish the goals I set out for myself this week. Also I do want to make an announcement regarding streams for the next couple of weeks. I will not be streaming tomorrow or next Saturday. Since I am planning on going back to my parent’s house, I will need to spend tomorrow preparing for the drive there and then the following Saturday is when I’m planning on coming back, so I do not want to pressure myself to get back in time for a stream. My next stream will be on Saturday March 16th at 2 PM EST. However, I will make sure to write a blog post for next week! Anyway, I hope your stay was bright and your journey is filled with light!

[merlinpotterandtherandom]

Morgana knows that it's dangerous, but she thinks that it's worth it, since it's more dangerous to keep this with her. She knows she has enough power, since she's the last High Priestess of the Old Religion, and the only person more powerful than her is Emrys. Or so her sister, Morgause, says.

Morgana starts the ritual, she isn't sure if it's going to work, but it's the best solution. She needs to protect this at all costs, even if it means she has to send it to the future. A baby starts to cry, she kisses his forehead and says "My sweet Hadrian, I hope I'll be able to join you in the future soon, but if not, I hope that someone will take good care of you, son. Mommy loves you, baby. Good luck". Now, she isn't happy about that, but she'll be damned if she lets Morgause or Cenred be around her baby. Her baby that Cenred and Morgause insisted that she should be the one to carry for Cenred. Morgause hated the idea of being pregnant and Cenred needed a heir and he wanted a magical one, so with Morgana there it was a win-win situation for Cenred and Morgause. Morgana accepted this with the condition that she would help raise the baby, no matter what.

Harry is not having a good summer, at all. 1- He can't send his boyfriend any letters 'cause it would be suspicious for both of them to be recieving letters and notes every hour 'cause they're that kind of couple that can talk about everything and anything to each other, thus they would be sending owls like crazy, so they decided it was for the best if they didn't write to each other. 2- His friends are not even bothering on replying his letters and when they do, the letters are more like notes than letters. 3- It's his 15th birthday and he just recieved a letter from his dead mother as a gift, the joy! 4- The letter explains how she isn't his mother, at least not biologically and says he should go to Gringotts to make an inheritance test to see who his biological parents are.

Harry manages to sneak out to go to Gringotts, there he talks to a Goblin and asks for an inheritance test. The Goblin takes him to a private office and asks for 3 drops of blood. Harry does that and when the results are shown, he drops the parchment in shock. The parchment reads:

Name: Hadrian Cenred Morgan Essetir Pendragon Alias: Harry James Potter, Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Lived Blood status: Half-blood Mother: Morgana Pendragon Father: King Cenred of Essetir Adoptive mother: Lily Jasmine Potter née Evans Adoptive father: James Fleamont Potter Birthday: 31 July 1405 (Quick note: Merlin is set sometime in the middle age-medieval times, so loosely 500-1500, I just chose a random year between these and put here, if you'd like to write a fic based on that, then you can change it, no problem.) Harry just stopped reading, he didn't want to know the other surprises this test might reveal. If he was originally born in 1405, how the fuck he got to 1980? He knows time travel is a thing, but that far? Harry doesn't think it's possible. He decides he wants to take a look around the Pendragon vault, maybe his biological mother left something to help him out there? So the Goblin takes him there and he finds a diary there, Harry picks it up and takes it to the Dursleys with him. He starts reading it. Harry at least now knows that he was sent to the future using a ritual, and that his mother had all the intention to join him. Harry is still trying to process that he isn't really James and Lily's son and that his biological mother is some historical figure that they learn about in the History of Magic class. After reading Morga- his mother's, diary, he finds out that she used the ritual to send Harry forward in time, 'cause she thought it would be the best place to hide him from his own father and from his aunt, since, by what Harry read, they would only use him for his powers or something like that.

So the Order chooses to come and pick Harry up when he's having an existential crisis. Typical. As soon Harry sees Sirius and Remus he asks them "Did you guys know?", not minding that they have a few members of the Order there with them, he just wants answers and the fact that Sirius and Remus just can't look at Harry...Well, it says a lot. So Harry asks "Why you didn't tell me? Why did you have to let me find out about it through a letter that she left me?". The rest of the Order is really confused on what Harry is talking about, but the entertainment is so good that they don't want to risk interrupting it to ask what the fuck is going on. When Sirius and Remus don't answer, Harry just sighs and says "Fine, when you're ready to be adults and talk to me about it, I suppose you know where to find me." and leaves to his room, that he's apparently sharing with Ron. Harry ignores Hermione, Ron and Ginny following him and asking what he was talking about; Harry doesn't think he's ready to talk to them about it. But he wants to talk to his boyfriend, though, so he sends a note to said boyfriend.

Harry doesn't use Hedwig to send the note, obviously, he sneaks out and uses an Owl Post. He doesn't have to wait much for an answer, though. And after a bit of conversation, they agreed to meet the next day, so Harry went to sleep with a smile on his face, knowing he would see his boyfriend the next day.

Harry finally manages to escape the Weasleys and Hermione and goes to meet his boyfriend. Harry smiled when he saw his boyfriend, and even though said boyfriend had a glamour on, Harry could recognize Draco anywhere. They go to Muggle London and find a adorable Cafe, they find a table and after they order something to drink, they start talking and Harry shows Draco the letter + the test, Draco is worried with something that he read in the test and asks Harry "Did you read the entire test?" to which Harry replies "No, I didn't want to have any more surprises, you know?" and Draco nods but says "You should take a look on where says potions, blocks and glamours...It seems like you have a few on you and also you seem to have something called Horcrux in your scar, you should definitely go back to Gringotts and ask for a cleaning ritual or something. You should go right after we finish here, love. I'm honestly worried with how many things you have on you." Harry gently takes his test back from Draco and sees that Draco is right. So they finish their drinks and Harry pays, 'cause he's more used to Muggle money than Draco, and Harry goes to Gringotts.

