#empty spaces and that yours has 1 empty space and 5 bullets. whatever it takes to keep them safe)

[rat-rosemary]

Dream is the god of false luck. Of shifting change. Of shoving everything in your pockets so you have a way out hours later. Of jumping from cliffs with half of a plan. Of Deus Ex Machinas made days earlier one the few seconds you had to breathe in the middle of a chase.

Of making it all look magic, like you can twist reality while hiding your bloody knuckles behind your back

No matter what happens the dsmp still prays to him.

In lmanburg Wilbur would leave a small offering to Dream before going to fight them same man. Karl would mutter a small prayer before making a particularly stupid prank to get the attention of a married man. Tommy screamed a plea as he stumbled and fell from the obsidian grid, managing to snatch a water bucket from his inventory just in time.

All but two of them keep their bonds to the god they lock away under obsidian and lava.

Sam breaks his the day he becomes the Warden, locking the rosary he has carried for years in a box in his base and never touching again

(The way his body becomes stiff and cold does not bother him. It doesn't. His duty comes first, even if he doesn't know what to do now that his body doesn't seem to move like it used to)

Quackity breaks his the day before his first visit to the prison, easily throwing his rosary into the flames of the fireplace in the office of his new empire

(His wings ache where they're bound to his back, his skin tingles, so cold and hard compared to the fluid metarmothis he got used to for years. He imagines being able to absorb the divinity that pours out of Dream through his skin, holds back the urge to eat his heart)

Quackity wanted endless luck. He wanted everything to always go exactly as planned, for all the pieces to fall into place

But the only luck that is certain is a gun with six bullets pressed against your temple.

[95jezzica]

Small Life Tips

Long title: List of Small Life Tips to Make Your Life Easier. That I wrote for you all while bored.

[Feel free to reblog with your own small life tips if you know something I didn't add to the list!]

. If you want to avoid a clog and get up from the toilet as you realize you MIGHT have used too much toilet paper, add about 2-3 glasses of water into the toilet on top of the toilet paper and let it sit for 3-5 minutes. Toilet paper is made to dissolve in water (though how quick it dissolves depends on the quality), so you can help it along by adding some extra water and wait a bit before flushing. It's not a bullet proof solution, but it ups your chances of avoiding a clog.

. If the toilet is overflowing, quickly turn off the water. Either directly at your toilet, or the big one for the whole apartment/house. Whatever goes quicker.

. Assuming the toilet isn't overflowing, but the clog has already happened, don't panic. Wait 20-30 minutes until the water in the toilet bowl has drained away. Even during clogs the water is (usually) able to very slowly go through even if the clog stops paper and poop from going. You might have to wait longer than 30 minutes, but if you truly see no difference in the water level AT ALL after 30 minutes, assume it's truly a clog-clog and stuck as hell. At that point, carefully empty some of the toilet water with a 1-time cup into a bucket until the water is at an somewhat normal level.

. If you have a plunger, use it. If not, add ca 1 cup of baking soda into the toilet bowl. Once done, wait a minute or 2 to let it sink down properly before you CAREFULLY pour vinegar on top of it. This will start a chemical reaction and it'll start to fizzle/bubble, hopefully unclogging everything. (Hence why you had to remove some water first, before adding the baking soda & vinegar. You don't want it to overflow).

. At this point if it fails and you can see the clog, put on plastic gloves and manually remove it. If you can't see the clog, call a professional and let them handle it. The clog is likely deeper in, and you don't want to accidentally destroy your toilet trying to get it out.

. . .

. Always have 2-3 bottles of frozen water in your freezer. It'll save a lot of headaches if your water is accidentally cut/nature catastrophe or whatever else happens, and frozen water (ice) stays good in the freezer for about 6 months.

. Just keep in mind water "grows"/take more space as it becomes ice though. Only fill the bottle about 3/4 to give the water/ice space to "grow". Or else it'll kind of explode. 1/10, do not recommend.

. If there's a power outage, do NOT open the fridge or freezer unless absolutely necessary, or you can immediately move them to a working fridge/freezer/the winter coldness outside. The food will stay fine for an average of 5-6 hours if you just make sure the inside heat doesn't get inside.

. As an additional bonus, if you have the water bottles (now ice bottles) in the freezer they'll work as extra cooling while you wait for the power to come back. They're also a great way to check how safe the food is to eat once the power comes back. If there's still ice in the bottles at the end? You're probably safe to go, but be careful if it's just water left. Consider it from case to case.

. Ironically enough cooking becomes much easier if you eat something before starting. Fruit? Some bread? Anything, really. Just eat SOMETHING before starting, and cooking will feel much easier.

. If you're using the oven while cooking/baking, always add about 25 Celsius (77 F, according to the internet) to whatever heat the recipe is calling for and lower the temperature to what the recipe wants AFTER you've put the cooking/baking inside. - "Why???" - Because whenever you open the oven about 25 Celsius/77 Fahrenheit worth of heat will leave the oven. So if you start higher, you'll still have the heat you need for everything to cook/bake more evenly at the heat it needs.

Example: Pretend a recipe calls for 200 Celsius (392 Fahrenheit). If you set the oven to that, and then open the oven to insert your cooking/baking, it will no longer be 200c/392 fahrenheit inside the oven. If you instead put the oven to 225 Celsius / 437 Fahrenheit, it means you'll still have around 200 Celsius / 392 Fahrenheit inside the oven when you've put your food/baking inside. Once everything is inside and the oven is closed again, you can lower the heat to 200 C. / 392 F.

. Eggs is usually fine to be stored outside of the refrigerator as long as you don't heat your apartment/house like an oven, but they'll last LONGER if you store them inside. So, really, just do it.

. You can freeze next to all foods, and they'll then last 3-6 months depending on what it is. There are some exceptions (like eggs), but honestly just Google the Food of Choice and check to be sure. Pretty much 9/10 foods can be frozen down to last longer though.

. Life is expensive and if you're down on your luck then rice and eggs will go a long way. Bulk buy if you can, but I understand if you can't. Rice doesn't really go bad as long as you store it in their unopened packaging or an air-tight (usually plastic) box, and eggs contains a lot of cheap and great vitamins and proteins.

. If you can also buy some diced chicken broth, you're in for some amazing food by just cooking the rice with a cup extra water and adding the broth dice and crack an egg into it near the end. - (Broth dice usually contain a lot of salt though, so I recommend skipping adding additional salt in your rice to avoid sodium overdose). - Just remember to let the egg cook with the rice for at least 1-2 minutes to avoid getting salmonella and stuff.

. In a pinch, plain rice and a cracked egg cooked together works great as food for dogs and cats. Remember to not use any salt or spices if you're going to use it as pet food. Just cook plain rice and and an egg together with water. Nothing else unless you've double-checked it's safe for your pet to eat.

[Heck, eggs can even be really good for your dogs and cats as long as you don't overdo it. According to my research small dogs shouldn't have more than 1 egg/week, while big dogs can eat 1 egg/day, so if you prepare 3-5 portions of your rice-egg mix dog food and portion it out over a few days, you'll be fine. Cats love eggs and can eat max 1 egg/day, but to be on the safe side you can count your cat as a "small dog" when planning out their emergency food.]

. With that said, if your pet doesn't immediately eat the rice-egg food you have served, don't leave it out of the fridge for more than an hour. Rice will start building up toxins because of a bacteria they have. They're usually not too dangerous for humans beyond a bad stomach, but I honestly don't know how it would affect your pet. I'm not a vet, but if I had to guess, the smaller your pet is the more likely they will be more affected by any toxins in their foods.

. In terms of killing bacteria, freezing something works just as well as cooking it. Just google to make sure your Food of Choice can be frozen down first.

. If you get cold symptoms and/or a bad cough, try to avoid milk/dairy products as much as possible. It has a tendency to build up (more) mucus/phlegm. Usually not dangerous, but it's annoying and feels disgusting.

. Hot tea with some honey helps a sore throat and/or if you've got mucus/phlegm in your throat. Which is really annoying it actually works, especially if you're like me and hate the taste of honey.

. . .

. Try to learn the sign language of your country, even if it's just some basics like the alphabet, numbers and the signs for the emergency services such as ambulance and firefighter. It might save a life. Either yours or someone else's.

. If you're deaf/hoh or have other troubles with phone calls, set up your phone to be connected to emergency services through text. This is something you need to set up AHEAD of time though, usually with an app or similar. Look up the specifics for your particular country. - (Because a depressingly small amount of people understand sign language, and the middle of an medical emergency is usually not the time when you want to play charade in HOPES the other person will understand you).

. Verdana, Arial and Comic Sans are three of the fonts that are generally more reading and Dyslexia friendly. For the love of god, just use them! Doesn't matter how pretty that cursive/tight/weird font is if we can't read what you're writing!

. . .

I keep getting distracted now, so I'm just gonna send this off for now and MAYBE add more in future reblogs when I come up with more. But yeah, feel free to add your own life tips as well.

[flashflashhundredyarddash]

batkids and their relationships with their siblings headcanons. under read more because this got fucking LONGGG

dick

dick is the eldest so he doesnt want to bog down his younger siblings with his problems, but if he DOES, he tends to talk to jason about it

dick and cass start to really begin to bond when Cass shows up to dicks gymnastics class for 3rd-6th graders and then cass shows up all the sixth graders and they get frozen yogurt after lmao

dick and tim are Very much thick as thieves. tim is very much like bruce on the Emotional Suppression scale, so dick just really wants to make sure his little brother is safe and happy ALL the time

Duke and Damian are the only two really permanently at the manor anymore, so when dick drops by he tries to do something with both of them. duke frantically zoom calls dick every other week to help him with his his trig homework. dick shows up to dukes high school graduation with literally the BIGGEST SIGN

everyone insists damian is dicks favorite but he does actually genuinely love all his siblings equally, his relationship with damian is just Very different from the others because of the age gap and being dami's primary caretaker for a year. dick babies dami every chance he gets

jason

would sell Dick to satan for One corn chip

him and cass don't have the greatest start to their relationship because cass is very much Against Killing so it takes a while for jason to warm up to her and earn her trust. now, though, jason is competing with steph by showing cass all the classic American Teenager things she missed out on. steph is currently winning but jason is like 98% positive a crunch wrap from taco bell is going to push him over the edge

tim and jason are currently competing over who can solve the most cases in a month. tim is winning. that won't last long.

jason Loves to Big Brother duke its so embarrassing. duke will get out of school and go to his car and jason is SITTING IN THE FRONT SEAT FRANTICALLY WAVING TO GET DUKES ATTENTION. JASON THAT IS MY CAR. signal has one (1) mission with arsenal and arsenal goes hey did you ask that girl to homecoming yet and duke is like I DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU.

