#a fucking zebra license

[olderthannetfic]

Oh great, everyone is all in on the ~all the kids who think they have DID are wrroooong~ thing.

Im sorry but none of you saying that are helping the community or plural folks as a whole. Even if you are also a system or have a CDD.

For DID *alone* the barrier to diagnosis is very high- arguably as high as Autism and according to one study it takes an average of 10 years in therapy to be diagnosed because so many doctors are ill-informed or refuse to diagnose it/believe it exists despite all the evidence due to the shadow of the satanic panic. The goddamn REASON people are diagnosed in their 30s and 40s isnt because you *need* to wait that long its because they look for horses before zebras and refuse to do anything else most of the time and fuck us over!!! Many of us report symptoms -the same fucking symptoms- since teen&young adult age or earlier!!!

The diagnosis has many of the same drawbacks of any other major diagnosis like autism and schizospec stuff where you can lose custody of children or the ability to adopt, face unofficial discrimination from doctors or employers or people you try to get accommodations from with it, and could even have your drivers license taken away or have to jump through hoops to keep it- and more issues!

Pursuing a paper diagnosis is not for everyone and the plural community for decades has been built on this- even before the exclusion criteria were added to the DSM and ICD that kicked a huge chunk of us of us off even getting one despite being systems (which is a good thing to be clear! If its not impairing or distressing it shouldnt be pathologized!). We have folk therapy and dyi resources and we have a lot of them for a reason.

And thats not even getting into how therapy has historically severely abused our community and how the only accepted treatment path is pursuing the fusion into one person (which has a hilariously low success rate that for anything else wouldnt be accepted as a vaild treatment) and not everyone wants that or is helped by that.

Most of us are never going to be ABLE see useful therapy or a paper dx, so we use the community to find resources and community and it FUCKING WORKS. We built our community with our own blood, sweat, and tears because no one else could or would fucking help us. And it WORKS.

Attacking these people who self-dx ONLY ever causes splash damage on the very people this kind of behavior claims to protect.

And like. If someone reports an autonomous entity that talks in their mind and takes over their body sometimes its... rather obvious they belong in the 'having an autonomous entity that talks in your mind and takes over your body sometimes' community regardless of anything else. NB4 people say psychosis; Schneiderian First-Rank symptoms are actually more indicative of DID than schizophrenia in this manner according to studies- but schizospec people with persistent personlike voices are known to benefit from the same exercises you'd do if they were ''''real'''' alters and are included in the plural community anyway (which btw doesnt require a dx- calling yourself plural or a system is not self diagnosing its an identity label the community created OUTSIDE of diagnosis criteria FOR this very purpose of self-ID).

While yes, we would agree many people say DID For Sure when they might want to hesitate there- we do NOT doubt they are plural. We just wonder if they were told the ONLY way they could be plural/a system is through DID and that is why they are saying they have it. Which... yeah thats not so great. HOWEVER informed self-dx is fine provided they havent been fed that kind of misinformation.

The solution there though is to just spread the real information about the breadth of plural experiences and people will feel less pressured. Simple as that.

Never EVER telling them its really just something else, you dont know yourself- you cant know something that extreme when something that extreme is EASIER to tell tbh because its such a unique and intense experience.

--

[zyonsay]

Wildfire, Chapter One MV1

Fem aligned people may read but not f3tishize my work!!

Summary: Your very first Grand Prix!

Reader: Male

Warnings: Swearing, Max holds a grudge against you

Now playing: 'Break stuff' by Limp Bizkit

AN: First Chapter of Wildfire! This is a rewritten version, the early version was too short and sucked ass, so here you go babes!

(Here is the next chapter)

“Y/N L/N coming through the inside! This looks like P2 for the Redbull rookie! Don’t blink because you might just miss him!”

Loud cheering erupted from the watcher stands and colorful smoke hung in the air. Nobody really knew who you were since your addition to the team was announced barely a day before the quali.

“OH MY GOD, Y/N! YOU DID IT, YOU DID IT!”

Horners voice boomed through the team radio, the mechanics and engineer’s celebrations could be heard in the background. Tears pricked in the corners of your eyes; you couldn’t believe you placed so good at your first race in F1. You knew that you were talented, and you’d worked hard too, but your second place today was unexpected. Usually, it takes time to settle into F1, figuring out all the dynamics and such, so naturally you’d expect some more difficulties than this.

Once you’d hopped out of the car, you received many pats on your helmet. You were obsessed with the design that you’d chosen a few weeks ago; it was a beautiful reinterpretation of ‘starry night’ depicting a race car, watcher stands and track lights instead of a village.

You were grinning from ear to ear, proud of today’s accomplishment. Naturally, your teammate and racing legend Max had won the Grand Prix, but you were more than pleased with your work. The third place was achieved by your friend and fellow racer Lando Norris.

You took your place on the chair in the cooldown room, observing the replay of your drive carefully, still grinning. Lando punched your shoulder lightly. “Hey dude, good drive!”, he had a playful gleam in his eyes. “Next time i’ll get you tho.”, he smiled mischievously. “Keep on dreaming, I’ll crush everything in my way.” You patted him on the shoulder, making idle chit chat with your buddy.

Max stood at the other end of the room, watching the replay too. Your presence, your words, your attitude left a sour taste in his mouth. It’s not like you were mean or anything, but the way you present yourself seemed too cocky for a rookie. He’d never admit it, but having you around felt threatening. Like a lion, waiting for the Zebra to get distracted for a split second so it can rip it to shreds. But Max was always the lion? Why not now?

Many Formula 1 Fans were intrigued by you, the first impressions you left sure were lasting ones. “Fucking hell! Did this dick even get his fucking driver’s license?! Do I need to get him some glasses or will he be able to see the turn next time?” You were a strong fiery character, reminding many people of Max. Your overly confident nature was charming somehow and managed to pull in many fans, but it also earned you loads of judgmental stares and nasty comments on Instagram.

But you loved the attention. Your fire was only fueled more and more that way.

The ceremonial part of spraying fizzy alcohol and various festivities took its time, but eventually ended with you feeling sticky and gross, but happy.

Shortly after leaving the podium, you were circled by interviewers, fighting to be the first to speak with the ‘wonder rookie’. A grey-haired man with an unknown accent gained your attention first. “Congratulations on your Success! You surely made a good first impression! Did you expect this outcome and furthermore, do you think someone else would’ve deserved the second place?” You blinked a few times at the blunt question but broke into a playful grin soon after. “To be honest, I couldn’t exactly weigh my chances because I’m new to all of the circumstances, but my success is definitely welcomed with open arms.” You looked intently at the camera that was shoved into your face, still smiling. “I deserve the second place, if anyone else felt like they deserved it, they should’ve tried to be faster than me.” The interviewer was flabbergasted at your retaliation and raised his eyebrows in shock. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m sweating terribly.” You turned towards the camera, pointing at it: “Lot’s of love to all of you watching, have a nice evening!”

And with that you rushed off, wanting to peel your race suit off as fast as possible.

Max stood nearby and had heard the whole interview while talking to his friend Charles Leclerc. He was equally as perplexed as the interviewer. How could you talk like that at your first Grand Prix? Cocky much.

Max couldn’t wait to crush your little rookie dreams.

[azure-clockwork]

Ok, so I’ve been doing some amount of fiber arts stuff since I was like 7 or 8 (whenever I learned to make granny squares with my mom). I then graduated to a wide variety of stuff including cross stitch, embroidery, sewing, knitting, and clearly at least once, spinning my own yarn. I then shoved it all in a box because I was 9 and bad at organization, only to paw through whenever I wanted a sewing needle or yarn ball for something. Anyways what I’m saying is that baby Jay ought to be tried for war crimes

This mess contains, among other things:

yarn balls, only half of which are large enough to do anything with, and only one of which has a label indicating any info about weight, fiber content, or yardage (330 yds of worsted acrylic, btw)

embroidery floss and a hoop, but no needle

seven (7) knitting needles ranging from 4.5mm to 8mm. In that seven, there is only one usable pair (it’s the metal 4.5mms)

a knitting loom with half a scarf

a pair and a half of truly fucked up fingerless gloves

something that is clearly done in very loose stockinette, was never finished, and then was taken off the needles without securing any of the live stitches. I have no clue what it was meant to be

a foot of loose super bulky yarn. I’m pretty sure I made it starting with the sheep. I didn’t shear the sheep, but I started with unwashed raw wool from the 4H sheep I was helping take care of, iirc

faux leather cord

beading thread, but no beads or loom

a singular pin

a scrunchy that would have matched my gymnastics leotard I wore when I was 6 with the elastic removed

rope

a drawstring backpack

a roll of zebra print duct tape

a snapcircuit base

an expired fishing license and pin to attach it to your hat

a book on how to make friends

Anyways, there’s like 5 things in here that I want but first I have to free them from the mixture of poly fill, unmarked plastic crochet hooks, and so much fucking yarn. See y’all in a while

[feuqueerfire]

Triage Live Blogging

Been meaning to watch this since it was released around this time in 2022 but there was such a debacle with the airing, like airing for a 2 hour window on Youtube before it's taken down lol I hope I like it, I enjoy time fuckery and seeing the one you love die over and over again in front of you.

From what I've seen, everybody seems to have really, really liked this except maybe some messiness (?) at the end.

Ep 1 (May 1)

wait... the doctor addressing the other guys as Nong... didn't see his outfit properly but is he a college student? I hope he is, I want age gap yay

18th July, 9PM

ah, so the nong was speeding and ran into a motorcycle

I've been made aware of the clock saying accurate time...

oh he's still a student in his final year of residency, so not as big of an age gap as if he was already a doctor

so the Intern is below P'Tin and she had to have completed at least 6 years of M.D + gotten license and is currently doing her internship, so Tin must've done all this already? I don't fully know what the steps are to become a doctor, esp in Thailand

Nong is 22 years old

I wish the subs were easier to read, especially since it gives like medical info and background

ah, both of them passed away... (at 10:55pm)

Ah, seems like Tin's sister had previously been in an accident because of a drunk person (and she died I'm guessing?)

who is that security guard, hm

oh, he went back to 9:50PM, does he only get back to this time or gradually earlier and earlier? or maybe he gets to go through more of the time and into the next day(s) before he's back into the cycle?

how do you even do your work as a doctor when you're in this situation lol

"If you want to escape this whirlpool, you have save that kid." - the security guard mans

Jinta - chief of court of justice of heaven or smth

omg uncountable number of loops, I would've said fuck it and tried to off myself fr

cat named Zebra

2 Years Ago: the accident where his sister presumably died

yeah, i expect resentment that he's in this loop to save this random kid but wasn't given the chance for his sister

ah, he thinks the kid deserves to die, not surprising

He now woke up at 7AM of that day

pls mans faked fainting instead of doing the test, i was wondering what's up with the sudden funny music

oh, he wakes up where he fell asleep at the time he previously fell asleep there

dang, if the kid dies 2 months from now, will Tin go back into the loop? but probably won't come back 2 months earlier right, just to the last time he slept at some place

so funny, he went to a college to some random kid and told him you will die tonight and the only way to survive is to never die

Pretty interesting so far, I'm excited. I actually don't know how romance-heavy this is but I know we get at least some romantic moments

oh spoiler, I think I read something about in the end, the other guy gets into the loop? Also... is there something about organ trafficking?

Also, the comments here mentioned the drama with OffGun fans, I remember I was into OffGun at the time after Not Me and followed some fans and bruh, they were so cagey and acting as if this show was the devil. lol whatever

Ep 2 (May 1)

ah, Tin wants to return to his hometown to work

Nong guy rich and beautiful and good student and a model and good at sports? I was gonna say let's kill him but instead we're trying to save him...

oh, Tonnam is here, named Sing. when will his Sci-Fi Wish You Luck series come out?

loll Tin's killing technique of just pretending to be dizzy/faint/whatever

Warit?

pls he really went to tell him about dying tonight and in front of friends too

I can't tell if they're hinting as a P'Sing/Gap side couple

Wonder what's up with Tol's girlfriend? something about some guys joking? and what's up with the bag?

getting into the car with him loll

fun exchange but i get Tin's frustration like wtf is he even supposed to do? i guess he should find some sort of proof that he's indeed in a loop, like figuring out what's gonna happen and telling it to Tol

Ah, some bastard did something to his gf Mai?

c'mon, translate what he's writing, idk Thai

Jinta's here to remind Tin about consequences and butterfly effect, so maybe this time Tin'll actually succeed in saving Tol for tonight? but maybe have fucked up something in his own life

Who is this Warit? esp in relation to Sing? I wonder if Sing's also in a time loop with target Warit or no?

okay he didn't react with recognition when Tin asked Sing how he'd react if a stranger came to tell him he'd die tonight, so I guess he's not in a loop

oh, is Warit somebody Sing thinks of as his little brother?

Warit died because of Tin's actions?

Ah, Tin was able to treat Warit but Sing wasn't? Which is why when Sing took over for Tin, Warit died?

ah... missing kidney? Organ trafficking...

So he can return to a previous day as he wants? idgi like how's he gonna go to the 17th?

Ep 3 (May 1)

girl, I'm already on ep 3 and I started this in the afternoon...

pls Tol is waiting for just oneeee hint that Tin's with whatever dudes and he'll beat the shit out of him again

plsssss Tin's so silly, mans has Tol's account in his Facebook history and knows that Tol's suspicious of him but still handed it over to become friends. fr stressing me out

aw, poor cat

Tin giving Tol his white shirt and doing his best to not look as Tol changes lol

ah, Warit is Fluke (ex-GMMTV, My Gear Your Gown)

Professor Sak, Director-to-be, probably smuggling organs

oh, we're straight up asking if Gap's secretly in love with Sing lol

pls, the way Art's acting as if insinuating that Tin and Tol fucked, which is why Tol's wearing Tin's shirt now like girl... Tol has a gf?

The teacher told the students about somebody attempting suicide?

idek their age gap but I'm into it, idkidk

aw, Tin's gonna take care of Tol's cat

as soon as he said sorry to hear that, Tin should've jumped in like "AND THAT'S WHY YOU NEVER DRIVE WHILE DRUNK OR PICK UP CALLS OR BECOME DISTRACTED !!!!"

