#but I worked on revisions during winter break

[merlinity]

.

[lotusmi]

whew, so this is a LOT for me right now, I felt really down about the void because I kept trying and couldn't enter yet I came across the post about the DMT video where everybody seemed to get either lucid dreams or enter the void. I read that the video will at least give you something, so I was really excited to try it since I thought that the fact that Almost every post I read is about somebody getting some time of results from the video ,I would too. But to my disappointment nothing happened, I tried again and again yet nothing. this is making me very frustrated and I'm bringing my anger on everybody around me, I'm hating on my family members and blaming my religion because I think its the reason why everyone can enter but I can't. I feel like crying because whenever I try for the void and it didn't work I would brush it off and not care even though deep down it hurt. Time is going soo fast and I'm scared I won't manifest in time , at the beginning of the school year when we had a four day weekend I was like this is my time to shine yet nothing happened, I didn't give up hope and decided to try again during winter break, yet to no avail and now its spring break and the school year is basically done and I couldn't even get one wish granted from my wish list,I'm scared the spring break is the last long Break I have to make I change, What if it doesn't work, then I spent a whole school year basically getting nothing. I really feel like the spring break is my LAST chance because there is so many things I wanted to happen that I still have hope can happen if i just enter the void.

dude, if you expect me to pet your head while you had the audacity to write me all this text obessing over the void you were very wrong...

I am very firstly just start saying AGAIN that I am not a void blogger and all those void shit are not my business at all and it seems that you did not even read the posts I made about the void, I know if you did read you would not be despaired like that.

"I read that the video will at least give you something, so I was really excited to try it since I thought that the fact that Almost every post I read is about somebody getting some time of results from the video''

NOTHING in the outside world has more power than you. And there's nothing to change or 'expect' to save you. Nothing outside of YOU can save YOU because the creative power of the whole universe is in your imagination. You do not need the void, a method, a sub, you NEED yourself.

"The great importance of knowing all you need to tap into the void is SELF is that you will stop checking new subliminals, new methods, seeking for information or trying to wonder what you are doing 'wrong'. You have to go straight to the wish fulfilled feeling, you change SELF. All you are searching for is Self." READ THIS POST!!!!!!!

"But to my disappointment nothing happened, I tried again and again yet nothing"

Yes of course, and nothing would NEVER change if you won't change your assumptions about yourSELF. This is not even about the void anymore. As you keep this state of never getting in the void or even this state of 'my life is shit' shit will keep happening to you and this is never going to stop unless YOU DECIDE TO. 'tried tried tried' I don't want you to try anything, you don't have to try. You just have to accept a completely new concept (assumption) about this by deciding you are at your new, desired state. Creation is finished, it is done. There's nothing to create. You just have to understand it is done. And if you read my posts, you would know I would recommend you revising this 'failure' as it never happened, don't accept it! By keep thinking and thinking you are only creating more failure, you can revise or ignore, but keep dweling in failure like a victim will imply your victim state.

"this is making me very frustrated and I'm bringing my anger on everybody around me, I'm hating on my family members"

I don't even know what to comment. This is not your family problem, it is yours. Why keep putting the fault in others? You should be embarassed of guilt trip others like that when you are The Creator of your reality.

"I think its the reason why everyone can enter but I can't"

well the problem will NEVER be outside. It's always within. So it there's any reason, the reason is you. You are the Cause. "The entire outer world is solely produced by imagining." + The power in you is the exactly same power in everyone that succeeded. The difference are the assumptions you hold.

"Time is going soo fast and I'm scared I won't manifest in time"

Time is not real and fear is an illusion. + Creation is DONE. There's no such a thing as not having time. You have to understand that manifesting is done in IMAGINATION and there's no past or future in the mind, there's only NOW. So assume you are and have what you want NOW.

"yet nothing happened"

Nothing happens 'out of nowhere'. You have to assume in your favour. You have the power. No one is coming to save you or to pick you and put you in the void. YOU have to take control.

"I couldn't even get one wish granted from my wish list"

You are the only creator in your reality, if you had knew that your imagination was your real reality and accepted your desired there by fulfilling within your desires, ALL your wishes would be granted now. “Dwelling on past irritations or hurts perpetuates them and creates a vicious circle that serves to confirm these negative emotions.” Neville Goddard

"I'm scared the spring break is the last long Break I have to make I change, What if it doesn't work, then I spent a whole school year basically getting nothing."

What you won't see is that the future is being made by you RIGHT NOW. It's not some random crazy thing that will happen to you. But what you assume to your life. Again, there's nothing to change outside of you, all you have to change is yourself, within. EVERYTHING STARTS FROM WITHIN, YOUR IMAGINATION. + Why are you concerning by it won't working at this point? Literally, I already said that you have to start ignoring those doubts, you already know that doubts are not real and you should not pay attention to any of those annoying thoughts since thoughts DONT manifest. What you accept and identify yourself as being or having DO. You are literally assuming failure to your future omg...

"I really feel like the spring break is my LAST chance because there is so many things I wanted to happen"

Why would it be the 'last chance'? This does not even has any sense at all. You can revise all your past literally as you want. + Just assume those things already happened in your future

"I still have hope can happen if i just enter the void"

The void is just a method. Omg. Stop obesessing over it. You can have all you want my fulfilling your desires within. Stop putting a method in a pedestral. This literally looks soo unhealthy not gonna lie. Work in your Self Concept, manifest without the void WHILE attempting to tap, learn better about the law. Read this, this, this, this.

"All changes must first come from within himself; and if he does not change on the outside it is because he has not changed within. But man does not like to feel that he is solely responsible for the conditions of his life" - Neville Goddard

[der-karibisch-heyder]

Christmas Seasons During the Voyage Canon (as of draft 0.4)

I thought I did a proper post on Christmas during the time of Devil's Eye but apparently I have not. I'll get to work on that later. I also may revise my other historical context posts with some actual citations so they aren't just aimless ramblings without any evidence. But that's for later.

In the canon story of Devil's Eye, the adventure lasts about 7 years. That's 7 Christmases to celebrate in different parts of the world each time! So where do they align? As of our current draft they're thus:

December 1721 takes place in France, specifically in Paris. The focus is exclusively on the Barracuda's crew, who just weeks earlier lost their titular ship to an attack by La Demonia in the port of Le Havre, and forced them to escape inland by the Seine River. Losing the trail of the Sins, they realize they're without shelter or money in the city of Paris, and the story arc focuses on their collaborative efforts to stay alive during the particularly harsh winter of northern France during the Little Ice Age. This is the point where the story sheds its pretenses of being just a seafaring adventure, as the survival of the characters depends greatly on their ability to adapt to circumstances going beyond their control.

December 1722 takes place across Northern Italy, most likely between Turin and Milan. Having spent the previous spring traveling across southern France, the summer across Spain, and the autumn across central Italy, the Barracuda crew have located and been pursuing the Spanish branch of the Montego family, distant descendants of Saint Emilio, for one of the Keys to the Eye is in their possession. Finally they confront the family in the winter, but they are seen only as stalking thieves and are not given the key. In response, Ravyn commands her crew to take it by force, which is done begrudgingly. It's a sour note that welcomes the new year, and shows our heroes aren't necessarily just.

December 1723 takes place in the Ottoman Levant, between the cities of Antioch and Damascus. Unlike the previous two winters, this time Christmas happens to land upon incidental stops along the way to a more important destination: Jerusalem. There is little time for merriment or mirth among any of the practicing members of the Barracuda crew, as the journey between Antioch and Damascus takes almost the whole month, and then the journey from Damascus to Jerusalem takes nearly another, and the time spent in between is dedicated entirely to resting and resupplying. All the while, their continued persistence at this venture has finally caught the attention of the Master, who now plans to play his hand directly against them.