Damian is proof that Actually, Little Brothers are Pests. Jason fully believes that he was brought back from the dead PURELY to torment damian and he will fulfill this mission at any cost

cassandra

it actually really upset her when Dick didn't accept her at first. she knows her other siblings really adore dick so his lack of trust was really disheartening. it takes dick a while but once he Actually Accepts that cass is going to be a permanent part of their life and oh, wow, dick you really hurt her feelings he really hyperfocuses on bonding with cass for a couple of months which definitely improves their relationship

she really likes jason!! their relationship doesn't start well but because he's close with steph and tim who are cass's top two favorite people to exist ever, cass is like well i GUESS ill hang out with him more. jason is fun to talk to because he always tries his best to explain jokes and give context to what people are talking about (also tim took her to taco bell already but she didn't tell jason she just wanted to hang out)

cass LOVES tim. they just click okay. tim always seems to know when to give her space and when to push and come closer. Tim's "guest room" is just her room lets be real. tim and cass occasionally get mistaken for twins and Cass Loves it.

duke makes cass listen to metal once and cass loses. her. damn. mind. they bond over music a lot because they both Love Music to a degree the others in their family don't.

damian!! damian is her little brother!!! dami isn't As Hostile to cass at first because he is 100% aware cass has the edge in fighting and respects her. cass likes all of his instagram posts and they have a snapchat streak going

tim

tim Loves dick, dick was his first sibling!! he had Very strong hero worship when he first met dick but it mellowed out when tim got older because wow 17 is really not that cool and mature lol. tim has an open invitation to dick's apartment which he does occasionally take advantage of. tim has more than once scared the shit out of wally when wally comes over and wally is convinced they're being robbed (HA) for half a second. i mean. he's not wrong.

listen. tim understands that forgiving the guy who tried to kill you would be a Struggle for some people and it was! definitely! but also at least he can trust jason to, uh, be open about if he doesn't like tim. which is not an assurance he has with other people. so if the guy who tried to kill him tells him tim is cool now then like. maybe tim isn't that bad or annoying a person? also jason arrested a whole gang and won the cases competition but then it created a power vacuum that the whole batfam had to clean up the rest of the month. thanks, jason.

tim LOVES cass. you know how most of the time theres this empty feeling inside you and you just kind of ignore it because you don't know what will fix it or if you do, you know you can't fix it? cass makes that empty feeling feel a little less empty. they just click. tim always tries to travel with cass whenever she leaves gotham.

tim and duke. Tim is actually the sibling who duke goes to whenever he has questions he doesn't want to ask bruce or alfred about, like, life or vigilante-ing or school or college or whatever and Tim is always like yes!! i love Giving Advice and Solving Problems!! tim and duke and jason fill out their college applications together.

tim and damian. LMAO. ROUGH START THAT'S ALL ILL SAY. at some point alfred goes like fuck it. family therapy. and tim and dami are PISSED. tim and damian get along best when they have a common enemy to work against. their relationship gets much better when damian is older and they actually talk about their feelings like emotionally stunted bats. despite how bad their relationship was, tim will ALWAYS protect damian

duke

very much intimidated by dick at first. dick is so much older and has his own job and friends and life and is very much AN ADULT. dick likes to take duke out to do lots of cool stuff (paintball, lasertag, tech exhibitions, concerts, etc). also, dick PERSONALLY introduced duke to superman and is dating THE FLASH. 10/10 awesome big brother.

was intimidated by jason for 0.5 seconds before jason actually opened his mouth and started speaking. jason is literally. So Embarrassing. which is weird because nobody else really seems to feel that way about jason but duke knows he's 100% in the right here. like yeah jason is also An Adult and does Adult Stuff but he's also at the manor like every other weekend???? and he always complains about bruce but always seems to be in the same room bruce is in????? like okay jason. they bond over literature!! jason and duke and alfred will spend literal hours talking about books and duke loves it. duke is the only one who doesn't think jason is funny and jason gets so upset about it lmao.

cass has this one week where she gets really into photography and by virtue of being nearby (and also not nocturnal), duke becomes her victim subject. duke prints out all the pictures and hangs them up in his room (his favorite is one he took when he stole the camera and took a really bad selfie of them together).

tim is closest in age to duke so duke tends to hang around with him a lot. tim introduced duke to his young justice friends and duke is like yes!!! meta-friends!!!! tim really helps duke out with his powers because tim is always like wow i wonder if your powers would work if we did This? can you see farther than other people? is your visible spectrum of light different than other humans? Bruce does the same thing but bruce is boring about it lol.

damian and duke live in the same house and will be in the same room and just send each other social media posts back and forth. they follow each other on instagram and will, OCCASIONALLY, make tik toks together because they're tik tok fiends. each of his siblings have visited his parents once or twice but damian routinely comes with him.

damian

damian gets a special bullet point to say that it took him. forever to come around to the idea of having siblings. he very much believed that he was Bruce's Blood Son and everyone else were just tagalongs or allies. it took him ages to acknowledge that dick, jason, tim, and cass were his siblings, so when duke came and like a week later damian was like Ah, Yes, this is my brother Thomas everyone else was like dude wtf

listen. LISTEN. Obviously. Richard is very highly skilled. and also Father values him highly. and also Richard will listen to Damian complain about his schoolmates. and also Richard is much more patient with Damian than other members of his family. listen....,,, (all this to say damian kind of fucking adores dick lmaooooo this kid).

Todd is kind of unbearable but damian has been informed this is both a normal feeling when it comes to Todd and also big brothers. damian was an only child for ten years so yes, Father, if Todd attempts to tickle me I WILL break his fucking nose. yes i WILL put money in the swear jar but I want you to know i don't regret it. they always try to sneak up on each other but mostly fail.

DRAKE!!! but no lol once damian grows up and is like I Apologize for attempting to murder you it was wrong and you are just as much a son to Father as I am tim is like UGH i guess its cool since ur being so emotionally mature and all. also im 2 for 5 on siblings trying to murder me so im definitely going to win trauma bingo and damian is like i take it back you are insufferable. When Will My Older Siblings Stop Joking About Their Trauma.

CASS!!! listen. cass is cool. Cass Gets It. They have a special Bond. also damian really likes it whenever cass is home because 1) he gets to hang out and do something cool with cass and 2) he feels significantly safer with cass in the house because Nobody will be able to hurt any of their family if Cass is there. ALSO he tries to call her cain but everyone is like DONT DO THAT and he doesn't want to call her wayne bcus theyre ALL wayne (dick adds it on as a middle name but also Richard John Wayne West-Grayson is just. the lamest name ever so dick needs to reconsider it before his upcoming nuptials)((dick will not reconsider it except maybe whether grayson-west would work better)) and so he tries cassandra but cass is like :) call me cass and damian is like cassandra is more formal and respectful and cass is like :) and finally damian just has to give in.

Duke! him and duke actually live together so they get the Most Bonding Time and have a bunch of inside jokes as a result. (is it bad i wanted to laugh because inside jokes... joker... i'll see myself out). they're eating breakfast together (and also alfred sits with them IM NOT A MONSTER ALFIE'S LIKE 70 NOW OKAY) and duke laughs and bruce is like what are you laughing at, son? and duke is like oh damian just showed me this funny meme and then he shows the phone to bruce and bruce grabs it (both the boys groan) and after WAY TOO LONG is like "i don't get it" and so now duke and damian have to try and explain the comedic intricacy of bob's burgers

[thevirgodoll]

hi! i was wondering if you have any tips to stay organized and stay on task? i’ve been doing a short online course this year and have really struggled to ACTUALLY bring myself to do the work, as assignments and lessons are not under any time constraints i just don’t do it. i also have adhd so get bored or distracted easily. do you have any tips for me?

This is really close to me because I also have ADHD. I have both inattentive and hyperactive type. *As a result, this academic tip guide will be a guide for people with ADHD and not neurotypical people, without disability. There is a difference.*

I am doing online as well this semester.

1. I create a schedule. If I do not create a schedule, I will be unproductive the entire day. So, what will help you is to do things in orderly fashion.

For example, at 12p - I will do this assignment/watch this lecture. You have to dictate what time you’re doing everything. Then, you also have to block out technology distractions while you are working. 

-> Even if you’ve gotten halfway through the day with no schedule, write down or block off times on your digital calendar for what you are going to do at each time. ADHD is easier to tackle if you break things down into smaller tasks.

*Pro tip that I almost forgot: before you do anything, wear your day clothes. Don’t wear pajamas. Actually getting dressed or even doing hair/makeup changes things.

2. Download the Forest app after you have created your schedule. I consistently recommend this because it works in increasing productivity. It allows you to set it for however long you’re doing this task, say 30 minutes.

-> Why?: It will block all apps on your phone for (insert time here) to plant a tree, and if you leave the app your “tree” will die. Eventually, the more sessions you do, the more points you will gain to plant different plants, and eventually plant real trees around the world.

3. Have a list (& a planner) as well. Not only is the schedule creating structure, but the list creates even more structure so you know what you need to get done for the day. It also helps you not fall victim to the classic symptom of forgetting. Each day, you should write down what you WANT to get done and create your own times to look at lecture and assignments. Have goals for the day.

For example: complete assignment 2.

If you do not have expectations with yourself before the day begins, your ADHD will kind of take over and do something else. I have structure to my day. I set a timer to wake up at the same time. I take my ADHD medicine 90 minutes before my final wake up time, and I do my morning routine once it kicks in. Having the same routine helps.