After Harry removes everything, including the Horcrux, he writes a quick note to let Draco know that he removed everything and is fine. Harry found out what was a Horcrux and that the one he had was just a small part, so Voldemort made more than one. He asks the Goblins if they can track the other ones, which they can, so Harry pays them to do it and destroy them in Harry's name and keep Harry updated, of course. So Harry goes back to Grimmald Place. No one noticed he left the house, 'cause he pretended to lock himself in the room they have Buckbeak in, so everyone just thought Harry was just being moody.

The Goblins did an amazing job and destroyed all of the Horcruxes, so Harry knows that the next time he faces Voldy, he can kill the old snake face for good. So Harry starts training. He reads every book that he can put his hands on of the Grimmald library and sneaks out to buy some more and even asks Draco for a few books that he can send from the Malfoy library that anyone would miss for a few days, which Draco gladly sends his boyfriend. Harry also goes to his vaults to see if there's any books that can be useful there. Sirius and Remus are confused at first when Harry asks them to teach him how to duel, but when Harry explains his logic, Sirius and Remus agree and start teaching Harry how to duel and even show him some spells they create that are supposed to be for pranks, but work really well in a duel as well. Harry works really hard 'cause he knows he has only a few weeks and he pretends to start his 5th year being at least decent on dueling and knowing a bunch of new spells.

5h year begins and Harry finds the Room of Requirement in the first week back and keeps on practicing, with Draco's help, since Draco had dueling classes since he was a kid. Harry finally feels like he's good enough to defeat Voldemort when he has an encounter with the snake face this year.

Harry & Co go to the Ministry 'cause Harry finally figured out that the weapon Voldy is looking for is really a prophecy, so he's curious to know what it says. They go right after they finish their OWLs. Of course it wasn't that simple, of course Moldyvoldy would have his Death Eaters there. Everyone has their shot with a Death Eater. After that Voldemort finally showed up and when Dumbledore + the Ministry employees + the Minister showed up, Harry stopped playing around with Vody and finally managed to defeat him. Now Voldemort is forever defeated. Of course, there's still Death Eaters around and of course Harry & Co still have to deal with the Ministry, but let's do one thing at the time.

[godheadjones]

part two of riverdale info dump (part one)

the core four are over for dinner and fake thornhill then penelope sends them on some missions where archie fights a bear, bee and vee drink poison and are slowly dying and jughead fights chic (imposter brother) for role of game master. betty must shoot her father to survive and she does. after surviving the night they escape the forest and are all traumatized even more. lovely. they talk in pops and with the clashing of milkshakes, we see a flash to spring of next year. around a campfire stand archie betty and veronica in their underwear covered in blood, throwing a bloody crown beanie in a fire. jughead is dead. how? thats yet to be revealed. a few months pass, summer ends and archies dad dies due to the passing of his actor. its a very heartfelt episode and its very well done but stuff goes to shit again. but good things are going for jughead! hes at a preppy school for his writing, attending with a bret weston wallis and donna sweett, who are besties and writers. also mentionable bettys real brother comes to town and guess what, hes also jugheads brother, while bugheads parents are dating. its basically incest but no one talks about it. jugheads class has a competition for ghostwriter and surprise! he gets it and a yale scholarship! thats so good for him, his loved ones congratulate. expect for the fact that it gets him killed. killed dead. bee vee and arch are all so sad, so sad that betty and archie get together! uh oh, it ignites old flames and jugheads not actually dead hes faking his death to prove the legend of stonewall prep. jughead besting death 2/? gifset. barchie cheat on their current partners and bughead and varchie break up around graduation time, which archie is too dumb to be able to do (he didnt have enough time to study with all his running away). 7, yes 7, years later, they meet up again. veronica is married to some guy named chad gekko. betty works for the fbi. archie just got back from fighting in ww1, a 4 year war. jughead published a book but at the cost of becoming and drunk. either way its a very lowkey interaction. jughead gets a job at pops and works with the new tabitha tate and they talk about the mothmen a lot. hm. what could that be? flames are kindled, couples get back and break up and its all a mess but before the season 5a finale we have betty and archie: fucking. archie and veronica: something is there. gay kevin and fangs: having tonis baby. jughead and tabitha: pining and a little kissing and handcuffs. chic and real half brother (charles) are actually gay criminals for each other so they try and kill betty after making her wed them. we get a hiram centric episode and the fans go wild. its only an episode tho, cause cheryl is starting a church to worship her dead brother. the mothmen are actually blossoms who incest incest and um. yeah. anyway pops blows up and they drive hiram out of town as his actor sadly leaves riverdale. hiram is not hiram forever. then archies house blows up and interrupts more barchie sex. now we’re in rivervale? and who is this jughead serling fellow showing us around town? most stuff is similar except the town sacrifices archie to the gods of the forest and no beta he die like jesus on the cross. more horrors haunt the town like the hot british devil, la llrona, and a history lesson on cheryls gay ancestors who is all one ancestor: abigal blossom. now archies alive again. yippee! jughead sees a dead jughead questions rivervale as she knows it and looks up on parallel universes. when archie is revealed as a killer (evil era) betty kills him and her and jughead make out with a bomb under the bed to try and destroy vale. twist tho. remember jughead serling. hes backkkk. he stops the make out ses and tells jughead vale to lock himself in a fuck bunker and write forever or else dale and vale die. by jughead have fun! dying is so fun tho you become a comic character with endless burgers at pops in heaven!

oh my god I need to make a part three of this. for just season 6b. that should be so fun

[monaisme]

Sicktember: Day 2

#2- Too Much of a Good Thing/Overindulgence

Mr. Harrington clapped his hands together, trying to get the attention of all the teenagers around him, “Alright, everybody! I know you’re all excited about the return of the school fair, but we still need to come up with some ideas for fundraising!”