December 1724 takes place in the Barbary Coast in the cities of Tripoli and Alexandria. Having been driven into the Sahara and hidden among the trade caravans over the past year, the Barracuda crew slowly rebuild their assets to try and resume the voyage again. Meanwhile, the oldest Heyder child, Helen, was taken captive by the Sins and made their hostage. In the city of Tripoli, the crew hijacks a new ship, the Arabian Xebec known as the Zumurruda. They then turn towards Alexandria to rescue Helen, and encounter La Demonia there. A battle breaks out, and the two forces welcome the new year with renewed conflict.

December 1725 brings the adventure to Ottoman Arabia and the city of Jeddah, the home of Amir. By this point a lot has changed in the past year: two more ships have joined the cause, the navy frigate HMS Cavalier and the Dutch smuggling fluyt Diantha. As well, the Sins of La Demonia have entered an uneasy alliance with the heroes, deciding to seek the Keys to the Eye together so that the Master can be stopped from obtaining his prize, even at the cost of their own souls. As for Jeddah itself, Amir is forced to reconcile with the choices he made decades ago to abandon his family in search for adventure, something that some crewmates are supportive of and others find a distraction from the greater objective.

December 1726 brings the voyage to the place that holds painful memories for almost everyone involved: the port of Guangzhou in China. Having raided it 15 years prior, the Sins are still wracked with guilt over what they had done, and among the heroes, Ravyn's foster father, Mortimer Hurley, died protecting his crew from the Master. The uneasy alliance nearly breaks apart as the tensions between past and present begin to boil over before plans can even be made to search for the final key of Saint Emilio, especially when the local Black Dog Bandits learn of the arrival of the Black Ship with Red Sails, and seek to avenge those who died as well.

December 1727 is the last winter of the voyage, and is when the crews year-long efforts in China finally result in them finding the final key of Saint Emilio, which has been guarded on Mount Song in the central China plain. With all seven keys in tow, the collective crews share a brief respite of relaxation before they make preparations to claim the Eye and defeat the Master forever.

[lcdrarry]

15 June | LCDrarry Fic 2/2

You've Got Owl Post

Prompt: "You've Got Mail", 1998, Nora Ephron Prompted by: @ladderofyears Author: Anonymous Word Count: 50,407 words Rating: Mature Warnings: Questionable Use of Canon

Notes: If there has ever been a labor of love, it is this story. When I tell you everything that could have gone wrong went wrong, I am not exaggerating. But from the beginning, I knew I needed to write this story. On more than one occasion I didn't think I would get here but I managed to make it work at the very last second. The list of people I need to thank is long and winding and kind of irrelevant. The one I need to thank above everyone else is our fearless leader. You have been so patient with me two years in a row, and I can't even begin to tell you how grateful I am to you. You have created one of my favorite places on the internet with our discord server and without you and the other members of the server I would not have made it. I hope everyone enjoys this story which has had several revisions, whole story ideas scrapped, and an embarrassing lack of sleep as I got it done. I am now going to go sleep for at least 8 months until I start planning to do this all again ;)

Summary: After discovering muggle romantic comedies during winter break, Pansy Parkinson and Luna Lovegood decide to launch an ambitious project called You've Got Owl Post which matches up students through an enchanted notebook so they can send letters to each other without knowing who is at the other end. It is an instant hit. Harry, without his friends knowing, is one of the first to join. And he rapidly finds a kindred soul on the other side of the pages. In real life, however, he is once again plagued by Draco Malfoy. After fighting in class, McGonagall has had enough. So, as punishment and a lesson, she assigns them the running of that years dueling club. Everyone, including Harry and Draco, assumes it will be a disaster. However, sometimes the people you think you know the best are the ones who can surprise you the most. A story of letters, bets, friendship, love, forgiveness, and discovering who you really are.

Read it now on AO3.

Please help promote the fest by sharing your favourite submissions, so more people can enjoy all the amazing new Drarry works of LCDrarry. Thank you!

Creator reveals are on 15 June.

[scorpioracha]

I understand how you feel !! Currently suffering from exams, but my last one is tomorrow!! I hope you’re doing well and staying healthy regardless. Here’s some fluffy thoughts to cheer us both up:

Chan coming back from work and finding you slumped over your desk, pen still in hand and your laptop cracked open as you snore lightly, exhaustion taking over from your countless hours of studying.

He chuckles as he shakes his head fondly, taking off his thick winter jacket and placing it by his shoes at your door before walking over to you and staring at you as you breath in and out, gently shaking you awake.

“Hey sleepyhead,” he almost whispers, his hand coming to your shoulder and rocking it back and forth. You groggily open your eyes, blinking a couple times to ground yourself.

“What time is it?” You ask, your voice thick with sleep as you stretch out your limbs, dropping the pen in your hand and swivelling in your chair to face him.

“Way too late for you to still be studying, that’s for sure,” he sighs, a small smile on his lips, appreciating how hard your working for your exams and how dedicated you are. One of the many things he appreciates about you.

Minho, who gets back from running errands all day to find you still hard at work, typing away for your essay that’s due soon. He scoffs when he comes home, rubbing his hands together from the cold.

“Have you moved at all from when I left this morning?” He asks seriously, standing behind you and putting his cold hands on your cheeks. You jolt at the temperature, scowling at him as you focus back on the white screen in front of you.

“No,” you mumble, knowing he will be annoyed. He hates it when you exert yourself, not wanting you to over do it. That, and you get cranky with him, which he also hates.

“You’re a pain in the ass, yeah?” He says whilst walking towards the kitchen, picking up the grocery bags and placing them on the counter. You don’t hear another word from him for the next hour as you work at your essay, finally getting to the conclusion after hours and hours. Right when you think he’s gone in a huff with you for being snappy, he walks back into your room with a tray full of food.

“Eat up, or I’ll delete your essay.”

Changbin can’t sleep. Even though he said he wanted to see you during your exam season and didn’t mind having to be quiet, he was starting to get fed up. He understood that you were busy with important tasks, he really did, but as much as he wanted to be in your presence, he wanted to be in your presence.

It was well into the small hours of the morning at this point as he tossed and turned in bed, the light from your computer and constant clicks keeping him awake.

“Are you going to sleep soon?” He asks you, sitting upright in the bed and abandoning the idea of being able to get some shut eye for the night.

You don’t bother turning your head as you reply. “Not any time soon, no. I’m far too wide awake, though I don’t know if any of my words are making sense anymore.”

Then, Changbin gets an idea. If you’re both not going to be sleeping anytime soon, might as well do something productive. He forces you to pull on some shoes and a jacket and you go outside, feeling the cold air hit you as the two of you walk around the park in the pitch black, enjoying how peaceful it is as you appreciate the much needed study break.

Hyunjin can get impatient while you study - not grasping the fact that no, you can’t just stop studying to watch his show with him, or read books together. He gets needy and clingy, until you finally snapped at told him that he needs to do something on his own for a while if he wants to be here with you while you study.

You had no idea what he’d decided to do after that, and while you felt bad for getting bitchy with him, he had to respect your boundaries. Right when you were about to apologise, finally finishing revision for the section you were going over, you feel his presence behind you.

He wordlessly slips a piece of paper in front of you. Upon inspection, you realise it’s a drawing of you, hunched over the desk with a concentrated expression. It was a truly beautiful drawing, and you turned to him to say as much, until he cut you off.