-> Focus on your goals. Don’t be super harsh about the times.

-> Don’t overwhelm with how many things on to do list. Again, break it up into small tasks. For example, one part being: Wash dishes or fold laundry. It makes it less overwhelming to your brain and gives you a choice of which task. Typical non ADHD people just tell you to prioritize tasks but that doesn’t work for us. Do it in a random order and it gets the job done.

4. TAKE BREAKS! The other side to this is making sure that you give yourself adequate breaks.

*For hyperfocus, wait til your hyperfocus has started to wear off. Use it to your advantage for peak productivity. It is no joke.*

-> The misconception is that some people with ADHD are lazy and as a result, some ADHDers won’t take breaks. You can take a break. Healthy, long breaks do more for you long term.

-> Have a timer set. For example, after a 45 minute session or an hour session, I will take a break to do another task that has nothing to do with studying, like laundry, eating a snack, or stretching. Then after that task is done, I will go back to studying.

5. Have a workspace. Only do work at this space. I do schoolwork at my living room table and it is perfect. I do not study in my room because that is my sanctuary for relaxation and rest, not productivity. Make an effort to make the workspace clean, with your supplies - laptop, notebooks, pens, etc - readily available.

-> Once I get to my workspace, everything for the morning is already done. I’ve done my morning routine, so all there is left to do is hydrate while I study.

6. Recognize if you have adequate energy to do the task. Sometimes, with ADHD you may neglect your needs. If you are not getting enough rest, here are some tips:

•Bed should be for rest only.

•Blackout curtains

•Lavender essential oil, I have a diffuser but you can also put it on your pillow

•Background noise: pick what you want, lo fi music, rain sounds, binaural beats, singing bowls

•If all else fails, ADHD is often comorbid with other illnesses, meaning you could have a form of depression causing insomnia for example. This should be considered if you are having long term issues and symptoms.

7. Don’t overdo it. We are not neurotypical. Executive dysfunction is real - meaning our brains actually shut down when it perceives a task to be mundane.

-> You do not have to fit everything into one schedule for the sake of being “productive”. Each day should be what you know you can do, and there are different days to tackle different goals.

-> When you feel like you cannot continue, which is literally a symptom of ADHD, sit still for a few minutes.

8. Have a “What I Did Today” List. Because of how ADHD actually makes us feel, we don’t realize how much work we have put in. ADHD actually can be explained easily, we have about 2 dopamine workers showing up to work while most people are at maximum capacity. We are working overtime to do our best, even on medicine. So, acknowledging what we did today is good and encouraging, or at least reflecting in a journal.

9. Play music. It’s recommended to play study music without words because with ADHD we will submerge ourselves into the playlist of nostalgic 90s R&B. I recommend lo fi hip hop on YouTube, video game instrumentals, classical music, or jazz instrumentals. Whatever gets you going just do it!

General ADHD tips:

•Rewrite lecture notes and type the lecture notes.

•Color code with bright colors and pretty drawings or calligraphy

•Instead of telling yourself “I need to take notes” which usually leads to procrastination say “Rewrite lecture notes and emphasize main points” ... this is useful in your to do list but in everyday goals

•Generally try to get your assignments done ahead of time if there is structure to certain courses, if not, again, stick to the schedule. If you slip one day off your schedule then don’t beat yourself up. Breathe!!!

•Side effect of most ADHD meds is that you’re not hungry so buy easy things to eat like muscle milk or yogurt and granola or smoothies so you can sustain yourself

•Get a dry erase board to show what you need to do for the day and put it on the fridge with command strips

•To avoid forgetting things, put them at a table near the door where you leave your apartment/dorm/house.

•Don’t overthink the time it takes to get ready, often that’s why ADHDers are late. Better to be super early than late though - have a routine set so you know how long each task takes - for example “I know a shower takes me 15 mins, washing my face takes 60 seconds and a few more including sunscreen/moisturizer, etc...”

•In that same grain, set timers for going to the bathroom, showering, etc just in case you one day hyperfocus and push yourself too far

•Open the blinds!!!!

•Clean your room and tidy up your space. A cluttered space impacts your mental health in a really negative way. Your space reflects your mental state at times as well, so check in with yourself. Have a specific day where you know you’re going to clean, but ADHD sometimes gives us bursts of cleaning so take advantage of that as well.

•Anytime your water bottle empties refill it. Have your water bottle or mason jar next to your workspace, and drink 5-10 gulps. Seriously. ADHD depends a lot on hydration, especially if you are on medicine which naturally dehydrates you. If you do not stay hydrated, you’ll get that massive headache mid day and crash sooner. A lot of times, lack of productivity can be due to not drinking enough water.

•If you don’t take medication, then sometimes you may notice you love coffee, and that’s because it’s a stimulant. Too much of anything is not good, but balance it with water. If you’re going to use coffee to kinda “medicate” then do it close to when you’re going to be productive.

•Setting yourself up to do a task rather than envisioning the overwhelming act of doing the entire action. “Okay, lets just get up and get the first step down, such as opening the laptop or wetting the toothbrush.” Baby steps.

•Take advantage of accommodations! Your college more than likely has an Office of Disability Services. Also, email your professors...they’re actually just as stressed as you about classes being online.

•Remember that you’re already trying as hard as you can, so don’t listen to the narrative of “try harder”, “you’re *r word*”, “you’re cheating by using medication”, “just do it,” “it’s easy,” “what’s so hard about it?” or “you’re lazy”. Anyone telling you that, even yourself, is wrong. And DO NOT allow anyone to be ableist, even yourself.

•Validate yourself. Don’t let anyone to do the “I experience that too”/“I know what you mean”/“we ALL have trouble with this!” and they don’t have ADHD. No. It’s our experience, it’s valid, and unlike anything on the planet. If you’re reading this and you don’t have ADHD - no, you do not experience any of the things in my next bullet point.

•Don’t be hard on yourself if you stumble along the way getting this right. ADHD completely changes your executive functioning.

We see the task, but our brain blocks it.

We have something marked down as “important” but our brain tosses it out in the “trash”.

We watch an entire episode of a show, but our brain ignored the entire thing. Our brain picks and chooses what is stimulating, our brain changes our interests.

We have sensory overload, we have no dopamine, we have bursts of curiosity that cannot be contained (often inconvenient) and if interrupted, our brains cannot take it.

People often discount how many things ADHD actually changes because it’s widely misunderstood. I want to take the time to acknowledge that ADHD, formerly known as simply ADD, has different types: primarily inattentive, primarily hyperactive-impulsive, or combined which is what I have. So it’s not “hyper” and “relatable”. It is also not a buzzword to use to describe things. I must put stereotypes and misrepresentations of ADHD to rest.

It impacts us emotionally as well, which most people don’t know... such as rejection dysphoria — extreme sensitivity to being criticized to where our brains self destruct. Our brains don’t regulate emotions well.

ADHDers - do not fall victim to how everyone else operates and call yourself a failure. We have to work twice as hard and the results actually come out brilliant especially with our determination and imaginative ideas that are also seen in autistic individuals, honorable mention!

There’s good days and bad days. There’s literal changes in thinking that other people do not experience. We all collectively know wouldn’t be who we are without ADHD, but we all recognize the challenges. However, it makes me happy to see messages like this so that I can make a difference and hopefully help one person with ADHD, especially of color, at a time stop being so hard on themselves. 💗

[sharkfish]

love ‘em, can’t live without ‘em: early-career writers!

[masterpost of rec lists]

new content creators are the lifeblood of fandom, so here i present stories by folks who have five or less destiel fics published (...so far) as of december 2020!!! 

please give them some love!!! 

under the cut since it got long~ 

the burden of belonging by Newtondale @soft-klaus (8k)

Dean doesn't know where he's going, he just drives.

He meanders. Takes whatever road he wants without worrying about efficiency or speed. He watches the landscape change around him as he heads east, towards the sea. Sometimes he listens to music, and sometimes he doesn’t. Most of the time he just thinks, the way he has always thought best; with an open road ahead and horror close behind.

Cas always comes back to him. Cas has always come back. Whether it takes minutes, or weeks, or months - Cas comes back to him.

But Cas hasn’t come back. How much longer is supposed to wait? Minutes? Months? How long is he supposed to live like this, like there’s nothing else that matters except the space beside him where Cas should be?

So he just drives.

Dean Winchester’s 12-Step Guide to Inebriated Online Retail Therapy for Fallen Angels and Judgemental Brothers With Bad Hair (Suck It, Sammy) by justholdingstill @justholdingstill   (3k) 

Alternatively titled Dean Wayne: The Life & Legend

Dean gets drunk. Dean orders things online. Hilarity ensues.

Hang-Ups by anupalya @anupalya (2k)

A slip of the tongue while hanging up a zoom meeting with Castiel leaves Dean in a panic.

****

Jsksdjdjskal

I'm starting to think you're letting Blueberry walk over your keyboard again.

i'm moving to Thailand

?????

I have to

Dean

I have no choice

... so I take it the meeting went well?

dream root & fumbling through the darkness by visionsofyerface @omnishamblegreg (1.3k)

Dean takes dream root for some fun angsty wanderings into Cas’s head, and then actually goes to the Empty, but Cas doesn't believe it's really him.

How Long? by MinxyOne93 @substitutesalt93 (WIP - 37k)

Dean has been going on reckless hunts by himself. Cas confronts him and all those years of unresolved pining come to a boiling point.

_

"Dean. How long?" The angel said, still quiet but so raw with emotion, eyes still wide with shock.

Dean looked down at the floor and sighed. "Since... always. I knew it for sure in Purgatory. But always." He then added in a near whisper, tears threatening to spill from behind his now closed eyelids, "I'm sorry, Cas."

"Sorry? You're sorry?" Castiel felt dumbfounded. The constant loneliness and longing he had sensed from Dean that seemed to grow worse and worse with the passing of years made so much more sense now.

"Dean," was all Cas could say before releasing his grip on his collar and gently, slowly, deliberately, kissing the corner of his mouth. A shocked gasp left Dean’s mouth of its own accord and he melted into Castiel's tight embrace.

