#aka 'jeans too worn out to donate and/or legs of jeans cut off to make shorts'

[tj-crochets]

Hey y'all! My next plushie project is a little purple monster with a flower crown and (if I can figure out how to do it) a spiky denim vest, but I'm not sure what quilt project I want to do next, so I'm looking for input!

edit: I forgot scrap management as an option so that's the "something else" option now lol

[rambling-at-midnight]

Hacked: Part 1

The bus is running late.

It always runs late.

Four minutes and thirty-three seconds late, to be precise.

You check your watch and sigh, rolling your eyes. It's hit the three-minute mark, so not long until you board it. Hopefully there won't be anyone at the school today. When that happens, it cuts ten minutes out of the route and you get an extra dollar from your boss for arriving early, who knows all about your home life but can't help. She's struggling just as much with her three children and no husband.

You have a very specific routine to your day. First, you wake up two hours earlier than you would need to water your neighbors' lawns. After that, you get ready for school and hop onto the bus that arrives at school two minutes before the bell, giving you enough time to sprint into school, hindered by your backpack, and make it to class just in the nick of time. After school at 4:00 you walk over to the hospital, making it in only fifteen minutes, to work for three hours. After that you stand (or rather, lean) against the bus stop sign at the hospital until the bus comes four minutes and thirty-three seconds late to your other job at a farm.

They pay better than most employers, even if you're scared to death of horses. You can deal with the animal shit and lugging stuff all over. It's the actual horses you have troubles with. Thankfully, Rose hasn't asked you to brush one down yet. You get the feeling that sometimes she knows about your fear.

The twenty-four year-old who also gets off at seven coughs next to you. You look over at him with the blankest look you can muster. Channel your inner marble statue, Y/n. The boy is nice enough. The two of you smile at each other if you pass at the hospital—only for him it's an actual smile and for you it's a polite, close-lipped, I acknowledge that you're alive now get out of my way I can't afford to be fired smile.

The boy sidles closer by shifting his weight. He probably thinks he's trying to be subtle. He probably is, too, but you can see through most tricks like you've got X-ray vision. You've been working since you were old enough to know what work is, and that work was all on the streets. You know every trick in the book, because you've had to use every trick in the book. It was only when you turned fourteen that you were allowed to work at the farm, so before that it was pick-pocketing and hacking.

Now those two things are only your fourth job instead of your first. On the days when your fourth employers make you stay up late enough that the clock switches, then you can say it's your first job.

You don't really like to say it's your first job. That's when your job is in danger.

The boy sidles ever closer and opens his mouth.

The bus turns the corner. You readjust your grip on your laptop bag in preparation for moving.

"Do you need any help?" the boy offers quietly.

"No thanks." You give another close-lipped smile and then clench your jaw. The boy understands and looks away. You nearly feel bad and then you remember that you've used that trick countless times and you can't afford to lose your laptop. It's got password-protected files on it that are assuring you and your mom's safety right now, and the project you're working on could possibly land you in jail.

If you're caught.

You have to make sure you don't get caught, at least not for another three months.

In three months your mom dies from terminal breast cancer.

In three months you're going to ruin playboy Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, by exposing all the dirt anyone has ever had on him.

Problem is, there's not a lot of dirt to be had on him. As much as you hate him, he hasn't done a whole lot of stuff that's illegal. And whenever he has, it's almost immediately outed and then made right by him donating large sums of money to the afflicted—as if a thousand dollars is going to help someone through the loss of their child that he had killed.

You're meeting with someone tonight that seems to also have a vendetta against Stark—a woman named Miriam Sharpe who almost got arrested for breaking into a secure building to confront the millionaire about the loss of her child, which was a stupid move in your opinion. The woman claims that she has more up her sleeve, but if so, why confront Stark so early? The press 'accidentally' 'found out' about the confrontation and Stark publicly offered the woman money, which she declined—also a stupid move. But now he's got the sympathies of the press. After all, what can he help it if someone gets hurt for the greater good?

The more you think about it, the more you're skeptical about whatever dirt this woman has on Tony Stark, but it's worth a try. Your deadline is creeping up fast and you need to annihilate Stark's reputation.

You stub your toe on the bus steps and fall down, letting go of your bag in the process. Humiliation tints your cheeks but panic brightens your eyes. You whirl around, ready to fight whoever's got it, but the boy from the hospital is calmly holding it out to you.

You whisper a "Thanks" to him and then hurry to your spot in the back of the bus. You sit by the window and your two bags sit beside you. Your hands wrap themselves around the bags' straps to ensure that if you lose your bags, you'll have a broken wrist and fingers to show Dennis.

The window is a see-through mirror, almost. You can see the lines in your forehead and the bags under your eyes. There's a new spot of acne on your forehead as well. Stress is not a pretty life. Neither is being a teenager.

The bus ride is exactly thirty minutes but the number of seconds depends. Sometimes a silver car with the license plate 456DLK will be here and sometimes not, but apart from the silver car being in the front, the line is always exactly the same.

Everything is always exactly the same.

When you were seven you rode this bus with your hair in a braid down your back and a tee-shirt, even when it was winter, and jeans with rolled-up cuffs and mud-specked sneakers with holes in the tips. You rode with your mother beside you as you traveled to horseback riding lessons.

When you were ten you rode this bus with leggings and a skirt on as well as a tank top and a jean jacket, hair in a ponytail with the bottom half hanging out, and worn-out sneakers. You rode alone to horseback riding lessons.

Now you ride with a sweatshirt on and ripped jeans, still with the worn-out running shoes, and your hair long enough now to pull into a full ponytail. Your mother hangs around you like a ghost even though she's not dead. Yet. And you're working at the farm now, after the incident and struggling to keep your mother going as long you can.

The incident may not have been Tony's fault, but everything else going on in your life sure is. And you're going to make him pay.