A hush fell over the classroom... almost. A couple of excited titters came from the cluster of girls toward the back as the one girl they’d nominated to be spokesperson threw her hand up in the air. “We have an idea for that, Mr. Harrington,” the blondest of the bunch, Lena offered (at least that’s what Peter thought her name was?). “What about doing a kissing booth? It’s totally classic, right? And we—” she gestured to her and her clique of a friend group, “could take turns covering the booth. It wouldn’t be too hard to convince some of the football players to volunteer to balance things out, and then we’d sell kisses for...” She looked back at her friends again, “What do you think, girls? Ten dollars a kiss?” They all nodded vigorously in agreement, prompting Lena to turn back confidently, “Ten dollars a kiss. And we’re sure there’s already some booth built and hiding back in the storage shed that we can paint fresh. No big deal, and then we’d be in business!” Lena grinned big, like she’d solved world hunger. “What do you think?”

A couple of ‘less civilised’ seniors high-fived each other while Mr. Harrington stood there, obviously uncomfortable with the every aspect of the idea. “I think...” he trailed off as he tried to find a way to diplomatically explain why this was an absolutely awful idea.

 “I think the school board would love having to shut the school down because of an in-house covid outbreak,” MJ muttered from her seat at the front of the class, just loud enough for Peter, Ned, and Mr. Harrington to hear.  

Mr. Harrington glared not so disapprovingly at his Aca-Deca captain, she had made a reasonable point after all, and then addressed the room at large, “While the idea may have had merit at one time, times have changed, and I’m certain the school board will deem it too risky, at least from a public health perspective to approve.” He smiled sincerely, “Thank you for being so... willing to help, though.” He added.

The groans of disappointment took a minute or two to die down but eventually the meeting moved forward when Flash raised his hand from his seat near the back of the room. “What about doing some sort of eating competition instead?”

Mr. Harrington thought for a moment, not immediately shutting the idea down, “Okay. I’m intrigued, but what exactly were you thinking about, Eugene? Remember that we are working with an extremely limited budget, so it can’t be cost prohibitive.”

“Well, I was thinking that we could always approach some of our local businesses; see if they’d be willing to work together and donate something in large enough quantities that we could make it a competition of sorts. Like Joey Chestnut, you know?” Flash took the opportunity to make another dig while he could, “In fact, maybe Parker here could convince his boss at Stark Industries to cater the whole thing for us?”

“Eugene, behave, please.” Mr. Harrington cut him off before he could go any further, “I’m sure that Mr. Stark would absolutely be willing to help, but the premise for this event is to bring the community together. Let’s see if we can make an effort to keep this a little more home grown, shall we?”

“Um—” Peter raised his own hand awkwardly. Flash’s idea didn’t suck, and they were all there to help so he could run with it—“I could talk to Mr. Delmar. I mean, he’s definitely a part of the community, and I bet he’d be willing to connect us with some of the other local business owners to get this all done.”

“I think that’s a fantastic idea, Peter... and you, too, Eugene,” Mr. Harrington added before Flash could get upset at the order of things. “Seeing as you’re both so eager to contribute to its becoming a reality, let’s get you two working together to make it happen. Lena?” Mr. Harrington turned his attention to the girls in the back again, “I’ll put you and whomever you decide to corral into helping in charge of tracking down a booth, painting, and setting up once you’re assigned a location, okay?” He stepped back and addressed the class in general. “Anyone who hasn’t specifically been assigned a task by this point, be ready to jump in when you’re asked for help. For now, though, anticipate helping out with advertising—distributing flyers, hanging posters, and so on,” he nodded to MJ in acknowledgement, “or set up, ticket sales, or 50/50 sales on the day of.”

As he had begun, so Mr. Harrington ended with a clapping of hands. “Only four weeks to go till go time, everyone! Thank you so much for participating, all! This fair is going to be amazing!”

Peter and Flash each gave each other the side eye. This was not how it was meant to be.

“Don’t forget to bring updates to our next meeting. You are dismissed!”

/-/-/

“You guys are so screwed.”

Both Peter and Flash cringed at Ned’s statement, knowing that he wasn’t wrong. “Well,” Peter piped up, “At least we know it was easy to paint the sign up booth.”

Flash snort laughed at the understatement of the century, “Ya’ think?”

And, honestly, Peter was trying really hard not to. “To be fair, who’d have thought that the only item anyone would have been willing to donate would’ve been...” He couldn’t even say it out loud.

Oh, but MJ could. “Bananas.” She planted herself between the two of them as they stared in disbelief at the boxes upon boxes of bananas stacked in Coach Wilson’s office being kept out of the sun until the competition that was scheduled to start only an hour from then. “You know, my art teacher told me I should contemplate using some colour in my distress sketches. In this exact moment?” She clapped them both on their shoulders and nodded, “I can see it.”

“Stuff it, weirdo.” Flash stepped out from under her hand. “Besides, this is all your fault, Penis,” Flash crossed his arms in frustration. “If you actually had a real internship with Tony Stark, you could have called him up and we’d have been done. We could’ve done pies, or cakes or, I don’t know! Something that didn’t have to be so stupid!  But nooooooo...” Flash scoffed as he gestured to their chaos. “Here we are stuck with a bunch of ripe freakin’ bananas—and this fundraiser is going to flop.”

“Maybe you can send any leftovers home with the winner along with their trophy so they can make banana bread?” Ned offered not helpfully.

Peter gritted his teeth and breathed deep. He wasn’t even going to reply to Ned. And he definitely wasn’t going to admit to Flash that he’d intentionally chosen not to call Tony about all of this. Would Tony have said yes if Peter had asked? Absolutely! But their relationship was... changing? And no way was Peter going to start asking for favours now that he and Tony were getting closer—ESPECIALLY now that they were getting closer. “Stuff if, Flash. It’ll be fine. We’re a school full of science nerds and a couple of pretend sports teams. The expectation is not that high.” Peter flushed with embarrassment.