It's The Thought That Counts by oceaxe @oceaxe-ifdawn (3k)

It’s Dean’s birthday and while angels have no birthdays, Castiel has a) been around human cultures for long enough to be aware of the nearly universal customs of celebrating the anniversary of a loved one’s birth and b) has been living with humans for long enough that he’s been included in some of those celebrations. But the art of gift-giving continues to elude his comprehension.

Lucky Winner by natmoose @natmoose (32k)

Dean wins a trip to Paris. In and of itself, that’s an amazing thing, but the problem is: he isn’t in a relationship with Lisa anymore, and the trip requires a romantic partner. The obvious choice is Cas, his roommate and best friend of 3 years, but coming with that are some very very complicated feelings and things Dean absolutely doesn’t want to deal with.

But Dean isn’t selfish and also really wants to give his overworked best friend a well deserved holiday, so the only and best solution is to take Cas to Paris, romantic theme be damned. What Dean doesn’t know is that their whole trip will be documented by a photographer from the company - so to avoid their vacation being cut short, Dean and Cas will have to convincingly play a couple.

Once Upon a Falling Star by GrandestBlood @grumpy-mccat (WIP - 3k) 

Alternate outcome for season 5's Endverse where Castiel never lost his grace but he was tricked to retreat back to heaven with the other angels, leaving Dean behind in the refugee camp.

Prompt for this was: The world has ended 500 years ago. You finally went back to Earth and discovered a voice message. You learn a shocking secret about 500 years ago.

Sending A Message by ivebeenpossessedbysatan @ivebeenpossessedbysatan (WIP - 15k)

Castiel Novak didn't expect to be kidnapped. Sure, he'd seen it happen before, but that was all in movies. Just because his mother had married into money didn't mean that someone was actually going to kidnap him and try to ransom him for money.

Only apparently it did, because here he was, tied to a chair in the corner of the most cliché warehouse he'd ever seen.

Why was this is life?

so leave me // at the roadside by LinkInThePark @saminzat (3k)

”This was exactly what he had been trying to avoid. Maybe he shouldn’t have gone out on his own at all, but he was tired of sitting around in the bunker, where the walls seemed to close in on him and the halls were too empty at the same time. Where everything reminded him of what had happened, of the battles they had fought and the people they had lost.

Of the words left unsaid.”

Dean is taking the Impala on a ride, trying to escape everything that's happened... And, in the process, is finally forced to confront his grief. 15x19 coda.

Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, but Words Might Get Me Laid by Mrs King of Hell (Slytherkins) @slytherkins (3k)

When Dean's name calling goes too far, Castiel decides to teach him a lesson in manners.

"Take a Sad Song and Make it Better" by Shishquah_CustardTree @shishquahcustardtree (WIP - 27k) 

After being bought and abused by Alistair for many years, Dean Winchester finally gets another chance at life and love by the means of a car crash and a bullet.

The One (1) Time Dean Winchester Tried Something New by archangelgabe @3dg310rdsupreme (2k)

What fun is a relationship that doesn't start with the gross misunderstanding that your crush is hitting on your kid brother?

The one where they get heaven-married by mercurialkitty @mercurialkitty (1.3k)

First a quick chat with Sam in the Impala, then it's off to find Cas.

A finale fix-it where Dean and Cas get heaven-married

There'll Be Peace When You Are Done by diaryofageekgirl @diaryofageekgirl  (5k) 

Somehow, in the middle of severing vamp necks in the dead of night in a run-down barn in Ohio, Dean had a revelation.

Or: nothing stays dead on Supernatural.

This is heaven by madbrilliant84 @madbrilliant84 (800)

“Come on dude! Don’t tell me you don’t know what your legs look like! I bet you could crush melons with those.”

Cas seemed incredibly amused by this. “And that’s something that turns you on?”

Dean smiled while biting is bottom lip. He slowly nodded. His playful tone dropped to something more heated.

“Uh huh. First thing I noticed when I saw you sitting on that bar stool.”

You're Not Alone by Wordsintothevoid @deancas-stan (15k)

Dean has an imaginary friend. Sure, that's weird as hell but he doesn't care. Cas has been there to support him during every horrible thing in Dean's short miserable life and he is not giving up Cas. Sure, Dean may also sorta kinda be in love with him. Oops. And it hurts but Dean will keep it platonic. But then Cas leaves. And then Dean breaks.

We’ll All Arrive in Heaven Alive by invisibledrugs @reasonsweweresinging (1k)

The Winchesters are finally dying, and for good.

But that's okay, because Dean knows what - and who - is waiting for him.

last but definitely not least, @uncastiel doesn’t have any fics yet but is taking prompts! 

[hellsenthero]

Indistinct | Chapter 5

Written by: hellsenthero

Bucky X FemReader

As a shapeshifter you’ve done some heavy spy work, jobs that no one else is capable of. It’s what you’re used to but it’s no longer where you’re needed for. Now after years of working solo SHIELD has assigned you as part of the Avengers and it’s there that you’ll face your most difficult times. But maybe with the help of a certain dark haired, blue eyed super soldier that you have a history with, things won’t be so bad...right?

Indistinct Masterlist: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | < Chapter 5 > | Chapter 6 | (Series in complete.) 

Main Masterlist

Warnings/Themes: Violence, language, fluff, angst. (2.6K Words)

**********

Since joining the avengers Y/N had been on a few missions. Nothing too big and nothing that required more than two partners. If the shapeshifter’s mind had been more focused on it then she’d be insulted that she wasn’t getting bigger missions, but just like the Winter Soldier her mind was on other matters. 

Sitting in her room Y/N flicked through movies on her television in search of something suitable for both her and Bucky. 

“Hey doll,” Bucky greeted as he walked into Y/N’s room, a tray of drinks and snacks in hand. 

Doll. It was a pet name that had just slipped out of Bucky’s mouth one day. While it was said completely by accident neither Bucky nor Y/N found an issue with it. And after seeing the just barely visible shy glance Y/N had shared with him the first time he said it Bucky made a vow to keep using the pet name. 

To tease her. Bucky told himself. To tease her like friends do. 

“Hey,” Y/N greeted back as she shifted over in her bed in order to make room for Bucky. Though recently she’d noticed the soldier, no matter how much space he was given, would always sit in a way that left them touching. 

Not that Y/N minded.

“Find a movie yet?” Bucky asked as he got into bed. 

“No,” Y/N huffed. The woman passed the remote to Bucky, a silent command for him to pick the movie. 

“Right, let’s do this then.” He said, clicking on the first movie he saw, which happened to be Brooklyn.

“You picked that for the title.” Y/N said as she reached for her drink.

“No,” Bucky denied, unwilling to tell the shifter that he had absolutely picked the movie because of its link to his home. 

“Sure,” Y/N answered with a roll of her eyes which were still all white and still as beautiful as ever to Bucky. “Whatever you say, Brooklyn boy.”

Slowly through the movie Y/N and Bucky drifted closer together. Bucky’s arm curled around Y/N before she curled into his chest, her head on his shoulder and mouth inches away from the man’s neck. I’m cold, she told him before focusing back on the movie. It was a lie, and both of them knew it. Bucky could feel the girls hot breath against the crook of his neck, tickling him with pleasure. Their legs intertwined as they realized they craved more contact from the other. 

Soon enough the movie was forgotten about and all they could do was focus on each other.  

“What are we doing, Bucky?” Y/N asked as she looked up at the soldier. Back in her days as his trainer at Hydra never would Y/N have thought that she’d be in this type of scenario with Bucky. 

“I don’t know, doll.” Bucky admitted. His metal hand came to brush against Y/N’s cheek in a soft caress. His touch leaving behind goose bumps across her skin. 

“Do you like it?” Y/N asked with bated breath. Bucky gazed down at her, rolling on the bed so Y/N was beneath him. Propped up on his arms, Bucky made sure to keep his weight off the woman as he looked her over. 

Bucky couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt butterflies like this. 

“Yes,” he answered truthfully, “do you?” He asked, praying Y/N had the same answer as him. 

“Yes,” Y/N whispered. Gazing at Bucky’s baby blue eyes the shifter tilted her head up just as Bucky lowered his. A breath apart they leaned in and-

And FRIDAY’s voice cackles through the speaker in Y/N’s room, demanding they suit up for a mission before the two can even touch lips. With a groan Bucky pulls back, cheeks flushed he goes back to his spot at Y/N’s side. All’s silent between the two before Bucky finally speaks up. 

“We’ll talk about this later?” He asks as he gets off of Y/N’s bed and makes his way out of her room. 

“Just talk?” Y/N asks with a coy smile as she follows after the soldier. Bucky shakes his head, his lips tilted up in a small smile. 

“Not if I have any say about it, doll.” 

The debrief for the mission happens once everyone is suited up and in the quinjet. Steve stands in the middle of the floor, hands crossed over his chest and he stares at his team. 

“I know this is a surprise mission, but we couldn’t wait on this. A Hydra base was just discovered along the Russian and Ukranian border. We believe they have a large group of civilians,” Steve paused, his head lowering for a moment as a sigh left his lips, “children, about twenty of them. We believe they’ve been taken for experimentation.” Everyone’s breath caught in their throats at Steve’s words, their eyes wide with equal parts shock and disgust. 

“That’s fucked up.” Sam breathed from where he sat. Everyone nodded their heads and Steve for once didn’t bother correcting the man on his foul language. 

Bucky had lost some of his colour at Steve’s words, his mind working at an anxious speed as he thought about all the horrors he went through at Hydra and how those horrors were now being reigned down upon innocent children. Y/N slipped her hand into Bucky’s own from where she sat to his left, her fingers tracing the metal plates in a soothing manner as she saw the man’s panic and anxiety. No one else seemed to notice the shared touch between Bucky and Y/N and the two were all the more thankful for it. 

“We’re going in teams of two to search the base and take out anyone you come across. Once the agents are all down only then do you get the kids out and on this jet and Tony’s.” Everyone nodded along but remained silent, the air thick with tension. “Nat and I are going to take the East side, Sam and Tony in the sky, Y/N and Bucky take West.” Again the jet remained silent. 