“I’m sorry for disturbing your studying,” he starts, though you quickly interrupt to tell him it’s alright, and you’re sorry for being rude. “No, you’re right, I need to learn to be in my own space when I’m with you and you’re studying. I can draw another one for you!”

Jisung is ecstatic when you finish your exam. It was online, so you’d been locked away in your room for hours now, working hard to complete the exam in the allocated time frame. He’d been on edge the whole time, knowing that you were nervous about the exam and hoping, praying, wishing you’d do well.

His knee is bouncing when you finally reemerge, your hair in a crazy state and your face drained of colour. Your bright smile contrasts this though, as he gives you a huge hug after jumping up from the sofa.

“So? How did it go?” He asks, impatient.

“I tried my best and I answered every question, so I’m pleased,” you answer truthfully, watching as Jisung’s eyes light up.

“Yay!” He almost squeals. “I’m so proud of you! While you were doing your exam I was thinking of all the things we can do now that you’re finished, and first on the list is celebratory ice cream.”

Felix can practically sense your tension a mile away. He’s been watching you crack your back for over an hour now, twisting in a way that just cannot be good for your spine. When you crack your neck for the umpteenth time, his tether snaps.

“You are my favourite person ever,” he starts, making you snap your head towards the source of noise that has interrupted your studying. “But if I watch you obliterate your bones like that one more time i might have to fight you.”

You laugh at him as you stretch, apologising for annoying him.

“It’s only annoying to me because you’re hurting yourself,” he complains, standing up from the bed to walk over to you and take your hand in his. “Come here and I’ll give you a massage.”

So you let Felix and his nimble fingers massage your shoulders and back, making you forget about all your work for an hour. By the time he’s finished, your back feels so much better, and you’re so glad you have a kind hearted person like him in your life who only wants to keep you healthy.

Seungmin might kill you in a minute. He’s been going over flash cards with you for two hours straight, and as much as he loves to help you with your studies, it’s driving him insane. At this point, he feels like he knows more about the subject you’re studying than you do.

“Did I get that one right?” You ask after reciting a perfect answer. Seungmin nods, his eyes almost drooping as he fights his boredom. The only thing that makes it worth it is your happy squeal when you get an answer right.

“How about this,” he says after that, putting the flash cards down onto the floor and leaning into your cross legged position. “If you get the next one right, we can stop and watch a Christmas movie.”

You raise an eyebrow. “You said I couldn’t watch Christmas movies until after exams so I would be in the proper festive spirit.”

“Veto. Give me a good answer and then come cuddle.”

Jeongin watched you prepare so hard for your exam, so when he picks you up after you’ve finished the in person test and you look deflated, his heart melts.

“Did it not go well?” He asks instantly, leaning over to unlock the passenger door of his car for you.

You shrug, huffing as you slouch into the passenger seat. “I dunno, but I was stressed and I ran out of time for a question. It was rubbish.”

He feels horrible hearing you talk so lowly, knowing the effort you put in to be able to get a good result. So, he attempts to cheer you up. He turns to you in the car, titling his head with a grin.

“Oh well,” he says. “You did your best, and I’m super proud of you for that. It’s just a stupid exam, hm?”

You chuckle, unable to resist his toothy grin. “Yeah, it’s just a stupid test.”

I hope you liked these little scenarios hahaha I hope it brought a smile to your face. Good luck for your finals! You’ve got this 💪🏽💪🏽

Hello first of all I think I’m in love with you—

Second of all just thank you?? So much??? This whole thing is tooth rotting sweet and has put the first smile on my face in hours today. I’ve honestly been feeling like shit about everything so this just means the world. Minho’s part reminds me so much of my roommate so that honestly had me hysterics bestie—especially since all of my exams right now are papers so I’ve just been cooped up in my room with my head spinning and all that fun stuff. And they’re both scorpios which is hilarious

Also how did you know I am currently weak for Channie 😩 this man has been in my thoughts,dreams,prayers,caffeine induced hallucinations,etc and this is the kind of tender sweetness I always love reading about him!!!

Seungmin my suengmoo he is so valid for that because I’d do the same 🥲

Virgos🫱🏻‍🫲🏾 impatience

And I feel like Jeongins part was so important!! I’ve experienced my fair share of failures and setbacks this semester and I feel like it’s so important to remember that exams don’t define you as a student and as a person.

I also want to say thank you for putting so much effort into this when you have your own exams going on, I can’t possibly imagine how tired you must feel right now. Please be kind to yourself, eat your meals and drink your waters. and SLEEP SLEEP IS IMPORTANT

I plan on going back to bed soon but I can’t say thank you enough times

[chattercap]

May 2024 Monthly Devlog!

Hello everyone, happy May!

Another month - another monthly devlog!

WHAT I DID

This month really seemed to fly by, gosh! Where does the time go…(sob) I was originally going to work on finishing The Deepwater Witch in the lull between NanoRenO and Otome Jam, but at the beginning of the month I realized that I was a bit burnt out…(I suppose releasing a game a month will do that to you!) So this month was a bit of a break month - I took a week break from dev work at the beginning of the month, and I also went on a small vacation to spend time with my family in the middle of the month!

After that I started to ease into producing assets for my Otome Jam game, which is a complete demo revamp of my big fantasy title, Actala! I completed around 3 backgrounds (out of 20+ sob) and finished 5 CGs (also out of 20+ sob).

On the writing side, I continued writing for Hanasu (currently at 25k words, which is longer than Kanau and Karamu combined), and I also finished up the script for my Mythology Jam project! I probably won't announce it until a week or so before the jam actually starts, but I'm excited to work on it! (I also made plans and outlines for my Once Upon a Time VN Jam and Winter VN Jam projects!)

In addition, I did some other miscellaneous tasks! I'm happy to announce that Kanau and Karamu will be receiving a French translation! I also plan to translate Hanasu when it releases, so the full trilogy will be available in French! (And I also did some business related tasks that I won't bore you with…tl;dr government things…)

PLANS FOR MAY

As you probably saw, I announced my Otome Jam project, which is a complete overhaul of the original demo from my first project, Actala: The Hero's Shadow. It's a fantasy/mystery/romance game with 5 male love interests about the "side character that needs to save the Hero" after the end of the Hero's journey. The original demo had 60k words with scenes for one love interest (Liam), but I'm planning on adding scenes for all of the love interests in the update.

Since the revamp involves redoing ALL of the art, I'll be going full steam ahead into the art for Actala in May! Hopefully I can get a good chunk of it done; I thought it might go quicker since most of the art is being "redone," but considering almost all of the compositions/lighting/faces and such are being changed, it's ending up taking me about as long as doing art from scratch (and longer than it took me originally, since my rendering process is longer).

I'm not quite sure if I'll be able to release the full revamped demo by the end of June, to be honest! I'm being very optimistic, but I'll reassess at the end of May to see how I'm doing. Since this is my big project, I really don't want to compromise on the quality. If it looks like I can't, I'll release an abbreviated demo and plan to release the full updated demo at some point during the summer.

For writing, I'm definitely going to finish Hanasu this month! After that, I'll be tackling revisions and additions to Actala's script to get that done for the updated demo release.

CURRENT PROJECT ROADMAP

My game dev plans have shifted a bit, so here's an updated roadmap! This is all not concrete, but this is my current planned work schedule:

May/June: Actala: The Hero's Shadow July/August: Mythology Jam Project (TBA), Hanasu, The Deepwater Witch September/October: Once Upon a Time VN Jam Project (TBA), Winter VN Jam Project (TBA) November/December: Hanasu if not complete, Actala (Liam route)

I am very excited to announce the jam projects, but I'll restrain myself! I post most of my major announcements on here and Twitter! If you want to hear from me more often or see the WIPs, I post frequently on my Patreon with sketches, writing snippets, sneak peeks, high resolution art, and weekly devlogs.