Tin lowkey already falling for Tol like okay

lol Tol accidentally telling Tin to marry him by telling him to find a wife that's close to him

hm... Doi is working with Sak and Mai's asking Doi about her mom... are they harvesting Mai's mother's organs or something?

Who is Tol's father? Doi refers to him as Khun Tol. oh wait Sak's friend's son right

Tol uses 'ter' with Mai

bruh, Tol's pride making it so that he throws Mai a party and pressures her to attend it despite her wanting to spend time with her sick mother... Are they gonna make Mai be a bad person or something?

Ah, he has his friend Fang who knows Tin likes men? I didn't even know fully if Tin knew he liked men lol but I guess it makes sense based on how he acted around Tol but didn't get freaked out about his feelings/attraction

pls it makes me so nervous whenever Tin tells or almost tells Tol about not going/dying/not driving, whatever. at least it's a consolation that Tol's gonna die and not remember the weird shit Tin pulls? it's lol in the worst way

Mai's contact named Heart... assuming that's not Tol?

Throughout the whole ep, as Tin and Tol became closer, I was losing my mind at how you become closer to somebody knowing that they're a high chance they'll die tomorrow. Not only is Tin becoming friends and closer to Tol but he's gonna fall in love too.

Ep 4 (May 2)

ah, Mai's Heart contact and her are taking a break, so not necessarily cheating? Actually a break isn't the same thing as a break-up umm

omg wait... she's using Tol's status and money to take care of her mother... i get her lol

there's so much happening in this loop, will we have everything be undone? Like progress with Tol but also the stuff with Sak (and him saying 'deal with Warit' to Doi) and also Tin with his friend. but maybe this loop will have Warit die because of Doi's meddling, so next loop Tin'll stop Sing from barging into Sak's office

oh tin, at least pretend to check what's wrong with the patient(s), now Doi is like hmm did Tin already know about our plan to mess with Rit?

nervous meeting for both Sak and Tin

omg... okay Tol wasn't drunk but this time him, Art, and the motorcycle grandpa all got into the accident

Tol dead again and Art in a coma

oh? Something revealing in Tol's autopsy results? In the r/boyslove on-air thread for eps 1 - 3, somebody mentioned that maybe Tol and Tin's sister have a connection, like maybe Tol has his sister's organ or something in him, maybe that's what it'll reveal?

Sak behaved weirdly with a case of an uncle 2 months ago...

Sing becoming jealous/possessive when Tin's affectionate with Gap lol

in the hallucination, Tol says "please take care of my heart for me" okay... heart hm

ah, Tol had a heart failure, okay everything's pointing to issues with the heart

I wonder what Sak had told the autopsy guy in that call right after Tin had asked for the autopsy results

I don't care about Manner of Death or MaxTul, so this was just awkward for me lol

girl why are you driving right now, be fr

bruh yeah scary why drive

Ep 5 (May 2)

A new loop begins: June 17

lol incredibly specific questioning and diagnosis in a coffee shop just after hearing that Tol gets somewhat tired about playing soccer but i mean if it works, it works

"It's not gonna hurt, is it?" oh girl you've died so many times now

bruh these fuckers blamed another student for cheating? and the prof irritating af for just being like yeah Warit i believe you're the cheater cuz I found it near your desk

bruh, the cheaters said that they saw Warit cheat?

but what's up with the previous loop where the girl and the guy were talking as if Warit made them pass (through cheating) but Tol didn't know what that was fully about? like the girl stopped the guy from speaking about it to Tol?

agh, are they gonna make it be like Tol somehow had no idea about the cheating or about copying Warit's project idea and somebody else in the group did it?

Tin still believes in Tol and that he'd feel guilty for doing the cheating stuff to Warit

Interesting that Sing and Fang are independently suspicious of and are kinda investigating Sak and Doi. good that not everything depends on Tin (well Tin was even defending Sak at the beginning 2 months ago with the Uncle's case)

her other boyfriend coming to save her from the debt collectors, yikes

what was the name of the patient Dr. Fang checked? Was it Mai's mom and the medicine Doi & Sak are assigning her?

hehe in this iteration, Tin helps out Tol and gets a nice Tol who trusts him. they're cute. i'm sad that this is gonna be over and Tol's gonna die and he's gonna go back to step 0 while Tin will be stuck in a loop still

I think there's a tiktok that I've liked for Triage and it begins in this clock tower but idk if they're up here in another iteration too

no way Tol leaning in that far lmfaooo he was crowding in fr. they're doing too many face shots and I didn't realize just how much Tol had leaned in

Tin is familiar to Tol? Y'know Gap also said something about the situation earlier was familiar... would people kinda realize that they've lived this before/they're in a loop?

omg, Tin's trying once again to tell Tol about the time loop

omg klasdjflaksdfj kl;asdfj ahhh kissing Tol to stop him from leaving ahhhhh

So did Tol's cat not get injured in this version?

I'm impressed that so far, the story hasn't gotten boring and despite us going through similar scenarios or reveals, the show doesn't quite feel repetitive. They're changing up the scenes enough and finding newer questions or answers so that each loop gives something new.

Ep 6 (May 2)

I wish I had the patience to savour this show and watch like 1 ep, maybe max 2 eps a day.

pushing him off and leaving, as expected

omg, the reason Mai was dragged out by the guy (her real bf lol) from the party was because he was at the hospital and realized Doi and Sak had drugged Mai's mother (to kill her and likely harvest her organs) and so wanted to take her there...

these fucking doctors not calling Mai directly...

omg Tol seeing boys kiss and remembering Tin kissing him...

wait, Tol just had a memory of that car crash? even though he hasn't experienced it yet?

Ah, Tol finally believing it's not the first time that they're meeting/he's dying in front of Tin. I saw a gif when looking for ep 5 gifs of this moment

From Tol getting flashbacks to his previous death and now finally believing this loop thing, I wonder if he'll kinda remember stuff in his next loop?

lol Sing and Gap push and pull

Ahh, Tin crying that he doesn't want Tol to forget about him anymore

June 19th

I wish there was a way for them to realize the overlap that the woman who was taken for the surgery is Mai's mother, then talk to Mai and the guy about her condition last night

lmfao Ton and Tin childhood connection

ah, Tin now finds about the Mai and her mother in the hospital connection

ah, the guy's name is Heart lmfao I thought it was an endearment

sorry they can't make me hate Heart. i get Tin being disappointed but not angry at her because idk her actions are understandable even if immoral

bruh organ trafficking right under everybody's noses + caught on CCTV

They fucking killed Fang or what omgggg... crazy. okay at least Tol is dying soon so that we can restart the loop cuz omg

oh? Tin doesn't remember things right away? "The longer I turn back time, the longer it takes me to remember everything"

oh he wants to back a week to June 11

Also, I realized Jinta reminds me of the story in Dead Friend Forever, hmm is this a common name for Thai supersition and stuff?

Ep 7 (May 3)

23.5 Episode 9 is out since it's Monday but I kinda don't wanna watch it right now? I might just finish out Triage in the next 2-3 days and then watch the next 23.5 episode. Since it's like a regular high school drama, feels like I don't feel the urgency to really know what's gonna happen next.

oops I've been saying June but it's July 11

Tin trying to remember everything and make a to-do list and here's one that needs Tol to fall in love with him lol

Aw Tin, Tol would def fall for you lol

hilarious to have Todo #3: Tol must be Tin's boyfriend

they're so awkward (as they always are at first), i'm crying

Tol's mom (Pang) is so pretty

wonder if Tol's dad would be involved in this at all? I assume they just know each other and isn't into the organ trafficking

why is Tol's dad negging him in front of Tin lol so mean

ah, they're in Chiang Mai

must be wild to be falling in love with Tol but 1) he doesn't remember you 2) he doesn't like you 3) he's gonna die if you don't save him

Gap keeps remembering that Tin asks Sing to switch shifts with him everytime lol

he ain't gonna let the tutoring go

klasdfj pls "I just miss you, that's all" i love him just inserting himself as a love line

Tol is a real jackass fr

hmm Dear... is Tol jealous of her with Tin?

Ep 8 (May 3)

heh jealous Tol

ah, she's Tin's ex

"But I don't have anybody in my mind yet na" *sparkly music*

damn we see the full scene of when Tol drowned

ahhh Tol being the one who asks to spend time with Tin for a change by asking to see Seudam

spoiled enough that as a college student doesn't know how to even crack an egg, oh Tol

okay they're gonna retcon some of Tol's assholery right? Cuz he's quite a dick from what we assume but they might not want the literally romantic interest male lead to be that way

Ah, Tin encouraging Tol to do the right thing (assuming about the cheating thing tomorrow when they blame Rit?)

I've seen the first shot at 16:00 when they're tutoring in the beginning of an edit too

damn, not even any situation of them deciding to have Tin stay over and sleep in the same bed?

ah, Tol dreaming of drowning that one time but also dying in past loops

Tin telling Tol that it's just a dream. I wonder when (or if...) Tol will find out and believe the loop thing, will it be in this loop or a future one, if at all until he ends up in a loop himself

hm... Rit and Tol and Art making up

okay Tol changed this loop to defend Rit and say whose it is (and he didn't cheat this time, so didn't have to face any consequences himself). wonder how it'll play out since there have been some pretty big changes for Warit since the original loop and they now kowkey have enemies in Pair and Win (?)

girl, don't tell Tol on the phone?! meet up face-to-face

hope the extent of the cheaters' revenge is just exposing Mai having a bf

aw man, are we gonna have Tin having Tol wait for a long time or what?

omggg agh I wanted to have Tin tell Tol about it but now Pear's sent Tol the photo of Mai and the guy agh

and thennnn he sees Tin with his ex my goddd give Tol a break, he decided to not be an asshole to Warit + is having nightmares about his past deaths and the feeling that he's gone through everything already. pls

I know that before in the original loop(s), Tol knew about Mai and some guy but thought it wasn't her cheating but that he came to bother her or something? And this is different than that case right? Cuz in previous scenario he found out some other way, not through Pear's photo as revenge?

Tol waits mournfully in that clock tower while Tin's battling possibly Rit's uncle (Sak stole his nephew's kidney) who is wielding a knife at the hospital and then gets stabbed omg

I saw in a gif when looking for ep 8 gifs... are they kissing next ep? Also saw a post that started with "This better be the last loop" so I'm guessing Tol dying again rip

Ep 9 (May 3)

I... have so many things to do that I should be doing instead of watching the next episode. man...

"I wonder if Tol can hear me in every loop" that's wild

Is Tol upset that he didn't get any calls from Tin?

Dr. Fang, you're everything

damn, the knife uncle killed himself (or was killed more likely) in prison

Don't you worry that Sak's gonna off Warit too?

I get Sing wants to get to the bottom of this but girl, how would you ensure Warit's unharmed? Fang died in a previous loop, man

I like Sing/Gap but not during serious moments

dang just straight up going for Sak's computer

A full day has already passed? 17th already

They don't translate what Win wrote on his post

Jinta such a shipper like "oh you're here? Tin can't use his hands but has to eat" *wink* and Tol does indeed feed Tin

oh, we're going straight into "yeah you die in every loop and i tried to find the cause"

Less dramatic leadup and explanation and disbelief than I expected

damn, pinky promise, well Tol better not die tomorrow/18th

nawt fuckass Pear and Win aughhhh let's kill them

ahh Rit pls don't go against Tol right now cuz that's just another hurdle in the loop T.T esp don't team up with the hellish pair to do it

omg why Heart become scary and throwing things D:

Tol eager to have Tin in his house again lol Toi enjoying overhearing

Ow man Tol... being nice to Mai is fine but don't start it up with her again please

okayy Tol not getting back together with her

aw breakups suck even though neither of them even romantically like the other

damn, they're sleeping in different bed/couch now and then having a discussion before sharing the bed, where was this last ep lol

damn, talking about past loops and deaths in bed

"We both will have a bright future together"

heart beating so fast Tol wonders if he'll have a heart attack but he might just be playing it up as a little hint/tease lol

kiss yay !

Tol's probably gonna die next ep and it'll devastate me fr because they're like... in love now.

Wait... I'm going through this ep's gifs and maybe?? next ep is the one where Tol wakes up in a loop? omg... I thought it'd be like the last ep or 2

Ep 10 (May 3)

The fourth episode of the day oof

hmmm Tol reading Tin's diary... he wouldn't be mad about seeing becoming Tol's boyfriend on the to-do list right? I feel like he should see and be preoccupied with the organ trafficking

omg?? okay, in the ep 9 (I think) reddit on-air, somebody was like this scratches the itch if you wanted more Fourth/Beam in 2moons and I didn't understand what they meant because I didn't think Fiat, Tonnam, gap's actor were in 2moons. but turns out it referred to TaeTee omg? I didn't know they were in 2moons as a tertiary couple lol idk why it just blew my mind, so they're literally a side couple getting a main show, that's crazy idk. I think I especially didn't realize because Tae had Paint With Love with Singto, so I thought Tae/Tee was a new ship after that.

aw going back to sleep beside Tin and cuddling kind of and watching him sleep, so sweet

it's the 18th

Doi got to the flash drive first...

everything is so nerve-wracking like on the one hand Tol's got this party for this project that Rit's gonna be sabotaging with Win and Pear's help and on the other hand, Sing and Doi are onto Sing and Gap, and also now 1) this sus dude entering Tol's party... is he gonna end up doing something to Tin/is gonna try to do something to Tol and Tin will step in like with that uncle when he got stabbed? and 2) this nurse with a syringe? is it for Mai's mother?

okay, I think Art is thankfully gonna be useful and get through to Rit about how two-faced Lukpear and Win are.

back hug

me and Tol both dreading this night

omg Tin pinky promised Tol that nothing bad will happen to him... the chance of Tin dying by stepping in front of Tol gets likelier and likelier

not Mai texting Heart again smh c'mon girl. I believe you'll be fine without a boyfriend

girl, so much shit going down. injection in the mother, Sing and Gap captured, random dude on Tol's tail + Lukepear taking things into her own hand once Rit tries to leave

hope Sing and Gap took the guns at least

wtf is this gun wielding fucker even doing bruh

omg mans shot Tin

that blood splatter across Sing's mask is crazy

losing my fucking mind at Sing still continuing to pump Tin's lung (?) after everybody else has stopped because he refuses to believe it