Landing at the base came all too soon for Bucky, but the soldier put aside his worries in order to focus on the mission. Y/N could see the wall come up in his mind as they stepped off the jet, protecting him from whatever horrors he might see inside, whatever memories it might drudge up. They shared a look, brief and silent yet it held so much weight, so many unspoken words between them and they knew... if they stuck together, they’d make it out on the other side of this mission. 

It didn’t take long upon entering the base for the team to realize how out-manned they were. Hydra agents filled the underground halls, taking up every empty space available. 

Shoot, kick, doge, punch, grab, shoot, dodge. It truly was like the sea monster Hydra took its name after, with each agent Y/N and Bucky took down two more took their place. 

Sweat dripped down Y/N’s face, dripping into her mouth the acid like taste took over the iron tang from her bloody lip. She didn’t know how long the fight had been going on for but with the heavy exhaustion weighing her down she knew it’d been a while. Bucky fought at her side, his metal fist gleaming in the light like a freshly sharpened blade. Each hit with it took down another against and still more were coming at them. 

“We need to retreat,” Steve’s voice came through Y/N’s comms system. The shifter had only had eyes on the Captain for a short second at landing before she’d lost sight of him and Nat in the throng of Hydra agents. “Everyone get back on the jet, now.” He ordered. Neither Bucky nor Y/N wasted any time upon hearing Steve’s order. Both agents turned and with loaded guns and fists flying, made their way out of the base and back to the jet. 

They were the last to arrive, injured and panting the jet door closed after them just in time before the bullets began hitting the jet. It was almost comical, the small pings that sounded as the bullets hit the exterior of the jet. One after another like gravol hitting a car as it drove along a dirt road the bullets hit them. Tony was on this jet rather than the other, allowing the computer system to fly it rather his own hands he opted for the jet that housed the rest of his team. 

“Tony get us out of here!” Sam growled out. 

“I can’t.” Tony breathed out. 

“What do you mean, I can’t?” Sam fired back. 

It was then that everything went silent. The pinging of bullets coming to a sudden halt, the only sound in the jet to be heard was the team’s heavy breathing. It was almost peaceful, save for the threat that hung about them like a guillotine blade. Y/N stepped closer to Bucky, the soldier doing the same. He was just reaching out to her when a thickly accented male voice spoke through the jets speakers. 

“Good day, Avengers,” the man’s voice came out like a purr, as though the team was a mistress he’d had the pleasure of seducing, “we’ve taken over your ship, but of course, you’ve already come to realize this by now. You know what we want. Give us the Winter Soldier.” Slowly, all eyes turned to Bucky. The soldier hung his head low, knowing that with the situation they were in they had no other option but to follow Hydra’s orders. However, it seemed Steve had known exactly what Bucky was thinking, for he shook his head, his stare locked on his friend. 

“You’re not handing yourself over Bucky.” The soldier looked up, his own head shaking, a silent disagreement with the Captain. “Bucky-” Steve started before he was cut off by the thickly accented voice coming through the jets speakers again. 

“If being stranded here isn’t enough incentive to hand over the Winter Soldier then perhaps I might sweeten the pot.” Chills crawled up Y/N’s spine, her sweat and blood suddenly chilling on her skin at the man’s threat. 

Tony was the first to see it as he stood at the front of the jet. It was his choked off gasp that caught the others attention, bringing them all forward until they were all looking out of the jets glass shield. 

“No,” Bucky gasped, his breath catching in his throat as he stared forward. He was shaking, trembling at the sight before him. They were all shaking. 

Walking into the open field before them was a line of agents, each with a gun in one hand and a struggling child in another. They stopped in a long line before the jet and the Avengers were left facing all twenty children, each with tears pouring down their cheeks and a gun to their heads. 

“You know what we want,” the man spoke again to the team though he directed his next words to the soldier and only the soldier, “you can make this end, Soldat. Just come with us and the others can leave, no violence, no bloodshed. You can even have the kids.” He purred. “Don’t and well…” the man paused and Bucky sucked in a rattling breath, “...these kids’ blood will be on your hands and your hands alone, Soldat. You have thirty seconds to step out of the jet before we start killing.” Y/N looked over to Bucky, who’s hands shook at his sides, his head bent forward as he stared at the jet’s dark floor, away from the childrens crying forms. 

Y/N knew what he was going to do, she knew the soldier would sacrifice himself in order to keep these children and his team safe. It’s what they all would have done. It’s what Y/N would have done, and so, it’s what she did do. 

“Sit down, Bucky.” She spoke softly as Bucky went to the back of the jet, his hand reaching for the button that would lower the door for him to step out. Bucky shook his head as he stood before her, taking a step closer to Y/N as she shook her head at him. 

“Y/N, this is our only option, they want me. I have to go.”

“I know,” Y/N answered, her hands coming to rest on Bucky’s biceps, “they want the Winter Soldier, and they’ll get the Winter Soldier. But they aren’t getting you.” Bucky’s head tilted to the side in question, not understanding the woman’s words until suddenly it hit him head on. He’s eyes grew wide in horror as he stepped towards her, his hands grasping onto her own. 

“Y/N, no, you can’t.” Y/N gave a soft smile back as she looked at Bucky, her eyes roaming over him, her hands reaching for his face in order to trace the lines of his skin, building up the memory of him in her mind. 

She prayed that the memory of him would be enough to keep her warm at night until the end of her time. 

“I hurt you in Hydra,” she began. Tears welled up behind her eyes as she looked at Bucky. “I hurt you and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t regret that. There’s days that I wish I’d never met you, that I think how better off you’d be without me in your life,” Bucky shook his head frantically at the woman’s words, tears of his own spilling down his cheeks just like Y/N’s, “but I’ve come to realize that this was all meant to be, that we were meant to be,” Y/N stepped further into Bucky, forcing him to take a step back, and another and another until he was pressed against the jets wall, “you’ve done your time, Bucky. You’ve fought your battles and you’ve come out the other side,” Y/N’s hands slipped down from Bucky’s face, her hands reaching for his own, “it’s my time to go to battle now Bucky, for us.” Y/N pressed her lips to Bucky’s in a desperate kiss. Tears slipped down their cheeks as they shared a last moment of love. Their first kiss, and their last. 

It was when Y/N had pulled away from their kiss, that Bucky realized what the woman had done. 

The snap of the cuffs around his wrists and the metal beam along the jet’s wall rang out in the silence between them. And as Y/N stepped back Bucky was filled with a nauseating horror. He shook his head, pulling at the cuffs that held him he looked to the shifter, his gaze pleading with her to let him go. 

She didn’t. She looked to the team, a last goodbye in her gaze. 

“Take care of each other.” Bucky shook his head, small please and no’s spilling from his lips, all intertwined with her name. 

“Y/N, please, don’t do this, please…”

“I love you Bucky.” Y/N’s said softly. It was her final goodbye before she shifted and Bucky was left staring at a carbon copy of himself. 

“Y/N, please, don’t…” he begged. But it was too late. 

With the press of a button Y/N stepped off the quinjet and handed herself over to Hydra. 

----------

Want to be added to this series? Just send in an ask!

Tag List:  @fangirl3247   @bestofbucky   @broco8   @awesomelittlebabydragon   @strangersstranger   @beware-my-thorns

[sarahlevys]

One Person's Guide to Coping with AD(H)D in the Workplace

Howdy! This is a non-exhaustive overview of a few things that I have learned to put into practice to cope with my ADD in the workplace.

For some background context, I have ADD but do not currently manage the condition via medications due to some side effects that negatively affect my quality of life. Currently, I hold an executive leadership position at the company I work for, and manage individuals with ADHD. I use ADD to describe myself because that is the name that was given to me when I was diagnosed.

I don't intend to speak as a sole authority on this subject; I've just been asked to provide ideas and thoughts on this by friends. The coping mechanisms in this post are by no means not intended to be the only coping mechanisms that exist.

Your Mind is Different

I've learned to accept the fact that I will easily get side-tracked, distracted, and have days in which I simply cannot focus on things during the time in which I either want to focus, or have been told (by supervisors, bosses, my own internal guilt mechanism, etc.) that I should be focusing on.

All of this is okay! My mind rarely, if ever, works on command when it's time to do something that I'm not intrinsically motivated to do, like work. And sometimes, even when I *want* to do the thing – like a hobby or something I genuinely enjoy – I can't focus. All of that is still okay.

Be gentle to yourself. A coping mechanism that works one day may not work another day – or even later, that same day. It's okay to multi-task, to lose focus, or to get hyper-focused on something you should or shouldn't.

Allow yourself the grace to not always use a planner, a habit tracker, or similar.

Some Things to Try

You'll note a common theme in all of these: these don't always work for me all the time. Trial and error is totally okay!

Focus:

If you find yourself itching to do something else at the same time as something you're working on – e.g., check your text messages – go ahead and do it. Sometimes, if I don't let myself give in to those impulses, they build up in my mind until my focus on what I'm 'supposed' to be focusing on gets shot to all hell.

That said, on those moments where I settle into 'the zone' or 'flow,' I am sometimes I'm able to go ahead and shut off whatever might pull my focus. Roll with it and do whatever's right for you in the moment!

In meetings, depending on the stakes of it, I might play a bit of sudoku or doodle; doing something that's low pressure, even for a few seconds, can often help me feel like I've 'multi-tasked' or 'slipped into something else' long enough to refocus on the meeting at hand.

Taking notes during a meeting, especially by hand, also can feel like multi-tasking, even if I'm not.

Standing up during a task or call often helps me focus. (Sometimes it doesn't!) Either way, even if it's just for a little bit, I still am usually happier for being able to physically fidget or stretch more than I would in a seated position.

Listening to music while I work helps me feel like I'm multi-tasking, even if I'm not – but I know this doesn't work for everyone! And like everything else, some days it works for me, some days it doesn't. I personally prefer music with lyrics, but I know others who don't.

