#and ended up with 3 posts on average each month

[cylove]

propaganda i am never falling for: the raijinshuu is just a fanclub for laxus

i never ever want to hear people talk about the raijinshuu as though theyre his cheerleaders/worshippers because that's not true! theyre his friends forever and always and im about to talk about it ad nauseam. its honestly going to sound pretty aggressive but idc its so annoying that after a decade theyre still interpreted this way!! also very ramble-y again

debut arc ie battle of fairy tail

first and foremost, its the best way to view them and they were taken seriously. to put it plainly, the raijinshuu were created for laxus. theyre his team and his accomplices to his crimes! laxus at the beginning of the series is nothing short of selfish, arrogant, and rude. these are traits that not a lot of people want to hang around with for good reason! but yet he has 3 people who would hurt their own guild mates for him? even so far as to kill? like in evergreens case SHE lives with many of the girls that were in the Miss Fairy Tail Contest! erza, levy, cana, and bisca all live in fairy hills along with evergreen. she's dedicated to laxus and his cause and was willing to murder women who she slept right next door to!!! (under the assumption she lived there pre-BOFT, if not its still crazy considering theyve known these people since they were teens)

what must you do to garner that sort of support? that mere idea alone should be indication of a deep bond. and it's not manipulation or any threats made by laxus! its not mean to say this because mashima says this too. laxus is not a genius (his intelligence is a 3 from the GMG stats, so average), hes not a master manipulator who tricks them into following his lead. he also never threatens them, its very obvious from the get go that they agree with his idea! because theyre bad people too! so if YOURE an asshole and IM an asshole, then hey! were like 4 peas in a pod! theyre similar to laxus, they seek power, fame, and recognition for their skills (also fun!.. by beating people up). it makes sense laxus would be drawn to them. if they didnt have traits he liked in the beginning, he wouldve never given them the time of day because hes a dick who pushes people away

read more to see me yell about them for 5 miles

laxus is very socially awkward and never got close to the other members of fairy tail. in flashbacks, hes always on the outskirts of social events. laxus was raised in fairy tail, every one else were orphans who came in like as 10yos or something. laxus was alone in terms of children his age since birth until the raijinshuu came around. like obviously he'll end up anti-social, he's surrounded by kids 5 years younger than him or adults (they literally never show kids going to school, maybe laxus did but they definitely didnt stick around!) by ages alone they have a better chance of getting along with him

and they have time!!! so so much time to get close to one another. lisanna referring to them as the raijinshuu at first sight and them welcoming her with familiarity confirms their formation BEFORE her death which is in X782. BOFT is in X784. thats AT LEAST 2 years to get buddy-buddy with each other!! and whats more is that its mage work. not some office job. you can work a job and not know the name of the person right next to you but not in this profession!!! literally you eat, sleep, and fight side by side!! you cant expect laxus to be around them for that long WILLINGLY and think he doesnt form a genuine connection with all of them!! idc if it takes months, he comes around! he couldve broken it off any time he wants, i know he saw strength in them but laxus is so moody he wouldve said fuck it and got rid of them anyways. but he doesnt!!! because he likes them!!

and hey lets just say maybe they barely hung out besides doing jobs Pre-BOFT, i'd say fair! laxus was pretty bad back then, but post-BOFT, they'd become close no matter what. they continue working together and with everyone's more mellowed out personalities, then it all leads back to them to being friends!! stronger than ever too. laxus getting touched by their love and vise versa is inevitable

thats a big thing to note too! he likes them because theyre strong, he doesnt pass that around lightly. he says this about s-class mages of course but he thought the same of them as well! i have touched on in another analysis about his comment on ever v erza. but to reiterate he thought ever could take on erza and is incredibly angry his expectations were not met!! he doesnt even think "maybe she was weak from the very beginning" No!! he thinks its a fall from grace!!! that says so much about him and the respect he has towards her! he glazes them too its a two way street!

idolization allegations

sigh its true in the sense that mashima didnt care about them as much since their initial arc and made jokes creating this narrative and some people just took it and ran. but if you really think about it, theres no way they do. remember that they work together? so they spend numerous days with him and see him act like a regular person.. they met him as a teen boy like ofc the spell breaks the first day. laxus is strong but cmonnnn the image fades fast. theyre teens too, you dont think they find him like nightmarishly annoying some days. they cant be blind fanboys/girl because that would require some parasocial relationship but how does one have that if the person you are a fan of in question is telling you he forgot his sleeping bag when he was packing....? like 2+ years is a long time to get to know a guy

fans are annoying in the sense that THEY DONT KNOW YOU!! but they know laxus!!! the problem is how mashima presents them and ugghhhh i get where people get it from but if you take literally 2 seconds to think about the logistics, its all for show. like pls guys just trust me on this. they've went bar hoping, they've gone to festivals, they throw each other birthday parties, it was never a casual work relationship (disregard this part, im getting into hc territory)

but genuinely if not the raijinshuu, then who else? dont bring up fairy tail team b becaus then why doesnt he want to go on jobs with them (the ones who still do)? why arent they the ones he's drawn with in numerous group official arts? so youre saying he goes on jobs for days, weeks, months with his coworkers and OTHER people are his best friends? what???? sure team b can be his friends, but then you have inner circle friends, which in this case is the raijinshuu

it is hard to see laxus reciprocating this love, i understand, but thats just how he is. he's terrible at emotions, its how he ended up nearly blowing up magnolia!! despite all that he can admit to loving people because he does it in canon. the words are right there. you can hear it too in the anime if you want! like you see him hug them so close to himself the second he wakes up from a coma. he was just as worried as them!!! he thinks lowly of himself because he's not doing enough FOR THEM!!

also patrick seitz (laxus va) says verbatim "you 3 are the world to me. i cant keep you safe" like are you kidding me sure dubs can deviate but it just supports the original even more. its so direct, he loves them! he thinks the world of them!

im gonna get atmospheric on your ass because literally this man's breathe is tickling your face as he says he loves you and he needs to do better for YOU!! he's burying his face in their's!! its sooo sweet and it was fast too! he was overcome with emotions that he had to immediately tell them this and physically let them know. its so so important that he initiates too!! hes not usually touchy like this, hes never hugged except here!! (side hug for jellal during GMG wasnt heartfelt, he was being a tease, also it was nothing like this)

these arent your fans!!! theyre your bestfriends who love you UNCONDITIONALLY even at your worst, accepts you once more because of course they will, and you just nearly lost them!! it was never casual nor professional!!!!! its love all the way down

like the pure rage he felt after what wall did could not be compared!! he wasnt even this angry during his fight with raven tail. and we get another hint at how he views himself. hes changed a ton since BOFT, he used to think of himself as an arrogant god but now he admits hes barely worth his friends' lives. i find it a little much and the raijinshuu would probably say something about that, but it really shows that he feels deeply for them too. he wouldnt do this for "worshippers" or part of the "creed of laxus" (gray watch yourself)

also another point, if they really were mindless meatriders, laxus wouldnt even like that. sure old him probably wouldve sucked up all the attention, but since his exile, his ego has been reign in and wouldnt enjoy people blindly praising him up and down. genuinely think about having 3 people have a fan-idol dynamic with you and you work with them for YEARS in life and death scenarios. that is legitimately an insufferable experience, you'd quit! unless you are an ego maniac (which laxus kinda was before) it does not last long!

they dont do these things because its deeper than that. they tease and poke fun at him! its points to the idea that theyre regular people who joke around with one another! like they know him enough that he gets lost easily? i get intense cuteness aggression from them THIS IS WHAT I WANTED it is the tiniest glimpse of their dynamic when theres no over looming threat or serious job and i love it a lot! seriously what would have happened when laxus just got to come back normally and drop off the groceries?

is that not significant too? it was bickslows idea to do more casual things for cash and laxus goes along with it? that would be boring for him no? he loves fighting yet hes willing to hang around at a restaurant? the people he works with must be enjoyable then no? evergreen says the place is lowkey dead so its not even busy. like they just like experiencing life together its not hard to understand. when fairy tail disbanded for a year they all stuck together and worked in blue pegasus of all places. laxus always had the chance to tell them to go away

more teasing :3 im making this thread with strictly canon moments from the manga to make a point, it's more important to focus on moments mashima made canon in the og series. secondary content (anime only scenes, ft game dialogue, their gaiden volume) could be saved for another day

this has been going on for a while so one last thing and its my favorite thing, theyre physically affectionate!

when they glomp laxus its from pure joy that hes back!! BOFT is in october while tenrou island is in december, its only 2 months theyre apart but they missed him so much!!! its a lighthearted jokey tone but is them hugging him not indicative of a friendlier bond? it implies that BEFORE he got exiled he had a relationship with him that made them think it was okay to hug him. if they know him and he didnt like being touched like that, it doesnt matter how much they miss him, they wouldve respected his boundaries and not hug him. but they did! they mustve been affectionate before these events, they just didnt let anyone see it!! but since he's back they couldnt help themselves! freed's nuzzling his face its all very cute

also hes so harmless all he does is say stawwppp, they never push the joke further by making him push their faces away or anything. he says get off but doesnt really do anything beyond get embarrassed

like this moment is even better since its not played off as a joke as much! evergreen still hugs him and this time he doesnt even say anything!! this is still fresh off exile, so its not like their relationship developed in that time to making physical touches okay. no, it was before exile that this development occurred!! when the raijinshuu began opening up to people, it made them more bold to show that side of their relationship. its again really close too! her cheek is right on his arm and shes hugging him close to her chest!!

shes literally about to throw her arms around him if we had a second panel youd see it ugh AND HE WOULDVE LET IT HAPPEN!! not as intimate but bicks has his arm on him too

i think it misses the messaging of fairy tail, which is an anime about love, friendship, and family if laxus lacks that and the raijinshuu are nothing more than cheerleaders who arent actually that close to him. it makes 0 sense realistically, the existence of a couple one off jokes are that, just jokes. in canon laxus has stated he loves them as much as they love him! i find that laxus' main charm points is the idea that despite having difficulties with connecting to people, he still found love! if him being an asshole didnt scare people off, it was how socially clumsy he is! but the raijinshuu didnt care, they liked that about him because it made him, him

it really diminishes his closest platonic bonds and honestly a fundamental misunderstanding of his character to dismiss his friends like this. he'd hate you for saying shit like that!!

TDLR; the raijinshuu are not "a fanclub", "laxus whorshippers/fanatics/idolizers", "a parasocial relationship" or whatever else people want to say about them them! laxus is grown, he has complete autonomy in who he wants to spend most of his time with, in and out of work, and guess who he picks! its freed, evergreen, and bickslow!

CUTE LAXUS AND RAIJINSHUU IMAGE ATTACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[manglechanbluh]

2024 art summary yay !

It was an interesting year. Rough start, tried out a lot of stuff, participated in multiple community event/project, did a lot of shitpost, learn how to draw middle-aged men. Definitely an interesting year.

template by WolverWM

[anyroads]

How to actually support small businesses on Etsy

With Christmas approaching and people starting to look for gifts, I thought it might be useful to let people know how to best support Etsy sellers, since we get a lot of sales this time of year! Etsy has a lot of policies that affect sellers which they don't really disclose to customers, and often there's a communication gap that can be damaging to sellers without customers intending them to. Hopefully this post helps more people avoid this kind of thing.

A while ago Etsy implemented the Star Seller program. When you go to an Etsy store, you can see badges at the top of the page, denoting if the seller has done well in three main categories:

Speedy replies

On time dispatch with tracking

Good reviews

If you clear the bar for all three as a seller, you're a Star Seller. This is an important badge for sellers, which I'll get to in a bit. Etsy evaluates your stats monthly, and bases them on three months' worth of data:

Each has specific determining factors, which also advantage large operations like dropshippers over small businesses, but we'll get to that too:

As you can see, the criteria is really demanding. You have to respond to 95% of first messages (ie. the first time someone contacts you) within 24 hours or you lose your Star Seller status. This can be really damaging to a small store.