Sing deranged being like "Tin, you're okay, right? Tell P'Toi you're fine"

bruh i was wondering if time of death would end up being 10:55PM and indeed...

aughhhh everybody mourning

I wonder how Tol's time loop is gonna start because I'm assuming he's been sleeping? ig they haven't started yet to really let the death sink in

Tol randomly calling out for P'Tin omggg

Also, what happened to Mai's mom?

omg it's been weeks after Tin passed

Tol actually does sound like he's lost it, asking around about Jinta who nobody knows and now saying that he knows a way to bring back Tin by getting Jinta to turn back time omg poor baby :'(

omg not security T.T

well at least he's found Jinta

the last third of this ep is devastating fr, makes me wish I hadn't known about Tol getting into the time loop and such so that everything would be more heightened

reading the on-air threads is making me realize... I wonder what time Tol's gonna go back to, would he go way way back before Tin learned about anything? Someone also said ep 4 "ghost" Tol who asked Tin to take care of his heart was actually time loop Tol, which would be a cool hint

Anyway, the show is so good so far, I'm nervous about the fact that I've heard the last few eps get kinda wonky or too messy/fast. I really hope they don't fuck up the ending omg

Ep 11 (May 4)

Final 3 episodes, thinking I'm gonna finish it today, so excited, I'm hoping I love the last bit too

omg? Tin actively learned that class to tutor Tol to get him to not cheat

omg not Tol being the one who initially hurt Mai accidentally with the vase

Jinta is really an angel in this universe ig

ahh the ep 4 dream Tol

July 14

Tol's gotta fix the stuff himself now, starting with not taking credit for Rit's presentation

damn, Tol's giving up his position in the group to Warit, though I just hate Lukepair and Win and don't trust them

Okayyy Tin's coming back but without memories, let's go

Tol wanting to take the deal only if he's the one who ends up dying this final time instead of Tin (though idk if Jinta'll grant him that lol)

now it's Tol's turn to be a random stalker-like dude who knows all about Tin and is very presumptuous and pushy heh

aw, dream Tin giving Tol a notebook of everything that happened in the loops

"We will never be together, right?" TOL DONT SAYYY THAT

lmfaoooo a kiss can remind the other person a bit about past loops, that's hilarious

okay, now Tol's also gotta be involved in the organ trafficking investigation stuff right because that's a very important aspect of these loops

Sing's boyfriend lol that's what that one textpost I kinda saw that mentioned 'they started dating off-screen' was talking about

...Tin's not working for Sak in this loop, is he? IS HE?! D:

or Tin just doesn't care about his job and patients in this loop after his sister's death

okay and Tol got Mai to move her mother too

lol Sing and Gap

pls Tol is actually just a stalker now

I was nervous that Tol was gonna just go and kiss Tin and get punched but then he couldn't even do that because Dear showed up

2 more episodes...

I like this comment talking about how Tin was also callous and careless in the first episode after Tol came in. It's not that Tin being changed and cold now in this timeline is that different than what he was like in the original timeline first few loops. Similarly, this comment about "How do you know if Tin would be the same Tin if he didn't meet you." 

Ep 12 (May 4)

damn, Dear and Tin randomly both there at the clock tower, thinking the other called them there? and also they apparently hadn't met in a long time... so not dating, still exes?

ah, Tin's confused about some sort of romantic connection and thought it was Dear that he's missing?

plssss Tin previously asking Fang to help hit on Tol and now Tol doing the same

omg we've moved on from dates to countdowns. 60 hours left, 2.5 days

bro use the fact that you've got some heart condition to at least become Tin's patient, c'mon

pls not Nong Dear being there too and Fang somehow siding with Tol over her

throwback to that dinner with family when Tol was on his own phone the whole time

poor Tol doing the same hopeless shit Tin did in his earlier loops but my guy gets just one chance ahhhh

omg, magic notebook where the writing can be seen by Tol but nobody else

idk if the lesson should be to keep pursuing him lol like obviously Tol will because of reasons but Fang doesn't know that

oh, Mai and Heart are pursuing legal action against Sak?

damn, Sak's gonna try to get somebody else's organs now so that some other fuckers help him get off the hook on his trial

lmfao yep, everybody who's doing a case against you turning up dead wouldn't be suspicious at all

Tol's mother is sooooo pretty

ah, the tutoring session once again, starting with the same shot. though now Tol's scheming to kiss Tin

Tol's attempts are so awkward I'm dying, esp because Tin's awkward attempts or ones that went wrong results in Tol's death soon enough and it's like whelp, doesn't matter cuz Tol doesn't remember but this... it's different. it's going on for days on end and is the finally loop, so Tin will remember

pls not fake drowning, i'm dead wtf Tol, guess he's hoping for a CPR kiss?

"Get up when you want to, then" I'm alskdfj;alskdfj;lkasdf this is so awkward i'm dying

A tiny heart-to-heart sort of

Tol is actually the funniest person, what is this strategic kissing while asleep + pretending to have a nightmare

ah, he managed a kiss + Tin is now slowly remembering things

damn, Tin REALLY doesn't wanna go against Sak

Sing and Gap are cute enough but don't know I want too much of them in the midst of this high-tension stuff

Tin, be fucking serious and do not fall for Sak's tricks

Jinta does hint that maybe the reason Tin's so callous about life in this universe is because Tol doesn't come into his life and the loops don't change him/show him to value life

hmm the notebook is "super cheating if you know how to use it"

naurr fuckass Doi getting to Rit

lol Sing and Gap's storyline where Sing mentions gel/lube. Today Wandee Goodday was released and apparently that also mentioned lube, interesting to have it happen twice in one day for me when that's like rarely ever mentioned in BLs

oh wtf Doi has Rit hostage in Sing's apartment?!

The first half was kinda more comedic and relationship-oriented but I enjoyed the latter half more when things started getting a bit more serious.

I probably get what people mean about the last ep being fast and chaotic, seems like there's so much left for a 48 min ep

Ep 13 (May 4)

Finale, I hope it's intense and coherent and romantic and good

Gap, DO SOMETHING don't just stand there and listen to Sing and Doi showdown through the phone

pls not Tol getting excited af at getting the pulse, he's so... baby

omg i thought he was just gonna hug Tin but he kissed him??? pls

visions when they kissed

Tol's so excited asking Tin to kiss again

Tin remembering more about the loops

I hope Gap's lying about not having told anybody cuz then what was even the point of the phone call

idk what Warit texted Fang but maybe it's about Doi, who knows

who is Chalongchai? Is it the guy who shot Tin in the last loop?

not Tin and Tol getting fucking injected

girl, 5 minutes left ?!?!?!?!?!

Ah, Tin remembers but doesn't realize that there will be no loop

this fucking unhinged Doi is way too much girl gtfo why'd you inject Tin >:(

The piano at like 31:55 reminded me of We Best Love I think? Crazy that I can remember it. though it actually might be from the OST from it that I added to my playlist

damn, Tin in a coma. at least he ain't dead

wait, Tin appears at the clock tower just like that ??

plsss I was like Tin has Got to be kidding, he must remember right? it's too late in the episode, he's just faking Tol out but it went on for so long that I was like ? damn, maybe miss girl really doesn't remember

but indeed he does

aw, it ends just like that :( i wish there was just a bit more. i guess ep 9 was the one that had the most lovey-dovey moments between the two of them

was that after-credit scene a teaser for Euthanasia or whatever? The Maxtul Manner of Death spin-off that is unlikely to come to fruition?

I never commented on it but I guess Tin's wish to save Tol when they were kids really had a part in this loop?

This last ep hmmm it was good but somehow felt messier than the earlier loops, which felt move tightly woven together and better written? Like this is the type of writing that put me off of Manner of Death where things didn't feel quite rational, like the Sing and Gap and Doi stuff, or Doi in general going off the rails, or the random kidnapping in the hospital, and then Tin being in a coma for months and months until meeting in the clock tower on a random day. They wanted the last ep to be fast-paced and intense and that's fine but it wasn't as coherent as some of the earlier episodes.

Overall:

Great concept, mostly great execution (especially the first 3/4 like until ep 9 or 10), strong character building. Enjoyed unveiling more and more through each loop and seeing how situations and people changed through them.

Very commendable that despite it literally being time loops, the show didn't feel repetitive, they timed things well. I could've done with a little more romance but what little there was of them actually being together in like eps 9 - 10 were very cute.

I'd thought that they were the same age or similar ages for some reason but Tol is at least a few years younger than Tin and I liked that. Also omg in the last loop last few eps, I was thinking that wide-eyed, bumbling, eager, kind of naive Tol reminded me of Yeowoon from Love for Love's Sake after he softens up and turns out there's even an edit for it on tiktok lol so I'm correct.

This also makes me more excited for 4 Minutes and Spare Me Your Mercy, also Sammon novels because I found Manner of Death to be underwhelming and frustrating with how... stupid everybody was. This had more intelligent characters and I liked the plot better since it didn't fall into the "somehow a show about abuse women face but we only focus on male characters"

Rating: 7/10 [May 12, 2024 Update: Decreased by 0.5 stars when rerating shows I've watched in 2024: 7 -> 6.5]

[silversnaffles]

Okay so whilst I wanted to vent about this, I didn’t want to just in case but my mum’s been telling people irl so I’m gonna do it. (this is super, super long so idc if no one reads, I just wanna get it off my chest).

I’m annoyed at Star’s (and Amber’s) loaners. The family who loan them are a mother and her two young daughters (a 9 year old and 13 year old). They’ve been having a hard time, and mum wanted the old girls to have some attention so she offered them on loan with the only ‘payment’ being mucking out the girls’ paddock. Initially this worked out well, Star had a little girl gushing over her and they were both being lightly ridden (I had still been hacking Star out so she was fine). But then the mucking out started to slip, as well as the actual care itself.

We stupidly took it for granted. They were always gushing over how much they love the mares and mum had known the mother for years, so we assumed the mares were being properly cared for. We’d check on them in the paddock and do their water and stuff, but that was it. 

Alarm bells should’ve rung when I brought Amber in a couple of months ago to change her rugs when I found her hair falling out of her belly, and loads of scabs and dried puss underneath. I assumed it was a simple mistake, I sometimes forget to check the bellies too. I cleaned up and applied some silver spray and told them and my mum to keep an eye on it.

Now, since then we’d been concerned with how the mother had started to leave the girls to do their own things with the mares, despite wanting to loan them to teach the girls to ride. The 13 year old is fine left to her own devices as she just likes to groom Amber (and with Amber being 32, this is fine). However, the 9 year old has started trotting Star constantly. Just up and down in straight lines. Even under Star’s thick cushings coat, you can see her condition isn’t great from the winter and her back legs are stiff from the arthritis (the mother told me she’d look into joint supplements but never did), but the kid just keeps trotting.

Also Star has started to be aggressive towards the kid. Star has never bit anyone. She is essentially a little quiet push button pony, a total angel. But she’s started biting. I found this to be bizarre as she’s great with kids (even when she was a nervous wreck she was great with kids on the ground). So I checked the saddle they had for her (which we gave them in the summer when Star was overweight). It was huge on her, because she dropped weight I had to find out her narrow saddle. If they had checked the saddle and told me, I’d have sorted this out much earlier. Anyway Star kept biting, she just started to move a bit better from the saddle change. So, something else was bugging her, and it seems it’s the kid as she runs Star around constantly and is always screeching.

There is also the issue of the stiff legs and bad fitting saddle, I suggested to the loaner to get the physio out for at least one session as it’ll really help Star. Now it’s like £40 a session and she told me she didn’t have the money for that which I thought was fair enough and decided I was going to do it when I was next paid. But then she went and got a license to own a zebra?? That’s right, she wanted to buy a zebra. And then started to ask my mum and our friend if either of them would loan a share horse with her, OR if she could bring onto the land a 11.2hh loan pony for the kids? Like no? You can only come up at weekends, and even then it’s always late in the afternoon/evenings and you barely muck out so we’d end up caring for it, and you can’t afford one physio session what makes you think you could afford another pony?

There’s also the issue of Star’s coat. Normally Star is clipped all the time since she was a show pony, and it also helped manage her cushings. But last autumn, our clippers broke so we weren’t able to clip her. This didn’t bother us too much since the temperature was dropping anyway, and when the wet came we threw waterproof rugs on to keep her dry. However, as we’ve been approaching Spring, I’ve been essentially nagging the loaners to get her clipped as she’s going to start to overheat in that coat. It took like two months for her to actually reach out to someone to get her clipped and that was two weeks ago, and she still hasn’t worked out a date. Luckily, we made an emergency buy and bought some clippers due to what I found the other day.

When I was mucking out the field with Star and Amber in (and Amera now as Tara has recently started being stabled), I noticed Star’s eye was extremely gunky. So I dropped everything and took her (or dragged her since she’s now lost all enthusiasm since the loaners started) to the yard to clean up her eye and give her eye drops, and I also decided to take off her rug as it was clear it was too warm for her and the rug was pulling on her withers. Whilst she was with me I decided to give her a groom, and the one side was alright, but then I got to the next side and all of her belly was covered in matted fur. So, I ended up sitting on the floor cutting away at all of it. Then I found multiple bald patches. HUGE ones. like the size of my hands. And she was so so quiet. It’s clear that these patches and matted fur have developed over a few weeks, and they’ve still been tacking her up so I have no idea how they never noticed. My mum reckons that the kid only grooms the one side if that. 

In a state of panic, we called out the vet. Turns out, after the mini break out of lice we had last year (which me and my mum thought we got on top of), they didn’t treat the mares for lice. So amongst Star’s extremely thick cushings coat she had thousands of lice and they didn’t notice. It also explains how Amera’s suddenly become itchy again, I put it down to shedding. 

Anyway, the vet recommended getting her clipped asap and then applying some of this strong lice treatment and to treat all of our other horses again. She also did bloods, as for the past five years we’ve been naturally managing Star’s cushings but it’s clear that she now needs meds.

So since, Friday, I’ve been bringing Star in myself every day to treat her eye, groom her, feed her, and also applied some lice powder to keep her going until the clippers arrive (hopefully tomorrow), and she’s started to perk up a bit. Her eye is now pretty much clear, and yesterday when she finished her dinner she picked up the bucket between her teeth and threw it at me and then proceeded to bite the lead rope and pull at it. The fact she’s doing these small things again, shows she’s slowly getting back to her old self again. She was also a little git earlier and ran away when she realised I wanted to sort her eye out (but then realised she could only be fed if she had her eye done so let me catch her).