Give Yourself Breaks:

Sometimes, when I'm moving really quickly – e.g., if I'm going through a lot of tasks, going from meeting to meeting, or trying to think and do a lot – I feel myself getting short of breath/tense. Breaks are really helpful to me!

Focusing is hard work! Try to give yourself at least one 10-15 minute break in both halves of your work shift.

Allow yourself the space to also zone out for a few minutes here and there, too.

Sometimes, even just walking around my home is enough to refresh my brain.

You might have success with the Pomodoro Technique: https://pomofocus.io/ This involves trying to work for 25 minutes, then taking a 5 minute break regardless. Repeat this for as long as desired – typically it'll be done 4 times (for 2 hours), followed by a 15 minute break.

Thinking Through Things Before Sending Them Loose:

My biggest struggle! I'm a big blurter, both out loud and via text/typing.

My first plan of attack is to, once I've typed through something, to pause before hitting send. I'm a fast typist with +100WPM, and I have to literally (sometimes out loud!) tell myself to not hit send right away so I can slow down and read through what I'm saying before I do hit that send button.

When communication is handled verbally, I physically try to weigh each word as I speak it, and focus on hearing each word before going onto the next.

I have learned to accept the fact that I will often trail off and lose my train of thought, and I will admit that out loud to whoever I'm speaking to – even if they're a client or someone important – so I can buy myself a little more time to sort things out. Being open about this takes pressure off of me.

Resist the Urge to Speed Through Work:

My other big struggle!

If you feel comfortable, speak to your manager about fail-safes and review processes that currently exist in your work environment. At my job, we've created internal processes that always involve someone else reviewing your work (no matter who is executing the task) so we have built-in failsafes.

If you do take a task quickly, for whatever reason – e.g., if it's something comfortable to you, or you're running out of time – speak to whoever you're doing the work for in order to make sure your work is reviewed, or to buy yourself more time to review your work before you hand it in.

Talk to Your Supervisor:

Ideally, you have the kind of relationship with your supervisor where you can explain that: 1) multi-tasking doesn't always mean that you aren't paying attention, whether you're actually multi-tasking or chasing something that'll give you the feeling of multi-tasking; 2) single-focus is hard. Even if they don't necessarily change anything about your operations processes, having that awareness goes a long way.

You may even consider talking to your other team members about this; I sometimes can come off as impatient or rushing when i don't need to be, and I've also talked about how I often go off-topic or off-track and people know that about me.

If you get a lot of same-day tasks that can pull focus from what you've planned to do today, you may want to talk to your supervisor about requesting a minimum of one day's notice for your work or to request communication when a same-day task is being sent your way.

Create Control For Yourself:

A big part of my instance of ADD is needing to control everything so that I know exactly what's happening at all times and nothing's going to distract me more than i already innately am. I've learned to (somewhat) let go of the control thing, but of course being able to do that means being aware of when it's popping up.

With this in mind, I try to be mindful of when I'm feeling tense or out of control – a bit trigger for me is when a bunch of unexpected meetings or communications crop up, for example – and to pay attention to how I'm feeling and what I can do to solve it, or to roll with the punches.

I've found that taking the time to think about the next day and set up my planner for the following day in the afternoon before signing off, or after work has closed, and then reviewing that again in the morning of, really helps. Of course, I don't always remember to do it. But when I do, it really help!

Organize Your Work & Find Low-Pressure Accountability:

The way that I organize my tasks for each day differs based off of the day or my mood. Sometimes I organize them by priority, sometimes by the amount of time that I think it'll take me to do something, sometimes by client, etc. Be flexible!

At my work, we do a daily check-in with the whole team where we say what we plan to do that day, and I've found that group accountability to be really helpful. That might be something your manager might be interested in providing to you (e.g., a quick message in the morning to let them know what you plan to do).

That said, accountability can sometimes feel like too much pressure if you don't always do everything on your list. Ideally, you can talk with your supervisor or even a trusted co-worker to set up an environment in which it's okay for things to roll over or for priorities to shift depending on how a day is going.

Find a Flexible Way to Organize Yourself:

Paper journals/planners and I don't mix; when I forget to use it, the empty pages give me guilt, and the permanence of pen also makes me anxious since things in my mind are so fluid.

With this in mind, I prefer digital means since I can rearrange and move things around. I personally use an iPad Pro and a Pencil to take notes in digital note-keeping software, but this can be cost-prohibitive. If you struggle with paper methods of organization, consider using note-taking software or even Google Docs to create a plain-text bullet journal so you can move things around.

That's all I've got! Please let me know if you found this guide helpful, and what other coping mechanism or ideas I should add to this (with credit to you!)

[spooks-and-tea]

Entangled (Spencer Reid x femReader) [Ch.11] The Final Chapter.

Summary: You don’t know how it happened. One moment you were watching Criminal Minds, and the next moment you were literally in the show. Can Spencer be the key to helping you find your way back home?

Warnings: minor character death, mentions of su*cide, bad explanations of quantum mechanics, bad words, sexual situations (some non-con), the usual criminal minds-type content

A/N: Some big bad interrogation Spencer vibes. Thanks for reading. This chapter was short, so I just decided 2 chapter posts in one day. Let me know what you thought of the story~Pleeeeease no one repost on other sites without my permission.

Word Count: 2,015

Chapter 1.  Chapter 2.  Chapter 3.  Chapter 4. Chapter 5.  Chapter 6.  Chapter 7.  Chapter 8.  Chapter 9.  Chapter 10.  Chapter 11.  

************************************************************************After Spencer had disappeared, JJ was surprised, to say the least.

She held the unsub by the cuffs as he angrily spoke about Spencer's big genius brain solving an equation in 2 minutes which had taken himself a lifetime of work to figure out. She asked him where the machine had taken Spencer and he replied with all of this talk about quantum mechanics, particle waves, split dimensions, and voids. Stuff that Spencer had been info-dumping about for months, regarding the case.

All JJ cared to know about was if Spencer was safe, and to that the unsub just shrugged.

The first thing the team did when you all returned to the BAU was throw the unsub into an interrogation room.

Spencer was quick to volunteer as the only interrogator in the room, he argued this unsub would react the strongest to him.

The rest of the team were still flustered from all of this inter-dimensional information that Spencer had gone on about on the ride back. You had backed him up wholeheartedly and you were seemingly in great health after being gone for 5 months.

"Alright Reid, you seem to be the only one of us that has a good idea of what's going on. We'll watch from here, and if he gets too aggressive, we'll send someone else in," Hotch agreed.

You watched from the double sided mirror, the unsub was looking at it as if he could see you. You clenched your fists. He was the reason you'd nearly lost Spencer. He was the reason that Spencer looked sick from overworking and you had nightmares for 5 months straight.

"Hey, will you be okay in here?" Spencer lowered his voice to ask you. You had refused to stop holding his hand since you got here. He noticed your fist clenching tighter.

"I don't want him to take you away from me again," you replied.

"He's in handcuffs, and his machine is being collected for evidence. He isn't a wizard, he needs that machine like Nikola Tesla needs an inductor. He can't hurt us anymore," Spencer tried to comfort you, using the soft tone he knew you loved.

"Just don't take too long in there, and give him hell for me, alright?" You stood on your toes and kissed him.

He gave you a small smile and nodded.

You slowly slid your hand from his as he turned to walk out.

When he entered the interrogation room, he was no longer soft-Spencer.

The unsub didn't even turn to look at him, he was fixated on the double mirror. His eyes unnerved you.

You crossed your hands over your chest and leaned against the wall, deciding to keep your eyes steadily on Spencer.

"We know who you are." Spencer spoke. You smiled, recognizing that Spencer was turning the unsub's words to you against him.

Was Spencer purposefully trying to make you happy while he was in the middle of an interrogation?

"I know who you are as well, Dr. Reid," his gritty voice made your skin crawl.

"Good, then you should know that I understand the significance of the science experiments you've been conducting, Dr. Arnold Lynch. You've been labeled as a dangerous person to the entire world; a mad scientist." Spencer sat in a chair, his arms crossed.

"Now they listen." Lynch, rolled his eyes, finally looking at Spencer. His unimpressed gaze trailed up and down, sizing him up.

"I was like you once. Young, an impressive mind; maybe if I had found her sooner she would have loved me." Lynch added. He looked back to the mirror, you tasted bile at the back of your throat.

Spencer leaned forward in his chair, putting his elbows on the table.

"You're trying to change the subject." Spencer pointed out. "Tell me how all of this started. Tell me where your partner, Dr. Deborah Tryst, is hiding and how she helped you."

Lynch's eyes widened. "We were colleagues. She helped me build the machine, and I wrote the equations that made it work. We went in together, the first time."

"She tested the machine with you?" Spencer asked.

"Yes, we experimented. We tried to study the void space for years. Then, one day, a crack formed. Through that crack I saw her." The unsub looked towards you, seemingly locking eyes with you through the one-way glass.

"Y/N?" Spencer clarified.

"Correct. She was spectacular, the girl from a parallel dimension. We didn't know why the crack revealed her at first, but then we saw the string. It was barely noticeable, like a fishing line. It led from her dimensional crack to ours. All it took was a tug on that wire to know who the other end of that line connected to."

He was watching me? What a sick creep!

"Who?"

"Don't play stupid with me Doctor, I know you feel it."

Spencer swallowed, his eyes flicking to you for a moment.

"I should have gotten rid of you when I had the chance. My colleague thought differently. Now that the cracks were open, she observed you both, she knew you both would feel-" he sighed, "-incomplete until you were in the same space. She decided to play matchmaker and ruin everything. I loved Y/N first. Y/N was mine and she was a beacon, a magnificent anomaly! I took her back so she could be my pet; so she would never be yours!" He angrily spat, slamming his fists onto the table. Spencer stood, seething. You felt similarly.

"You had no right!" Spencer's voice was deep and angry. You'd never heard him so angry, other than in the show.

"No, Tryst had no right bringing her to you in the first place!"

"Y/N wants to be here. This is her decision. If you're so convinced you love her, you would want what is best for her."