Thanks to everyone who's following along, and see you next month!

Chattercap

[beforeiread-studies]

Some post exam season considerations

I concluded my 2022-23 Winter exam season last Monday. It was a success. I passed all of the 5 exams I had set for myself to pass.

And yes, I passed one badly and not knowing how to answer the questions during the exam was mortifying and I sometimes still flinch while remembering particularly excruciating moments but who cares? As I've already said, the negative feelings shall pass and the 12 credits shall remain.

(and also, there is probably something to be said about the relationship between passing all of my exams brilliantly and my self-worth but I'm not ready to stare into that abyss yet so, moving on)

Overall I'm really proud of myself for accomplishing my goal of passing all 5 exams. High-five me!

But while I've won a campaign, the war is not over yet. The new semester, my last uni semester, is about to start and I better be prepared. So here are some things I can learn from this exam season to do even better during the next one:

I got the highest grades during the first 3 exams. After that I lost steam and objectively I had left the hardest exams last so that didn't help either. So next semester I should schedule the toughest exams first and make sure that I take some kind of break after the first 3 exams.

It was really great when exam n.3 came around and I realized that I had already read and summarized the whole bibliography before Christmas so I only needed to quickly revise my notes and go. That would have helped a lot with exam n.4 as well. So this semester I want to read the bibliography for ALL EXAMS before exam season starts (starting with the History exam).

Studying German a bit every day saved my ass when the exam (n. 2) came around. So I want to keep doing that + adding some Portuguese to my daily routine as well (but not so that I'll get overwhelmed like it happened last semester).

I won't feel guilty because I don't revise my notes every day/week because that simply doesn't work for me so I shouldn't even try. Instead, I'll write up my notes on my computer after the end of the lectures and use the "blurting" technique for studying them.

These tips will be even more important this semester because I'll have not 4, not 5, but 6 exams! So I better go put them into practice now :)

[peonyblossom]

@choicesficwriterscreations

All of these fics are ones that I worked on during @wip-wipeout-weekend ! Thank you so much Elsa for hosting this !!

I also worked on "Unplanned," but I want to do a little more with it before I share anything (I believe I already shared a snippet in a Sunday Six a while back)

Hide-and-Seek - OH - Ethan Ramsey x f!MC (Sadie Oakley)

“Mommy! Daddy! Hide me!” Chloe whisper-yelled as she climbed up on the couch, crawling underneath the blanket on her parents legs.

“Why are we hiding you?” Sadie whispered back.

“We’re playing hide-and-seek!” Chloe positioned her small body in between her mom’s legs so her siblings would barely be able to see her.

“Hide-and-seek? What happened to dress-up?” Ethan asked.

“We’re done with that. Now shh or they’ll find me!”

Sadie and Ethan quietly giggled to each other as Sadie adjusted the blanket to better hide Chloe, despite the fact that her breathing could still be seen through the fabric. Sadie went back to telling Ethan about her day, so as not to seem suspicious to the other kids, however, she now kept her language and descriptions PG. 

HWU Coffee Shop AU (pls help me title this thing) - Thomas Hunt x f!MC (Jackie Winters)

“I take it you’re performing?” 

“I never miss an open mic, let alone a Taylor Swift theme night.” 

“Well, we’ll see. I still have to triple-check my syllabi before classes start.”

“If you miss open mic night to revise your syllabi, I’m going to be judging you because that is lame.” Jackie giggled as she leaned against the counter. 

“My students deserve my best.” 

“And you deserve a break.”

“I don’t need one.”

“Everyone needs one sometimes.”

“Yes, but not right now.” 

“Alright, but if I hear that you’re holding class while you’re sick, I’m gonna have some words for you.”

“I don’t get sick.”

“Of course you would say that.” Jackie rolls her eyes.

[theghostpinesmusic]

Deschutes River Canyon 2024 (1/3)

I've been lucky enough to experience spring three times this year.

As I may have mentioned in a few of my late-fall trip reports from last year, I've been on sabbatical since September, and though a lot of that time has been spent going to conferences, revising course materials, reading (and reading, and reading...), and writing, I've been trying to build in breaks here and there as well to preserve (or regain?) my sanity.

One such break came at the beginning of March, when, between the end of a months-long streak of reading primary sources and the beginning of gathering that information into a coherent manuscript outline, I flew out to Arkansas to visit my brother, his wife, and their children, then rode along with my parents to North Carolina to spend a week with just them, and finally ended up in Ohio, where I got to see my grandma and aunt and catch up with some old friends.

I could (and probably will, at some point) write a bunch about this trip in particular, but for the purposes of this report I'll just say that in early-to-mid-March, both Arkansas and North Carolina had already burst into spring, to the point that stepping outside of the house to go for a jog necessitated pregaming with nearly lethal amounts of allergy medication. Considering my trip from Klamath Falls to the airport in Medford for my Little Rock flight had required navigating snow and ice atop a mountain pass that normally doesn't melt out until May, it was a surprising (and welcome) change.

I returned to Klamath Falls' late-winter in mid-March, but a week later Lindsey and I were off to the Deschutes River Canyon for a backpacking trip over her spring break. It was my fourth year in a row hiking in the canyon: I first learned about the Deschutes River Trail in the spring of 2021 when, ground down by COVID and various work stresses, I looked for and found a backpacking trip within reasonable driving distance of our house that I could take to decompress over my spring break. On my own, I hiked twenty or so of the trail's twenty-five miles, then looped back to the car.

Unexpectedly spellbound by the area's geography and history, I came back in 2022, and with Lindsey not joining on the hike but offering to help me shuttle a car, I hiked the whole trail through. In the spring of 2023, we planned to hike the trail together for the first time, but bad weather made it impossible during the one week we could get away from work, so we did the hike instead in mid-June. It was interesting to see how different the canyon was in June as compared to March, and I wrote a bunch here about that experience at the time.

This past March, then, despite being my fourth year in a row hiking in the canyon, was the first time that Lindsey and I did the trip together during the "right" time of year. Aside from this lengthy preface, this trip report/write-up will probably be a bit shorter than most since, as I said above, I already wrote a bunch about this trail after our 2023 trip. But, this year's pilgrimage to the canyon was a fun time, and there were at least a few things that I think are worth recording for posterity. So, here we go!

As in the previous two years, we started at the south end of the trail, at Mack's Canyon. The drive to here from the highway is slow, rocky, and a little frustrating, but it is also beautiful, especially as you being winding through the canyon in earnest about halfway through, sandwiched on a narrow road between enormous pillars of columnar basalt on one side and the roaring Deschutes River on the other.

Mack's Canyon has a nice (paid) campground, although we've never used it. Instead, we left our car there to be shuttled by Linda's River Shuttles (they're great!) and hiked back down the road a quarter mile to where the trail branches off up and to the left. You don't have to walk along the trail for long before you've left the campground behind and entered the barren and weirdly gorgeous expanse of the canyon.

Despite being in the midst of my sabbatical this year, I was still excited to get away into the wilderness for my first backpacking trip of the year, and Lindsey was obviously ready for some very serious hiking.

It takes less than a mile for the canyon to truly open up, and for the trail's history as a former railroad line to become obvious.

If you're hiking north from Mack's Canyon along the river, there are a few points early on where following the trail becomes difficult and requires a little scrambling on loose rock. This is because the former railroad line used to cross three steep canyons via tressels that have since rotted and collapsed. Instead, the trail descends into and then back out of these canyons, at points requiring some scrambling on top of the tressels' foundation stones.