I do feel awful complaining like this, they are nice people (except for the 9 year old I honestly cannot stand her. I love the 13 year old, she’s a sweetheart but I’m always super close to strangling the youngest) and I do love the mother, and I do think they love the ponies. BUT I can’t let this slide. That is my pony that isn’t being cared for properly. And even if the bald patches had only suddenly developed in a couple of days, that doesn’t excuse the matted fur. My mum was livid and so was our friend on the yard with us (she owned Star from the ages of 9 months to 3 years old before she gave her to us). 

We’ve told them that Star can’t be ridden anymore because of her arthritis, which is pretty true atm. We’re hoping we can get her condition back and she can be shown in-hand again next year (this year is obviously going to be a no-go) as she loves going out. And maybe, if she does get better and the physio helps, I’ll lightly hack her out again to keep her busy. Whilst I’m tall, I’m still quite light (which I don’t look, I know, but I promise I’m under 10 stone, nearly 9 stone - I was 9 stone but I put on a bit of weight over winter), and through only riding her for years I know to move with her so she’s not put off balance. I just need her weight and condition back, but we’ll have to wait till all of that fur is gone so we’ll have a better idea on how to feed her.

We also have a new stable being built so Merlin can move out of her stable into his own, and she can be stabled with Merlin, Tara and Arthur. Then we can feed her as much as we want and have better control of her diet. We would put her own more grass but because of her lami/cushings we can’t risk it. 

I’m just hoping they return her tack soon as we told them she can’t be ridden but they still have her saddle, bridle, girth, saddle pads, new market exercise fleece and brushing boots. My mum and friend don’t quite trust them not to ride her, and tbh the way the kid kept taking on and off her bridle the other day and begging to ride, I don’t either.

If they do decide to stop loaning her and Amber, I seriously hope they return all of our tack. Whilst a lot of it is old, all of it together is still worth a fair bit (not so much Star’s narrow saddle, that thing is falling to pieces) and would be difficult to replace (or pointless since the mares are getting on). 

We do hope the novelty will wear off soon and they’ll move on, we don’t want to end on bad terms so we won’t do it ourselves (fingers crossed they’ll give me my tack back if they do leave)

Honestly though, I cried on Friday when I found out how Star is. She was right under my nose the whole time and I assumed they looked after her properly and left them to it, but I was wrong, and now I feel like a bad mom. I’m going to make up for it to her. That pony is going to be super pampered from now on (which she was before tbh, it was them that I stopped pampering her for as I thought they'd do that for them)

[modmad]

This work (Unicorn Invisable Disability Flag) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

You wanted it, you got it! Here’s a nice big clean version of the Invisible Disability Pride flag which I designed. A lot of people said they resonated with it, and while originally I just did it for personal satisfaction if you are feeling drawn to or empowered by this image and my reasons behind the design please feel free to use it. I’m actually going to post those reasons under the cut as well as that link to the original post just in case it gets lost. Oh as for the CC up there don’t be scared of using it that mostly just means if you’re a Big Company and want to make money off of it you can’t- or have to talk to me first!

I have a society6 with this design available as many things (even if the site is... confusing. it is there I promise search by ‘new’ if in dire straits) so you can have a looky there if you have a hankering for shirts and other products with it on!

anon asked: being someone with an invisible disability, have you ever considered making a flag? I know there is a flag for disability pride but I looked and looked and there isn't one I could find about invisible disabilities and you strike me as a very good person to come up with one (no pressure! just thought you might enjoy coming up with an idea?)

I almost didn’t do this bc it’s kind of a heavy topic and there is the general go-to of the sunflower icon (sunflower lanyards are used as a subtle sign that a person has an invisible disability) but looking into why it was chosen…

Well. I respect it but this list really didn’t reflect my experience of having an invisible disability so fuck it all I drew a sketch just for myself. So rather than a suggestion FOR a flag for Invisible Disability Pride this is, well, my flag for it done very quickly (sorry for the jaggedy outline I used the sketch!):

I have EDS, and they use a zebra as a play on the ‘when you hear a horse, don’t think zebra; think horse’ line which is when doctors assume something is not a rare condition because, well, it rarely is. But when you’re a zebra, not a horse, that’s a huge problem. This inspired me to use a unicorn here, because a lot of people don’t even believe Invisible Disabilities exist or count as such: depression, chronic pain, even vision loss are sometimes dismissed as being disabilities.

Why not the classic striped colours of other pride flags? Many reasons: people with colour blindness or severe visual imparement cannot easily distinguish them. This icon could be rendered as a relief, so it could still be used as a recognisable icon for people with complete blindness or who appreciate/use tactile imagery. The high contrast of black and white is also for this reason- It is also very easily recognisable at a distance. The heraldic design is to show that we have always been here, throughout all of history, regardless of if people have taken notice. The 'fancy’ designs on the legs, tail and face could be seen as beautiful, but could also be thorns, or flames. The 'spikes’ along the back are actually a spine. People with invisible disabilities are often in large amount of discomfort or pain, and to someone who is not aware they seem totally fine. The tail is long and flowing, but could easily get tangled in the unicorn’s legs and cause them to trip and fall. The hooves are split to show how sometimes a person can walk without aids but still be in pain (not simply to be accurate to unicorn lore), and the horn is overly large: heavy to carry, always on your mind and painfully sharp.

Here’s the version with the sketch btw thanks for reading this far have a cookie:

For all the nods to pain in this image I hoope you all see the unicorn is still alive and proud and fully spread over the flag in action to show we are not defined by our disabilities, but they should be respected just as much as something as potentially dangerous as a unicorn.

Also? Unicorns fucking rule. Just putting that down there.

[pjobroadwayslut14]

thinking about the losers having their drivers licenses and bill being busy so he texts the group chat to see if someone could pick georgie up from school?

so here’s what a car ride with each of the teen losers is like

ben: not much talking, mostly just him playing his music and every ten seconds going “OH! this parts my favorite, listen to this,” and then georgie just nodding confusedly, georgie always ends up staring at the tiny plastic framed picture of the losers hanging from his mirror

bev: literally just a therapy session, is so ass at driving it’s insane, always reaches over to mess up georgie’s hair in the passenger seat WHILE SHES DRIVING and immediately swerving off the road, has one of those funky little zebra print steering wheel covers

stan: asks georgie how he’s doing with his homework, perpetually telling him he’s too young for a girlfriend when he gets a new one every week, is fully lecturing this 10 year old mf about college as a 17 year old idiot, car is pristine at all times with no accessories whatsoever, makes georgie use hand sanitizer when he gets in the car because “school is gross”

richie: pulls up to the school in sunglasses and music blasting everyday with EVERY SINGLE WINDOW DOWN, fixes his mirror like he’s in fucking tokyo drift every time he’s about to start driving to the denbrough house, which immediately makes 2 sets of fuzzy dice fall off, making him stop to put them back and getting honked at by all the parents, makes jokes about being a single mother trying her best, swears and immediately goes “oh shit- FUCK- SORRY, ‘dang’” , scream singing at all times, calling georgie a pimp every time he gets a new girlfriend and calling stan a loser whenever georgie says stan said not to have one, fist bumps all the time

mike: treats georgie like a person instead of a baby which he likes a LOT, asks georgie what he’s reading at the moment with that winning smile of his, is a very conscientious driver, has to help georgie get into his truck every single time and makes jokes about how he has to do the same thing for bill, georgie’s favorite car to ride in is the truck because it makes him feel tall

eddie: makes an effort not to talk in the car because it’s “bad practice”, but always ends up ranting for the entire car ride over something bad that happened to georgie at school, makes georgie internally ask himself how it is that richie and eddie are dating, 10 and 2 at all times, never any music playing because it’s “distracting to the driver” but is humming a song whenever there’s no conversation going on, has no decoration in his car except for a post-it note that says i love you on it and then a crudely drawn heart at the bottom on his dashboard, georgie asked what it was the first time he saw it and eddie fucking MELTED and explained that richie gave it to him

through all of this, if you asked georgie who he likes driving with the most, he’ll always tell you his brother

[shiftingimagines]

Dating Jerome Valeska

•Dating Jerome was definitely a wild ride.

•You and Jerome were constantly going in and out of Arkham.

•You and Jerome were always bickering. Anywhere, and anytime.

• “Hey Jerome what time is?” “Time for you to get a watch.” “Just give me the fucking time Jerome!”

•Especially while driving. Jerome is a backseat driver

•”Turn there Y/n,” “Speed up!” “You’re going to slow!” “Y/n the cops are chasing us! Stop using your blinker!” “Shut up you don’t even have a license Jerome!”

•But even with all of your guys quarreling, Jerome absolutely adored you.

•I could see Jerome being a gift giver. Even if it’s just the weirdest things ever. But it’s the thought that counts… right?

• “Look Doll I saw this rock and it was the same shape as your head!” “Oh wow thank you Jerome.” 😐

• And the times you and Jerome were in Arkham he would bribe the guards to get him new magazines so he could give to you. Jerome would also steal from other inmates. And Jerome had connections he could get you anything, and believe me I mean anything. Ask him for a Zebra and just wait a couple days.

•Jerome is also very bossy. I mean Jerome is a leader of a whole ass cult. He’s gotten very cocky.

•You have to constantly remind Jerome that you’re his significant other, not his henchman.

•Jerome is also very over-protective. Living with Jerome is like living with your parents, and little brother.

•But a guy like Jerome who has tons of enemies after him, he needs to know you’re safe as well.

•But every relationship has its ups and downs, even tho there’s a lot of downs; every single up there is over powers it.

•You wouldn’t think so but Jerome is a great listener, he knows how it feels to need someone to talk to. I mean we all saw his diary.

•He’s also very considerate, going back to the gift giving. He may be a little odd but he loves to see you smile.

•He’s most definitely the big spoon. That also goes back to him being bossy, and in control.

•Jerome also loves hugging. He always wants you in his arms, he likes to randomly hug you from behind.

•And he’s almost always got his hands on you. If he’s having a meeting with the ‘Legions of Horribles’ he’ll keep his hand on your back, same goes for his cult meetings. If you guys are just hanging out he’s always snuggling you. If you guys are in Arkham he is always walking around holding your hand, showing the other inmates who you belong to.

•And even though Jerome may not be the normalist boyfriend there is. He is for sure the best one.

[faulty-writes]

Hi omg i love the way you write Mirko from Mha! I have a request Mirko x cute little fem s/o like dating Headcanons but in highschool idk if she went to UA or naw but I love this idea and I haven’t seen much of it! And I have really love how you write her🥺 if you don’t want to do this that’s absolutely fine, she’s just soo underrated hope you have a great day❤️🤓

Oh, thank you. I don't think she went to UA but our bunny girl earned her hero license regardless. I'm happy you enjoy how I write her, I think she's an interesting character though I personally don't lust after her like a good handful of people do. But I do love her for being completely badass. WARNING: MINOR VIGILANTES MANGA SPOILERS.

Dating Rumi was...complicated. The fact that she was expelled from her previous school due to participating in underground fight rings didn't help. But, Rumi never hesitated to tell anyone off that tried to talk ill of your relationship. "Why don't you stop bothering MY pretty face or I'll stick my enlarged rabbit foot up your ass!" you always tended to get embarrassed when she screamed like that.

Romance wasn't something that Rumi knew too much about. In fact, she thought beating someone half to death or giving you flowers with a patch of dirt still attached from when she ripped them out of the ground was romantic. "Just take it, you know how l feel. So what's the fucking difference? Now pucker up for my damn thank you kiss!" you didn't have much of a choice.

Rumi let the fact she was a hero student go to her head sometimes. Including a few instances where she convinced you to play along with her training exercises. Despite the desire to work solo, it seemed like you were the only exception. "You can call me Mirko sweetcheeks, now how about a little reward for the hero that's going to save your ass?" a general studies student shouldn't be subjected to this.

"Whose my pretty face!? Say it!" Rumi could get handsy when she wanted to and the fact that she wasn't afraid to touch, squeeze, kiss, or grab you in front of anyone was a little overwhelming. But, you knew arguing with her was impossible and she always had a smirk on her face when you spoke the words she wanted to hear. "DAMN RIGHT and you'll always be." at times that almost sounded like a threat.

She on occasion scared your friends and you'd never forget the first time you heard her scream, "It's me, the masked mystery beauty. Tiger-Bunny!" and how wide your eyes got when you saw her crouching over the rooftop looking down at you with a zebra-like mask on. Your friends were in awe as 'Tiger-Bunny' jumped down, usually slamming someone into the pavement with her powerful legs before scooping you over her shoulder and running off.

There were moments of peace in your relationship, but these were mostly found on rare nights where Rumi would climb through your window and you'd fall asleep with her slightly muscular arms and legs wrapped around you. Her ears tickling the top of your head and her tail twitching as she snored away. You always found yourself wishing these moments with Rumi could last forever.

[artificialqueens]

Girl I Met On The Internet, 6/6 (Crystal x Gigi) - Strawberry

a/n: and it’s a wrap! for now anyway bc i totally dont have a fic coming based on the good news nicky had for jaida! i just want to say thank you to every single person who read, liked and reblogged this story. it means so much to me, i’m so glad people enjoyed the strange idea that came into my brain. <3 (also! i wanted to let you guys know that i’m planning on posting this fic on ao3 as well, probably after this chapter is posted on here. my username on there is drivingmecrazy !!)

crystal: does everyone’s spring break start this weekend too?? anyone doing anything??

jan!: mine does! i’m staying home all week, jackie is leaving me :(

nicky: my spring break isn’t until late april!! wtf :(

heidi: ha loser

heidi: i’m going to play animal crossing all weekend i can’t wait

Jackie: I’m going to Canada to visit family on Sunday. Jan, if you want we can hang out on Saturday if you’re going to miss me that much. :P

nicky: i’ll hang out with you jackie

jan: i hate you nicky

jaida: i have a pageant next week!!

jan!: yaas gorg

nicky: bring home the crown!

crystal: GO JAIDA!

nicky: also jaida call me. i have good news for you :)

gigi: crystal you already know what’s going down

crystal: do i now?

gigi: GOOD LUCK JAIDA!!! NO MATTER WHAT YOU ARE OUR WINNER

Crystal had somewhat of an idea of what was going down. She had been granted permission to sleep over at Gigi’s house, and they would be going on their date the following day. Gigi would not tell Crystal anything about where they were going, and refused to give her any hints no matter how much Crystal begged. 