You also have to dispatch 95% of orders on time, ie. within the set timeline you've chosen for an item listed, and you have to give tracking info. This, by the way, is frustrating and disingenuous; I ship my product in envelopes because they're small and thin, but the mail service in my country doesn't offer tracking for envelopes. I'm not going to spend up to 3x as much on shipping just to have a tracking number (shipping would cost half the price of my product if I did), but if I don't include tracking info I don't get a Star Seller badge even if I ship all my orders on time. I get around this by writing "unavailable" in the field where tracking info goes, but this still poses a transparency issue to customers and rightly so. I end up compensating by issuing a lot of replacements for delayed orders, which I can recoup costs of through my mail service which is a lot of extra work and time.

You also must have an average of 4.8 star reviews or higher. There are no adjustments made for small stores, and this is a big one where dropshippers have an advantage.

As you can see in my stats here, I had 11 reviews in 3 months. That means if just one person gives me a 4 or 3 star review, I lose my Star Seller status for 3 months unless I get a ton more reviews quickly. A dropshipper who makes hundreds of sales a week won't be affected by one middling review. And you'd be surprised how often people who leave 3 or 4 star reviews actually meant to leave better ones but clicked the wrong button without noticing, or just don't understand how the system works.

Because Etsy doesn't explain this to customers. So people will leave a damaging review in perfectly good faith. The number of times I've gotten an "excellent product, would buy again!" review with 3 stars is astounding. I always message customers to ask what I could do better and explain the system, and the response is almost always that there was nothing wrong, they just usually don't give anything higher than 3 out of 5 stars unless the product radically improved their lives or was transformative (and to their credit, most customers change their reviews after this exchange but again, it takes time and effort).

3 stars is average, and what customers rate is their experience receiving and using a product. What Etsy uses these ratings to gauge, however, is whether a customer was satisfied dispatch timelines, craftsmanship, and if a product met the expectations set in the listing.

As an added bonus, Etsy hoses money off sellers by offering to advertise for them. The way this works is that if a seller opts in, Etsy will advertise their store in relevant searches on search engines like Google, and in exchange they take a percentage from any sales made from clicks on these links. And then some. Because if a customer clicked an advertising link once, then Etsy will keep taking that cut from any further purchases from that IP address. So if you click a Google link to an Etsy store and then purchase from that store, and then bookmark that store and go back six months later to get another item, Etsy will keep taking their advertising cut with each purchase you make.

Depending on whether or not you opt in to advertising, Etsy can take up to 30% of your earnings in fees alone. That means if I sell, say, bookmarks for $10, I only get to keep $7. Hopefully that covers my operating costs, but if I charge more for an item that takes me a lot of time and work to make, I have to factor in that Etsy offers free shipping on orders over $35 whether or not sellers agree to give it. So if I sell a product that costs $35, not only do I only get to keep $24.50 of what I was paid after Etsy takes fees, I also have to cover the cost of shipping. And if I'm selling a product for that much, it's likely shipping will cost $5-10, so now my profit is down to $15-20 for an item I sold for $35.

Why is the Star Seller status so important? Because it's the main way the average Etsy store gets onto the algorithm and has visibility, and without visibility you don't have sales. Drop shippers can afford to purchase advertising space, so they'll always show up in searches. They can also afford to have a variety of products, high-end professional photos of their products, and because they have a lot of sales, the occasional bad review or delayed shipment won't cause a blip on their rating system. In comparison, the average Etsy store who makes, let's say, 50 sales a month (and that's a small store that's doing well), is going to feel the impact of a handful of 4 star reviews and one day of delayed orders/message replies due to a family emergency. If you contact Etsy customer service to explain your legitimate reason for having a delay, they're unable to intervene. They can't give you back your Star Seller status, which means you're dropped from the algorithm for the three months it takes for those delays to stop counting towards your averages, and you then have to work your way back up into the algorithm once that time passes, which is even harder to do. (And while you can put up an auto-reply, there's a time limit on how long it'll be up, which is usually 24-48 hours. Which may not work if you have a personal emergency that the average small business would understand and give you time off for in ways Etsy refuses to accommodate.)

So what can you do to support Etsy sellers?

- Give good reviews. If you have problems with a product, message the seller and give them the opportunity to fix the problem or send a replacement/refund. Unless you feel the need to leave a scathing 1 star review, don't leave one unless it's a 5 star. Etsy counts anything under 5 stars the same as it does one star. (This goes for Amazon, Uber, Deliveroo, etc. too. Review kindly.)

- Message sellers during the week. It's harder to get to messages during the weekend, and not everyone remembers to put on their auto-reply.

- Don't click advertising links. If someone promos their Etsy store on their own social media account, it's fine. So if you click a link from an instagram profile or a tumblr post, that's fine. But if you see a link on Google or in a dedicated advertising space, even if it's a sponsored spot on Etsy, don't click on it. Instead, search the shop name on Etsy and go to it through that search. This way the seller won't lose more fees to Etsy.

[infiniteglitterfall]

this is my most autistic half-birthday ever!

I gave myself the day to pursue a special interest and fulfill an offer I'd made last year.

The Jewish Virtual Library has a page listing all the rocket and mortar attacks on Israel since 2001 (which was when they first started). But it's incomplete. Last fall, I noticed it stopped in August, so I wrote to them offering to help update it. They thanked me and gave me some places I could look.

Today, I finally did it. I ended up cross-referencing with the lists on Wikipedia, digging through multiple Twitter accounts and outside news sources and NGOs, and sending them an email with my updates... plus an html file where I'd updated the code on the page so they could just check it and upload it instead of typing in all the data themselves.

I am such a huge nerd.

There's definitely more research to do. But I think I found a strong stopping place that let me actually send what I found and post about it. Which is always the hardest part. As my drafts folder could tell you.

I have more than two thousand drafts on here.

Anyway, I'm going to put my findings under a cut tag. Before you read on, I want you to try to guess.

Because one of the things I've been told most often by people who wanna Argue About Palestine Without Having To Learn Anything About Palestine (Or Israel Or History Or Imperialism Or Fact-Checking Or ?????) is that the reason for October 7, the reason for literally anything in fact, is that "Israel bombs Palestine constantly."

I want to put together a list of Israeli airstrikes next. I would love to reblog this with that information. But first, I want you to guess:

Note that this DOES NOT include terrorist car rammings, mass shootings, mass stabbings, bus bombings, suicide bombings, etc. It therefore excludes almost the entire Second Intifada.

After correcting the most recent four years and sending in my corrections, I made a list of the totals using the most complete collection I could find for each year. (Sometimes it was Jewish Virtual Library, sometimes it was Wikipedia, and sometimes they matched.)

2024: 12,629 (an average of 35 per day)

2023: 12,295 (34 per day)

2022: 1,180 (only 3 per day)

2021: 4,425 (12 per day)

2020: about 203

2019: 798+

2018: 348+, 0.95 per day

2017: Only 47!!! Why, it's almost like living in Canada!! 0.1 per day.

2016: Wow, only 20. See, if you go through the years backwards, it looks like progress is being made.  Very exciting. Until I get to the Second Intifada, probably. 0.05 per day.

2015: 58.

2014: oh right, that war. 4,778. (Wikipedia's 2015 list claims " In August 2014, Operation Protective Edge was ended after 4,594 rockets and mortars launched toward Israel. From the end of the operation came into force an unofficial cease-fire between Israel and Hamas." but there were three more after that, and 181 before it, listed on wikipedia alone. so like. 4,778 actually, for 13 a day.)

2013: 70 total. Wikipedia notes this was the lowest number since 2001.

2012: 2,442, or 6.7 per day.

2011: 680, for 1.9 a day.

2010: 365, for exactly one a day.

2009: 858, or 2.4 per day.

2008: 3,107! that's 8.5 a day.

2007: 2,807: 7.7 a day.

2006: 1,275, or 3.5 a day.

2005: 858. An average of 2.4 per day.

2004: 1,158.

2003: 637.

2002: 472.]

2001: "These attacks commenced in April 2001, although the first rocket to hit an Israeli city was on 5 March 2002, and the first Israeli fatality was 28 June 2004." I count 173 mortar attacks in 2001, however. Which makes the first fatality a critically-injured baby in 2001. And as soon as I make 250+ more edits and have the power to edit Wikipedia articles on "controversial" topics, I'll make it say so.

Grand Total: 51,685.

An average of SIX PER DAY.

FOR 24 YEARS.

I've been saying four.

But there were actually thousands that weren't listed on the Virtual Library site yet. It really cranked up that average.

Now consider this: between 10%-30% misfire and either crash into the sea, or hit Gaza.

A surprising number of Gazan casualties in every "conflict" have been from Hamas & Co's own missiles.

And they know this. And not only do they not care, but they keep using everything from mosques to humanitarian zones as rocket launch sites.

And why shouldn't they? You have to really dig to find information on how many Gazans die that way. Almost everyone just attributes the deaths to Israel. Hamas is never going to get any actual flak for accidentally killing its own civilians. It barely gets any flak for intentionally killing Israeli civilians, for pete's sake.

[bongolia]

Eltingville Headcanons (School)

Bill

Isn't bullied to his face for the most part, but instead gets shit talked by everyone and their best friends boyfriend's friend's ex crush

He cares about being better than people, and grades are seen as a status symbol in his eyes

He averages a 3.8 GPA (87-89% average)

Bill's pretty smart, but he cares too much about his collection to study at times. He absolutley has the potential to earn a 4.0 (90-100% average)

He doesn't have lunch with any of the gang nor does he have any friends outside of them so he eats all alone (poor wittle incel)

Normally he packs his own lunch since his mom couldn't care less if he ate that day. He'd rather starve than eat the school food on the occasion he forgets to pack

His favorite classes are Creative writing and Honors English

Yes he brags to the gang about being in honors

No they do not care

He rotates the same 3 flannels, washing them once a month unless they get dirty or smell too musty for his liking

Remember how I said people don't bully him to his face much? That's because you can only beat someone up so many times a month without getting in trouble

This is how he found out that he could fit in a locker

And what the janitors closet looks like

...And what the toilet tastes like...

He definitley participates in class, but only if he's 100% sure about what's going on

"Erm actually Miss teacher the answer is 0.0043834 moles hehehe" head ass

Not a big fan of science despite being alright at it

Probably because he actually has to study for it

Same with history. He's good at it, he just doesn't like studying

Bill shares a single class with one of the gang members and it's Josh

They have the same sketching class

Nobody really cares about what Bill has to say...and the other too aren't there...so why not let his ego drop?

Ofc he's still a dickhead to Josh, he's just a lot less angry

Neither of them want to kill each other!

Sometimes Bill passes Pete or Jerry down the hall

He doesn't say hi he just does that head nod at them

Although on more than one occasion him and Pete had to share a class for detention

The teachers always let them leave early

If Bill wasn't a fucking loser he's go to college for sure, maybe get himself an academic scholarship

End Post

[stsgluver]

𝐒𝐍𝐀𝐏𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐓 𝐏𝐓.𝟓 — gojo satoru

synopsis. there's nothing more romantic than travelling halfway across the world for the girl you love... even if it is two years late.

wc. 3.4k

tags. none really, yn is described as shorter than megumi, possible ooc for EVERYONE, lowkey forgot how to write halfway through, possible spelling mistakes and plotholes (pls still like my writing i beg)

a/n. im sorry i never really got round to answering the comments on the last post but i have added everyone to the taglist who asked. so i did write two endings but one was bad SO i stuck to this one only <3 i hope this is the right end to the series and thank you sm for the support over the last few months!! i will have a 'spin-off-ish' series focused on the students making the videos in the first place which i will add the link to on this chapter once it's up. this is for @ilovejugs69 ly pookie

previous part / series masterlist

“this is such a bad plan.” 

megumi let out a small sigh, resting his head back on the leather of the plane’s seat. an economy seat – much to gojo’s dismay – but there hadn’t been much time to consider other options, bar gojo buying himself a personal private jet and hiring a pilot all in the space of less than an hour. 

the dark-haired student clutched the arm rests as he felt his stomach churn in knots as the reality of their decision sunk in. it was a very last minute and muddled plan but gojo was desperate to see you again and megumi wanted nothing more than to have his family back – so when gojo offered to take them both to the other side of the world to find you, he agreed a little too quickly. spontaneity was not his thing and with each passing second he was remembering why.

gojo shuffled himself back in his seat, nose scrunching up in annoyance as he struggled with the small gap for his longer-than-average legs. if his height wasn’t drawing the pair any attention (which it certainly was), the uniforms and the sorcerer’s blindfold definitely were. he didn’t need his six eyes to feel the stares of strangers. 