These canyons have never given us much trouble, and I've seen older hikers, children, and dogs all cross them without incident, but they are the only three brief sections of this trail's twenty-five miles that I would call "technical" in any sense. So if for some reason you're using this write-up to plan your own trip, just be aware.

In-between and of course after the canyon crossings, the trail is much more straightforward. There is one two-ish mile section featuring a barbed-wire fence that you have to alternate between passing on the right and left, but that mild frustration is offset by the fact that this part of the trail includes some of the best examples of columnar basalt you'll see on the entire hike.

Unsurprisingly, hiking through the canyon while constantly exposed to the June sun is hot, and we remarked right away on how much cooler the trail was in March, with temperatures running lower and a breeze blowing. Just before the final canyon crossings, though, some clouds also blew in and it almost felt too cold. Partly to warm up, I scrambled up a bluff and took a few pictures of Lindsey in the context of the broader landscape.

After crossing the final set of canyons, we stopped for a quick lunch break about four-and-a-half miles from Mack's Canyon. I had packed away the last of a loaf of zucchini bread that Lindsey had baked a few days before, so I dug that out and we shared it. Surprisingly, it had been warmed to the perfect temperature by the sun shining on my pack. I felt like a too-tall hobbit, enjoying baked goods in the wilderness.

We pushed on from there a few more miles to Lockit Camp, our preferred camping spot for the first day of the trip. Despite the trail being chock-full of excellent camp sites with easy water access, most of those sites exist near or past the twelve-mile mark when you're hiking north from Mack's Canyon and with a five-hour drive north from Klamath Falls before we can even start hiking, we typically don't have the time or inclination to try to reach, say, Harris Ranch or Fall Canyon Camp on the first day. If you find yourself in the same situation, you can't do much better than Lockit Camp, about eight miles from the trail's southern starting point.

There are a few tent spots here, and we've usually set up camp on one of the ones above the river, but decided this time to camp closer to the water. It was a bit of a tighter fit for our Copper Spur UL3, but we made it work.

We set up camp and made and ate dinner a bit later than is typical, but it was a warm enough night that not finishing up until after dark wasn't particularly uncomfortable. While we were cleaning up camp and getting ready for bed, the canyon was suddenly filled with the rumble of a train approaching on the tracks across the river from us. On a three-day hike through the canyon, you will often see (and hear) multiple trains. As a big fan of trains, I see this as an added bonus to an already great hike, though admittedly it's more fun when they come through at 3pm than when they wake you up at 3am.

In this case, I had enough time to set up my tripod and take a timelapse photo as the train went by. It wasn't a great photo, but it did capture the weirdness of seeing a train pass through an otherwise wild place at night.

As usual with this hike, our second day would be our long day. We didn't have an exact camp site in mind for the second night, but we usually stop three or four miles away from the Deschutes' confluence with the Columbia, which meant that we'd have to cover thirteen miles or so to stay on schedule.

Sleeping outside for the first time since November, nestled up against the natural white noise machine of the Deschutes, I fell asleep quickly and slept until the sun shone through the tent into my eyes and woke me up the next morning.

[bookworm-dork-fish]

end of the year fic asks! do you have any unpublished wips? share about them, if so!

Hello anon!

Yes! I have one ninjago fanfic called the Pyre AU that I've been meaning to work on over winter break. It's a phoenix Kai au (sort of) taking place during the first half of Crystallized and its basically about love, loss, seeing the good in others, and saying F U to the idea of destiny.

Otherwise, I have original wips:

Prophecy of the Dragonfly (working title) and Heart of Rorrim- related works/series, fantasy, magic, d&d adventure vibes

Cryptid of Granite Mountain- supernatural, self acceptance, friendship

And short stories (need revising): Dreaming of the Orchard and The Hopeless

[not-so-bored]

6 December 2023, Wednesday 🎅

93 days of productivity

Things I have done:

🦉 Duolingo: German

🗒 Literature Revision 

📍 Mock Exam (Language and Literature) 

🖥 Advent of Code (⭐️⭐️⭐️)

💻 Webinar about studying in the Netherlands  

💬 Talk with my teacher about my struggles with interpreting paintings and graphics (He said we would think of a way to help me practice 🤞)

💬 Discussion about everything and sexism, and culture 

🤩 Spontaneous presentation about Philosophy, Logic and Mathematics for one class

🤩 Philosophy 

📚 Society Must Be Defended by Michel Foucault

Winter Studying Challenge 

6th December - Do you get a break from school/uni/work during winter?

Yes! We have a break from December 23 to January 2. 

Winter Wonderland Studyblr Challenge

DAY 12.  We must know, with winter comes a lot of seasonal products, tell us about some of your faves (drinks, food, rituals, fashion, etc)

Loads of those! Hot chocolate, obviously. Gingerbread. Poppy seed cake. Dried fruit compote. Scarf with a print of paws. Christmas Eve. All the customs and traditions. Gifts on Christmas Eve. Red borscht with mushroom dumplings. Kutia. My grandfather in the Christmas mood. 

[korneliarutecka]

CAS Creativity

26.02.2023

Today, I continued to complete my course in Portuguese. During the winter break, I tried to work on my language skills every day. The lessons are now more concentrated on grammar and verb conjugation. I thought that it may due to that it may become less interesting, nevertheless that did not happen. I will try to practice a few times a week till the end of the school year, however, I will probably be busy revising for the final exams.

[ilprinciperosso]

So, since there’s nothing related to motorsport to talk about (apart from the apm Monaco Charles’ video… which is lovely) let’s do a bit of background story about me. I always say I’m perpetually stressed, but for the past 2 months it has been getting progressively worse (I know I’m talking about 1st world problems and I’m very lucky and privileged to live the life I live, but still… it hasn’t been great for the past weeks)

I am a doctor, I graduated in March and started residency in November. I decided to go into anaesthesiology, knowing it was a field that fascinated me, but I didn’t know a lot about. Because of that, and also cause I had a bit of free time before I actually had to start working, I bought a few books and started revising pharmacology, physiology and a little bit of everything that could be related to anestesia; knowing that, supposedly, we were gonna attend weekly lessons during residency and that everything was gonna be explained by our professors.

That’s not what has been happening for the past two months. Not only we were given a lot of responsibilities from the get got (while I appreciate being given the chance to try the practical manoeuvres, it makes no sense to me why they’d leave us alone in the operating theatre), but our professors have completely ignored us and no lesson has been held yet. So we are left alone supervising anaesthesia (yep, proper anaesthesiologists are still around, but if something goes wrong we have to look for them or ask another attending for help) without having the technical and theoretical background to do so.

One may argue that it’s up to me to study (which I’m doing, but sometimes I’d need someone to actually explain me what I’m reading), but I get to work everyday at 7.30, I stay up until 2 in the operating teacher, I go to the daily clinics for preop checkups up until 4 pm and then I still have to check on patients that have undergone surgery in the morning and check the medical records of the patients that will undergo surgery the following day. On a good day I’ll finish at 5, with no break and without having eaten lunch (there’s this stupid unwritten rules that only nurses will eat in the kitchen in the surgery block). When I get home I sometimes cry and then I eat dinner at 6 (very weird as an Italian) and go to sleep at 9.

I wake up in the morning scared I did something wrong. It’s not healthy and I’m seriously debating asking the doctors I work with for advice, but a lot of them have this push through mentality where me asking for help would just strengthen their beliefs that "girls" are not suited for anaesthesia. So I’m gonna keep going and hopefully everything will get better.