Okay.

Maybe it was a little bit higher than bananas.

“Whatever, losers. Mr. Harrington says it’s time to get this all outside.” She moved past them and grabbed the small cart they’d parked in far the corner. “And while I normally believe in an equal division of labour, I also believe that I have some sketching to do.” She pointed to the boxes. “Get loading, you three. The masses are waiting.”

/-/-/

The fair was well underway by the time the four of them exited the school with their stacked cargo and made their way to the parking lot where all of the exhibits and games were set up. It didn’t take long for them to find their booth and tables, along with a very grumpy football player.

“You had two people sign up for this, Flash,” he waved a clipboard in the air in frustration. “Except they thought you were just, like, selling bananas, so you actually have no one, man.”

Of course the football player knew Flash.

“I know, Josh- I know—” Flash commiserated with him, “But what could we have done? Oh, wait! I know!” Flash made a show of dragging his gaze over to Peter. “We could have called our imaginary billionaire boss and made this booth into something, well—” Flash looked back at his buddy and shrugged in defeat.

“If I had to make a choice, I’d have been totally down for doing the kissing booth, is all I’m sayin,’” Josh continued.

And Peter said nothing. What could he say? Yeah, Flash had done the exact same schmoozing with the neighbourhood business folks as Peter (they’d made a script, even!), but maybe Flash had been right and he should have pulled some strings?

“Ah, perfect!” Mr. Harrington snuck up amongst the group and took everything in. “Lena’s committee did a great job on your set up,” then he patted the top of the stack of boxes, “and I’m so glad to see that the community really stepped up and came through!”

Was he looking at the same stack of bananas as the rest of them? How could this man be so optimistic?

Mr. Harrington picked up the clipboard Josh had been holding, which apparently gave Josh the permission he’d been waiting for to bolt for places unknown while Mr. Harrington checked out the list. “Oh!” His forehead furrowed, “That’s a little light...”

Ugh. Peter couldn’t bear to disappoint his favourite teacher. “Well, uh, we were thinking of switching things up and seeing who we could convince to join us from the crowds, ya’ know—playful peer pressure and all that,” Peter was grasping now. The plan had been for this to be a one and done and then he, along with Ned and MJ were going to check things out too, but no way was that happening now. “And oh!” Peter had an epiphany! “Flash is going to live stream it!”

“But-!” Flash had apparently had plans, too.

But Peter’s face said enough that Flash’s eyes bugged out as he became enmeshed in Peter’s plan. “Uh, yeah!” Flash was definitely not impressed. “But first, Peter here is going to get the party started by eating the first batch of bananas and he’s gonna keep it up until we hit a hundred dollars either in sign ups to join in the banana eating contest or in straight up donations towards the fundraiser, so...”

Now, Peter hated Flash, but he also hated bananas more than just about any food on the planet thanks to some nasty banana flavoured antibiotics for a particularly nasty case of strep throat as a kid. Every part of him was ready to throw his hands up and head over to the guy making deep fried oreo cookies... but this was Mr. Harrington, so... “Yup,” Peter smiled big, “In fact, Ned is going to go and get them to announce this over the loud speaker right now.”

Ned was quick on the uptake and nodded eagerly, “I can do that—Banana eating for the cause- live streaming- give us money—in just a few minutes, right?”

Peter nodded. Sooner started, sooner done, right?

“Got it,” Ned replied, then bolted for the main tent and the event emcees. “I’ll make sure they hype it up.”

“Yay,” Peter gave a pathetic thumbs  up as he lost his will to live. “So yeah, Mr. Harrington. We’re all under control. Flash and I are just going to get these bananas ready to go and we’ll be set to start. Right, Flash?”

Flash smiled big, too. “Right.”

Mr. Harrington handed the empty clipboard to Flash and smiled the biggest. “I knew I could count on you two. Good work!” With a spring in his step, Mr. Harrington left them to their final preparations.

Peter and Flash stood side by side until Mr. Harrington turned toward the back of the school and the midway.

“I really hate you, Flash.” Peter stomped to the boxes and got to work.

And Flash didn’t care. “You know, if you’ve got a problem, you could always call your boss and just have him show up, buy the damned fair, and call this done.”

Peter glared. Their reasoning may have differed, but it still led to the same outcome.

MJ, ever the devoted observer, flipped her sketch pad open to a fresh page.

Peter Parker was about to eat a load of bananas.

/-/-/

Peter was in the zone— so intent on trying to choke down another banana that he didn’t notice Flash’s eyes growing wider and wider from behind his phone.

Peter was also too distracted by his efforts to not vomit to notice Ned stepping behind Flash to take note of what exactly Flash was freaking out about.

However, when MJ joined in the fray, mouth dropping open in shock, Peter couldn’t help but finally figure out that something was going on.

“Ned?” Peter called over as he peeled his umpteenth banana. “What’s going on?”   

Ned made his way over to Peter, trying to stay out of the video Flash was still live streaming. “Uh, we’ve got a bit of a situation—like, an amazing situation going on and I’m not sure how to tell you without you freaking out...”

Why did Ned look nervous?

“Ned?”

Ned put his hands up in defence. “Hey, it’s not my fault that your freaky metabolism thing has kicked in!”

“What?” Peter was confused. “What do you mean?” –and what did his spider metabolism have to do with anything?

“Peter,” Ned gestured to the now empty table, “no one else is joining you. One guy had considered, but bailed after watching you do your thing.”

“And the best part!?” Flash called out from where he was still filming, “This banana thing is turning into a freakin’ mukbang—and people online are willing to pay for you to keep going!”