“i’ve never had a bad plan in my life.” 

megumi scoffed at the declaration, rolling his eyes at the white haired sorcerer’s misplaced confidence. like it wasn’t gojo’s idea to send megumi on that mission alone that ultimately resulted in yuuji swallowing sukuna’s finger or his idea to prank nanami on his birthday that got both himself and the first years all detention. 

“don’t roll your eyes at me, young man,” gojo lightly swatted megumi’s arm, wiggling one of his fingers in front of the younger boy’s face. “your mother will think i’m a shit dad and won’t come back.” megumi ignored the tightening in his chest at the casualness of gojo’s words.

“you are a shit dad,” he retorted, closing his eyes and willing the next seven hours to go by faster than they were. he didn’t hate flying, but he wasn’t the biggest fan, and the nerves that were building up alongside the nonstop chatter from the man beside him were definitely not helping.

gojo gasped and megumi felt him jostling in the seat next to him, he could only imagine the dramatics his teacher was pulling in public. it was best he kept his eyes closed. 

“that wasn’t very nice. god, teenagers and their angst these days.” 

megumi heard gojo mumbling loudly under his breath and there was no doubt in his mind that there was a cheshire grin on gojo’s face, daring him to take the bait and bicker like the mature adult he was. 

however annoying he may have found him, megumi knew that gojo was just as nervous as he was. the two, however, were just polar opposites in all aspects. so while megumi just wanted to spend the next few hours trying to sleep and hope he’d have the courage to face you when he woke up, gojo wanted to play avoidance by teasing him as if they weren’t travelling halfway across the world for you.

when megumi didn’t respond, to gojo’s disappointment, a silence settled between the two. with his hands now stuffed in the pockets of his uniform and head almost on gojo’s shoulder, the dark haired sorcerer attempted to finally fall asleep.

“do you think she’s mad at me?” megumi asked quietly after about five minutes. 

gojo hummed thoughtfully, looking down at the teenager almost asleep on his shoulder. “she has no reason to be mad at you,” he said in the most reassuring tone he could muster.

“she’s never messaged me back,” megumi countered.

“at least yours still go through.” gojo huffed lightly, an attempt at brightening megumi’s mood at the expense of himself but it only left both more unsettled at their predicament. he knocked his knee into the younger boy’s gently. “get some sleep, this is going to be a long flight.”

“if you just take a seat here, i will go see if ma’am is available. it’s so lovely to meet her family finally.” a woman dressed in formal attire gestured towards a small lobby waiting room with a bright smile. 

there was no one else in there apart from one middle-aged guy with a briefcase, newspaper in hand. gojo thanked the woman, hand on megumi’s shoulder as he led him into the back corner of the white minimalist room.

the sun had set by the time they’d landed and found your office building – something that gojo had forced shoko to send him. he hadn’t even had a chance to tell her what they were doing before he’d gotten on the plane so after she had a go at him for leaving her out of the loop and not bringing her too, she sent across the necessary details with demands for regular updates. 

“i bet she’s going to call security,” megumi sighed as he dropped himself down into the black leather seat, resting his head back against the wall behind him. between school and the plane journey, he’d been awake for nearly twenty hours and the stiff seat he was on felt like a pile of feathers. he was going to fall asleep before he’d even had the chance to see you.

gojo crossed one leg over the other, hands crossed behind his head. the teenager wanted to elbow him for his calm posture – he could have as well, he’d dropped his infinity the second the two had entered the building. the second the older sorcerer had stepped into the building he knew you were here, recognising the cursed energy that brought him a familiar comfort he’d missed. “why would she?”

megumi snapped his head in his direction, eyes opening to give him an incredulous look, “why would you say you’re her husband?” 

gojo waved a hand dismissively, “i basically am–”

“was. several years ago.” megumi countered and gojo’s mouth dropped open at the audacity of his pupil to point out the obvious facts.

rolling up the sleeves of his jacket, gojo began to stand up and megumi was close to cracking a smile at his behaviour. the delirium of not sleeping was beginning to sink in. “okay, kid–”

“you’re here.”

gojo’s sleeves dropped just as fast as megumi stood up from his seat, both more alert than they had been all day. suddenly, the uneasy feeling megumi had had on the plane didn’t seem so bad, this was so much worse.

you’d barely changed since you’d left, bar your hair being a few inches longer. if the two looked closely enough at you, they’d realise you were just as wrecked with nerves as they were as you struggled to stop your hands from shaking.

when the receptionist had first come up to tell you that your husband and son were here to see you, your initial reaction had been to say she’d made a mistake… until the cryptic message shoko had sent you thirty minutes earlier started to make a lot more sense. 

she was the only one you’d maintained regular contact with after you’d left. initially you had gone on a complete no contact with everyone, refusing to even acknowledge that you had a life and a family in japan. you were scared and you’d chosen the coward's way out by running. it felt wrong to still have strings binding you to a life that was no longer yours.

but you missed her and you worried constantly about gojo and megumi, so you’d slowly built up messaging her once a month to every few days just to know everyone was still alive.

you had desperately wanted to take megumi with you but you didn’t have it in you take him away from his sister and, despite how you’d laid into him about how even he had limitations, you knew megumi was safer with gojo than you. in america, you were vulnerable to curse users and curses alike without the protection of any other sorcerers or specialist schools to help you.

the three of you probably looked like idiots to the other man in the room, all staring at each other too afraid to make the first room. it felt surreal to all be together again. you were afraid your longing to see them again had reached a point of insanity, and they were afraid of spooking you if they got too close too quickly.

megumi was the first one to make a move, stepping around the rows of seats and the centre coffee table till he stood a metre from you. “hi.”

your hand covered your mouth as you had to tilt your head up slightly to keep eye contact with the boy you’d raised since he was only a fraction of your height. you may not have changed but megumi had – both his height and voice – and the guilt of leaving him behind was overwhelming.

“oh my god, you’re so much taller than me.” you moved closer to him to gently grab ahold of his arms as you took in how much he had grown. there wasn’t a day that had gone by that you didn’t regret and feel guilt for leaving megumi and you only hoped he understood why you left him so suddenly. taking a step back, you gestured to his uniform, “what’s jujutsu high like?”

the words were bittersweet. what had leaving achieved apart from heartache? megumi was still a jujutsu student and gojo was still japan’s lifeline. maybe you would live a longer life in america, but was the life you had now worth the one you’d left behind?

“it’s…” megumi hesitated before clearing his throat, “it’s okay. there’s two other first years, yuuji and nobara. they’re alright.” you smiled at his words, flashbacks of your own childhood crossing your mind as you remembered the innocence of your first year. it was fun being in a class with two prodigies, you were mini celebrities in a world of rich and powerful sorcerers.

“i’m glad you’ve made some friends, megs,” the nickname rolled off your tongue too naturally and if megumi closed his eyes, maybe he could pretend that you were all still in japan and you were just catching up after being away on a prolonged mission. you glanced to the other sorcerer in the room who had remained silent up until this point – although he had silently made his way over. “i’m going to go speak with satoru in my office and then can i take you out for dinner? to talk properly?”

megumi nodded a little too eagerly, “yeah, please. i’ll just wait here.”

“perfect. satoru?” the acknowledgement was all the strongest sorcerer needed to be following behind you, keeping a distance of several paces as you led him inside your office.

gojo rested his forearm against one of the large ceiling height windows in your office that overlooked the city. you had to be at least twenty stories up and the blaring of car horns was simply a hum, vehicles appearing as mini red and yellow dots on the busy roads below.

“nice view.” 

it was the first words he’d uttered in your presence and despite him being the one to initiate the venture to you, he had no idea what to say. this was likely his only chance to convince you to come back and he may have already screwed up by waiting as long as he had.

“what are you doing here?” you asked as you pushed your door shut, leaving the two of you in the privacy of your small office. it was nothing special; a chair, a desk with paperwork piling up and no photos whatsoever. there was no trace that you even existed beyond these four walls.

“don’t i at least get an ‘i miss you’? i just travelled over ten hours for you,” he said lightly, trying to ease the tension in the room but your voice was no longer as soft as it was when you spoke with megumi. the teenager had done nothing wrong – he was part of the reason you left.

“it’s been two years.” he didn’t have to turn around to know that your arms were probably crossed in front of your chest, your head tilted to the side as you waited for him to explain himself. except he thinks his past offences of stealing all of the sweets before halloween were a little more forgivable than letting you leave.

his hand turned to a fist as he dropped it from the window, turning around to look at you properly. “i know.”

both of you stared at one another, neither of you speaking as you took the other in.

“you chose them over me,” you accused. them being both the higher-ups and the whole of jujutsu itself. you’d given him a chance to have a normal life – a natural life in which you’d grow old together and die of old age – and he’d chosen the short life where he’d likely die before he turned thirty.

“you knew what you were signing up for,” he said and there was no malice behind the words though they still frustrated you. he was right to an extent, he’d sat you down after you’d finished school, just before he’d taken in megumi and given you an out. you chose to stay, fully believing that the two of you had already gone through your worst.

“i didn’t realise i’d always be on the losing side.”

“we weren’t always losing–”

you stepped closer to gojo as you held out your hand, counting each disaster after the other with your fingers, “haibara died, we almost died, geto defected, we took in megumi and the tensions between your clan and the zen’ins got ten times worse. you said you wanted to change jujutsu society and what had we done? i never knew if you’d come home to me after missions, it made me feel sick.”

“how do you think i felt coming home to a note?” you could count on your hands the amount of times you had seen gojo angry – and while he wasn’t all the way there he was teetering on the edge as he frustratedly lifted off his blindfold, throwing it onto your desk. in the same way you’d been desperate for him to hear what you were saying before you’d left, he was equally as desperate for you to hear him now. to see that he was here. “megumi? at least geto left for a purpose, you just left.”

it was an unfair dig – geto had committed mass murder, after all – but similar to the one that you’d pulled on him two years ago.

you clicked your tongue as you tried not to make it obvious how badly that made you want to cry, holding your hands up in surrender. “was it so wrong to want a life where i didn’t go to work thinking i would die? to want a future?”

“you were my future.” he sounded sad as he uttered them, and it looked foreign to see the gojo satoru look so dejected. there were only inches between the two of you now and despite the fact he towered over you, he appeared so small as he continued, “was i ever yours?”

memories of your late teenage years and early adulthood play out as a montage: from your first meeting when you’d both gotten lost on the train to school, to the tears you spilled as you finished writing your note and closed the door to his apartment for the last time. 

“of course you were.” your voice was shaky, no longer holding any bite. until the day you’d left, since you were sixteen, you’d never envisioned a life without him.

gojo’s hand reached out to push your hair back from your neck, the little white scars still tarnishing your flawless skin. it was taking all of your resolve to not collapse into his arms and have him hold you like you knew he would. you were sure you’d believe him this time if he told you he could protect everyone, that he was in fact able to be in six places at once and still come out on top. “come back with us please.”

“satoru…” you dragged off, looking away as you fought between listening to your rationale that reminded you that nothing had really changed and your heart that missed being in love.

“just come back,” he repeated, “are you going to tell me you’ve found someone else? that you enjoy your life here?” it was wrong and selfish, he knew it, to be convincing you the way he was – to even be here full stop – but he missed you and he wasn’t ready to let you walk away again.

“i can’t lose you.” hesitantly you pressed your hands to his chest. for a second he was scared you were going to push him away, but you didn’t, fingers tightening around the material of his uniform.

“don’t be silly and travel halfway across the country then.” his voice was just above a whisper now as he brushed his nose against yours. “hey, look at me properly.”

you complied without any hesitation – you always did when it came to him. two years of no contact but your body still reacted on muscle memory to the sound of his voice. never in your life had you ever seen eyes like his, of course you hadn’t, and you were still taken aback by the full blue colour as he gazed down at you.