If you’ve got up to this point, thanks for reading my pointless stream of consciousness, I hope your having a better winter than me

[tonkibuilders]

Mxgp 2021 season

Mxgp 2021 season full#

Mxgp 2021 season pro#

Mxgp 2021 season plus#

Mxgp 2021 season series#

The folks at Infront Moto Racing and the FIM have to take into account the ever-evolving state of public health across numerous countries. “There are still a lot of restrictions in the countries, especially for the sport and entertainment industry.” “The situation remains complicated,” he said. Luongo’s comments in the latest issue of the MXGP digital publication reflect the sentiments of the FIM’s statement. The FIM had already said last month that it would require “adjustments, flexibility and adaptability among all FIM family members and stakeholders” as the on-going pandemic continued to impact our lives. I’d like to thank my team for the support that they have given me throughout my recovery, they have been amazing to me.CEO of Infront Moto Racing David Luongo says a revised 2021 MXGP schedule will probably be revealed soon, signalling a delay to the start of MXGP in 2021 - although he remains optimistic about the season and for the attendance of fans. For MXGP you need to be 100%, which is something that I am working towards every day.

Mxgp 2021 season plus#

Until I am at the stage where I am able to push for 30 minutes plus two laps in tough conditions during practice then it will not make sense to race. There is not a specific date for when I will return to racing at the moment. I’ve recently returned to riding which has been great and I will continue to take things step-by-step. Since my crash I had to start from zero and rebuild my physical conditioning, so it has been a long road, but I am getting stronger and fitter and I am really happy with my progress. For sure there are a lot of talented riders in the class and it won’t be easy, but I am ready for the challenge and I’m really looking forward to round one.”Īrminas Jasikonis – Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing: “My recovery from my accident has been going really well. It will be my first year in MXGP, but I believe I can battle inside the top 5. With the team we’ve made some good progress in recent weeks. It did take me a little time to adapt, and it was challenging initially because the bike’s more powerful, but now I feel really good. I’ve had a really productive winter getting used to the FC 450 and I’m really happy with my bike and how I feel riding. Thomas Kjer Olsen – Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing: “The upcoming season is really exciting for me as I make the move up to the MXGP class. The 19-round FIM Motocross World Championship is scheduled to kick off in the Netherlands on May 23.

Mxgp 2021 season full#

Now, having undergone a period of intensive rehabilitation, the 23-year-old recently began riding his FC 450 with the aim of returning to full fitness in readiness for round one of the 2021 season.

Mxgp 2021 season series#

In finishing second overall at round five, Arminas remained a podium threat as the series continued until a heavy fall at round nine brought his year to a premature end. Enjoying a positive start to the 2020 season with a third-place overall result at round two, when racing resumed following the coronavirus-forced break the Lithuanian charged to his maiden race victory at the fourth round of the championship. The FC 450 rider now looks ahead to making his mark in the MXGP category.Īrminas Jasikonis is set to take on his third term of MXGP competition with Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing, looking to continue his return to full fitness while focused on eventually getting back to challenging for regular podium results. Undoubtedly one of the best performing MX2 riders in recent years, the tall Dane, who placed third overall in both the 20 campaigns before going one better in 2019 as series runner-up, is relishing his opportunity to race against new competitors.Įntering the 2021 season following six overall podium results in 2020, including two back-to-back GP wins, TKO unquestionably signed off his impressive MX2 career on a highly positive note.

Mxgp 2021 season pro#

With Kjer Olsen quickly adapting to the FC 450 as he readies himself for his first season of MXGP racing, Jasikonis recently returned to the track following his recovery from injury.Ĭontinuing his pro racing career with Husqvarna Motorcycles following four highly successful seasons in the MX2 World Championship, Thomas Kjer Olsen progresses to the ultra-competitive MXGP division for 2021, focused on making a solid first impression. Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing’s MXGP class competitors Thomas Kjer Olsen and Arminas Jasikonis have both enjoyed highly positive, but very different, winter preparations ahead of the 2021 FIM Motocross World Championship.

[blackwoolncrown]

For the past few days, a heatwave has glowered over the Pacific Northwest, forcing temperatures in the region to a record-breaking 118ºF. Few people in the region—neither Americans nor Canadians—have air-conditioning. Stores sold out of new AC units in hours as a panicked public sought a reasonable solution to the emergency. Unfortunately, air-conditioning is part of what’s causing the unusual heatwave in the first place.

We came close to destroying all life on Earth during the Cold War, with the threat of nuclear annihilation. But we may have come even closer during the cooling war, when the rising number of Americans with air conditioners—and a refrigerant industry that fought regulation—nearly obliterated the ozone layer. We avoided that environmental catastrophe, but the fundamental problem of air conditioning has never really been resolved.

Mechanical cooling appeared in the early 1900s not for comfort but for business. In manufacturing, the regulation of temperature—“process cooling”—controlled the quality of commodities like cotton, tobacco, and chewing gum. In 1903, Alfred Wolff installed the first cooling system for people at the New York Stock Exchange because comfortable traders yielded considerably higher stock returns. Only in the ’20s did “commercial cooling” appear. On Memorial Day weekend 1925, Willis Carrier debuted the first centrifugal air-conditioning system at the Rivoli Theater in Midtown Manhattan. Previously, theaters had shut down in the summer. With air-conditioning, the Rivoli became “the talk of Broadway” and inaugurated the summer blockbuster.

-another direct tie to capitalism. Everything born out of colonio-capitalism carries its toxic mark. Article totally not under the cut for those who can’t pay for Time. It honestly paints a really clear picture of the situation. Bolding mine.-

“It’s time we become more comfortable with discomfort. Our survival may depend on it.���

Before World War II, almost no one had air-conditioning at home. Besides being financially impractical and culturally odd, it was also dangerous. Chemical refrigerants like sulfur dioxide and methyl chloride filled most fridges and coolers, and leaks could kill a child, poison a hospital floor, even blow up a basement. Everything changed with the invention of Freon in 1928. Non-toxic and non-explosive, Freon was hailed as a “miracle.” It made the modernist skyscraper—with its sealed windows and heat-absorbing materials—possible. It made living in the desert possible. The small, winter resort of Phoenix, Arizona, became a year-round attraction. Architecture could now ignore the local climate. Anywhere could be 65ºF with 55% humidity. Cheap materials made boxy, suburban tract housing affordable to most Americans, but the sealed-up, stifling design of these homes required air-conditioning to keep the heat at bay. Quickly, air-conditioning transitioned from a luxury to a necessity. By 1980, more than half of all U.S. homes were air-conditioned. And despite millions of Black Americans fleeing the violence of Jim Crow, the South saw greater in-migration than out-migration for the first time—a direct result of AC. The American car was similarly transformed. In 1955, only 10 percent of American cars had air-conditioning. Thirty years later, it came standard.

The cooling boom also altered the way we work. Now, Americans could work anywhere at any hour of the day. Early ads for air-conditioning promised not health or comfort but productivity. The workday could proceed no matter the season or the climate. Even in the home, A/C brought comfort as a means to rest up before the next work day.

The use of air-conditioning was as symbolic as it was material. It conveyed class status. Who did and didn’t have air-conditioning often fell starkly along the color line, too, especially in the South. It conquered the weather and, with it, the need to sweat or squirm or lie down in the summer swelter. In that sense, air-conditioning allowed Americans to transcend their physical bodies, that long-sought fantasy of the Puritan settlers: to be in the world but not of it. Miracle, indeed.