The next morning, on their walk to school, Crystal finally got a hint. 

“You tweeted about it. That’s all I’ll tell you.”

“That’s not helpful at all!” Crystal had almost 30 thousand tweets, her Twitter was her space to say weird things without being judged too harshly, and she had a lot of things to say! She thought about things she might’ve tweeted about wanting to do, or places she wanted to go, but came up empty handed.

“Well, you have the whole day to think about it. I’ll meet you after school, yeah?”

-

Gigi’s mom offered to pick them up after school, even though the walk from their school to Gigi’s house wasn’t far. Crystal finally met Nancy, Gigi’s beloved dog. Crystal didn’t want to do anything besides hold the dachshund to her chest all night, but Gigi wouldn’t let her, saying it wasn’t fair for Nancy to get all of the attention even though Gigi does the exact same thing with Tic Tac.

They made homemade pizza for dinner, and played monopoly with Gigi’s parents and her brother. Gigi’s brother thought Crystal was cute, and hit on Crystal; trying out a ridiculous pickup line on the green haired girl every chance he got. After they called off the game, Gigi excused her and Crystal to her room.

“So quick to leave, Georgina,” Crystal teased, sitting down next to Nancy who was using Gigi’s strawberry cow pillow pet as a headrest. 

“Wanna spend time with you. Can we cuddle?”

“Yeah, of course.”

They sat in silence for a while, enjoying each other’s company until Gigi spoke up.

“I couldn’t do it.”

“Couldn’t do what?” Crystal asked, lost.

“Come out to my friends. I thought I was ready but obviously I’m not.”

“It’s okay, Gigi. You’ll know when it’s time, don’t rush it.”

“I just want to be more open, I guess.”

“That’s good, but it’s not going to happen overnight. You have to take baby steps, G.”

“Was it hard? To come out?”

“To who?” Crystal snorted, “You know I don’t have any friends. I’m pretty sure everyone at school already knows, though.”

“Does your mom know?”

“Probably. She got a little too suspicious when I started liking Poppy.”

This turned into revealing who their first gay crush was, and how and when they figured out they liked girls like the rest of their friends liked boys. Crystal told Gigi about how she originally tried to fake like One Direction so no one would suspect anything, and Gigi told Crystal about how she refused to listen to any music sung by female artists for half a year before they decided to go to sleep.

-

Crystal had woken up first. She didn’t bother waking up Gigi, going to scroll through Twitter instead. It was still early, but the group chat was on some bullshit, Jan changed her display name to Nicky and changed her profile picture to Nicky’s to mock her. Nicky did not find this funny in the slightest, but Jaida did.

nicky: i’m nicky i’m french i love stealing my friends gfs

jaida: omg period!

THE REAL nicky: JAIDA THAT’S NOT ME!!!

jaida: proof?

THE REAL nicky: I HATE IT HERE!!

nicky: croissant

crystal: HELPDGNJKFNJ

THE REAL nicky: i cannot stand jan. this is why jackie should date me instead

Crystal couldn’t stop laughing, which ended up waking Gigi up. Gigi was grumpy at first, but that changed when she realized they needed to get ready to go on the date she had planned.

After they had gotten up and dressed, they sat next to each other in front of the giant, floor length mirror next to Gigi’s closet to do their makeup. Gigi stopped doing her makeup after putting on her foundation, deciding that watching Crystal do her eye shadow was more entertaining than finishing the look she had in mind.

“Stop looking at me, you’re making me nervous!” Crystal giggled when she noticed Gigi’s stares, not actually wanting Gigi to stop.

“I’ll think about it,” Gigi paused, pretending to think, “I will not. You look beautiful.”

Crystal squawked, “I barely have anything on my face!”

“So?”

“What are you, gay or something?” Crystal teased, making Gigi poke at her sides, “Stop being a dork and finish your makeup!”

“Fine. Only because we need to get going soon.”

-

“Wait, you know how to drive?” Crystal asked, getting in the passenger seat.

“Yeah! I don’t have my own car yet, but I got my license on my 16th birthday. I am not enforcing the stereotype at all!” Gigi grinned, opening the garage door and starting her mom’s car.

“I’ll be the judge of that. Can I play music?” 

“Yeah, sure.” Gigi handed her the aux cord and started backing out of the driveway. 

“Okay. This is the ultimate test,” Crystal stated, starting to play a song. “Which One Direction song is this?”

The song in question was good, but Gigi didn’t recognize it. She had only listened to ‘Midnight Memories’ because it was Crystal’s favorite album, and she knew for sure Crystal wasn’t playing a song from that album. “Is it from ‘Made in the A.M’?”

“Trick question! It’s one of Niall’s solo songs. It’s called ‘Dear Patience’!” Crystal laughed, thinking she had pulled off the biggest prank in the world.

“Oh, fuck. I should’ve known there was only one person singing.”

After fifteen minutes of driving, and Gigi almost running a stop sign, they finally pulled up at a cute little thrift shop on the outskirts of town, and Crystal was just about shaking with excitement. “I love thrifting! I’ve only been once, but it was so fun! I found that jumpsuit I wore that one day while thrifting!” She rambles, rushing to get out of the car and inside.

“Wait, when I did tweet about this?”

Around the time they had first started talking, Crystal had tweeted about how her dream date was going thrifting. Gigi naturally stored this information in the back of her mind, even though at the time she never thought she would need it.

On their walk from the parking lot to the store, Crystal held her hand out, which Gigi hesitantly accepted.

“We should play a game! We should split up and pick out an outfit for the other person without them knowing and then meet up and try them on!” 

Gigi’s heart swelled, Crystal was so cute. “That sounds fun, but how do I know this isn’t just a trick to dress me up in something hideous?” Gigi teased, making Crystal blush.

“I would never, don’t be ridiculous,” Crystal scoffed, “I’ll save that for the next time we go thrifting!”

Crystal let go of Gigi’s hand to open the door for her, splitting up as soon as they walked into the shop.

It didn’t take them very long to pick out their pieces. Crystal stayed true to her word, picking out a light green, halter top dress for Gigi. Gigi, on the other hand, had picked out a hideous pair of neon pink, zebra print leggings and a red flannel shirt.

“Gigi, what is that?” Crystal scrunched up her nose in disgust.

“You like patterns, why not clash them?” Gigi tried to defend herself, but could barely finish her sentence before bursting out laughing.

“No! I’m not getting that! I’m not even going to try on that outfit. It’s yucky.”

“That’s fine, give me the dress you picked out for me. I need that.” Gigi snatched it from Crystal’s hands, walking quickly to the dressing room.

The dress looked gorgeous on Gigi. Crystal was so glad she took their game seriously. 

They looked around together for a little bit before wandering from each other yet again. Gigi somehow ended up with a pile of clothes that you would only see in a very successful thrifting haul video on YouTube. Crystal had stuck to the men’s section, immediately claiming some loud button ups and with a little digging, she found a very specific, out of place t-shirt that said something about how ‘real grandmas drink Dr. Pepper’ that she found hilarious and needed to own.

“What does that say? Some grandmas play bingo, real grandmas drink Dr. Pepper?” Gigi questioned when they finally met back up, “What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know, but it’s sending me. I need it!”

“So you hated my outfit I got for you, but you’re buying that?” Gigi teased.

“You do not understand the art of highly specific shirts, like these, babe. I’ll have to teach you all about them later.”

Gigi thought Crystal was an idiot, but she couldn’t stop smiling.

-

After paying for their clothes, they got back into the car. Gigi started driving, not telling Crystal where their next stop was. The stop happened to be the Taco Bell drive thru, which Crystal was excited about. “Okay, I do remember tweeting about wanting to go to Taco Bell.” 

When they got their food, Gigi placed the bag in the back seat, making Crystal raise an eyebrow. 

“You’re a messy eater, so we aren’t eating in the car. My mom would kill me if we made a mess.”

While Crystal tried to convince Gigi she was not a messy eater and her mom’s car would be fine, Gigi pulled up to a park.

“Can you find a spot to sit down at so we can eat it there?” Gigi requested. It took Crystal about two seconds to travel from the car to the grass, settling down in a shady spot underneath some trees. Gigi joined Crystal, holding a blue blanket as well as the brown paper bag.

“It’s not a picnic blanket, I couldn’t find one but I hope it works.”

“It does! I love picnics!” Crystal hops up so Gigi can lay down the blanket, going to retrieve the drinks that they forgot in the car. 

Their lunch was filled with flirting, stupid inside jokes and Crystal loved every second of it. She knew for sure by the end of the day she would not be single anymore, but the lack of confirmation was making her antsy.

Once they were done eating, Gigi collected all of the wrappers and cups, walking across the grass to the nearest trash can to dispose of them. When Gigi came back, she had a huge grin on her face, “Well, Crystal Elizabeth. I would like to think that I successfully wooed you, if only you could do something for me in return…”

“What do you have in mind, Georgina?” Crystal giggles, hoping Gigi couldn’t tell how nervous that statement made her.

“Crystal Elizabeth, I was wondering if you would be my girlfriend?” 

“God, yes. I’ve been waiting for this for months.” Crystal exclaimed, immediately being pulled into a kiss.

They stayed at the park after that. Crystal’s inner child had jumped out after the kiss was broken and she wanted to play on the playground. 

“Wait, Crystal! Come here, the light looks good right now and we need to take our reveal selfie!”

-

Their date came to an end when Crystal’s mom texted her asking to come home. Crystal’s mom had no idea what she was interrupting, as Crystal did not tell her mom what they were actually doing.

“I hate it here, I would let this date go on all week if I could.” Crystal pouted, buckling her seatbelt.

“If there’s any other place you want to go this week, we could go on our second date.” Gigi smiled, reaching out to hold Crystal’s hand.

“Be careful, I know steering with one hand is peak lesbianism, but I don’t know if you’re a good enough driver to do that yet.” Crystal joked, even though she gladly accepted Gigi’s hand.

“Oh, shut up. Like you could go ten minutes without holding my hand.”

Crystal kissed Gigi again when they got on her street, Gigi parking a few houses down for privacy.

“This was fun. I really am happy with everything. You completely wooed me, Georgina.”

“I’m glad. Does this mean I can call you my clown girlfriend now?” Gigi jokingly asked, making Crystal let out a tiny scream.

“As dumb as that sounds, yes. You can.”

Gigi did not let Crystal get out of the car without getting another kiss.

-

Crystal entered her house, her grin slowly fading when she saw her mom waiting for her.

“You took a while to come home.” Crystal’s mom started, under the impression she was at Gigi’s house. “What took you so long?”

“Yeah, sorry. I couldn’t find my charger.” Crystal felt bad for lying to her mom, but she didn’t want to tell her what happened yet.

“Oh, your generation and your phones. I was starting to get worried.”

“Mama, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I’m going to my room now, is that okay?”

“Yeah, I’m about to start dinner. We’re having your favorite!”

The second Crystal got into her room, she locked her door and jumped on her bed, logging onto Twitter.

crystal: good evening l a d i e s

jan!: HEY!

jaida: crystal!

Jackie: You haven’t been active today, what were you up to?

heidi: not jackie demanding answers

nicky: ooooh

gigi: well, since you asked…

crystal: :D

gigi: my girlfriend crystal and i went on our first date today. isn’t she beautiful??

The group erupted into chaos the second they saw their selfie, congratulating the new couple for finally getting together. Crystal wouldn’t have it any other way. She would be forever grateful for being added into Elites Only, and even more for the special girl she had met there.

gigi: so, any ideas for our second date?

crystal: tons, babe. i’m gonna blow your mind.

[incrediblesweatermachine]

i might be getting my license back tomorrow (pray for me) and if i do i wanna go find those fucking zebras

[lozarus-a]

HEADCANON MEME @beansi​ — ↳  ACCEPTING  tw warning   :   drug use   ,  implied child abuse. 

01.   pockets.

deep pockets filled with a puff bar   ,   keys to the dorm room   &.   the iphone. he is rarely caught without a lighter.

03. car trunk.

while clay does not have a license she has three cars that were all past gifts. there are empty luggage bags in the back of each car   ,   ready for a quick trip.

05.   closet.

stuffed to the brim with designer names   &.  labels that he cannot even pronounce correctly. bright colors blind those that look  &. the sparkles can blind. 

07.   medicine cabinet.

overflowing with pill bottles that are labled with his   ,  his mothers   &.  his fathers names. they arent needed   ,   just for fun. or to be slipped into his drink so he sleeps. 

09.     “junk” drawer.

used juul pods   ,   rolling papers   ,   spare keys   ,   &.  lots   &.  lots of taco bell hot sauces. 

11.  phone home screen.

his phone home screen is oddly clean   ,  all of his apps are organized into neat folders   &.  his home screen is a photo of him   &.   his brother.

13.  to do list.

he doesnt have one          instead relying on writing down what he needs to do on the palm of his hand. 

15.  bookcase.

filled with books that are required for his classes   ,  mostly texts focusing on ethics. though   ,   he does have a few of his mothers cookbooks stuffed onto the shelf. 

17.   calendar for this month.

he doesnt write anything on the dates but he has those hot fireman calendars for   ❝  workout inspiration ❞

   19. five most recent in contact list. 

daniel   ,   adam   ,  drew   ,  athens  ,   &.  guiying.

21.     home safe. 

there are multiple within his home  ,  each one serving a difference purpose. the ones that he visits the most often are the bag safe which stores his purses   &.  bags    &.  the jewelry safe. 

23.     bank account. 

so many 0′s. he gets a 5k monthly allowance   &.   tends to blow through it.

25.     five most recent in google search history. 

1.     "How to spell the name of the flightless bird that looks like it's wearing a tuxedo?"  2.     “wifi not working” 3.     "zebras with no stripes   &.    really long necks?" 4.      “what color is the bluest?” 5.      "does smell have an 'm' in it?" 