Peter’s jaw dropped. “People are—wait a sec.” Peter looked from Ned to Flash and then to MJ who shrugged.

“I’m going to go get Mr. Harrington,” she said, then disappeared into the crowd.

Hang on—crowd?

 Peter sighed and covered his face as he processed what was going on, “Everyone is watching me scarf bananas?”

Flash and Ned both nodded.

“And they’re donating?”

They nodded again.

“Can I ask how much we’ve raised?”

Ned and Peter both looked at Flash for that answer, “If my tally is right, and people follow through on their pledges,” Flash flipped the phone to stare at all of his viewers, “because they will!” Flash flipped the phone back to Peter, “We’re looking at more than a thousand dollars so far... and as long as you’re eating, they’ll keep donating!”

Peter dropped his head to the table. “How is this my life?” he muttered before taking a deep breath and mentally preparing himself to continue.

“You don’t have to keep doing this, you know.” Ned took a second and inched closer so he could speak more privately with his best friend.

“I know.” Peter laughed and leaned a little closer to Ned, “Dr. Cho is never happy with my potassium levels- what with my activity levels and all,” Peter confided, “So this can only be a good thing, right?”

Ned snort-laughed, “Or too much of a good thing?”

Peter took another deep breath. “I guess we’re about to find out.”

/-/-/

“Give me the final tally again, please?” Peter begged as he hunched over the toilet in the private bathroom of his bedroom at the tower. “Make this all worth it, please?”

Tony rubbed the boy’s back and sighed, “Two thousand three hundred forty-two dollars, my dear, sweet spider-idiot.”

Peter clunked his head against the arm resting against the toilet seat. “Mm-mm. That doesn’t sound right.”

Tony rolled his eyes, “Fine, it was two thousand three hundred forty-two dollars and sixteen cents... better?”

Peter hummed in satisfaction. “Better.”

They stayed there in silence for a few minutes waiting for Peter’s stomach to finally settle when Tony finally said it, “You know, I could have just written a—”

“Nope.” Peter cut him off before Tony could say it. “Just don’t.”

“Don’t what? Say, ‘write—

“No! Don’t!” Peter protested.

“— a cheque?” Tony finished anyways, figuring there must have been something behind Peter’s insistence.

“Shhhh.” 

“And if nothing else,” Tony added, “I could have just bought you more bananas...”

@sicktember

[charlottecowper]

This week has been really big for me. I've been in my head a lot for the last couple of weeks, doing lots of writing and reflecting on my life as a whole. I've been trying to understand myself more and how I reached certain points of my life and seeing what things I could have done differently in situations that resulted in failure, and to see exactly what was in my control at those points. I do feel like I have a deeper understanding of myself, and although my work is nowhere near finished, it has enabled me now to look at myself in a different perspective by comparing past versions of myself, to the version I have experienced being for the last two months.

I have detached from everything that brings me stress or negative feelings, and by doing so, I can focus entirely on everything that is bringing me healing, love, and joy. I have found a new respect for myself after seeing how I have navigated the challenges over the last couple of months as this is something I set out to achieve when I started my healing journey in 2016. I am now in a position where my mindset is exactly where I need it to be in order to work towards a balanced life. The last two months I have trusted the process and overcome so many fears, and I have been supported by the universe every step of the way.

I'm starting to feel excited for the future now as I'm getting more and more involved in the community and doing so well at establishing and maintaining mine and other people's boundaries. I am doing what I can to help people, but not overdo it and respect my own limitations. I am starting weight management class on Tuesday morning so I will be able to track my weight for the next 12 weeks, which by the end my daily points on Weightwatchers will be 23 for the rest of my weight loss journey. I also have booked my first swim for after the class, and will take a protein shake for afterwards. I have also started tracking my food again so that I give myself the best chance at success. I've also charged my Fitbit and I'll start wearing that on Monday.

I've also been looking at lots of different hobbies I can get into while I have all of this time to myself, and to help me to enjoy the time I spend alone. I have to be careful about not getting into anything that is going to end up costing a lot of money in the long run, so I thought arts and crafts might be a good one as you can get things really cheap and it's all readily available. Hobbycraft have all of these different craft kits so I might get a few and see how I get on. Plus that way I can fill my flat with things that I've made myself rather than stuff I've bought that wouldn't feel as personal. I'm going for the Bohemian theme anyway so I'm sure it will work out perfectly!

Additionally, I've spoken to Anne about level 2 Reiki, and I might be starting that next month. It will be good for me to get fully qualified so that I have something else to offer people. I don't feel like I want to have a career in Holistic Therapy anymore, but since I know I have the ability, I will most likely just do it on friends and family. I think that what most matters to me as an holistic therapist, is living by certain principles. In order to be the best therapist and person you can be, you need to have your energy in the right place, and you can only do that by living with a positive mindset, be grounded, focused, kind, compassionate, and loving of yourself and others. When I set out on my Reiki journey in 2018, I came to understand that I had a lot of work to do on myself as I knew how unbalanced I was. But by being part of the holistic community, it gave me a direction to which I knew that if I followed that path to be the kind of person I want to be, then I would live so much more of a happier and balanced life. I knew that the universe would challenge me constantly until I got to where I needed to be, but having faith in the support of the universe I kept going through every challenge and trying to learn everything I can from it, and I never gave up on myself no matter how hard things got.

I have so much more energy now to focus on all of these important things in my life and in a years time I will be so so thankful to myself for choosing the path that I did when I was given no choice but to start again from rock bottom.

There are versions of me from the past that would have overdosed or self harmed with this exact situation, there are versions that would have had a victim mentality and not taken responsibility for their actions, there is the version of me that would have been so hateful to Kelly for hurting me like this, as well as versions that would have seeked revenge, even if it was petty. There are versions that would have never stopped begging for a second chance, or gone through a friendship with them always hoping she will change her mind. There are versions of me that would just stay at home, going on dating sites to fill the void.