But it came with a price. As it turned out, Freon isn’t exactly non-toxic. Freon is a chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), which depletes the ozone layer and also acts as a global warming gas. By 1974, the industrialized world was churning out CFCs, chemicals that had never appeared on the planet in any significant quantities, at a rate of one million metric tons a year—the equivalent mass of more than 500,000 cars. That was the year atmospheric chemists Sherry Rowland and Mario Molina first hypothesized that the chlorine molecules in CFCs might be destroying ozone in the stratosphere by bonding to free oxygen atoms and disrupting the atmosphere’s delicate chemistry. By then, CFCs were used not only as refrigerants but also as spray can propellants, manufacturing degreasers, and foam-blowing agents.

The ozone layer absorbs the worst of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation. Without stratospheric ozone, life as we know it is impossible. A 1 percent decline in the ozone layer’s thickness results in thousands of new cases of skin cancer. Greater depletion would lead to crop failures, the collapse of oceanic food systems, and, eventually, the destruction of all life on Earth.

In the 1980s, geophysicist Joseph Farman confirmed the Rowland-Molina hypothesis when he detected a near-absence of ozone over Antarctica—the “Ozone Hole.” A fierce battle ensued among industry, scientists, environmentalists, and politicians, but in 1987 the U.S signed the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which ended Freon production.

The Montreal Protocol remains the world’s only successful international environmental treaty with legally binding emissions targets. Annual conferences to re-assess the goals of the treaty make it a living document, which is revised in light of up-to-date scientific data. For instance, the Montreal Protocol set out only to slow production of CFCs, but, by 1997, industrialized countries had stopped production entirely, far sooner than was thought possible. The world was saved through global cooperation.

The trouble is that the refrigerants replacing CFCs, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), turned out to be terrible for the planet, too. While they have an ozone-depleting potential of zero, they are potent greenhouse gases. They absorb infrared radiation from the sun and Earth and block heat that normally escapes into outer space. Carbon dioxide and methane do this too, but HFCs trap heat at rates thousands of times higher. Although the number of refrigerant molecules in the atmosphere is far fewer than those of other greenhouse gases, their destructive force, molecule for molecule, is far greater.

In three decades, the production of HFCs grew exponentially. Today, HFCs provide the cooling power to almost any air conditioner in the home, in the office, in the supermarket, or in the car. They cool vaccines, blood for transfusions, and temperature-sensitive medications, as well as the data processors and computer servers that make up the internet—everything from the cloud to blockchains. In 2019, annual global warming emissions from HFCs were the equivalent of 175 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.

In May, the EPA signaled it will begin phasing down HFCs and replacing them with more climate-friendly alternatives. Experts agree that a swift end to HFCs could prevent as much as 0.5ºC of warming over the next century—a third of the way to the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.

Yet regardless of the refrigerant used, cooling still requires energy. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, air-conditioning accounts for nearly a fifth of annual U.S. residential electricity use. This is more energy for cooling overall and per capita than in any other nation. Most Americans consider the cost of energy only in terms of their electricity bills. But it’s also costing us the planet. Joe Biden’s announcement to shift toward a renewable energy infrastructure obscures the uncertainty of whether that infrastructure could meet Americans’ outrageously high energy demand—much of it for cooling that doesn’t save lives. Renewable energy infrastructure can take us only so far. The rest of the work is cultural. From Freon to HFCs, we keep replacing chemical refrigerants without taking a hard look at why we’re cooling in the first place.

Comfort cooling began not as a survival strategy but as a business venture. It still carries all those symbolic meanings, though its currency now works globally, cleaving the world into civilized cooling and barbaric heat. Despite what we assume, as a means of weathering a heat wave, individual air-conditioning is terribly ineffective. It works only for those who can afford it. But even then, their use in urban areas only makes the surrounding micro-climate hotter, sometimes by a factor of 10ºF, actively threatening the lives of those who don’t have access to cooling. (The sociologist Eric Klinenberg has brilliantly studied how, in a 1995 Chicago heat wave, about twice as many people died than in a comparable heat wave forty years earlier due to the city’s neglect of certain neighborhoods and social infrastructure.) Ironically, research suggests that exposure to constant air-conditioning can prevent our bodies from acclimatizing to hot weather, so those who subject themselves to “thermal monotony” are, in the end, making themselves more vulnerable to heat-related illness.

And, of course, air-conditioning only works when you have the electricity to power it. During heatwaves, when air-conditioning is needed most, blackouts are frequent. On Sunday, with afternoon temperatures reaching 112ºF around Portland, the power grid failed for more than 6,300 residences under control by Portland General Electrics.

The troubled history of air-conditioning suggests not that we chuck it entirely but that we focus on public cooling, on public comfort, rather than individual cooling, on individual comfort. Ensuring that the most vulnerable among the planet’s human inhabitants can keep cool through better access to public cooling centers, shade-giving trees, safe green spaces, water infrastructure to cool, and smart design will not only enrich our cities overall, it will lower the temperature for everyone. It’s far more efficient this way.

To do so, we’ll have to re-orient ourselves to the meaning of air-conditioning. And to comfort. Privatized air-conditioning survived the ozone crisis, but its power to separate—by class, by race, by nation, by ability—has survived, too. Comfort for some comes at the expense of the life on this planet.

It’s time we become more comfortable with discomfort. Our survival may depend on it.

[gonzo-rella]

Insomnia | Rin Matsuoka

MASTERLIST | AO3 | KO-FI

Relationship(s): Rin Matsuoka x insomniac!gn!reader (romantic)

Summary: Rin gets coffee with Gou, who reveals that you aren’t doing as great as you’d let him believe. It’s up to him to figure out what’s wrong and why you weren’t the one to tell him that something’s wrong.

Warnings: None! (Let me know if I need to add any)

Word count: 1.9k

(A/N: Another instalment of ‘revised works from my old blog’. I don’t think this one’s all that impressive compared to my more recent fics, but it holds a place in my heart regardless. This is the first time I’m posting an anime fic to this blog. Maybe this’ll attract some weeb followers- fingers crossed! I wrote this in 2020; it was inspired by my messed up sleep schedule caused by lockdown and my poor lifestyle choices. I’ve dealt with bouts of insomnia over the past several years, so I based this a lot on that. As part of my heavy editing, I’ve mercifully condensed my obligatory expository opening paragraphs. Yes, this is the condensed version. Anyway, I’ll definitely write many more fics for Rin because he’s one of my biggest anime crushes. So, if you’re a weeb who has just discovered my blog, my requests are always open!)

You and Rin were close because of who you associated with as kids. Haru and Makoto were your childhood friends, and (though you were in the same class as him through your entire school life) Nagisa had only gotten to know you because Makoto always invited you to their swimming tournaments. You constantly hid your enjoyment of being a spectator of swimming, constantly pretending as though you didn’t have any investment in the sport. They always attended your elementary school baseball games, so you felt as though it was fair that you attended their swimming tournaments to cheer them on. Even when you quit baseball at the end of elementary school, meaning they never had to support you in a competitive setting again, you still went to cheer them on because they were your friends. 

Rin, however, was a special case.

You had gotten to know Rin when Makoto, Haru and Nagisa had befriended him as kids. Though you didn’t seem to fit in with their group upon first glance due to being someone who didn’t swim, you consistently supported them. While you viewed Makoto, Haru and Nagisa as brotherly figures, what you had with Rin was something else. Rin was fiercely protective over you when anyone dared to hurt you in any way. The others would stand up for you, but Rin would do so with far more anger and passion. He, unbeknown to you at the time, admired you more than should have been humanly possible.

Since his arrival back in Japan, you and Rin had gotten quite close. A few months later, you and he had started dating. He was still very protective over you, and you were always there to listen to his problems judgement-free.