27.     least used playlist. 

his dad made him a playlist of   ❝  real music that men should listen to  ❞   &.  hes never touched it

29.     five most recent received text messages 

1. “dude did u live last night?” 2. “ u down to 👉👃 2nite?” 3. “i locked myself out u home?” 4. “jun-seo come home for christmas mom loves u” 5. “jun-seo   ,   this is your accountant   &.  what the fuck did you spend 3k on last night?”

[yeet-man]

One’s Rebirth (Chapter 6)

A/N: Don’t mind me, just gonna eat some Zebra Cakes and drop this since I’m close to finishing chapter 7. As usual enjoy the new chapter I guess, till next time.

BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ!

It was early in the morning whenever J'me's and Ryan's phone went off at the same time. Who could be calling the two at 6 in the morning? The two boys picked up the phone still in their half asleep half awake state and answered it. Before they could get a word in, their teacher, Mr. Aizawa, started speaking.

"Surprised the two of you answered this early in the morning. Anyway, today we are supposed to go to USJ for some hero training. We still are except the both of you aren't going. I talked to the principal about the situation and the quicker we find the suspect, the better chances we have of not shutting down U.A." 

Ugh, just fucking great. Instead of sleeping in for another hour they had to go on some super hero mission as if they will actually find the suspect. J'me let out a small quiet yawn before speaking.

"That's great and all, but like why did you have to call me and Ryan at 6 in the damn morning? 2 hours before school even starts."

"I have my reasons for calling the both of you at this time. Now, get ready as quickly as possible and meet me at the school, there are some rules we need to go over beforehand." 

J'me just looked at his phone wanting to just hang up and go back to sleep. Sadly, he decided not to or else he would probably get scolded for doing that. "Fine, I'll be at the school as soon as possible. Aizawa could you contact Mari and ask her to help us out? And also tell her to not bring any supplies, I'll be in charge of that. Is there anything else we need Ryan?"

Ryan took a couple seconds to answer since he had to think about it. "No...I think that's it." His voice sounded kind of empty, hopefully it was just because he was groggy.

"Okay, I'll contact Mari and tell her to help and not bring any supplies. Before I do, why do you want her help J'me? It's kind of unlike you to ask someone you know for help especially with something this big." As Mr. Aizawa talked on the phone as he swiftly looked up a way to contact the immortal girl. Once he found her contact information he quickly jotted it down and listened to J'me's answer. 

"It's quite simple if you think about it Mr. Aizawa, she's able to tank basically anything which would be a game changer if she's on our team or not. Now she isn't good at offense which is okay since me and Ryan will be in charge of that part, all she would have to worry about is defense which I know she has down." J'me sat up on his bed once he finished talking so he could start to get ready once the conversation was over.

"I see...if that's the case I'll do my best to get into contact with Mari. I'll see you two at UA shortly." 

J'me and Ryan simply hung up the phone without really giving a response to Mr. Aizawa. The two boys went through their usual morning routine, though they were in a bit of a hurry since they didn't dare disappoint Aizawa.

Ryan didn't waste any time leaving the house unlike his friend. J'me didn't leave since he was in charge of bringing the supplies, everyone else just had to bring their bodies. The boy grabbed a bag and started packing things they would such as water and some snacks. He also grabbed his Hokage outfit and put it on, taking some of his kunai's and placing them where they're supposed to go. If they were fighting villains why not look dope doing it? 

Once J'me finished packing for the adventure he double checked making sure he wasn't forgetting anything. Seeing that everything was in the bag, the boy teleported away leaving a midnight blue lightning strike for a second before that disappeared as well.

The teleportation boy was the first one to get there obviously, he let out a sigh and sat down waiting for everyone to show open. Ryan was the next one to arrive since Mr. Aizawa had to get Mari, the blonde boy sat down next to J'me.

"What's up bro?" J'me questioned as they did their own handshake they had since they've known each other basically. 

"Nothing, I'm just trying to hurry up and get rid of Kairo's killer. The quicker we get that person in jail the sooner I'll be able to sleep." Ryan's voice had a small bit of hatred in it, how could someone not be mad? His best friend was taken away and he couldn't help yet alone protect him. 

"Yeah I feel you man, I haven't been able to sleep at all either. I had to take some meds to make me fall asleep or else I would have been up all night." J'me let out a small breath of air and leaned back on his hands.

Ryan simply nodded and closed his eyes for a couple seconds before opening them and looking around. How long was Mari and Mr. Aizawa supposed to take again, hopefully it's not too long.

After a good 20 minutes the two that were missing finally showed up and Mari stood next to Ryan and J'me. Aizawa stood in front of the three and let out a small sigh.

"Now that we're all here, I'll go over a couple things then the three of you can leave. First things first, even though you don't have a hero license we are allowing you to use your quirks. Make sure that when you're fighting it's not done in a public area so no one innocent is hurt during the midst of battle." With that Aizawa gave them a map and some quirk canceling cuffs.

"There's a map with all possible spots the killer could be hiding and the cuffs are for when you arrest him. This will cancel their quirk as long as they're on them."

"Thank you Mr. Aizawa for letting me and Ryan look for the person who killed Kairo. I know it probably wasn't easy to convince the principal that we were the ones that needed to do this." The boy would bow down slightly to show his sign of respect, standing up after a couple seconds. J'me then grabbed the map and quirk cancelling cuffs, putting both things in the backpack he brought for the time being. 

"No need to thank me, you just better bring the killer down by the end of the day." Aizawa's expression was that of a serious one, it seemed like the man could just kill someone from the stare alone.

J'me nodded and took a step back, turning around to face Ryan and Mari. "Anyway… this probably is weird for Mari at least. As you've probably seen with my quirk I'm able to teleport where I want, the catch is I need to use a seal for my teleportation. Do you think I could put a seal on your shoulder? I'm sorry if this is confusing or weird, but this will definitely help me to get to the both of you quickly in battle if I need to." Ryan knew about how J'me's teleportation worked, so he didn't have to explain it to his friend.

Mari looked at J'me with a very confused look on her face. Teleportation? Seals? His quirk was way too complicated for her to understand. She went along with it though since he probably knew what was best for the battle. "Um, sure I guess? It's confusing, but I trust you know what's best."

The boy put his hands on Mari and Ryan's shoulder and closed his eyes to concentrate. A couple seconds went by before J'me opened his eyes and took his hands off their shoulder. The seal had been placed on the two and they thought it would at least sting a little bit, but it surprisingly didn't hurt at all. 

"Alright, the two of you have my seal that allows me to teleport. Once this battle is over I'll remove them off of both of y'all." 

The two nodded and J'me pulled the map back out from his backpack. He looked at it for a couple seconds and looked up and around. Once finding the way they we're going to go, he started walking in that direction while Mari followed behind. 

Ryan stayed behind to talk to Mr. Aizawa about the blood sample they gave him when they told everyone what happened to Kairo. "What about the blood sample Aizawa, whose was it?" 

Mr. Aizawa let out a sigh, he was surprised one of them even remembered the vial of blood they gave to him. "It wasn't Kairo's blood. From what I was told that blood belongs to someone named Charles Suchīru. I wasn't able to get any information on him in a short amount of time sadly."

"Charles? Surely it's someone else Aizawa, someone like that shouldn't even be here…" Ryan knew who Charles was, after all they were friends in the world they used to live in. Just having someone like that here would be troublesome, especially since they didn't know what kind of quirk he had.

Aizawa looked at Ryan a little confused, "Do you know Charles? If you do you better tell me Ryan Talley." His voice was harsh and serious about the topic at hand. The teacher wanted as much information as possible about Charles in case the mission failed.

"Um… I have to go Aizawa!" Ryan gave a small wave before quickly running to catch up with J'me and Mari. 

"Hey! I didn-" Aizawa let out a sigh and watched Ryan run off. He didn't have time to deal with that, the teacher had a class to prepare. Once all three of them were out of sight Aizawa walked into the school and got ready to tell his class the news.

Ryan was able to catch up to the other two, letting out a couple breaths of air. "J'me, we have a huge problem." He spoke in a somewhat worrisome voice which made J'me's heart race quickly.

"What's the problem?" J'me tried to stay calm, it wouldn't help him in the long run if his mind was racing about the problem. 

"You remember the blood vial we gave Aizawa? Well he had the results and it wasn't Kairo's, it was Charles Suchīru's." Ryan tried his best to keep calm as well, he needed to keep his feelings out of this for the time being.

"Charles? You mean that Charles?" The person they were talking about was a good friend of theirs in the other world. He was one of the best fighters they knew and hardly anyone could beat Charles in hand to hand combat. Just thinking about what kind of quirk he could have made everything spiral for J'me.

Ryan just nodded his head and placed his hands inside his pockets. This was a drag, not only were they forced to take Charles down, they're also forced to do it in a single day or else UA could get shut down. 

J'me bit his lip out of frustration and looked down at the map. Meanwhile Mari was wondering who this Charles person was. Could it be a friend of the two? Also, how do they know a villain such as him?

"Um, J'me? How do the two of you know Charles? Is he like a friend of y'all's?" The immortal couldn't keep quiet about it, these two boys were very mysterious and she wanted to know what exactly was going on. 

Shit, now they had Mari questioning them about Charles. J'me just ignored the question as if Mari never said anything and so did Ryan. The two didn't need someone who wasn't supposed to be in the timeline questioning things like this, at least not for the time being.

Mari let out a small sigh and just dropped the question. She wasn't going to get anything out of the two if they didn't even want to talk about it. The immortal did keep the question in mind though, maybe there was another chance she could ask before they started fighting.

It had been an hour after they left UA before they found their first spot. It looked to be an open area with the occasional tree out in the open. There was a huge rock in the open as well and all three of them sat down on it.

"We've been walking for an hour and there hasn't been any sign of Charles, this is one of the locations he could be at, but I don't see him." J'me was the first one to speak once they all sat down. They had 5 locations to cover and if each were an hour apart this was going to take all day.

"Well, if he's not here that means we're just getting closer to him and it's only a matter of time before he gets taken down right?" The immortal placed her hand over her chest, letting out a breath of air in the process.

"That's true, but we can't spend the entire day looking for him. The sooner we find him the quicker we can take him down." J'me took a couple water bottles out of his backpack and tossed them to Ryan and Mari.

Before J'me could get a drink of his water bottle, his phone started to ring. Who could be calling this time around? It was kind of annoying to get random calls out of nowhere. The boy picked it up though without looking at the caller ID. "I swear to god if it's Mr. Aizawa a-"

The boy would be interrupted before he could finish his sentence. The person that interrupted him was none other than Kirishima. "J'me! I'm sorry for stopping you from your sentence, but Mr. Aizawa told us why you, Ryan and Mari were gone. The reason I'm calling is because I want to talk about the timeline."

J'me's eyes went wide as Kirishima brought up talking about the timeline. He wasn't against talking about it, but why now out of all times? "Sure Kirishima we can talk about that, just give me a second." 

The boy placed his phone over his chest and called out to Ryan. "Yo Kirishima wants to talk about a certain something." He walked away from the rock and put the phone on speaker.

Ryan knew exactly what J'me was talking about, he got up and walked over to his friend. Now Mari was curious about the thing they were going to talk about since it included Kirishima and the two were friends, so she sneaked into the hearing distance from the two.

"Alright, now that I have Ryan next to me we can talk about the timeline. Why do you want to talk about this Kirishima?"

"I wanted to talk about the timeline because a major change might be coming up. If you guys take down Charles, what's going to happen? Is everything going to change a lot or what?" The red head spoke in a quiet voice, they were on the way to USJ so he needed to stay as quiet as possible.

"Um…" J'me wasn't entirely sure what exactly would happen if they captured Charles. He looked over to Ryan who shrugged his shoulders not knowing what exactly to say either.

"I'm not sure what's going to happen Kirishima, but I do know UA could shut down if we don't capture Charles. I don't think everything will change though."

Kirishima let out a sigh. Of course they wouldn't know what's going to happen next, the feeling of not knowing what was the next and knowing he didn't have no control over it kind of scared the boy. "Could you guys not take Charles down just yet? I'd rather have UA shut down since we can probably do something about that. If Charles gets taken down and something happens that we can't control what are we supposed to do?"

Mari kept on listening to the conversation feeling bad that Kirishima was scared about this. Even though she didn't understand anything about what they were talking about she tried her best to get the basics down.

"I don't know Kirishima. If we take down Charles UA doesn't close, and if we don't there's the possibility that he kills more people and UA closes for good. We could do something to make sure the school doesn't close, but we'll see." That's really all J'me could say, he didn't know that much about what was going to happen next. They could get defeated and not take Charles, there were so many things that could happen.

"I guess you're right," Kirishima wasn't happy with the news, but he just had to accept it. Deep down he honestly wanted to know what was going to happen next, but it wasn't like he could see the future. "Just come back safe and don't get badly injured." 

"Bro, do you know who we are? We're like the most badass people in UA, we won't get injured badly and that's a promise." Of course Ryan had to say that and it was good that he did. It kept a positive light in all of them, the two just hoped they could live up to that promise.

"Yeah, what Ryan said. We're gonna fight like our lives depend on it since they sort of do. We'll see you tomorrow Kirishima, have fun at USJ." J'me wanted to tell Kirishima that they would be attacked, but he was afraid that would mess up the timeline.

Kirishima said his goodbye and they hung up the phone. Hopefully they could have a minute to think about everything.

Once Mari heard the phone conversation, she had a surprised pikachu expression on her face.

"We never did tell Kirishima that Mari is only here because of us did we?" J'me shook his head that they didn't tell their friend that. How were they even supposed to tell someone that?

"Nope," Ryan said in response to J'me's question. That's when the both of them turned around to see Mari listening to their conversation.

"Shit," J'me couldn't help but mumble the word under his breath. "How much of the conversation did you hear?" He asked, putting his phone away into his pocket. 

Mari came out from her hiding spot and rubbed her arm nervously. She didn't think they would turn around that soon. "I heard the entire conversation…" The immortal felt bad for spying, but she let her curiosity get to her. "I promise I won't tell anyone!" She said out loud not wanting for Ryan and J'me to be mad at her.

The shorter boy of the two let out a small chuckle, he wasn't pissed off or anything. He just wished Mari came up and asked if she could know what was going on, that probably would have made things easier to understand. Meanwhile the taller boy of the two shook his head and let out a small sigh, he was annoyed to say the least.