“tell me you don’t want me to kiss you.” you did want him to. “tell me you want me to walk out of this room and not turn back and i’ll do it.” he wouldn’t have left without you.

“i missed you,” you whispered, and that was all he needed to duck his head down to let your lips meet. gojo’s hand slipped round to the back of your neck, tugging you impossibly closer as his tongue swiped across your bottom lip. you missed this, you missed him, and you were going to find it impossible to let go of him again.

only when your lungs ached to breathe did you force yourself to pull back from your ex boyfriend. gojo’s eyes were still focused on your lips and you didn’t doubt that if it were up to him, he’d be leaning to kiss you again. it was only the light push against his chest that held him back.

“what are we doing?” you asked, voice wavering from both the kiss and nerves. whilst there was no doubt in your mind that gojo was who you wanted, you had many reservations about reentering jujutsu society.

“about to ditch this place and go back to japan on a plane. all three of us.”

you brows furrowed together, “but–”

gojo held a finger up your lips, his other hand slipping into his back pocket, pulling out three plane tickets. “i already got your ticket, you don’t want it to go to waste do you?”

you lightly hit his arm and smiled up at him. he was grinning now and it didn’t need to be said aloud – he was yours again (though he’d never really stopped being such) and you were coming home. “that confident?”

“surprised you were able to resist me this long.” he pecked your cheek this time, a hint of tease in his tone like he hadn’t needed megumi to convince him to even enter your office building in the first place.

you let his joke slide with no rebuttal. “are you coming to dinner?” you hoped you hadn’t been keeping megumi too long.

“do you want me at dinner?” gojo asked.

you reached across to your desk to grab ahold of his blindfold and passed it to him. as much as you loved being able to see his eyes, you’d rather not be spending your first twenty four hours with him in bed complaining about a splitting headache. “i’m sure megs won’t mind. plus you can pay,” you added with a wink.

gojo raised an eyebrow, lips tugging up at the corners into a slight smirk, “oh so that’s the real reason why you missed me?”

taglist. @thefictionalcharacterssimp @hana-patata @mor-pheus @leathairs @sh0ek0 @maliakealoha @levisteeacup @g-kleran @stevenknightmarc @n1kimura @darliingyu @saturn-alone @splxtscreen @leah-rose03 @rinshoe @laurenzitaa @patricia142lilian @sabo-has-my-heart @wooasecret @dahliawarner @kysrion @dreamerdeity @mwah-chia @geromiegerald @arminsarlerts @maliakealoha @cherrypieyourface @k4romis @monsieurgucchi @bofadeezs @777userz @polarbvnny @chonkercatto @tenshis-cake @haitanibros0007 @ba-ks @liaurokodaki @urfavvirg0 @lofasofabread @r0ckst4rjk @vee-ai @aiikuraa @melileli0001 @rinshoe @vinivave @yell0wdreams @sukunasleftkneecap @malikazz243 @sad-darksoul @giannitaa @maliciousmace @name-insert @splxtscreen @kimvmarvel @ieathairs @janbannan @ja-zz @vangoes @starringz @ciscob1tes @theoriginaluzisimp @thirtykiwis @vivienne2000 @whydohumansss @purpleguk @simeon-lovergirl @missesgojosatoru @loveroftheoldestdream @mkaiiserr kazbrkker ancientimes thefirst-ofus animechick555 saccharinelixir seunnimg kookonsale

super sorry if ive missed anyone!

[miss-musings]

"The Bad Batch" Timeline: Explained

I've had some interesting conversations with folks on Twitter over the last few weeks about the timeline of "The Bad Batch" show: How much time passes between any given episodes? How old is Omega during S1 or S3? etc.

The short answer is that the entire show takes place over 18-24 months*

(*NOTE: All timeline discussion excludes the TBB epilogue at the end of episode 3.15 "The Cavalry Has Arrived.")

EDIT: I’m also calculating time based on Earth weeks/months/years. I recognize that time in the Star Wars universe likely varies from planet to planet, so I just want to clarify we’re going off IRL time calculations: 7 days to a week, ~30 days to a month, 12 months to a year. I’m also not referring to any external sources (except Wookieepedia, but that’s more to confirm the timeline than create it), so I don’t care what some guidebook says. I’m going based on what happens in the show itself.

Wookieepedia lists Hemlock's death as 18 BBY, so 12-24 months pass between 1.01 "Aftermath" in 19 BBY and Hemlock's death in the series finale.

However, the two biggest and clearest indications of how much time passes during the show is Mayday's comments in 2.12 "The Outpost" and Omega's tally marks in 3.01 "Confined."

In 2.12, Mayday says he's been posted on Barton IV for over a year, and based on his comments, he wasn't posted on Barton IV until after The Clone Wars ended. So, it's been at least a year -- but probably more like 14-15 months because Mayday says "over a year" -- since the events of 1.01 "Aftermath."

Then after the time-jump during 3.01, Omega has about 5.5 months of tally marks. Rounding up from when Crosshair was arrested and taken to Tantiss, about 6 months have passed since 2.12.

So, between those two indicators, at least 18 months have passed between 1.01 "Aftermath" and the end of 3.01 "Confined." But, realistically, it's probably been more like 20-21 months.

Then, the rest of S3 takes place over a pretty compressed timeframe, as no more than a few days seem to pass between episodes. I'll get into this more later, but I'm guessing that the end of 3.01 "Confined" to the big showdown on Tantiss in 3.15 "The Cavalry Has Arrived" takes place over the course of 1-2 months.

Again, it's confirmed that 18-24 months pass between the series premiere and the series finale.

But, my best guess is that the entire show takes place over 22-23 months based on in-universe clues.

THE SEASON 1 TIMELINE BREAKDOWN

Overall, I'm guessing that Season 1 takes place over the course of 4-6 months. I think this is much shorter than some people think, but it makes sense to me based on context clues.

1.01 "Aftermath" takes place over the course of a few days, and then 1.02 "Cut & Run" to 1.06 "Decommissioned" all seem to take place in a very compressed timeframe. No more than a day or two seems to pass between episodes, and no more than a day or two passes within each episode.

So, I'm thinking the end of 1.06 takes place about a month after 1.01.

Then we get our first notable time-jump between 1.06 and 1.07.

1.07 "Battle Scars" opens with the Bad Batch having done at least 10 more jobs for Cid since we last saw them in 1.06. (FYI: this is based on Omega and Wrecker's order of 20 cartons of Mantell Mix).

However Cid talks about the Corellia job like it wasn't too long ago, and if we average 2-3 days per job (which seems realistic based on what we see in the show), then about a month has passed between 1.06 and 1.07.

So, at the beginning of 1.07, I'm saying about two months have passed since 1.01 "Aftermath."

Then 1.08 "Reunion" and 1.09 "Bounty Lost" take place immediately after 1.07.

Skipping over 1.10, we get another notable time-jump between 1.09 "Bounty Lost" and 1.11 "Devil's Deal." The biggest indicator is Crosshair's recovery from his injuries on Bracca.

Assuming at least a month for him to recover and be stationed on Ryloth with Rampart & co., that means at least three months have passed between 1.01 "Aftermath" and 1.11 "Devil's Deal."

Even though we don't have any firm timeline, I don't think more than 2 months passed between 1.09 and 1.11, because everyone on Ryloth talks like it hasn't been that long since the Clone Wars ended.

Anyway, then 1.12 "Rescue on Ryloth" takes place immediately after 1.11.

Now, we know that 1.14-1.16 all take place over the course of a few days. So that just leaves us with how much time passes between 1.12 "Rescue on Ryloth" and 1.14 "War-Mantle."

Given that Rampart gave Crosshair permission to hunt down his brothers at the end of 1.12, I'm going to assume he wasn't looking for them that long. Rampart never complains that Crosshair's manhunt is wasting time, or that it's taking so long that they should abandon the effort. Plus, they were also busy decommissioning Tipoca City and the other Kaminoan facilities, so I imagine that took some time.

So, maybe 3-5 weeks (or another month) in all.

To recap, we have:

A month from 1.01 to 1.06

A month between 1.06 and 1.07

A month between 1.07-1.09 and 1.11/1.12

A month between 1.11/1.12 and 1.14-1.16

Overall, 4 months for sure, but 5-6 months seems a good estimate.

This would also account for how much time passes during the Bracca and Ryloth arcs, and gives more wiggle room on how long Crosshair's recovery process was. Maybe it took him two months to recover from Bracca and be assigned to Ryloth. Or maybe Crosshair was searching for his brothers for more than a month after Ryloth. Who knows?

EDIT/ADDITION: 4-6 months also seems to be a reasonable amount of time for the Empire to establish the Daro base with commandos like Gregor and Scorch, and then recruit, supply and train all the TK troopers we see in 1.14 "War-Mantle."

But, overall, I'm estimating the events of 1.16 "Kamino Lost" take place 5-6 months after 1.01 "Aftermath."

THE SEASON 2 TIMELINE BREAKDOWN

I'll tell you now: early Season 2 is where a lot of my guesses go out the window, because we get far fewer clues as to how much time passes between episodes.

Let's start with the time-jump between the end of Season 1 and the beginning of Season 2.

Based on Rampart and Crosshair's conversation in 2.03 "The Solitary Clone," Crosshair was stranded on Kamino for a month.

Given that he didn't have any food or water on him when his brothers left him on the platform, he must've been emaciated and dehydrated AF, even if he found some way to collect rainwater and/or catch fish. And Rampart said he needed to be "medically cleared" for active duty.

At least two months seems a good estimate. One month for Crosshair to be stranded; another month for him to recover. It's possible it was longer, though, I admit.

So, at the beginning of 2.03 "The Solitary Clone," we're at least 7 months removed from 1.01 "Aftermath."

Now, I actually think 2.03 takes place before 2.01/2.02. Story for another time, but it boils down to:

1) The creators would want to kick off Season 2 with a Bad Batch-centric episode not a Crosshair-centric episode, even if Crosshair’s episode takes place first chronologically; and

2) Rampart learns the Bad Batch is alive in 2.02, but never has Crosshair arrested or monitored as a potential spy or anything -- this only makes sense if Rampart finds out TBB is alive after Crosshair is cleared for duty and has proven his loyalty.

But, ultimately it doesn't matter:

Based on Mayday's comments in 2.12 "The Outpost," early Season 2 has to cover at least 7 more months. That means that months are passing between episodes in early S2.

In 2.12, Mayday says he's been stationed at the Outpost for over a year, and that he wasn't stationed there until after the war ended. So, assuming at least a month after the war for him to be reassigned, and then 13 months for him to be on Barton IV ... 2.12 has to take place at least 14 months after 1.01 "Aftermath."

So, ultimately, I think 2.01/2.02 might take place 3-4 months after the Fall of Kamino in 1.16 "Kamino Lost." It would allow enough time for the Bad Batch to get new clothes, repaint their old armor, and for Omega to start all of her studies while the Bad Batch continues to do jobs for Cid.

Then we probably have another month between 2.02 "Ruins of War" and 2.04 "Faster." Then another month to 2.05 "Entombed." And then another month to 2.06 "Tribe." And then another month to the beginning of 2.07 “The Clone Conspiracy.”

Because of how compressed the back-half of Season 2 is, I think 2.07/2.08 takes place about 13 months after the war ends in 1.01 "Aftermath" and, thus, about 7-8 months after the Fall of Kamino in 1.16 "Kamino Lost."

Now, once we get to 2.07, that's when the timeline starts compressing again based on in-universe clues.

We know 2.08 "Truth and Consequences" takes place almost immediately after 2.07. So, no more than a week seems to pass between the beginning of 2.07 and the end of 2.08.

Then, 2.09 "The Crossing" takes place a few days after 2.08, as Omega is still adjusting to Echo's absence. Then 2.10 "Retrieval" is immediately after 2.09, and 2.11 "Metamorphosis" takes place maybe a day after 2.10.

So, from the beginning of 2.07 to the end of 2.11, maybe two weeks have passed in-universe.

Then, at the beginning of 2.13 "Pabu," Cid remarks that it's been 20 rotations since she last talked to the Bad Batch in 2.11.

From 2.13 to 2.14, I'm guessing 1-2 weeks have passed based on how much of Pabu has been rebuilt since the sea surge and other context clues (like Shep and Hunter's conversation about the Bad Batch staying on Pabu).