"What's best for her Dr. Reid, or what's best for you? Is she any better off fighting criminals for the BAU? A job she isn't trained for." He cruelly laughed. "Is putting her in danger just so you can fuck her every once in a while off-duty not selfish? You think I'm the selfish one, look at yourself. You're just expecting her to be the lawful Bonnie to your Clyde, how long until you drive her into a hail of bullets?" Lynch smirked.

Spencer's eyes widened and he gripped the table.

No Spence, don't let him get to you.

"That's it, I'm going in there." Morgan spoke up next to you.

Hotch held his hand up to block him; his eyes on Spencer. "Wait, let Spencer speak. He's getting the unsub to talk, and that's good."

Spencer quickly collected himself, his expression going blank.

"Where is Dr. Deborah Tryst?" Spencer asked.

"Ooh, did I strike a chord, Doctor?" Lynch chuckled, leaning back in his chair.

"Where is Dr. Deborah Tryst?" Spencer repeated, angrier.

"Probably playing matchmaker. There are an infinite amount of dimensions for her to play with." Lynch shrugged.

"She's still in the void?"

"Yup, she's the reason the crack sealed when you two went through. She trapped herself in there and made sure I could never go back. Whatever she's doing, we'll never know for sure because it is impossible to recreate the initial crack. You should know just how improbable it was to create one in the first place, Dr. Reid."

"So there is no further possibility of danger?"

"Not cosmically, but, for our impossible girl over there, who knows what kind of dangerous situations you will put her in." Lynch nodded to the double mirror.

"She is not yours and she will never be yours. We're putting you in a maximum security prison where you will never see her again. So you can sit in your cell for the rest of your life and remember that she's with me, not you." Spencer's eyes darkened. You wanted to end this fight and get him out of there. He was only getting angrier.

Hotch walked through the interrogation room door, holding it open. "Reid," was all he said.

That was it, Spencer had gotten a lengthy confession from the unsub. The details would come up during his trial.

Spencer stood up, not caring about the wobbling chair as he did so. He walked out of the room and you went to the hallway to meet him. You met him as he was stomping down the hall away from you. "Spencer!" You called, hurrying to follow him.

He made his way inside an empty meeting space and you quickly slipped in behind him; closing the door.

He loosened his tie and ran his hands through his hair. You let him cool off for a few moments.

"He's right. I am selfish." He sounded beyond angry, even guilty.

He leaned forward on the meeting table, clenching his fists against the wood.

"He was just trying to get the last word in. Don't pay his words any more attention." You spoke, softly; placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"You shouldn't work here. You're not properly trained for the high-intensity, high-risk situations."

"Then I can train. Anyways, I doubt Hotch is going to let me work here now that he knows," you said, sadly. You loved working here. You loved helping people and being with your BAU family. You loved Spencer's daily teasing.

"Being with me puts you in enough danger. I couldn't protect you. What's stopping something from happening to you again?" He looked up at you, though he was still hunched over the table.

"All the other times you protected me." You gave him a small smile. "When Chris threatened me, you confronted him. When I jumped into the lake, you stopped me from drowning. When I was stuck in my dimension, you rescued me from a life of being absolutely miserable without you. When the unsub first encountered us, you stood in front of me even though you couldn't see him. You've protected me far more times than you are choosing to acknowledge. I trust you with my life, Spence."

Spencer's shoulders fell as his breath evened out.

"I love you Y/N, I just don't want you to get hurt." Spencer whispered, his grip on the table loosening. He slowly stood up straight to look at you.

"We aren't some alternate justice-duo, Bonnie and Clyde. We're perfectly capable of protecting each other, and we aren't some crazy serial-killing, bank-robbing couple. We're Spencer and Y/N, the BAU's hottest couple." You spoke with exaggeration and winked.

Spencer gave you a small smile. His hair was a mess, his clothing was wrinkled, and his tie was undone.

"It's been a long day. Take me home?" You asked, giving him your best doe-eyes as you reached up to fix his tie.

"Oh. About that- you're apartment and all your money and assets are sorta gone now. You were presumed dead."

"I'm not talking about that place." You rolled your eyes; unaffected by the news.

You were used to being dirt poor anyways and that house was nothing but an empty shell.

"Home, with you," you explained.

"Oh."

Spencer broke out into a large grin. He wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you into a kiss. His coffee and woodsy-vanilla scent enveloped you like a warm hug. When he pulled away, he held his hand out to you.

"Come on then, I'll take you home."

Home, it was a strange concept. Your now-empty apartment in your dimension was once your home. You'd once almost drowned yourself to try to get back to that place.

Then you fell in love with Spencer, and living with him made you discover what a home truly was. It wasn't where you were from, it was the place you loved to be; the place you felt most comfortable, the most yourself.

Your home was in Spencer's dimension, Spencer's apartment, Spencer's arms, Spencer's everyday gestures, Spencer's smile, Spencer's late night chess games, Spencer's "I love you's," Spencer's raspy morning voice, Spencer's unruly hair, Spencer's hand kisses, Spencer's scrunched nose ticks, Spencer's info-dumps, Spencer's everything.

It was the most improbable circumstance and the one thing you were most thankful for. You got to spend your new life with Spencer.

In the end, Spencer Reid kept his promise; he did help you find your way home. Your way home to him.

[epicstuckyficrecs]

Weekly Recap | March 30-April 5

Out of self-isolation, woop woop! Also a first for me, there’s a podifc on the recap for the first time!

Complete

💙 [Podfic] If They Haven't Learned Your Name by quietnight/ @quietnighty​ (Post-WS | Podfic lenght: >10h | Not Rated): aka Steve and Bucky's Global Honeymoon Revenge World Tour.

in the heat of the moment by Deisderium/ @deisderium​ (ABO, Pre-TFA | 9K | Explicit): In which Steve presents very late as an omega. Bucky isn't supposed to go see him, but when has he ever done what he was supposed to do where Steve is concerned? (Part 1 of would smell as sweet)

💙 good on my own (needed me) by mcwho (Modern AU | 12K | Explicit): There are some mistakes that could be made by anybody. Anybody. Bucky taught high school pretty much his whole life, and that was fine, those were kids, and he knew all of them anyway, which meant there was very little chance of him accidentally fucking any of his students during an impulsive post-marital-breakdown Grindr hook-up. Which is exactly what he had done with Steve.or: bucky has not let steve rogers fuck him since his sophomore year (Part 1 of himbo-verse)

cheffing and sabotage by mcwho (Modern AU | 3K | Explicit): "So,” Steve says conversationally. “That’s a yes on the olive oil. For lube purposes.” Part 2 of himbo-verse

Brooklyn by togina/ @toli-a​ (Post-WS | 8,7K | Teen): "Captain America, what's your stance on gay marriage?" Everyone knows that, by now. Everyone but Bucky.

Poise and Rationality (Have Nothing to Do with Steve Rogers) by romanticalgirl (Canon-verse | 1K | Teen): Steve does something stupid.

💙 bullet in a gun (but in the end, my time will come) by voxofthevoid/ @voxofthevoid​ (Post-Endgame, Canon-divergent | 25K | Explicit): Post-Thanos, Bucky Barnes has happily settled into a life of peace and pining. That’s when alternate versions of the best friend he’s secretly in love with start showing up.

💙 Two Colors, White and Gold by Carelica (Canon-Divergent | 36K | Explicit): He’s here, he’s alive. His hand is on a tree.

Never go to bed alone when you have a library card by relenafanel/ @relenafanel​ (Library AU | 5K | Teen): Tall, blond hottie (in a sweater) was back, staring at the wall of new and popular titles with a thoughtful expression on his face. He came in every Tuesday night like clockwork, read through the summaries on the back of a handful of books with his profile turned just enough towards the front entrance that Bucky could see the slope of his nose and take joy in watching those arm muscles minutely flex as he shifted the book in his grasp.

💙 Like it’s the Only Thing I’ll Ever Do by howdoyousleep/ @howdoyousleep3​ (ABO AU | 39K | Explicit): When Steve opens the door, Bucky feels like he’s been living in clouds for the past few days, maybe even his entire life. Steve is life, Steve is happiness, Steve is the sun. He has such a visceral reaction to seeing the Alpha that he feels his knees go weak, feels his body draw tight towards the other man, pulled in. Or big Alpha Steve moves into sweet little Omega Bucky’s apartment building and a roller-coaster build of a romance ensues.

lay all your love on me by chilibabie07 (Canon | 1,4K | Mature): Bucky wakes up to an empty bed and goes to look for Steve so he can be cuddled.

WIP

Baby, you could be the death of me by SinpaiCasanova (Werewolf Steve, ABO AU | 1/2 | 3K | Explicit): It’s strange for him to consider that fate or the universe–whatever is driving this compulsion, really–needs Bucky here for some reason or another, but he’s passed by these woods at least a thousand times before on his way into town, and each time his eyes drifted toward the trees, his heart would give a restless tug against his ribs like an excited dog on a leash. Eventually, the call became too much for him to ignore, and so here he is, surrendering himself to the woods and praying like hell that he doesn’t end up in the belly of a beast by daylight.

The Mnemosyne Project by onymousann (Post-WS | 11K | 4/? | Explicit): Someone’s trying to talk to the Winter Soldier. Steve intends to find out who. (Part 2 of ocean eyes)

💙 How to Fuck With (and Feed) Your Soulmate by BlueSimplicity/ @bluesimplicity73​ (Soulmate AU, Shrunkyclunks | 11/? | 65K | Explicit): It’s called the Grey Space; a patch of skin marking you as blessed and the first sign you have a soulmate. Steve Rogers didn’t have one when he crashed into the ice. But he did when he woke up in the future. The second sign is the Sense, a sharing of one the senses to help soulmates find each other. Steve’s Sense, taste, is rare, but he loves a challenge and a soulmate is a gift from the Fates. Except instead of a blessing, it’s a curse, since his soulmate is a dick. Bucky Barnes loves food and a homecooked meal is something he cherishes. When his Grey Space starts to itch, Bucky can’t help his excitement, since the Sense he and his soulmate share is taste. But not for long. Whoever he’s bound to has the blandest diet in the world, ignoring all Bucky’s messages. After weeks of putting up with tasteless food, Bucky decides to strike back.