I like the version of myself that I did experience this time. A version that reflects true growth, self love, a positive mindset and deep healing. I am so happy that I have built this version of myself, as I'm exactly who I need to be moving forward and the only changes in myself from now on will be good ones. I still feel a great sense of love and care to everyone that has been an important part of my journey, even if we're no longer talking. At least now, nobody will be hurt by me again, and neither will I hurt myself again.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HOW TO BE NICE

Beginning at Johns Hopkins in 1876, the bedrooms don't have closets. The more anomalies you've seen, the more the rest will want to come here. When there's something we can't say, in any normal family, a fixed-size equity round can take weeks, because all the angels sit around waiting for the others to commit, have different values for startups, accumulated knowledge about how to make them work, and the best startup ideas seem at first like bad ideas. Running code at read-time, and part of the reason Y Combinator is that founders are more motivated by the fear of Microsoft. Smile at everyone, and don't tell them what you're thinking.1 Violating moral fashions can get you fired, ostracized, imprisoned, or even killed. Om Malik is the most economical route to the sea.2 If the anti-yellowists.3 Aikido, you can make a graph of all the things we could do was Viaweb, which we disliked at first. If anything, it's more like the first five.

We'd hire 30 tomorrow morning. Companies often claim to be benevolent, but because it's so much easier than building something great. In every period, people believed things that were just ridiculous, and believed them so strongly that you would be reluctant to express in front of me. Instead IBM ended up using all its power in the market to any manufacturer.4 They're not.5 Since we did continuous releases, our software didn't actually have versions. They preferred good programmers to bad ones, but they don't need a big development team, so our costs would be lower. This applies to dating too. Outside writers tend to supply editorials of the defend-a-position writing that would be a better sign that someone was satisfied with a search result than going to the site and buying something?

This tradeoff predates programming languages. We decided we ought to be writing about literature, turns out to be a good thing if there are a lot of people who'd make great founders who never end up starting a company.6 They work well enough in everyday life that you don't see the scary part upfront. I conclude with a few vague questions and then drift off to get a tiny bit less occasional to compensate for the opportunity cost of the board seat it consumes. When I was about as observant as a lump of rock.7 One piece of evidence is what happened to the application after I left. The main character is an assassin who is hired to kill the president of France. Companies often claim to be benevolent, but because he spent all his time on it and neglected his studies, he was skeptical about Artix.

And in this economy I bet they got a good deal about patterns. Their hand-made objects become store-bought ones.8 It was natural to have this distinction in Fortran because not surprisingly in a language where you have to be a distinct, inferior, sort of thing? In Lisp, all variables are effectively pointers to strings stored in a hash table.9 If you look at it this way, you wonder why anyone would think there was. I know of one couple who couldn't retire to the town they preferred because they couldn't afford to pay lawyers to turn every a lot of work, done by a class of people called philosophers. 84421706 same 0. So if doing good for people gives you a sense of humor.

What that means is that there are about 15 companies a year that will be very close. Lisp's power is multiplied by the fact that the founders of Chatterous told me recently that he and his cofounder had decided that this service was something the world needed, so they were going to make money and maybe be cool, not to be too difficult for programmers used to C. The distributors want to prevent the sort of economic violence that nineteenth century magnates practiced against one another and communist countries practiced against their citizens. There are a handful of angels who'd be interested in—the language if I did, it would be: you need to give someone a present and don't have any immediate use for it, you probably never will. Whereas if an investor is notorious for taking a long time coming. Because their current business model depends on overcharging people who have x-ray vision for character. And it follows inexorably that, except in pathological examples you can treat them as identical.

But when you understand the origins of this sort of disobedience shows signs of becoming rampant. He was doing something quite different from what they expected? One thing we can say, which are the most technophobic people on earth. Startups are often described as emotional roller-coasters. We're looking for things we can't say, what do you do research on? Soon after, the western world fell on intellectual hard times. In fact there are limits on what programmers can do.10 Which makes it easier to remember that Dublin was also established by Vikings in the 840s. On Lisp.11 Search was only 6% of our traffic, and he will automatically get paid proportionally more.

And that's where the volume of our imaginary solid is growing fastest. Startups rarely die in mid keystroke. Do whatever's best for your users. Make something worth investing in, you have to do it is to use it. No one knows whether a startup is thus as close as you can. Usually you can find, use the same matter-of-the-envelope calculations, this one has a lot of those individually readable lines. There's a lot of immigrants working in it. 40% of the company sold in series A rounds—so those are good places to look now. Instead IBM ended up using all its power in the market to any manufacturer. Whatever their ideas were, they were. Who's right? So parents are giving their kids an inaccurate idea of the right thing, which is the number of series A investments they can do is so small.

Notes

For example, there are no startups to have figured out how to be. But there's a continuum here. N i n Goo: df foo n lambda i set! On the verge of the clumps of smart people are these days.

I don't mean to imply that the web was going to drunken parties.

So managers are constrained too; instead of uebfgbsb.

But this is also to the environment. Convertible debt can be huge.

If the next investor. Ditto for case: I once explained this to users than where you went to school. This wipes out the words won't be able to distinguish between people, but the programmers had seen what GUIs had done for desktop computers. So much better to be employees, or some vague thing like that.

FreeBSD 1.

My first job was scooping ice cream in the US is partly a reaction to drugs.

New York. And while we have. Top VC firms regularly cold email startups. I think I know when this happened because it depends on the grounds that a person's work is a list of the false positives caused by blacklists, for example, probably did more drugs in his twenties than any of the word philosophy has changed is how important it is more efficient: the company goes public.

This of course some uncertainty about how to be a founder; and with that of whatever they copied.