Now, we're not exactly sure where 2.12 "The Outpost" falls in the S2 timeline. I'm guessing it's simultaneous with 2.13 "Pabu" for thematic and dramatic reasons, but we see all our various plot threads align in 2.14 "Tipping Point." Everything Echo, Crosshair and Hunter & co. do happens within 2-3 days.

Then, based on Echo's comments, we know 2.15 "The Summit" takes place two days after the Bad Batch's conversation at the end of 2.14 "Tipping Point." And then 2.16 "Plan 99" takes place immediately after 2.15.

So, while I can't speculate much on early S2, I can tell you that 2.07-2.16 spans about two months.

To recap:

2 months between 1.16 "Kamino Lost" and 2.03 "The Solitary Clone"

Several months between 2.01/2.02 and 2.07

A week during 2.07 and 2.08

A few days between 2.08 and 2.09

Another week during 2.09 to 2.11

Three weeks between 2.11 and 2.13

Two weeks between 2.13 and 2.14

A week during 2.14 to 2.16

But, overall, I'm estimating the events of 2.16 "Plan 99" take place 15-16 months after 1.01 "Aftermath."

THE SEASON 3 TIMELINE BREAKDOWN

Unlike the previous two seasons, Season 3 is very compressed. Outside of the time-jump within 3.01 "Confined," the entire season takes place over the course of 5-6 weeks. Not months. Weeks.

Now, again, I actually think 3.02 "Paths Unknown" takes place during the five-month time-jump within 3.01. But that doesn't really matter.

As we see from Omega's tally marks, the end of 3.01 takes place about 5.5 months after 2.16 "Plan 99." So, we have our between-seasons time-jump spelled out for us this time.

This means the end of 3.01 "Confined" takes place 21-22 months after 1.01 "Aftermath."

Skipping over 3.02, episode 3.03 "Shadows of Tantiss" seems to take place within a few days of the end of 3.01. We see that Omega is still being monitored closely after her outburst in the lurca kennels; and Hemlock told Nala Se in 3.01 that the Emperor would be arriving soon to check on their progress, which he does in 3.03. Heck, maybe 3.03 takes place the day after 3.01, but I’ll give a little wiggle room and say it’s been a few days.

Then, we know that the beginning of 3.03 to the end of 3.05 all takes place in a very short amount of time. Maybe a week.

3.04 "A Different Approach" takes place immediately after 3.03, and no more than a day or two passes between the end of 3.04 and the beginning of 3.05 "The Return."

So, from the end of 3.01 to the end of 3.05, two weeks have passed at most.

The gap between 3.05 and 3.06 is the only span of time in S3 we don't have any solid indicators about. It clearly wasn't too long, as Howzer talks about Crosshair escaping Tantiss like it happened fairly recently. Overall, I'd guess it's been maybe a week or two since Crosshair and Omega escaped Tantiss.

Then, 3.07 takes place immediately after 3.06.

Excluding 3.10 "Identity Crisis," we know that 3.08-3.11 all take place within a short amount of time. No more than 2-3 days seem to pass between episodes, and no more than 2-3 days passes within each episode. In total, I'd say these three episodes take place over the course of two weeks.

Thus, I'm guessing 4-5 weeks, or about a month, passes from the end of 3.01 "Confined" to the beginning of 3.11 "Point of No Return."

Then, we know the timeline between 3.11 and 3.15 is very short because all the episodes take place almost immediately after each other. The only exception is between 3.12 and 3.13, when maybe 12-24 hours passes based on Omega's movements in the Vault and her brothers' plans to infiltrate the orbital station.

You can round up and say a week, but that almost seems generous to me. Maybe a work week. Like the Empire invaded Pabu Monday night and Omega & co. were back on Pabu Friday morning.

Overall, I think the beginning of 3.11 "Point of No Return" to the end of 3.15 "The Cavalry Has Arrived" spans 3-5 days.

To recap:

5.5 months from the end of 2.16 "Plan 99" to the end of 3.01 "Confined"

A week from the end of 3.01 to the end of 3.05

A week between 3.05 and 3.06/3.07

Three weeks during 3.06/3.07 to 3.11

A week during 3.11 to 3.15

Again, outside of the time-jump within 3.01, the entirety of Season 3 takes place over 1-2 months if we're looking at the larger post-"Aftermath" timeframe.

Overall, I'm estimating the showdown on Tantiss and Hemlock's death in 3.15 "The Cavalry Has Arrived" takes place about 22-23 months after 1.01 "Aftermath."

We know it's not more than 24 months after the war ends, because Wookieepedia would list Hemlock's death in 17 BBY instead of 18 BBY. So no more than 24 calendar months can pass between "The Bad Batch" series premiere and series finale.

But, accounting for things that happen within the show, 22-23 months seems about right. Like, it's been almost two calendar years, but not quite.

So, to give a real-world example, if Palpatine gave his "Revenge of the Sith" speech to reorganize the Republic into the Galactic Empire on Jan. 1, 2022, then the big showdown on Tantiss takes place in October or November 2023.

That means:

If Omega was 12 years old when her brothers met her on Kamino, she was 13-14 during the showdown on Tantiss.

After his inhibitor chip activated, Crosshair was separated from his brothers for more than 18 months before finally reconciling with them in 3.05 "The Return."

The Bad Batch worked for Cid for over a year, and she still betrayed them.

Phee and Tech's ~situationship~ might've lasted half-a-year between their first meeting in 2.01 "Spoils of War" and his death in 2.16 "Plan 99."

Howzer and his men from Ryloth were in prison for almost a year before Echo & co. broke them out in 2.14 "Tipping Point."

When Crosshair sent the Plan 88 message, the Bad Batch hadn't seen or heard from him in ~10 months (since the Fall of Kamino).

Omega only got to spend 15-16 months with Tech before his death in 2.16 “Plan 99.” 😭

Crosshair hadn't seen his brothers for over a year between the Fall of Kamino and escaping Tantiss with Omega.

Omega and Crosshair only spent about 7 months together during the show (5.5 on Tantiss and 1.5 after their escape), and most of that was off-screen. 🙁

Apparently, more time passed between S1 and S2 than during S3 (excluding the time jump and epilogue). Seriously. From the end of 3.01 to the final showdown on Tantiss, the Bad Batch had a very insane and stressful 5-6 weeks. They all looked like they could use a nap in that final group shot under the tree, and I don't blame them!

All the clones (except Omega) aged 3-4 biological years over the course of the show. So, if Hunter & co. were biologically 22 when they met Omega on Kamino, they'd be around 25-26 when they finally settle down on Pabu.

Not sure how this will help people, but I wanted to share it because I've been thinking about how insane this show's timeline — how loosey-goosey it is in some places while being super-rigid in others.

So, enjoy!

[luna-loveboop]

HI

Time poll! I've separated Time into three parts, posted ereyesterday, yesterday, and today- what his physical age is, what his mental age is, and how big the gap between is. It's about time we saw each others thoughts on this hehehe >:)

Choose what is closest to what you think (in canon)

Quick refresh, there's a longer explanation below-the Hero of Time's mental age is more than his physical age by the time it took for him to complete his journeys. Due to time travel, he ended both Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask in the same body as when he started.

The gap between his ages is the amount of time he's spent time travelling- at least both his adventures.

Edit: And vote based on the numbers, not the words in the options!

I have tried. So hard to figure out good numbers for this. ....I hope I did ok TT

Evidence so far in Lu on Time's age:

-he is the oldest

-his mental age is different than his physical age-his mental age is MORE THAN his physical age. The difference is determined by how long his adventures were. This is because he time traveled- adding years to his memory and life lived, but ended up in his original child body by the end.

-He had to 'grow up again' with years of life from his journeys not shown in his physical age, hence the difference.

-Jojo put him as 'an older adult age' because in his games he was a child, teen, then child again, then more child while not changing from child, then we next saw him as the hero's shade, which is a skeleton ghost thingy, aka really old.

-the boys take bets on his age and apparently think he's 60 (making 60 an essential option in the polls)

-idk if you caught in there- from 'Malon 2', Epona was specified to be an older adult horse in Lu, having lived with Time from a fairly young horsie in Majora's Mask. So for numbers, this factors into his age because the time since his journey is comparable to Epona's. For reference horses live to 30 years on average.

Aaand I will be copy and pasting the explanation on his poll posts, sorry, I don't want to write this out every time.

-this does not account for his 7 year sleep at the beginning of Ocarina of Time. His sleep did not have an effect on his current bodies physical age, nor his mental age. For his total time with years he has lived (outside of this poll), that would add seven years.

All the art and words are from Jojo @linkeduniverse au :D

Time 1

<Time 2

Warriors>

masterpollst⛓️

.

...Here's a drawing- this one's my favourite

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[flyingwargle]

december fanfic recs!

the last collection of recs for 2024 are here! take a look at last year's monthly recs if you need more: november, october, september, august, july

some of these fics are rated e!

sakuatsu

All of My Pretty t. 6.1k. sakusa has a hidden affinity for make-up and feminine clothing but atsumu reacts negatively when he sees it dressed up. there's a happy ending however!! atsumu is a wholesome partner!!

MSBY Plays UNO m. 7.2k. exactly what the title is. sakuatsu don't break up because of uno, you don't have to worry about that.

The West of Your Spine t. 8.7k. sakusa discovers this atsumu has feelings for him when sakusa does not. augh. sakusa, you big idiot. lovely prose and imagery, as always from mcbeefy.

Roll On, Seventh Wheel t. 8.8k. atsumu realizes that everyone on msby has a crush on sakusa and he does what he does best: tell sakusa that he's better off with everyone else. so cute and endearing. <3

instabae m. 11.4k. komori needles sakusa into posting more on his insta and atsumu makes it his personal mission to take him around the city so to help him take photos. he catches feelings along the way. very cute and fluffy!

Such a Constellation Was He to Me e. 11.8k. sakusa has a bunch of tattoos and offers atsumu a closer look. THIS FIC!! brought me to my knees. it was so soft and tender, and the depiction of sakusa's tattoos was just...augh. my fic of the month.

know you better m. 14.3k. 6/6. atsumu and sakusa are ordered to get to know each other better after their disagreements interfere with their performance on the court. loved the gradual progression of enemies to friends to lovers and the balance of family and mental health issues shared between them.

YOUR BEST AMERICAN BOY t. 23.3k. an asian-american au featuring sakuatsu. as an asian-canadian, i was able to relate to this at a spiritual level. this was inspired by afflications for below-average asian-americans that's in atsumu's pov, which i also read a while back. it's a really niche but nuanced au, and i'm so happy that they exist.

more cock, fewer roaches. please. m. 30.8k. 2/2. sakusa learns that his neighbor down the street has bedbugs so he's getting his house fumigated and needs a place to stay. atsumu offers his guest bedroom and sakusa takes it, thus undergoing to mortifying realization that he likes atsumu. loved this!

standby m. 30.6k. 5/5. sakusa has a complicated relationship with food because of his neglectful parents. atsumu, the owner of onigiri miya, hopes to change that. a lovely slowburn with gut-wrenching descriptions.

sunaosa

on soundcloud, spotify, and first meetings with suna rintarou t. 3.1k. osamu sits behind suna in lecture and watches him make a new playlist on spotify every class, including the suggestive ones. very cute, i very much enjoyed it.

check the grin (you’re in love) t. 5.5k. suna hiccups when he lies, which is terrible since he can't lie that he likes osamu. very fluffy, lovely prose, and very cute <3

Capturing your portrait (and getting drawn into it) g. 22.9k. 6/6. the team is fed up with suna having embarrassing photos of everyone and seek revenge, tasking osamu to take an embarrassing photo of suna, except he falls in love during the process. very fluffy with amazing character dynamics.

iwaoi

i said, excuse me you’re a hell of a guy g. 5.4k. iwa always knew he had a crush on oikawa, but he knew he had a crush on oikawa when he heard him singing (read: rapping) in the shower. so cute and lovely!

bookmarks t. 6.4k. iwa works part-time at his university library and exchanges notes with a student that puts holds on books every week, T. O. very cute and endearing.