"Look, I'm sure you're probably confused and have some questions. Feel free to ask us anything you want and we'll explain what exactly is going after this whole Charles situation." That's really the only thing J'me could say without being really mad that Mari listened to them. 

The immortal looked confused for a second, weren't they supposed to yell at her or something like that? She didn't question it though and went ahead and asked a couple questions. "What did you mean that I'm only here because of the two of you? Is there a timeline where I'm happy? Is there a timeline where my brother is alive?" Of course, these were just the first questions that came to mind. 

"The first question is something we'll explain at a later time. From the timeline we're from we don't know a Mari so that question can't be answered. As for your brother, I hope there is a timeline out there where he is alive." J'me knew those weren't the answers Mari wanted to hear, but he couldn't just lie to her and give false hope. 

"Oh, I see." Mari simply nodded and went back to the huge rock they were all at before. She felt somewhat hopeless because of those answers, a timeline where she's happy and her brother is alive? That sounded like a dream that would never come true. 

J'me let out a sigh and rubbed the back of his neck. "Next time you do the explaining," he said while chuckling a little.

"May-" Before Ryan could respond the ground rumbled beneath them, it was like a miniature earthquake in just their area.

Once the rumbling was over J'me looked at Ryan with a worried look, he didn't want it to be Charles. The boy crouched down a little bit as the bottom of his shoes started to glow a light blue. A couple seconds passed and the boy jumped up into the air. Since he could use things from Naruto, this also allowed him to use chakra as that was how they could use moves. Whenever chakra was used on a body part it enhanced it allowing them to punch stronger, jump higher and etc.

While J'me was in the air he spotted someone that wasn't Mari not that far from the three of them. He fell through the air quickly though so he wasn't able to catch a glimpse of the person's face. Once landing back on the ground he looked over to Ryan, "Safe to say that Charles found us instead of it being the other way around."

"Fuck," That's really all Ryan could say at that point. The fact that they were there for too long was possibly the reason Charles found the three of them. 

The both of them nodded and ran forward to confront the person who arrived. Ryan took the longer route going around objects, not trying to risk an injury even if it would be little. J'me ran forward, jumping over the objects in his way since getting there would be much quicker than the other route. He jumped on the rock and then off of it, going into a combat roll as soon as he touched the ground.

Luckily they didn't need to run that much till they were just a couple meters away from the person who caused the rumbling. The person turned around and it was just as predicted, Charles found them first.

"Oh, hey guys!" Charles smiled and waved at the two of them as if he never did anything horrible.

Ryan and J'me just stared in disbelief, how did Charles say that so casually as if they weren't in the My Hero Academia world.

Moments passed before anyone said anything, it just seemed too real for their friend to be there. It was just supposed to be J'me, Ryan, Kairo, and Calvin who was supposed to be there."Charles what the hell are you doing here and why did you kill Kairo?" J'me was the first to speak except instead of asking normally the boy yelled at him. 

Everyone jumped a little bit from the yelling since it broke the silence and while J'me was yelling that gave enough time for Mari to catch up and watch the events unfold.

Charles looked down slightly, what he did was a mistake and he didn't even mean to kill Kairo. After all, the two of them were friends as well. The teenager looked up and faced J'me directly. "As much as it may seem, I swear I didn't mean to kill Kairo, it was an accident. And if you give me a chance I will explain what happened to result in his death…"

[sally-mun]

BIRTHDAY PARTY TIIIIME!

TIME TO TALK ABOUT MY AWESOME BIRTHDAY PARTY~ below the cut since it’s a biggie!

So as is tradition in our household, I’m sequestered in my room while the party is set up downstairs. I mostly spend the day watching Dance Moms (shut up) and playing Animal Crossing, amusingly to get my birthday party there as well. Eventually @fini-mun​ comes to my door and summons me, and says if I want to record it I should start. I got my phone out and recorded the “First-Person Leda Experience” as I called it. I’m glad I did, because THIS WAS AN EXPERIENCE.

So right outside my door is this chufty motherfucker:

Deebs explains that this is a time machine that’s powered by imagination, and we’re going to take a journey through time. At this point I’m a little puzzled, because the time traveling thing makes me wonder if the theme is Doctor Who, but this clearly isn’t a Tardis so I guess not??

Turns out, I’m correct that it’s not a Tardis; it is, in fact, a Time-A-Tron. Deebs first says we’re going to go into the future and encourages me to turn the dial clockwise. And, well...

WELL THAT DOESN’T BODE WELL. Deebs and I abort this idea and I turn the dial the other way. It turns out, we were going back to the 80′s and 90′s! This was SUCH a great idea for me because I whine all the time about how much I miss these two decades, so I’m very excited to do my time warp!

Deebs sends me on ahead to go back in time, mentioning that they’ll catch up because they want to check out that apocalypse first. So, I head through alone.

There’s a pretty cool warpy swirl on the door ahead of me to give me the full time vortex experience, then I head downstairs. There’s lots of 80′s and 90′s themed swirly banners hanging from the ceiling, balloons with various animal prints all over the floor, and garland in the kitchen doorway featuring boom boxes and sunglasses and lightning bolts and all kinds of nostalgic icons! My friends are waiting for me and I quickly realize they’re dressed for the past too: Jay is wearing overalls and Ivan is wearing a Metallica shirt.

As I’m descending the stairs music suddenly starts -- music from the 80′s radio channel on our TV, and I can’t help myself from bopping around, so the camera got a little shakey at this point (sorry, future!me). We have a little mini dance party at this point while waiting for Deebs to catch up. I even flip my phone around to do my best at filming myself dancing, and upon reviewing the video as I write this I KINDA DID SHOCKINGLY WELL.

(Yeah I normally don’t post pics of myself but I just HAD to show off how well I did for filming myself completely blind.)

I also used the opportunity to teach my young friends the Hand Jive, proving once and for all that even in my prime I am nothing even remotely resembling “cool.”

So finally Deebs rejoins us, and now also has a great retro shirt! It’s got “Totally Rad!” written on it with lots of color splashes. Deebs then explains that in the future Water World is how the world ended, and as a result the survivors elected Kevin Costner as Godking due to his experience making the movie.

We then move into the kitchen and review the food: McDonald’s chicken nuggets, which I loved as a kid and still do to this day! Macaroni and cheese, for the same reason! Little weenies wrapped in bacon, which I only discovered last year but are fucking delicious! Faygo Red Pop, which I practically drank intravenously as a wee one! And of course, ZEBRA CAKES!

The plates and other food vessels are all retro and neon, and I can see that the party’s goody bags (which have become a tradition of our parties at this point) are all very neon as well.

Then Deebs brings out the cake: A DIRT CAKE~ I haven’t had a proper dirt cake since I was like 12 years old!! Deebs even went the extra mile and got rock candies and gummy worms to mix in to enhance the delicious dirtiness~ Deebs also mentioned worrying about having gotten the recipe right, but I pointed out that there are like a thousand “recipes” for dirt cake and there’s no single right way.

I’m so excited and already having such a good time, and I make a passing comment that I’m glad I wore a neutral shirt since it’s not something that would clash with our time traveling. Deebs says it’s funny I should mention that, then hands me a present and tells me to go to the bathroom and change. I obey, and I find that I’ve been given this shirt to wear!!

IT’S SO AMAZING AND I LOVE IT!! It’s like THE essence of what I love about the 80′s~

We all get food and go sit down to hang out, and Deebs mentions we should watch a retro movie. My mom starts flipping through the TV guide, and I can hardly believe my eyes: Coincidentally, THE WIZARD IS ON!! I direct my mom to go to that channel, and it’s actually still pretty close to the beginning of the movie. I just CANNOT believe that this happened to be on during my party, I’m fucking stoked.

We watch the movie and make some pretty great commentary over it, though I notice that one of my guests is spending a lot of time on her phone and the other is preoccupied with a book he brought. OH WELL, THIS IS MY PARTY AND WE’RE WATCHING THE WIZARD. DEAL WITH IT. Besides, I can’t fault them TOO badly because let’s face it, most of us just watch that movie for the game battle at the end anyway. (Speaking of the ending Deebs and I got each other going and eventually concluded that the actor playing the host of the game tournament spiked several small children into the floor. It’s a long story.)

So once we’re done eating Deebs hands out the goodie bags, and holy shit they’re amazing. They’re so smartly put together: A slap bracelet, a pencil and mini-phone book (because we don’t have cell phones yet so this is the only way to save numbers!), some Pop Rocks and Bazooka gum, and we each got a miniature version of a classic 80′s toy of some sort: Mini Rock’em Sock’em robots for Jay, a mini Rubik’s cube for Deebs, a mini Etch-a-Sketch for Ivan... and guys, I nearly rocketed through the roof when I saw I got A MINI LITE-BRITE!! I legit lost my mind for a minute, I didn’t even know this EXISTED as a mini and I was SO EXCITED because I fucking loved my Lite-Brite as a kid and I couldn’t believe Deebs found something like this for me!!

So after we have dirt cake and the movie wraps up, Deebs brings me the rest of my presents, and I was not prepared for how many there were. The gifts carried through the theme very well, as I got some new classic Sonic dolls, an officially licensed Genesis controller for the PC, and 80′s/90′s-themed card games! Ivan was also very shrewd in getting me a couple of Rurouni Kenshin graphic novels, as I’ve not only mentioned to him several times that it’s my favorite anime but also that I have a very, very strong preference for 90′s anime in general!

After that Jay had to leave, so Ivan, Deebs, and myself went up to my room to unwind from the excitement by watching Youtube for a while. We did what we call a “friend pile,” aka where we all try to cram onto my little-ass twin bed and just sort of watch TV and cuddle and hope our limbs don’t all go numb. We took turns suggesting videos to watch, which exposed us all collectively to a lot of new stuff. Some of the videos were fucking insane.

All in all, it was a pretty fantastic day XB I’m very satisfied with my time traveling adventure! Thank you SO SO MUCH to @fini-mun​ and my friends for showing me such a great time!!

[sodalitefully]

50 Unusual Questions

Tagged by @izzysdenimjacket, thank you! 😊

1. What is the color of your hairbrush?  One is red and one is black and blue

2. Name a food that you never eat.  I can’t think of anything?? 

3. Are you typically too warm or too cold?  Too cold

4. What is your favorite candy bar?  probably kit kat

5. What where you doing 45 minutes ago?  animal crossing

6. Have you ever been to a professional sports game?  Yeah lots of baseball and one hockey I think that’s it

7. Favorite flavor of ice cream?  Lychee

8. Last thing you had to drink?  Water

9. Do you like your wallet?  It’s ok, it’s really just a coin purse but it fits my keys so it’s good.

10. The last thing you ate? Bread with olive oil and balsamic, my dad’s been quarantine baking lol

11. Did you buy any new clothes last weekend?  Thought about it but didn’t :(

12. Last sporting event you watched?  Maybe the super bowl?

13. What’s your favorite flavor of popcorn? zebra popcorn

14. Last thing you said out loud? Probably something about faults and geologic provinces for the zoom class I had earlier

15. Last person you messaged? bff

16. Ever been camping?  A few times, I’m not a fan

17. Do you take vitamins? When I remember to

18. Do you go to church every Sunday?  Used to, growing up.  Still sometimes when I’m at my parent’s house

19. Do you have a tan?  Just barely, been spending too much time indoors

20. Do you prefer Chinese food over pizza? yyyyyes but that was a hard choice

21. Do you drink soda with a straw? I don’t drink soda

22. What color socks do you usually wear? Black ankle socks

23. Do you ever drive above the speed limit? I don’t drive

24. What terrifies you?  karma.  Also home invasion.

25. Look to your left, what do you see? Notebook & planner

26. What chore do you hate the most?  ugh all of them

27. What do you think of when you hear an Australian accent?  definitely one of my top 5 favorite accents

28. What is your favorite soda?  I only tolerate fizzy drinks if there’s alcohol involved

29. Do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive in? I go in, I don’t like dealing with the speaker thing and also I don’t drive

30. What is your favorite number? 1

31. Who is the last person you talked to? My TA, in that class.  Or actually maybe my mom.

32. Favorite cut of beef? Ground beef? I’m not a steak person but I love burgers.

33. Last song you listened to? War Pigs, Black Sabbath

34. Last book you read?  I don’t even remember, it’s been that long

35. Favorite day of the week? Saturday

36. Can you say the alphabet back words? I guess if I had to

37. How do you like your coffee? I don’t

38. Favorite pair of shoes?  gotta be the 6.5 inch platforms with lightning bolts

39. Time you usually get up?  I mean I’m usually out of bed before noon

40. What do you prefer? Sunsets or sunrise? Sunsets, I’m not awake at sunrise, plus I live on the west coast

41. How many blankets on your bed? three, it’s always fucking cold in my room

42. Describe your kitchen plates?  At my apartment I have dark blue ikea dishes

43. Describe your kitchen at the moment? My parent’s kitchen is huge and the tile is ugly lol

44. Do you have a favorite alcoholic drink?  ok so you buy a can of Hawaiian Sun (the best flavor is lychee green tea with ginseng) and then you pour in a shitton of liquor 

45. Do you play cards?  Only a couple games, I can’t play poker

46. What color is your car?  No car, or license

47. Can you change a tire?  lol

48. Your favorite state?  california IS the best state

49. Favorite job you’ve had?  can’t say I enjoy working

50. How did you get your biggest scar?  I have a little scar about a cm long on my knuckle and I have no idea where it came from, all the rest are acne scars

if we’re mutuals (of if you just wanna) and you haven’t been tagged, go for it!

[peachofyourheart]

How To Be A Professional Author And Not Die Screaming And Starving In A Lightless Abyss

Your reading today comes in the form of this Medium article by Heather Demetrios: “How To Lose A Third Of A Million Dollars Without Even Trying.” It’s a good article. I feel deeply for the writer, because this shit we do comes with no real map. No creative map, no story map, no industry map, no money map. “HERE IS A BUNCH OF MONEY,” a sinister shadowy figure says in an alley. “IN SIX MONTHS, WE WILL EXTRACT FROM YOU A BOOK, AND THEN THE DEAL IS COMPLETE.” And then the shadowy figure is gone, and all you’re left with is the crisp smell of burning paper and a mysterious whisper in the well of your ear that says, “deckle edge.”