For example, understanding French will help you in? Some urban renewal experts took a shot at destroying Boston's in the Greek classics. Rice and Beans for 2n olive oil or mining equipment, such a dangerous mistake to do.

At one point in the country would buy one. No big deal. When you fix one bug, the manager, which have varied dramatically.

[monday4econlive]

Opportunity Cost ( Playing Soccer or Studying)

Gianni Wang Student ID ( 83022194 )

Kennedy Xivir Student ID ( 14486582)

This is a song that talks about the opportunity cost of playing soccer or going to study. Being soccer players we have to make this decision whether we go kick a ball around or we study for our classes. This song is a parody of “Hotline Bling” by Drake. 

You used to call me on my cell phone,

Late nights, studying all alone.

Thinking ‘bout the field, where i wanna be,

But these textbooks keep calling me.

You know when that soccer ball swings,

It can only mean one thing. 

Gotta choose between goals and grades,

Opportunity cost, it never fades.

Ever since I left the pitch, I,

Started hitting the books, it's true.

But every time I see that green,

I’m torn between game and grades

You know when that deadline’s near,

And the game day’s drawing near.

Gotta decide where to invest my time,

Balancing goals, it’s like a crime.

Late nights on the field, or in the library,

Which one’s gonna bring out the best in me?

It’s a trade-off, a choice to make,

Study hard or risk the grades at stake.

You know when that whistle blows,

And the pressure starts to grow.

Gotta weigh the cost, choose what's right,

In the end, gotta shine bright.

So I’ll hustle on the field or I’ll hit the books,

Trying to decide what I do,

But when it comes down to what matters most,

I’ll know the true cost, seeing my classes through.

For us we could either be hitting the fields at the arc for a couple hours passing the ball around or we could be studying for our upcoming finals. We have to make these decisions by weighing what the loss is from picking one of the options. If we were to go play soccer for 2 hours, then that's 2 hours of studying that we just lost. But, if we decide we need to study, then that's 2 hours of playing soccer that we just lost. We tell ourselves, we will hit the fields for a bit and then lock in. But it turns out we are so exhausted that we end up studying less.  We would need to take into consideration the amount of free time we have and if there's something we need to study for. Let's look at what I get out of studying instead of playing soccer

Here we see a production possibility frontier that portrays the possible production possibilities when our inputs are fully utilized. The more time we spend on one thing the less we have for the other. For example if we were to spend 5 hours playing soccer. We would spend zero time studying. You would ask why don’t we spend 4 hours playing soccer and then you study for 3 hours. There are two zone, the area under the curve is the feasible zone, meaning you are able to do it but it might not be very efficient, anything able the line/curve is not feasible meaning you can’t do it because you don’t have the resources or in our case you pass out because you are tired. 

Academic success: If we were to study rather than play soccer, then this can lead to us getting a higher grade, have a better understanding of the class, and just overall academic success

Future Opportunities: Studying could lead to stronger academic performances and this could give us future opportunities in careers.

Personal Growth: Studying gives us a challenge, so this will help with our critical thinking skills, and helps with our personal development

Long-term Benefits: Investing time into studying can lead to lifelong learning and intellectual fulfillment.

Now let's look at what we get out of playing soccer:

Physical Fitness: Playing soccer is a great way to exercise, it helps with our stamina, strength, agility, and our overall fitness

Stress Relief: Playing soccer is a stress reliever, it’s a way to take our mind off of school and just focus on the moment.

Social Interaction: Playing soccer gives us opportunities to socialize with others, making friends, and building a sense of community with others

Improves skills: Playing helps us improve our touches, improve our dribbling, and helps with our game IQ

Overall, both have great benefits and it is a difficult decision to make on what we want to do. Even though soccer has all these great benefits, studying provides better ones allowing us to have a better understanding about classes, having improved grades, and better overall for the future. Sometimes 

[the-meadow-of-a-fluffy-sheep]

The meadow of a fluffy sheep: Entry 12/2/2023

Welcome back to my meadow! 

I’ve been insanely busy this week. I have 139 things on my to-do list, 126 of which are repeating tasks. I have three upcoming entrepreneurship competitions which I need to put a huge amount of time and energy into. I’m in association for nonsmokers Minnesota, big brothers big sisters, and distributive education clubs of America. I don’t even have time for dog agility class anymore which was one of my favorite parts of the week. I’ve missed two therapy appointments in a row because of events and fundraising for programs and organizations. I also have chores and work Fridays and every other weekend and that I haven’t had time to hang out with friends outside of school in almost a month.