the sunlit alley g. 6.6k. iwa is an ao3 writer who deleted one of his works and sees oikawa's deranged tweets mourning its loss. i need this to happen to me in real life. when will i meet a devoted ao3 reader irl (the answer is never because i live in canada and no one lives in canada). very funny, one of my favorites this month!

ten years & a thousand mornings m. 15k. a beautiful ode to iwaoi's relationship through the mornings they have together in argentina and the mornings before then.

kagehina

Change of Plan(e)s g. 4.2k. queerplatonic kagehina for the soul! kageyama gets sick while traveling back home and hinata takes care of him. very comforting and fluffy.

conflict of interest t. 6.6k. kageyama and hinata's relationship is interpreted as bitter rivals when in fact, they're married. oh, my boys, they love each other so much, and the way they revealed their marriage was the best.

if it wasn't for you g. 13.1k. hinata texts kageyama to ask if he changed his life. kageyama responds with "hah?" an exploration of their relationship and eventual getting together. very cute!

other

the convergence of the aces g. bokuto and iwa friendship with side bokuaka and iwaoi. 4.1k. bokuto notices that iwa looks a lil lonely and befriends him. i love their friendship and how they were able to be with each other through their major milestones. a beautiful portrayal of male friendship <3

given t. 6.1k. tokyo cousins. komori's room tour goes viral after he reveals all the cursed gifts that sakusa got him, and msby4 finds the cursed gifts that komori gave him in return. familial love!! these two are so precious and the fic is hilarious. one of my favorites <3

the sky in my arms, the storm in my heart g. 7.5k. hinata-centric. a love letter to hinata and his time in brazil. on my hands and knees, i love this author so much, everything they write is gold and this made me tear up (i read this at work. do not recommend, read it at home so you can scream your heart out)

my love language is you t. 8k. bokuaka. no section for bokuaka this month, i'm sorry (i need to find more bkak fics). bokuto shows his affection for akaashi using the love languages. utterly adorable and fluffy.

Five Times Ushijima Wakatoshi Absolutely Lost His Shit g. 8.2k. ushiten. title. ushijima still keeps his stoic personality until he doesn't, and tendou is there to keep him together. very funny and sweet.

First Aid Kit m. 70.8k. 15/15. beautiful character study of tsukishima along with his blooming relationship with yamaguchi. beautiful prose and slow burn.

Blood In My Veins m. 77.9k. 21/21. kuroken. obligatory heart-wrenching kuroken fic of the month, this time with kuroo escaping his abusive ex to live in the city and befriend kenma, who has severe social anxiety. painful yet soft with a happy ending.

[thecouchsofa]

My 2024 year in fic

First up: some stats!

Fics posted: 22, for 3 different fandoms (HP, Captive Prince, Dark Rise)

Total written: 415,488 words

My favourite fic I wrote in 2024: Us, Infinite (unfortunately)

My most kudos'd fic of 2024: Future Histories

My most productive writing month was January, with 63k written, while my most productive writing day was December 1st, with 9k written on that Sunday alone! I participated in 10 fests, wrote 10 unique pairings, and ended up with a total of 289k words posted in 2024.

My goals for next year are to finally finish Something in the Orange (an angsty Drarry fic that I started writing nearly a year ago), post at least one fic a month (I have a backlog of like 7 already), and write 500k by the end of the year. Here's to a creative 2025! ⭐

Fics listed below the cut alphabetically, by pairing/fandom.

✨ Drarry ✨

💛 A Wizard’s Guide to Co-Parenting with Your Ex-Arch Nemesis | T | 38k | Tags: Eighth Year, Temporary Children, Humour, Fluff, KidFic

Harry had expected a few things when returning for his Eighth Year. Rooming with Ron, a cheeky Firewhisky down at the pub, leaving his assignments to the last minute – those were all but certain to occur. His list of certainties definitely hadn’t included McGonagall’s shake-up of the curriculum, which tasked the Eighth Years with the responsibility of parenthood for three weeks. Caring for a baby Transfigured from a sack of flour would have been alright if: 1) Malfoy wasn’t Harry’s assigned partner, 2) Their baby’s one goal in life wasn’t to spite Harry, and 3) Malfoy wasn’t infuriatingly good at fake parenthood.

❤️ As Per Request | E | 17k | Tags: Virgin Harry, Loss of Virginity, Praise Kink, a PWP in a trench coat

Harry decides that it’s high time to lose his virginity, and figures that asking Malfoy is his best option. He’s fit, he won’t go to the papers, and he’ll be fine with Harry’s ‘no emotional attachment’ plan. Surely nothing could go wrong there.

🩶 Bare Moon Rising | E | 15k | Tags: Bets & Wagers, Charity Calendars, Wizarding Nudes, Humour, Quidditch, !Greg Goyle!

Potter moved towards him, sticking his hand out. “If that’s the case, we’re both doing it. You do the nude Tornados calendar, and I’ll do the Auror one. Most sales wins.” Oh no. “Are you backing out already?” Potter leaned in closer, voice dropping to a whisper. “Finally admitting that mine’s bigger than yours, then? Or do you want to cop a feel first?” Charities could bugger off. Nothing good ever came of them, really.

🩷 Catch the Snitch | T | 2k | Tags: New Years Eve, Pining, Harry in a Snitch costume

Ron grabbed Draco’s shoulder and pulled him out of the room. “We’re going to play something. A game.” His eyes were rather maniacal. Draco wanted to ask if he’d gotten into the Mallowsweet, but he could not, for he was very committed to the mime costume and his resulting vow of silence. “You’re going to go into the garden and catch a Snitch.”

💜 Effervescence | E | 4k | Tags: PWP, Established Relationship, Daddy Kink, Praise Kink, Soft Dom Draco, Veritaserum

Harry has trouble asking for what he wants in bed. Draco uses Veritaserum to help him along.

🩵 Future Histories | T | 6k | Tags: Temporary Amnesia, Established Relationship, Draco's canon-adjacent obsessive crush, Fluff

After an accident at work, Draco finds that two decades of his memories have been temporarily wiped. His Healers are reluctant to tell him the identity of his mystery husband, thinking he’ll react badly. Oh, how wrong they are.

🖤 Knot Your Average Coworkers | E | 22k | Tags: Werewolf Draco, Oblivious Harry, Knotting, Humour, Ron-themed crafts

It takes Harry a while to work out that every month, almost like clockwork, Draco is given an assignment in the field that takes him out of their shared office for days on end. After each assignment, Draco returns looking so bloody exhausted that Harry gears up to file a complaint with their boss. When questioned about it, Draco’s explanations range from mildly suspect to intensely suspicious. Harry takes it upon himself to find out what’s going on. Or: Harry makes a bunch of unintentional knotting jokes while an increasingly baffled Draco is driven insane.

💚 Like London to a Brick | T | 4k | Tags: Eighth Year, Clothes Sharing, Quidditch, Getting Together

“Malfoy? Blond wanker of epic proportions. Goes around with a sour look on his face all the time. Comes up to about yay high.” Ron held his hand a few inches above the top of Harry’s head. “Ring any bells?” Harry bent down to tighten the strap on his kneepad. “Still no idea what you’re on about.” “You…” An odd spluttering noise left Ron’s lips. “You’re taking the piss.” “Harry,” Ginny shouted from the changeroom door. “Why the fuck is Malfoy wearing your Quidditch jersey?” Ron made a face that very plainly said ‘there it is’.

🧡 My Good Name | M | 13k | Tags: Homophobia, Coming Out, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Complicated Family Relationships

Standing there, in the foyer of Draco’s parents’ house, was the most visible display of love that Draco had ever been shown. Harry loved him. He loved him. And Draco was about to throw him to the wolves.

🤍 Sons of Aphrodite | E | 11k | Tags: Small Cock Size Kink, Party Games, Meddling Friends, Praise Kink, Friends to Lovers

“So … yeah.” Harry ducked his head as he pulled Draco’s hand towards him. “It’s not that I didn’t enjoy doing that to you, it’s that my cock is like … that.” Draco reached out to touch, running a finger down Harry’s hard length. “You have a small cock, Harry, not a tentacle or something equally terrifying. It’s incredibly fucking hot, actually.” Featuring twenty push-ups that nearly broke Draco’s brain, meddling friends with the best of intentions, Draco admitting his crush on Harry under party-game-themed duress, a pet cat named Willow, and a small problem that isn’t actually a problem at all.

🤎 Stretched Out | E | 5k | Tags: Friends With Benefits, Fisting, Rimming, Edging, Soft Dom Draco, Fluff

Harry looked at him for a moment, thumb tracing the line of Draco’s cheekbone. “I’ve never trusted anyone like I’ve trusted you. Isn’t that mental?”

💙 Us, Infinite (unfortunately) | E | 77k | Tags: Time Loop, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Breaking the Law, Magaluf, Cooking as a form of intimacy, 'last day in the time loop' vibes

It’s very fitting for how Harry’s life has gone thus far that he gets trapped in a time loop without rhyme, reason, or warning. To make matters infinitely worse, the one other person stuck on the same hellish chronological ride is Draco Malfoy, git extraordinaire.

✨ Other HP ✨

🤍 August Storms over Devon | Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley | T | 1k | Tags: Summer of 1998, the Burrow, Emotional Intimacy

“What if…” She clenched her hands into fists, pressing them against her thighs to stop them from shaking. “What if I can’t? What if they never…” Ron’s voice was even-keeled, steady as an oak in a storm. “Do you want to try?”

🩵 Cornerstone | Scorpius Malfoy/James Sirius Potter | E | 6k | Tags: Consenual Infidelity, Loss of Virginity, Humour, No Angst, Topping From the Bottom

James is a virgin, so Albus lets him borrow his boyfriend.

💚 Jasmine and Cherry | Pansy Parkinson/Ginny Weasley | E | 8k | Tags: Clubbing, Friends to Lovers, Face-Sitting

Pansy’s lips brushed Ginny’s ear as she tilted her head back. “That gloss is flavoured, you know. Cherry.”

🖤 New Gods | Sirius Black/Harry Potter | E | 4k | Tags: POV Sirius, Sirius Lives, Age Difference, Ambiguous Sirius/James Potter

It rocks Sirius to his core every time he thinks about it, because they aren’t the same – Harry and James. Sure, Harry pushes his glasses up with the knuckle of his pointer finger. James used to do the same thing when he had dirt or sugar or random potion essence on his hands. Other people do that too. Sirius has never seen it, but they do.

🧡 One Night in Bristol | Regulus Black/James Potter | E | 10k | Tags: Everybody Lives, Post-Hogwarts, Complicated Sibling Relationships, a horse statue that is canon to my IRL life

Regulus eyes the statue, forces himself to pull his gaze away from James as he pats down the back of his blue jeans. “How’d you even get up there? It’s, what, a full storey?” “If you include the base bit, yeah.” James slaps a hand on the brick stack under the horse’s bronze feet. “And I couldn’t tell you how I get up to half the shit I do.” He wiggles his eyebrows, looking far more lecherous than he has any right to. “Trade secrets, Reggie.” Regulus raises an eyebrow, leaning his weight against the base of the statue. “And your trade is…?” James shrugs and offers him a smile, slow and bright. “Fucking about, mostly.” Or, Regulus happens upon James on a chilly night in Bristol.

❤️ Some Nights | Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter/Ron Weasley | E | 23k | Tags: Eighth Year, Dorm Sharing, Friends with Benefits, Voyeurism, Exhibitionism, Threesome, Switching, Harry + Ron = 1 braincell

Ron fucks up his Silencing Charms in the dorm one night. Then Malfoy does. The rest, as they say, is history.

✨ Captive Prince ✨

💛 Golden Starbursts | Damen/Laurent, Damen/Auguste | E | 5k | Tags: Canon Divergence, Auguste Lives, Arranged Marriage, Marriage Consummation, Damen's Canonical Blond Kink

Damen has only ever fucked two men in his life. Both have worn the golden starburst emblem.

💙 Lay Me Down | Damen/Laurent | E | 5k | Tags: PWP, Canon Divergence, Tent Sex, Comeplay

Two princes walk into a Vaskian camp. Aka, what if the tent scene in Prince’s Gambit had gone differently.