But, the good news is, there exist answers to a lot of these conundrums, and so I’m going to do some painting-with-shotguns here and try to broad-stroke some thoughts and answers about the challenges this writer faced in her Authorial Journey.

Your Agent Is There To Help You

You need an agent, and a good agent who will explain to you this stuff — an agent who answers questions you don’t know to ask and who also (obviously) answers the questions you do ask. Now, an agent isn’t psychic, and I’m gonna guess a lot of them default to expecting you know some of this stuff, or they’re so brined and pickled in the industry they’re like fish swimming in water who don’t know what “water” even is anymore. Which leads me to highlight the next point:

Definitely Ask Questions

Deeeefiniiiiitely totally utterly absoflogginlutely ask questions. All kinds of questions. No questions are foolish, especially when it regards your career, your finances, your future. Ask your agent. Ask your editor. Ask anybody you know in the industry. Ask other writers! I have found other writers to be a wonderful well of fresh, clean water when it comes to that sort of thing. Certainly I must acknowledge that I feel the SFF genre is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to industry folks willing to share their experiences and offer answers. Oh! Speakawhich, may I recommend Dongwon Song’s PUBLISHING IS HARD newsletter?

Definitely Ask Questions From Multiple Sources

Crowdsource better answers by getting multiple answers. That’s it, that’s the deal. One answer may not be comprehensive. Also, authors are not always right about how things work. Hell, I’m probably wrong about stuff in this very post. Also, if your agent isn’t clear on this stuff, or won’t answer questions, fire that agent out of a cannon, and into the mouth of a great white shark.

Publishing Money Is Fucking Weird

Publishing, particularly big publishing (sorry, Big Publishing, aka Big Book, or The Bibliodeities of Mannahattan) pays advances ahead of your royalties. Smaller advances mean you’re likelier to earn out, but a small advance also does little for you up front. Larger advances mean you’ve got a considerably larger “cost of life” cushion, but are less likely to earn out.

Your contract likely stipulates you get paid a certain amount up front — a third of the contract, let’s say — upon signing, and then you get paid the rest of your advance usually in chunks when you meet certain milestones. Turned in first draft, or final draft, or upon publication. I have found these milestones to be different at different publishers (and I’ve worked with a lotta publishers).

You owe 15% of that to your agent/agency.

Earning out is a theoretically straightforward affair — calculate how much you make per book based on the percentage royalty driven by format. Let’s say 10% per hardcover sale, or 25% of an e-book. But there, we enter into squirmy, less certain territory already. If Amazon discounts your book, do you make the 10% on the cover price, or the sale price? (My understanding here is, it depends on who initiates that sale. Amazon initiates, you get it on full. Publisher initiates, you get on the publisher’s choice of price.) So, every sale of a book is earning you a specific amount of money —

So, if my book Wanderers is a hardcover at $28.99, I theoretically make ~$2.90 per sale of that. And an e-book at $13.99 earns me ~$3.50, so from there I should easily be able to calculate what it would take in this round to “earn out,” but I’ve done that math on other books, and I’ve never found it particularly accurate. Why? Because it actually isn’t that simple. Between audio sales and library sales and less traditional sales channels and then book returns (yes, bookstores return unsold stock sometimes and that can ding you), it starts to become a bit of occult calculus that only sorcerers can understand. You can kinda eyeball it? You can make some educated guesses as to how many books you’ll have to sell to earn out, but even then, how many in what format? Some books sell 75% in e-book. Some sell only 25% in e-book. Wanderers, to my shock, has had a rough split of 33/33/33% across print, e-book, audio. Could I have foretold that? Nope.

If you know how many books you sold, that would help, but —

It’s Hard To Know How Many Books You’ve Sold

Publishers are starting to catch up to the fact that authors want to know how well they’re selling (weird, who knew?) — Penguin Random House has a pretty robust, snap-to-it site that has daily updates to your book’s sales. It’s nice to have, if not necessarily useful at every step. And it’s not always wholly accurate, either, which honestly isn’t their fault — we imagine an age where every strand of every industry is plucked with every sale, neatly and nicely updating the total, but as with every industry, it’s less an elegant web and more a clumsy knot. Retailers are independent and not plugged into one another. Each store is not lightning fast in how they respond to things. Even Amazon on the back-end is, from my understanding, kind of a hot mess.

(It’s funny, I’ve met with Amazon multiple times under the auspices of, “Tell us how to help authors more.” Arguably because they want to help more than publishers do, making friends of authors directly, beyond publisher relationships — which, ennnh, okay. Still, I always tell them one thing: GIVE AUTHORS MORE DATA. Tell us our sales! Tell us our Kindle sales in particular! Tell us when people quit reading our books! And they say OOH YES GOOD POINT and then it never happens and hahaha good times.)

Treat Your Publishing Money Like A Demonic Bargain

You should always be fairly dubious of that money. Not that it’ll disappear — it’s just, it’s wildly inconsistent, as I hope I’ve made clear. It’s inconsistent in its timing, in its amount, in everything. It’s constantly shifting ground, and that unsteadiness of the financial earth should leave you particularly touchy. The ground can crack and fall out at any point, which is why you need to budget. Planning is key for a writer’s life, and that’s hard, because we’re a sack of cats, mentally. But you gotta know how to portion it out, and you have to see down the road to where the money is coming from. (As a sidenote, it’s why it’s vital not to give up too many rights — foreign, film/TV, other licensing opportunities — to the publisher. Those random drops of money, while totally not-count-on-able, can be helpful just the same.)

Oh also ha ha ha the taxes are killer.

You’re gonna pay taxes on that.

And they’re not fun.

Budget, budget, budget. At any meaningful levels of money coming in, GET THEE AN ACCOUNTANT, and possibly even hie thee hence to forming an LLC, which can, at high enough income levels, drop your tax burden a little bit. Others will sell LLCs as also being able to defer liability but most lawyers and accountants I’ve asked about this suggest it’s a bit of a myth.

It’s hard to get a mortgage as a writer, if you’re the only income.

Trust me when I tell you that. Doesn’t matter what you earn, you don’t fit into a box that they can neatly check on the application, so you’re a strange animal to the mortgage broker, like a Zebra who fucked a Dolphin and who is also from the future? We’ll talk more about DAY JORBS in a minute.

Cost Of Living Is A Real Thing

The cost of living is tied to where you live. And so, your Publishing Dollar goes a lot farther in places where the cost of living is lower. In other words, if you’re going to choose to live in The City (that city being NYC, SF, whatever), you are almost certainly fucking yourself in every uncomfortable position.

Now, the opposite of that is, sometimes you get advice that amounts to demanding you live in some unpleasant nowheresville — and that’s fine, if you’re fine with it. I’m not. My publishing money could go much farther if I lived, say, 100 miles to the west, but instead, I live where I live. It’s not a profoundly expensive place, especially compared to, say, NYC, but it’s also not as cheap as, say, Ohio. But (nothing personal) I do not want to live in Ohio, I want to live where I live, because of culture, because of education, because of access to places like NYC or Philly or the Lehigh Valley, and so here I dwell, even if my Publishing Dollar would go farther in Nebraska or even in the middle of my own state. As writers, I find we do thrive a little bit based a little on the place we live — and so, live where you want to live, just be aware that there are concessions to be made if you do, and costs for that choice. But also, probably don’t live in NYC or SF. Live near them, ok. In them, not so much.

Back To Those Pesky Advances

I have been fortunate enough to have a somewhat gentle arc to my career — a nice hill of slowly advancing advances. I started small, with four figures, and have added zeroes as time went on. It’s been a slow boil but I prefer that, because it demonstrates what I hope is an increasing audience and quality of books. The worry is when you jump through the gate and someone hands you a fat sack of six figures and it’s like — boy howdy, you’ve probably got nowhere to go but down. Debuts tend to get an almost weird amount of attention (same as how the first book in a series nearly always gets 1000% more publishing attention than the second or third), but even with that, it’s hard to see how a New Author is going to just Rocket to the Moon on a first, big book. It can happen! It has and will again. But just know that opening big is a trickier gambit. It’s like, you wrote some songs and have a guitar and OOPS now you’re headlining Coachella ha ha good luck I’m sure you’ll be fine.

Wait I Didn’t Even Talk About Bucket, Or Joint, Accounting

Back to the tricky calculus of “earning out” — it gets trickier when you realize that some deals don’t just demand you earn out one book, but rather, all the books in your contract. The advances-per-book are put in a bucket, and so you must out-earn the bucket amount, not the per-book amount, before you start seeing royalties beyond your advances. This can be tricky with a series, let’s say, where the first book does well, and where no subsequent book is likely to do better than that first book — it robs you a chance of earning out with one book even if you don’t on the next two, let’s say.

How Marketing Is Tied To Advance

In general (and nothing is ever universal in this industry), the higher the advance, the more money the publisher has in their budget to support the book, particularly in terms of marketing, advertising, and publicity. On the one hand, this makes sense, right? Your book is an investment, and so they don’t wanna invest a bunch of money and then just have it fail — so they contribute more money and infrastructure toward paying off that investment. But it also means that lower advances can mark you in the “uhhh let’s throw it at the wall and see what sticks!” category, which is tough. It puts a lot of burden on you. And that burden is often unfairly thought of as being high effective buuuuut

You Are Never As Effective As A Publishing Budget

Trust me when I say, you can do a lot as an author to encourage people to read your books. But also trust me when I say, a publisher’s efforts in this realm is multiplicative compared to what you can achieve. Stay in this industry long enough — and so much of this industry is exactly that, just staying in the goddamn game — and you will reliably detect when a publisher is spending money on a book. You can tell because it’ll have buzz, it’ll get media placement, you’ll have appearances, and so on. You can also tell when they haven’t done shit for your book. Even if you yourself have done a lot!

Do you need a website? Probably. Doesn’t need to be fancy, but shouldn’t look like a half-ass botch-job, either. Should work on mobile and all that.

Do you need swag? I’m of a mind that it moves zero needles, and I’ve never seen data that it moves needles, and it just seems to be a thing authors have internalized that they need?

Do you need a tour? I mean, I dunno. At a debut level, I’d say no. As with crowdfunding anything, you need an audience already in place to make that make sense. Better to do cons and conferences, I think, at earlier levels, though other authors may disagree.

This is part of the trick, by the way: advice for a debut author, and for a mid-list author, and for a mid-career author, and for a hugely successful author, are very, very different. It can in fact be as individual as writing process. It’s all broad strokes, so take everything even here with many many grains of salt.

A whole salt lick, even.

Your Day Job? Don’t Quit It

This will be the 1000th time I’ve said this and I’ll say it a million more: don’t quit your day job. When do you quit your day job? When the work is at such a level that you either have to quit writing, or quit the day job. That’s it. When you’re up against the wall and you see, “I can’t write these books and also still go to work every day,” that’s a signal. (And ideally it’s a decision made easily because you’re making enough money at writing that it makes both financial sense and is a financial necessity.)

But otherwise? Hang tight. You’ll have no health care. As I said, mortgages will be harder to get. Everything is a little harder when you’re a ROGUE AUTHOR FREELANCE MERC out there in the PUBLISHING WASTELAND. Bonus: have a spouse who has health care and a steady job.

Note, again, I’m fortunate enough to be the sole income for our household as a writer. And I’m doing okay, and am comfortable. But I also still have these difficulties, and the erratic payment schedules can be brutal. All of it adds up to:

Have Plans On Top Of Plans

It’s like, if you live in the PNW, you probably have an Earthquake Preparedness Kit? You need that as an author. (Er, metaphorically speaking. Authors are not subject to actual earthquakes in particular.) Squirrel away money. Have plans on top of plans. What if your genre collapses? What if your agent quits? What if your next advance is way too low to survive upon? What if the economy shits the bed? Have a plan for next year, for five years, for ten. Envision how you remain in this game. A writing career is, as I’ve noted before, a CLIFF MITIGATION EXERCISE. You are eternally speeding toward the cliff’s edge. You might careen off that edge and into a ravine and crash in a spectacular fashion at the end of every contract. And so you need to imagine how — before it happens! — you’re gonna build a ramp or a bridge or some rocket boosters or shit. You gotta Evel Knievel that cliff somehow — but how? New genre? New age range? Break into comics? Some self-publishing on the side? Have plans inside plans inside plans. Especially if shit goes sideways. My day to day is spent thinking 50% about what stories I want to write and 50% what I’m going to do to keep my career going. Which leaves me little time for like, BASIC LIFE-BRAIN FUNCTIONS, so uhhh oops?

To Add In, And To Sum Up

– Publishing is fucking nuts, and trying to understand it is like trying to win a staring contest with the Eye of Sauron, but you gotta try, or you’ll die

– JESUS CHRIST ask some questions, seriously

– Publishing is not a lottery, and you need to treat it like a serious business venture where you’re given the squalling baby of a writing career and your job is to keep that thing alive and somehow get it to college, and if someone wants to put that writing career baby in college before it’s learned to walk, you should be very very wary of that

– Drink the fancy cocktails when you visit NYC, but don’t live there, for Christ’s sake

– Not every publisher is the same, some are fucking amateur hour karaoke, and some are well-trained machine assassins who never miss their shot

– You don’t control what a publisher does; get me drunk and I’ll tell you STORIES

– You should definitely know when your book is coming out and not via Google Alert, like, just ask, just ask your editor or ask your agent to ask your editor (your agent can be a very good “bad cop” if you need them to be, and they should be eager to fill that position, because a good agent is working for YOU, not for their relationship with the publisher), AHHH ASK QUESTIONS

– Art and Commerce are fiddly, uncomfortable fuck-buddies, they’re always fucking, but they’re always fighting too — but that doesn’t absolve you from cleaving only to the art and failing to learn about the commerce side of things

– You’re never dead in this industry until you stay dead, otherwise, get up, claw your way out of the grave, write the next book, change your name if you have to, change an agent, change genre, whatever; you do it because you love this thing and being undead is cooler than being regular dead

ANYWAY

There is probably shit I’m missing.

Feel free to ask questions — I may not get to them quickly, as I am dealing with lots of LIFE STUFF right now. (I wrote this post in a bit of much-needed down-time.)

If you like this post, and find it helpful, don’t buy me a cup of coffee.

Buy WANDERERS. Or tell your friends. Or leave a review.

Lest I die starving and screaming in a lightless abyss.