I met with my DECA chapter leader to get the answers to some questions I had about DECA. I asked him what he thinks my chances of qualifying for nationals are with my business start-up written plan. He says that if I check the write-up rubric, make sure I follow everything there, check the penalty sheet, and make sure I don’t lose points on that, and that if I’m clear and confident, my chances of getting to the state competition are high. He says the state competition is much more challenging and that only the top 10% of state competitors qualify for nationals. For all three competitions, I will hand my written business plan to the judges, they will read only the executive summary, then I will do a 15-minute presentation of my business plan with the last 5 minutes being for the judges to ask questions and for me to answer. I will have a trifold poster with text and diagrams. He says that if I put work into my trifold poster and make sure it looks neat and printed and not like I threw it together in a couple of minutes, it will help my chances. I will need to do a lot of practicing with him. The national DECA competition is in Anaheim California and is from April 27th to April 30th. DECA Blazers are not required at the district or state competitions but they are required for the national competition. I carefully looked at the dress code on the DECA website. It is very strict. I’m going to wear a navy blazer, white blouse, navy dress trousers, and black round toed pumps. I’m also practicing putting my hair in a braided updo to look more formal. If I get into DECA nationals, I’ll stay at a hotel that DECA has rented out for the competition, meaning no other families will be staying there during that time. I would either share a room with a female identifying student since I am comfortable with that or get my own room. If I am the only person who qualifies for nationals then I would get my own room by default, but it’s likely a female student in my DECA chapter will also qualify just given that she’s experienced and this is not her first year doing DECA. If she and I both qualify and are expected to share a room, I’m pretty sure I will request to have my own room if money allows. Because of my personality type, I need my own space, specifically a room with a door that closes, especially in a very stimulating environment with so many people and so much social interaction. The very last thing I would want is to get burned out, exhausted, and dysregulated. Our DECA chapter leader would not come into my room because he’s an adult but I would be able to call him on the phone if I needed anything. After curfew hours, a piece of tape would be put over my hotel room door, so that if I left the room an adult would know because the tape would be broken, which is to ensure I don’t leave the hotel room for safety reasons unless there’s an emergency. I’m fundraising for DECA by selling frozen Heggies pizzas; I’ve sold 14 pizzas so far. The money from the first pizzas will be put toward basic and general DECA costs, and the rest will go toward me for whatever costs I’ll need for district and state, and if I qualify for nationals, then the hotel, food, competition, and special DECA blazer. I’m going to try not to take it too personally if I don’t qualify for nationals. I know it’ll be a huge disappointment for me, but I’ll try to handle it as well as I can, so even though I’m very excited for the opportunity, I’m trying to keep a realistic perspective in the back of my mind. 

I met with my English teacher to work on the last summative assignment of the trimester, which might not sound like a big deal, but I was really struggling with motivation to get schoolwork done that day so I was really proud of myself, especially since I did well on it. 

I had a meeting for ANSR (association for nonsmokers Minnesota) with my school’s principal. We talked about possible solutions to students vaping in the school bathrooms. We have another meeting on the 4th of this month, in two days, and I’m bringing Girl Scout cookies to share with Clara and her friends. Because vaping among teenagers and mental health are so related, I made a detailed list of coping skills categorized by both emotion and type. I’m going to hand out a copy to the leaders of ANSR and see if they want to mass print it to give out to students who are feeling stressed so they can use those coping skills instead of vape. 

This week, I called with three friends separately, and that was really nice. I called with Kalia, who is also in ANSR but was unable to make the meeting about vaping in the school bathrooms. I filled her in on what happened and also my opinions on it. We also talked about DECA and she was very supportive. I called with my friend Nora. She’s a really great friend. I told her about DECA and she told me about how her family is having a baking contest. I love baking, and I actually had just made chocolate chip banana bread, so I told her about that too. Then, I called Kamillah, and we talked about ANSR and she gave some good example analogies of how it’s important to give firm consequences to the students who are vaping at school. 

Work has been going pretty smoothly. It’s still exhausting, but I’m getting more used to it. I get to take food home at the end of my shift, and it’s really good, fancy food. The co-worker who trained me in today was super kind and friendly to me. I’m getting to know more of the residents’ names. 

Thank you to anyone who replies for supporting me and giving your insight, I appreciate it very much.

[dumthicc]

What do you consider to be lower class and what do you consider to be middle class like what are some of the charactericis of these classes?

While I know their are set incomes of what would be defined as lower class, lower middle class, and middle class, I dont think total household income is a good way to measure class. The cost of living is different for everyone because of different circumstances. Some people may be considered 'middle class' but may have to spend almost all of their money on medical necessities, which would leave them struggling just as much as lower class individuals.

But when I say 'middle class' families, I mean the ones that could afford to go on nice vacations [I knew a kid in my grade that would go to Disneyland once or twice a year. Meanwhile my family couldn't even leave our state more than once every 5 years... his fam was def more upper class but the point still stands], afford new basic clothing, afford nice TVs, new washing machines, decent cars, etc. And also wouldn't be completely fucked over by a simple dentist visit or a broken wrist. Families that didn't have to try as hard to 'survive'.

I kinda grew up in two homes. Divorced parents, each with different incomes. I've seen what near rock bottom looks like.

My dad was working class and made about lower middle class money- but he drove and fixed trucks and would often have to work unpaid overtime or on days he had off. He also had shit for sick days and had to work even if he shouldn't have. Most of our money was also drained from different medical and basic needs (he had 2 kids, so yeah. That's expensive...). I couldn't see a dentist for all of my early teen years. My dad had to borrow money from me and my sibling occasionally just to pay rent.

My mom on the other hand was very lower class. I saw her struggle so much to buy food and pay rent. There were many times I couldn't visit her because she had her heating shut off in the middle of winter. And doctor visits? No such thing. She struggled with addiction (most lower class individuals do), and she had to learn how to budget like her life depended on it (because it DID). The only reason she was never homeless for more than a day at a time was because of her long list of 'boyfriends of the week' that she'd go to. She had to learn how to make every penny count. She had to learn how to fix her own car, her own clothes, her own home.

So I would consider middle class ppl to be ones who can live comfortably, and can afford nice or new things from time to time, such as eating at a nice restaurant every week, or going on vacation 4 states over for a couple weeks every year. The ones that can afford to throw away a pair of shoes and spend $80 on new ones like it's no big deal. Upper middle would probably be the type of folks who shop at Sam's Club or Target and have whatever new hybrid car came out that year and probably own their own 4 bedroom home and go outside the States for vacation twice a year or more. Upper class would be more stereotypical 'wallstreet richies'.

Idk how to properly describe lower class though. There's a huge difference between living paycheck to paycheck and being actually homeless... like my dad had at least the potential for saving up for a small vacation after a couple years, but my mom couldn't even afford to buy bread. I think class should be more of a gradient scale that weighs both income and living costs rather than 3 main categories.

Also, middle class families were a lot more common in my school than other places, and it's much more likely now that the children of said middle class families will grow up to be lower class once they move out, hence why learning how to do things yourself is so important.

Sry for the long reply, I hope it answers your question.