✨ Dark Rise ✨

💜 Give/Take | Will Kempen/James St. Clair | E | 2k | Tags: PWP, Dom/Sub Undertones, Topping From the Bottom, Old Language Kink

James takes control. Until his concentration breaks.

🖤 Scheggino | Will Kempen/James St. Clair | E | 3k | Tags: Missing Scene, Spoiler for book 2: Dark Heir, PWP, Loss of Virginity, Dom/Sub Undertones,

As Anharion was Sarcean’s, James was Will’s. Regardless of their past selves, the reverse was also true here; Will was James’ before he was even his own. “I’ve always been yours,” Will whispered. “Thousands of years ago, longer, since the grains of sand on the beach were still stars, I have been yours.” Or, Will gives James what he asks for. An alternate ending to Chapter 44 of Dark Heir.

[yandere-yearnings]

Okay, so for those of you who don't know, @suiana made a game which you can download from the link in this post. I've just finished playing the entire thing, and honestly, if I could replay it again like it was the first time, I would. It's short, but so, so sweet.

Without encroaching into spoiler territory, Anything Will Do is just the perfect mix of heartwarming and melancholy, and the story-telling was absolutely phenomenal. There were many points where I couldn't help but smile, some points where I ended up laughing, others where I started to feel my eyes water. I think it's definitely a tremendous feat to be able to invoke so many emotions when the average playtime isn't that long. I couldn't recommend it more, and I will most definitely be revisiting the game whenever I have a spare moment and want to relax.

There are so many things to love about the project, I could give them each a paragraph and more, but ultimately playing for yourself would serve you better than reading what I have to say. From a purely aesthetic viewpoint, we have the cute artstyle and pretty character designs. From a writing perspective, there's the overarching themes, foreshadowing and vibrant comedic value. Everything down to the game design, where even the timing of the sound coming in feels impactful, was executed so beautifully.

I know Sui worked hard on all of this, and my biggest thank you goes to her, for her efforts, and also the fact that she shared it with us even though she didn't have to. This was such a great start to the month and I know my October is going to be that much more happier now in light of it.

Also, this goes without saying but Ai is adorable <3

[brighteyedbadwolf]

Hi! I saw a post re: animal/human trials of drugs, and you chipped in with this lovely bit: "My schedule is fucking amazingly calibrated. I've never had burnout ONCE because my breaks and days off are timed almost exactly when the average person hits a fatigue point." I would like to know as much as you can say re: this mythical schedule. I am in the process of recalibrating my entire lifestyle to prevent burnout, and if you have ANY information on good links/studies/whatever regulations you have to follow I would love to see it.

I have no idea how they've done it. The policies have been in place for longer than the current schedulers have been around (decades) so the answer is "mumbling about statistics and feedback"

Personal experience:

Schedule is roughly "Short, Mid, Mid, Long"

3 days on/4 off, 5/2, 5/2, 6/1 (with paid OT!!)

Days off are ALWAYS consecutive, but not necessarily the "weekend"

Scheduling is done in teams so no day is understaffed (theoretically), and the staggered teams + schedule rotations means no team always gets Sat/Sun for their "off" shifts or 4day, and you don't need to split off days up to cover

Results:

- The consecutive off days really makes the difference. You functionally get 1 day off to recover (sleep in, decompress, whatever) and 1 day to do the actual non-work stuff you need to do

- 4day "weekend" each month. You have to pay for it by working an "extra day" on the previous week, but it's much easier to push through that week knowing you have a 4day the following week.

- Staggering things so that the TIME off is consistent but the DAY off is different has more impact than you'd think. No more "I Hate Mondays". Monday is just a day. No existential dread re: a specific, repeated day, every week. Yeah sure you have the "Ughhhh this week is going to suck, I only have one off day" but again, 4 day the following week.

- Consistent start/end time to the day. I go in at X, I leave at Y. Again, teams. Morning, Mid, or Night Shift, period. No fucking with your sleep schedule because you close Monday and open Wednesday.

Hope this helps?

[bethanythebogwitch]

Wet Beast Wednesday: California Sheephead Wrasse

A lot of people through history and the modern day have an overly simplistic view about sex, both in the sense of biological sex (that is, what gametes something produces) and sex as in the act of mating. A lot of people think that sex is just a strict binary between males and females, but nature is far more diverse and varied than that (even in humans. Intersex people do exist after all). Today I'm showcasing one of the animals that completely goes against the alleged sex binary: the California Sheephead Wrasse. And yes, this is a pride post.

(Image: a male California Sheephead Wrasse in a tank in the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It is a large fish with a bulbous head. The head and tail are black, midsection is pink, and the belly and chin are white. End ID)

The California Sheephead (Semicossyphus pulcher) is a large fish in the Wrasse family of Labridae. They are sexually dimorphic, with the males and females appearing distinct from each other in size, shape, and color. Males are larger than females, reaching up to 91 cm (3 ft) and 16 kg (35 lbs), though there is quite a bit of size variation based on food availability. They have flatter faces than females thanks to a bulbous bump on the forehead. This lump is the namesake of the fish, since it allegedly make it look like it has a sheep's head. I personally don't see it at all. Males have black heads and tails with a white chin and underbelly and pink midsection Females are smaller and colored silvery to a dull pink all over except for their white chins and underbellies. There isn't really a maximum size or weight for females for reasons I'll get into later. The fish have large canine teeth that protrude from the mouth and modified throat bones that form a grinding apparatus called the throat plate.

(Image: a female California Sheephead. It has a less bulbous head than the male and is a pale pink all over, except for the white belly and chin. End ID)

Sheepheads, like many wrasses, are sequential hermaphrodites. A sequential hermaphrodite can transition between sexes during its life (as opposed to a simultaneous hermaphrodite, who can produce both sperm and eggs at the same time). Every California Sheephead is born female and some will become male later in life, making them protogynous. Protogyny is the most common form of hermaphroditism in fish, with over 75% of known sequentially hermaphroditic fish species being protogynous. This transition is a one-way process, males will not turn back into females. The transition is triggered by a number of factors, primarily size and the local availability of males. If there are not enough males in the area, the largest female will transition to male to fill the role. This transition takes between 2 weeks and a few months depending on availability of food and other conditions (temperature seems to play a role) and the fish will be capable of producing sperm before fully assuming the male morphology.

(Image a male and female Sheephead swimming next to each other. The female is roughly half the size of the male. End ID)

During mating season (July-September), males will pick a territory and claim all nearby females as mates. A younger male without a territory may challenge an alpha male to try to claim his territory. These fights are often resolved with threat posturing, but if neither male backs down, they will fight with biting and raking teeth against the opponent. During mating season, females will release batches of 375,000 eggs almost daily for males to fertilize. During this time, the alpha male will patrol his territory to mate as much as possible while chasing off smaller males who may attempt to sneakily fertilize some of his female's eggs. The larvae are planktonic for their first 34-78 days, and will sink as they grow. Juveniles have a different coloration to the adults. They are orange, with a white stripe running down the body and dark spots on the fins. The average maximum age of a California Sheephead is 21 years, but the oldest individual on record was 53 at the time of capture.

(Image: a juvenile Sheephead. It is a small, orange fish with a white stripe running from eye to tail and black spots on the pelvic, anal, dorsal, and tail fins. End ID)

The California Sheephead lives on rocky reefs and kelp forests from southern California to the Baja peninsula and Gulf of California. They prefer shallow water between 3 and 30 meters (10 - 100 ft) deep, though males will occasionally venture deeper. Sheepheads are predators that hunt hard-bodies invertebrates including urchins, shelled molluscs, and crabs. Juveniles hunt smaller prey such as sponges, bryozoans, and barnacles. The protruding canines give the fish a better grip when trying to pry food off of rocks. They crush the hard shells of the prey with sharp teeth before swallowing. The shells are then further ground down by the throat plates. Smaller individuals have been known to break open urchins too large to bit by picking them up and hammering them into rocks. Sheepheads play an important role in kelp forest ecosystems by keeping urchin populations down. Urchins eat kelp and without predators keeping their numbers in check, can reduce kelp forests to urchin barrens. Sheepheads are known to have a high site fidelity, meaning they will return to the same places over and over. They will maintains a sleeping spot (usually a crevice they can hide in or rock they can hide under) and return to the same places to hunt. They are diurnal and return to their sleeping spots at night to avoid predators.

(Image: a male Sheephead trying to pick up a sea urchin with tis mouth. End ID)

California Sheephead Wrasses are classified as vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN. Their primary threat is overfishing. The Sheepheads have been commercially fished since the 1800s and their numbers have dropped. The hermaphroditic nature of the species actually makes things worse. Commercial fishers are incentivized to catch the largest fish and the largest Sheepheads are the males and females that are likely to transition to male. Unlike with other species, there aren't small males around to make up for the loss of large males to fishing since the small fish are the females. The loss of males and the largest females (who are the ones most likely to transition to male) means there aren't enough males around during mating season to keep the population high enough. The introduction of marine protected areas and fishing regulations have helped the population recover. The loss of the Sheepheads is a big deal since they're one of the species doing the most to keep the kelp forests healthy by eating urchins. Natural predators of the Sheepheads include sharks, sea lions, and giant sea bass.

(Image: a fisherman holding a male Sheephead on a boat. The large canines of the fish are particularly visible. End ID)

[theradicalscrivener]

The ask about the penis size changing app is so great (thank you fellow anon). And your answer made me obsessed with the concept.

Especially the idea that if you keep your cock small for a while, you get permanent shrinkage.

I like to imagine a dude who is hung. Say, a 13 inches long beer can thick cock. But he believes the permanent shrinkage is a rumor, so he takes a dare to keep his cock small for like two months. Now, following your previous answer (where the model had originally 7 inches and got stuck to 5), there are two options:

a) Since a month means losing 2 inches, 2 months mean losing 4. So, The guy goes from 13 to 9. Still big, and arguably more usable at actual sex.

b) If instead of going with the total of inches lost, we go with the loss of size being proportional... It would mean that after one month, the guy would go from 13 to 9. The second month, then, he would lose another 4 inches, getting to 5 in total remaining (I kept the loss of size consistent with an staring point of 13 inches, since there shouldn't be a pause between months; and I rounded things down, technically the guy would be closer to 5 1/2 inches).

Now, the second scenario is way hotter to me personally. Because the guy literally went from incredibly hung to average. And it's his own fault! He has no one to blame but himself!

Worse yet, he lost the bet (since his cock shrunk permanently), so he also gets to pay/do something he didn't want besides losing most of his cock size.

Anyway, thank you to reading my horny ramblings. Have a good day!

Hehe. Glad you enjoyed that. It's def a fun concept. In option B, if it's proportional, the question becomes how often does the change occur? Is it 30 days? Like, if someone goes 29 days and grows back on the last day, they get all the size back? Or is it like a multiplicative thing that if you do say, 2-3 days you lose an imperceptible percentage, but say you keep it on for a week, it starts being noticeable, and the longer you keep it on, the bigger the drop. So say, dude with the 13 inch hog. He loses maybe an eighth of an inch after 3 days. That's not even 1%, but if he keeps it for a week, he loses half an inch. This is closer to 4%. If he does a full month, he loses 4 inches which is almost 30% his starting size.

So if a dude with 9 inches did this, the conversion would be:

3 days: 1/10th inch lost.

1 week: 1/3 of an inch lost

1 month: 3 inches lost.

I don't remember if I mentioned this, but I used to chat with a guy semi regularly who worked as a photographer and he would occasionally lament that the dudes he had to photograph were often too hung and so they'd have to edit out the bulges in post, which is why I was thinking of a scenario in which a model is pressured into keeping his dick small to be able to do runways/photoshoots.

Makes me think of a scenario where a model has a huge cock that he gets pressured by his agent to use the app to make is discrete during photoshoots and the like. Usually, he just shrinks it down for the photoshoot and goes back to being hung immediately after, and so for a while, he never has to even think about potential drawbacks, but maybe he gets into a busy period where he's doing photoshoot after photoshoot. Back to back modeling gigs. He finishes each day exhausted. It's just easier to keep it tiny all the time rather than growing it back every night.