Rin couldn’t always be there for you, since he was captain of the Samezuka swim club and didn’t attend the same school as you. That’s why he asked Haru, Makoto, Rei, Nagisa and Gou to look out for you at school. All of them were more than happy to support you when he couldn’t.

During winter break, your lack of routine had led to you wrecking your sleep schedule. On most days, you stayed awake watching anime or occupying yourself with some other task until 8 AM, and slept until the afternoon or early evening. If you ever had anything to do during the day (such as meet up with your friends), you would fall asleep the moment you returned home. 

Attempts to fix your sleep schedule before school started again were all unsuccessful. You often just dozed off during the time you were supposed to be staying awake, or just couldn’t sleep when you were supposed to because of your involuntary naps during the day and those pesky thoughts rushing through your head. So, you usually decided to watch anime or do school work (usually the former) until you practically passed out. 

When you returned to school, you couldn’t get enough sleep during the night, even though you were constantly exhausted due to a lack of sleep.

Sleep had been a problem for a while even prior to the winter break. You hadn’t always gotten enough sleep due to one thing or another, but you’d never experienced anything quite like this before.

Haru, Gou and Makoto had been the first ones to notice your sudden change in self when you all returned from winter break.

Unless there was an exam period coming up, you were a lot more laid-back, even if you tended to be somewhat hot-headed. However, for the week you’d been back, you appeared to be simultaneously more ditzy and more irritable than usual. You had started to refuse to hang out with your friends outside of school, insisting that you had to study. You snapped more easily, had become more easily upset and generally lacked your usual focus. 

They noticed that the dark circles beneath your eyes were far more prominent than before, so much so that it looked a little like you had two black eyes. They didn’t think you were lying about studying, nor did they think that you were studying for a healthy amount of time.

Rei had been the next to notice. In the classes you shared, you had fallen asleep in most of the afternoon ones in the past two weeks. Nagisa, the last to notice, had noticed you napping in your shared homeroom and at lunch.

Gou attempted to disguise her worries when she met up with Rin at a cafe on their first Saturday back at school.

“So, sis, how’s it been going?” Rin asked nonchalantly. He sipped his drink.

“I’ve been fine.” Gou shrugged, not quite convincing Rin of what she was saying.

Rin snorted a laugh. “I’m your big brother; I can tell you’re hiding something.” Gou looked a little startled and flustered, while Rin just sipped his drink again. “Go on. Tell me what’s bothering you.”

“It’s just…when was the last time you talked to Y/N?” Gou blurted. Rin looked up at her, his smile now replaced with an expression of concern.

“We texted this morning, we called last night and we haven’t seen each other since we all met up during winter break. They said they couldn’t hang out because they’re busy studying.” Rin recalled. “Why? What’s wrong with them?”

“We’re not entirely sure ourselves. Nagisa and Rei say that Y/N’s been falling asleep in class, and we’ve all noticed they look like they haven't been sleeping well. They’ve been telling us they’re studying. I think they’re overdoing it.” Gou answered, looking a little solemn. “We’ve tried asking them about it, but they just tell us that they’re fine.”

Rin thought for a moment, his concern inflating. You’d seemed fine on the phone, but that was likely due to the fact that hiding tiredness is much easier via phone call than in person. “Hm…Maybe I can go to their house and talk to them later.” Rin said, pulling off his facade of calmness far better than Gou.

So, he did just as he said he would.

He arrived on your doorstep an hour or so later, awaiting an answer to his knock. Within a few moments, a little girl no older than 6 opened the door for Rin. “Rin! What are you doing here?”

Rin smiled and chuckled. “I’m here to see Y/N. Are they here?”

“Yeah, but they’re sleeping on the couch again even though they’re supposed to be watching me and L/B/N.” L/S/N said grouchily, pouting a little.

Rin masked his concern with a fake bright smile, and continued to keep his composure. “So…Can I come in?”

“I guess so.” the short, H/C-haired girl answered nonchalantly, stepping back from the door. As Rin stepped into your house, he noticed your 11-year-old little brother had come over to see who was at the door.

“Oh, hey, Rin.” L/B/N greeted. “They passed out on the couch 2 hours ago.” He extended his thumb and threw his hand over his shoulder to gesture to the living room.

“Thanks, L/B/N.” Rin thanked, making his way to the living room.

“Good luck waking them up. I tried waking them up yesterday and they threw two couch cushions at me.” L/B/N responded, trailing after him. 

L/S/N followed suit. “It’s like waking up a dragon.” she added.

As he walked in, he noticed the TV was playing static. It mustn’t have been very entertaining, because you were fast asleep with your back facing the TV as you wrapped your arms around two cushions like a koala hugging a tree. Your face was burrowed into the cushion, concealing it quite a bit. 

Rin knelt down beside the couch and placed his hand on your side. He tried shaking you, but nothing became of it. He’d always known you to be a heavy sleeper; he was sure the nuclear apocalypse wouldn’t be enough to wake you up.

“N/N.” Rin said softly, shaking you a little harder. You stirred a little, groaning a little as you hugged your cushion tighter. Rin sighed. “Y/N, wake up.” He spoke a little louder this time, his voice more firm. This proved to work when you mumbled a soft “Huh?” and craned your neck to look at Rin through narrow eyes. 

“Rin? What are-”

“Gou and the others were worried about you, so I thought I’d pay you a visit and check up on you.” Rin responded, removing his hand from your side so you could sit up. 

You almost kicked Rin in the head as you rolled over and sat upright, still clutching onto the cushion in your arms.

“I told them I was fine.” you muttered tiredly, before yawning loudly. You pointed at your younger siblings. “You, you, out.” Your siblings obliged, scurrying off to the kitchen so that they could eavesdrop on your conversation.

Rin sighed and sat beside you, outstretching his arms over the back of the couch. He took a good look at your face, dark circles staining beneath your eyes. He didn’t think they detracted from your beauty, but their presence indicated to him that your lack of sleep wasn’t doing you any favours. “What’s going on, N/N? From what I’ve heard, you’ve been studying too much.”

You shook your head. “I’ve barely studied over the past couple of weeks.” 

You couldn’t hide anything from Rin, both out of moral obligation and enough sensibility to know that he was like a lie detector when it came to you. He eyed you curiously.

“Winter break messed with my sleep schedule, and now I can’t sleep at night because I’m so exhausted in the day that I keep falling asleep, and can’t sleep for that long at night because I sleep too much in the day. And, even if I am tired at night, I’m always too stressed about sleep to sleep.” you rambled, rubbing your eyes in an attempt to wake up.

“So, you’ve been like this for almost a week and Gou had to tell me instead of you?” Rin asked, glancing over at you with folded arms. “Why’s that?”

You glanced away from him, reluctant to answer.

“Y/N,” he said firmly. “I want to know why you didn’t come to me and tell me that something was wrong.”

You sighed and looked over at him, before quickly averting your gaze elsewhere. “I didn’t think it was a big enough deal to bother you with it. Besides, it’s not your job to worry about me and take care of me. You’re the captain of a swim team and you have to deal with that, not me.”

“As long as I’m your boyfriend, it is my job to worry about you and take care of you.” Rin explained. “I know my future’s important to you, but you’re just as important to me as my future. You might even be part of it. You know how important you are to me, right?”

Your cheeks started to burn up at his words, and your heart skipped a beat. You glanced over at Rin and smiled faintly at him, before throwing your cushion to the ground and shuffling closer to him. You wrapped your arms around his torso and rested your head against his neck. He chuckled and kissed your forehead, wrapping his arms around your shoulders and resting his head on yours.

“Yeah,” you answered with a yawn. “I know.”