After a while, he gets comfortable with the lack of weight between his legs. Even after the modeling gig ends and his schedule frees up, he keeps it small because he's so used to seeing it that way. Besides, he always knows he can just grow it back when he's ready to be hung again.

The weeks give way to months. He gets in the mood to hit the town. A night of clubbing ensues. He's out with his friends putting on the moves with any guy that gives him the right look. After hours of flirting and dancing, he brings a guy back to his apartment for a passionate night. Kissing gives way to groping as the two fall onto the bed. The dude he brings home strips down. The model admires the dude's fit bod and thick rod. The dude has a nice dick... nowhere near as nice as the model's own, but still a nice rod.

Feeling fun and frisky, the model makes a wager. "Bigger dick tops" he says and winks playfully.

"I knew you were a bottom," the dude replies and laughs. His eyes fall to the model's briefs and the lack therein.

The model does another playful wink. He reaches for his phone. Opens the app that had been sitting dormant for the past few months. Clicks the "revert size" button...

the app buzzes. The button turns red and shakes.

He clicks it again. The button turns red and shakes.

What the hell!?

He tries it again. BZZT. The button shakes.

He opens up the specs. He checks the readings.

Current size: 1/2 inch.

That tracks. He'd been keeping it at a baby dick size these past few months so that he wouldn't have a bulge when he performed.

Then he swipes over to his default stats.

His jaw drops. His eyes go wide.

Max size: 1/2 inch.

The model's mind races. What happened? Is it a glitch? Is his app busted?

Then his eyes fall on a small disclaimer at the bottom of the app.

Do not exceed 24 hours of shrinkage. Prolonged reduction may result in permanent diminishment of normal size.

The model is too stunned to move. His jaw continued to hang slack as his one night stand grows impatient and slides across the bed.

"If you won't take it off, I'll do it for you," he says in a flirtatious growl.

The dude reaches over and grabs the waistband of the model's skimpy briefs. He pulls down on the garment until the model's tiny cocklet springs into view.

The model is too stunned to react. Is he stuck like this? That can't be right! And why is he so damn horny! He should be freaked out, but all he can think of is how hot this is! And that's all he can continue to think about as the dude gives the model's tiny dicklet a playful tweak between his thumb and forefinger. The model's mini dick shudders in the dude's fingers.

The dude pulls his hand back and licks the small droplets of cum off his fingertips.

"Guess that means I top," he says with a chuckle.

[im-ovulating]

Now, hear me out....

I just can't get this idea out of my head:

It's a mini smut series. Each part is for a different underrated 1A boy, but interconnected. There will be two different endings, each with two different outcomes.

As I was getting ready to post this, I realized that the idea was akin to Aberration by @bakuhoes-dumbass , so to be on the safe side, I reached out and got permission. Aberration is so attention grabbing and (personally) keeps the you on the edge of your seat. It's 10x better than anything I'm gonna write for this, so check it out! Thanks again to @bakuhoes-dumbass for giving me the green light!

-

**Y/n is the new psychiatrist for the Yuei Institute for Dangerous Individuals (YIDI). But she's also the warden's niece -giving her more loopholes to wiggle through than your average psychotherapist. Cue the jailbird shenanigans when they get a whiff of their new toy.

Warnings: Contains slight passive hybristophillia, various talk of criminal behavior and non consensual/dubiously consented to actions and scenarios, do not read if you are sensitive to said topics!

Age Rating: 18+ Minors DNI

Prologue: A deeper introduction to the jailbirds

Let's get to know the inmates, shall we?

Chapter 1: Shoji Mezo- Convicted on multiple counts of gang-related torture; currently serving 3 life sentences with no chance of parole. Time incarcerated: 6 years, 4 months.

In which your first session with the sadist derails an a way you never expected. As it turns out, the jailbirds are missing more than just their freedom.

Chapter 2: Ojiro Mashirao- Convicted on 1 count of 1st degree murder following a confession refusal; currently serving 20 years with no chance of parole. Time incarcerated: 2 years, 9 months.

You survived your first day. What more could go wrong? A lot, apparently. After the surprisingly saucey session (ooh alliteration) with Shoji, you can confidently say you're better prepared for the type of inmates you're dealing with. Or so you thought...

Chapter 3: Tokoyami Fumikage- Convicted for the attempted murder of his best friend, claiming "the shadows told him to do it"; currently serving 15 years with a chance of parole after 5 years. Time incarcerated: 4 years, 8 months.

Your new deal is firmly in place, and you're prepared to do what you agreed to. You just didn't expect your end of the deal to be enforced again so soon. It's all in the name of helping... Right?

Chapter 4: Koji Koda- Convicted of arson, assault, and non-peaceful protesting of multiple animal testing facilities; currently serving 40 years with a chance of parole for $15,000 bond. Time incarcerated: 3 years, 7 months.

Animal rights activists can't be too scary... can they? You're a little less than a month into your new job, and it's going relatively smooth. The deal is going as planned, and you seem to be making progress. Turns out this activist isn't scary after all... He's downright terrifying.

Chapter 5 : Rikidou Sato- Convicted for drug trafficking and the assault of 5 police officers; currently serving 90 years with a chance of parole after 40 years. Time incarcerated: 1 month, 3 weeks, 2 days.

Marking the last day of your first month is your final first session. After today, you can confidently say that you know what to expect with your assigned inmates. That doesn't mean what you're to expect will be easy. Withdrawal really brings out the worst in people, doesn't it?

Epilogue 1: Every action has consequences... Unfortunately, Y/n engaged in the same action with 5 different people. So, which one is the reason for this consequence?

Mentions pregnancy and abortion, if you are sensitive to either of those topics, I'd advise you to redirect to Epilogue 2 for the second ending. Open ended/up to interpretation of the reader. Can be read for any of the inmates

Epilogue 2: Every action has consequences...Unfortunately, Y/n's bleeding heart is her consequence. But for whom does it bleed?

Contains an individual ending for each inmate. 'Pick your own ending' style

"Jailbirds" Coming Soon

Full Masterlist:

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[diamonddaze01]

⋆｡°✩ n o t e : thank you to everyone who tagged me in this ( @sungbeam , @petrichor-han , @haologram)! took me forever to finally get around to it, but excited to share my wrapped for this year!

⋆｡°✩ on poetry and homecomings - yoon jeonghan

⋆｡°✩ n o t e s : my first ever fic! based on a quote by the fantastic palestinian poet mahmoud darwish. something about the words, "If I ever see a flaw of yours, I'd say my eyes are the flawed ones" made something in my heart twinge in the most beautiful way. a purely self indulgent fic i wrote after an exhausting work week, and suddenly, here we are, 3 months later.

⋆｡°✩ plan b-day - hong jisoo

⋆｡°✩ n o t e s : my last fic of 2024! a lil drabble for the loveliest boy. no real notes on this, other than i am sure that murphy's law somehow targets me 50000x more than the average human being. again, purely self-indulgent, but also a wonderful way to close out the year.

⋆｡°✩ baby, darling, light of my entire life - choi seungcheol

⋆｡°✩ n o t e s : the idea for this came to me after a crazy night out. though i myself have not gotten to this level of drunk yet, i definitely would scream about how pretty choi seungcheol is any day, any time. i was actually shocked when this blew up - it wasn't my favorite piece i'd written at the time, and i woke up one morning and it had skyrocketed from maybe 100 notes to upwards of 600 in one night. weirdly, i think this was maybe the third thing i had ever posted to this blog and it made me so happy that people actually enjoyed my writing. bdlomel, ily <3

⋆｡°✩ full throttle part i | full throttle part ii - yoon jeonghan

⋆｡°✩ n o t e s : oh, full throttle, what to say about you (i am combining both parts into one fic - the only reason there are two parts is bc tumblr is a bitch about formatting). there are few things that exhausted me, exhilerated me, enraged me, and made me feel as proud as i do looking at this finished fic. three weeks of non-stop writing every day after work, jotting down notes in the cleanroom and during lunch breaks, and storyboarding when i should have been sleeping culminated in most possibly the pièce de résistance of my year. i had so many people who cheered me on as i wrote this fic, battled through witty banter (that i myself could never say irl) and fiery headlines, but none cheered as loudly as @haologram and @ylangelegy. alta and kae were genuinely the wind beneath my wings as i wrote this, and reading their comments in the doc was what kept me going. in the end, i'm genuinely so happy with how full throttle turned out, and seeing the reactions i'm getting from it make me feel so fulfilled.

⋆｡°✩ the somerset affair - lee seokmin

⋆｡°✩ n o t e s : my first forray into longer fic writing (and i'm still battling my way through it, but we don't talk about that). if anyone knows me, they know how much of a Bridgerton fan i am - i quote anthony's speech on the daily, and penelope/eloise are some of my fav romcom heroines ever written (until they both get married, but again, we don't talk about that). i felt like writing this fic was my way to pay homage to this fictional world i adore so much. i have a love/hate relationship with the actual tone of the series - its so hard to maintain the regency tone and also write in a way that's true to my own voice, but at the end of the day it's a challenge i relish. i'm so excited to finish this series this coming year!

⋆｡°✩ 40 fics posted - check them all out in my masterlist!

⋆｡°✩ n o t e s : to be fair, a lot of these are drabbles i did for my 101 drabble prompt game, but fuck it we ball. maybe i'm just insane.

⋆｡°✩ ~133,470 words written

⋆｡°✩ n o t e s : again, i think i might be a bit insane. did a sacrifice sleep to write? yes. did i storyboard at work? also yes. but then again, it's been an interesting year to say the least, and writing was a really good way to blow off steam after a stressful day at work.

⋆｡°✩ some of my fav fics i read this year - please read the warnings on each fic and do not interact with smut if you're a minor! this is in no particular order:

⋆｡°✩ unforgiven [boo seungkwan] - @haologram ⋆｡°✩ catch you when i can [smau] [chwe hansol] - @xinganhao ⋆｡°✩ the first snow [hong jisoo] - @junkissed ⋆｡°✩ what are the vibes? [choi seungcheol] - @daechwitatamic ⋆｡°✩ red card [kim mingyu] - @highvern ⋆｡°✩ an ode to hands and voice [boo seungkwan] - @ddeonghwa-s ⋆｡°✩ take my word for it [yoon jeonghan] - @ylangelegy ⋆｡°✩ prey [choi seungcheol] - @pochaccoups ⋆｡°✩ sit down [kim mingyu] - @gyuswhore ⋆｡°✩ ave, general [lee jihoon] - @amourcheol

these are just a few of my fav fics i've read, but if you want to see all my recommendations - i suggest checking out @diamond-reads !

⋆｡°✩ goals for 2025

⋆｡°✩ on diamonddaze01: i have a lot of collabs coming up in 2025! i hope that i can meet all those deadlines and write things i'm proud of. i've also learned that writing longer fics like full throttle or somerset affair make me feel more fulfilled as a writer, so expect a lot more of them as i further explore my writing style and characterization. i also want to go back to some of my older wips that i abandoned and reopen them, see where i can go with a fresh mindset. ⋆｡°✩ personal goals: i have a lot, but to name a few: read more, laugh more, love more. i also want to focus on establishing a better work/life balance - i know already that the coming months are going to suck at work, but i no longer want to drag the weight of corporate life home with me. work is work, and that's where it will stay. i want to prioritize my mental and physical well-being over all else, and that starts with reprioritizing things like work, my social life, and writing.

⋆｡°✩ final thoughts

⋆｡°✩ i started writing on tumblr because i was stressed from work and felt like i didn't have a community, especially at a new job and a new city. what started as some stress relief turned into a community of its own. i'm eternally grateful that i was able to meet some wonderful people this year that i truly feel a sense of belonging with. to everyone in the networks i'm in, to anyone that reads my work, to all the lovely people i've met: thank you, and i love you.

⋆｡°✩ if you've made it this far, thanks for reading, and thank you for all your support. i love you all endlessly. it's time to sign off for 2024.

with love as vast as the stars themselves, tara <3

⋆｡°✩ tagging (but no pressure): @tusswrites, @chanranghaeys, @bitchlessdino, @ddeonghwa-s , @c-oupsie, @lovetaroandtaemin, and anyone else who would like to do this!