Re-Read

We're All Stupid When We're Hurting by Taste_is_Sweet/ @taste-is-sweet​ (Post-WS | 8K | Teen): Bucky had completed missions while in more terrible pain. It was amazing what you could push through when the punishment for failure was so much worse. But he hadn't needed to do that for over a year now. He'd gotten used to not being in pain, remembered what it was like to be human. He knew no one would ever put him in the chair again. He knew he was safe here. He knew Tony could fix his arm without hurting him. Of course he did. But it didn't make a damn bit of difference to the terror that shook him like a dog at just the thought of sitting down and stretching his arm out for Tony to fuck with. Might as well stretch out his neck to have his throat slit. Hell, that'd be easier.

💙 we gotta let go of all of our ghosts by hitlikehammers (Post-WS | 8K | Mature): It’s just hard, really, if he’s honest: this time, more than the first, here in a new millennium, having found Bucky again against all odds, in a time where there was hope, where they could have been… Well. It’s just that it’s bad enough to come in second place to a Stark once in his lifetime. But twice might just be more than Steve can bear.

The thing that drives the wolves away by caughtinanocean/ @wintergaydar​ (Post-WS | 7,8K | Teen): The thing about Bucky these days is that, while he might be a semi-mythical assassin, he's also vulnerable—the kind of vulnerable that makes total strangers want to drape a blanket over his shoulders and take him to safety. The problem is, of course, that Bucky is already safe.

[myfriendpokey]

easy like sunday morning

I know it sounds funny but I just can't stand the pain.. Given the volume of critical writing on difficult games in recent years isn't it time to talk about some easy ones?  Everybody loves talking about, 'Sekiro', but no-one ever talks about, 'Felix The Cat (NES) (1992)', a delightful game with many levels that stands out in my childhood memory as being one of the very few games I was ever able to complete within the Xtravision rental window. In these notes I try to lay down a preliminary basis for felix the cat studies.[1]

1. Firstly what is easiness, is it a quality or the absence of a quality, of a texture? I'd like to focus here specifically NOT on games which deliberately avoid the idea of 'challenge' altogether (Proteus, etc) but instead on games where challenge is both theoretically present and totally perfunctory, where it's both possible to die, and just easier not to.

2. And the strange sense of waste that this creates - the waste in having something and not needing it, of having some productive capacity lie fallow. The dream is to always have both an affordance and something to flex it on, in perfect sync. There are situations where exercising some affordance might give a bad outcome (use sword on king to increase crime meter etc) but in general the universe is set up so that your acting, your being, your bodily striving has a useful and productive effect on the world at large – we hope, ha ha ha. We have no reason to doubt that we use our affordances, rather than that our affordances are using us. In an easy game this relationship becomes more uncanny - we get a sense of how an affordance can be baggage, a kind of painful excess of productive energy that comes with a vague, felt obligation to use it all up in some manner. The machine speaks through us just as much as if we were playing any bullet hell - but it does so less through an overload of stimulus than through lack of it, through opening a space, which the ambient noise of the body then rushes to fill. The aimless, stupid twitching of our flesh as it burns off all the energy which is socially and economically surplus to requirements is directed and made visible, jumping back and forth onscreen in the mocking form of a smiling platform cat, a form of automatic writing.

3. I'd actually like to avoid making a moral or political case for easy games as having some intrinsic social value (that they resist the 'investment' of skill mastery, that they undercut feelings of power and control, or that they indeed actually represent a new form of meta-difficulty in testing your ability to reject false measurements of success and artificial scarcity and that therefore playing Goldeneye with infinite ammo cheats on is praxis or something.[2]) These might be useful qualities at some moment or another - but I think they also show the strange, magic-eye effect, of trying to write about easiness in itself, writing about absence without just converting it into another kind of presence (I'm sure I have failed multiple times and will fail multiple more). So easiness in videogames is constantly at risk of becoming just a different kind of difficulty, or some form of symbolic content - rather than the lack of such difficulty, or the lack of such content... In the context of videogames, a new media form busily involved with stockpiling content and meanings and symbolism and justification of all kinds, in trying to fill itself up and out, the idea of their emptiness is somehow quite threatening.[3]

4. Difficulty in games tends to be framed as a challenge to the primacy of the self, or as an estrangement, something that pushes you out of your comfort zone. It wakes you up, makes you more alert. Easiness by comparison is a sop to the self - indulgent, a narrowing of horizons. Easiness is mainstream, difficulty is avant-garde - and discussions of difficulty in games tend to draw a lot upon comparisons to older avant-garde art or literature. I'm in favour of avant-garde videogames but i think part of claiming that tradition should be a willingness to critique it, too. For example, difficult games are some of the most popular ones to stream - are these challenging the self? To an extent they allow the performance of the self, as manifested in angry outbursts, "reacting" in some characteristic manner, individuating oneself through accomplishment or distinctive playstyle, demonstrating personal qualities such as persistence and strength of will, very little of which could be said to come through in your average Felix The Cat longplay. And while Marvel movies and longrunning tv shows are seldom difficult in the same way as experimental art they do at least tend to gesture at the idea and feeling of a certain difficulty, an emotional strenuousness, a conflict to overcome. We don't just get a whole movie of Spiderman trying on 100 different hats. Some kind of difficulty is prized in both cultures, with the difference being that of location and degree. The idea of the modernist shock, the abrupt estrangement that jolts the (presumably bourgeois, etc) viewer out of their habitual comfort zone, sits awkwardly against comparatively more recent concepts like Naomi Klein's idea of the “shock doctrine” or Paul Virilio's writings on the bombarded, exhausted viewer - or indeed with that most modern form: the hot take, the truly gratuitous and combative opinion, tossed at the unsuspecting for the sake of wreaking minor carnage. The succession of shocks here don't so much disturb the self as confirm it as a thing apart, defined in negative against the tumult outside and valued as a refuge from that outside. Maybe we take it to the gym now and then, we test it out upon some pre-selected object of difficulty to keep it in shape, but afterwards the gate goes down and the wall goes up. I don't think difficulty is bad or illegitimate but if psychic reconfiguration is the goal then how about a modernist slackening instead? In the vein of Stein, Pessoa, Walser, Musil - "the game without qualities". Lured into roaming outside of its protective carapace the brain starts to dissolve, sprawl, melt into gloop, be devoured by ants.

5. Experience of playing an easy game: there’s no pushback, there's no skill check , a string of easy victories lead you forward without realising, or leads a part of you forward, there's no moment where you have to pull yourself together and decide just how much more of your time you wanna spend on this thing, a chirpy character onscreen is declaiming "GREAT!" and "SUBURB!" as you shoot pellets at more enemies, whatever aimless drive or impulse you flicked toward this thing to test it has not yet slowed down or returned, it's like dropping a pebble down a well, and waiting for the sound, and waiting forever - and then there's a plop! and whatever the process was, it's finished, you blink, try to remember what you were doing, wander off, still adjusting to the light.

6. The history of aesthetics is that of converting new kinds of necessity into new kinds of virtue [4]. Difficulty is a virtue in videogames, but it started out as a necessity, as well - as a prefab form handed down from the old mechanical amusements, a way to aestheticise (and commercialise) material resistance at a time when material resistance was almost all that videogames had to offer[5]. As certain kinds of difficulty emerge as objects of attention a reversal takes place: instead of difficulty being a way to engage with videogames, videogames become a way to engage with a certain kind of difficulty. Difficulty becomes a sign that unites a diffuse and heterogenuous field of garish electronic debris into a single medium and an aesthetic – this becomes part of what videogames *are*, and persists even when the original reasons for that difficulty become less and less present, and as 'difficulty' comes to exist mainly as a set of inherited structures and modes of representation (health bar, life counter etc). To make something that looks like a videogame in every way but has no difficulty is in a way to re-historicise it, to cut the thread which holds all the parts together - now the game collapses into a set of disembodied effects, sounds, gestures, machinery, which exist not so much as the expression of an aesthetic as an expression of the material history behind that aesthetic. The easy game is not a game but a kind of game-byproduct, an industrial accident that gives clue to the inner workings of the machine.

7. The mysterious purgatory that is the solved or near-solved state of a videogame, aimless and uncanny, an image of fulfilled desire: maybe not your desire, but somebody's, or some part of you. Think of playing with cheat codes: a few minutes ago you might have been desperate to get BLUE SWORD [RARE], now you can't get rid of the things. A routine complaint in popular longform games is that people just end up getting too much money and not having enough endless pits to dump it all into (thorstein veblen real??). And this is a known thing and trite to even remark upon and usually the point where the discussion turns into pop-psychology liturgy of how the human brain is "broken" and "hard-wired" to need new challenges and etc. I don't care, I'd like to spend more time within this twilight area, to construct as diligent and thorough a map of its empty rooms and blockages and tiny, shifting, hypersubtle moments of enjoyment or deep melancholy as the one we  already have for Diablo clones and similar. I think here of stuff like EJ Gold's games which claim to depict (indeed, allow you to perform rituals within) the bardo realms waiting after this world, where you roll around endless corridors collecting icons to accumulate money and charisma for your next life, and where for some reason there's a button to fire out pellets despite there being no enemies to kill. Videogames are depressingly, predictably excellent at producing new manifestations of inferno; I think, for the same reasons, that they could produce some very interesting paradises as well.

Is Felix The Cat a good game? Or is it in fact the only game, and also i'm dead and my spirit has been trapped inside of it? I hope the above comments make my feelings known. All i can do from here is recommend you watch Docfuture's Sonic Easy Mode video, and contemplate the world that could have been.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-ef8SD9gUg

[1] Just imagine it - instead of endless essays on "how completing, not completing, not playing VIDEOGAME made me a better person, worse person, more divorced person delete as appropriate" we would instead get endless essays on "how playing VIDEOGAME left me more or less the same person, I suppose, I don't really remember. But I did like the beach level".

[2] Having said this I of course realise that this is totally inevitable and look forward to BABYMODECORE, the videogame movement for people who always instinctively pick the lowest difficulty setting and want to reclaim such powerful formative experiences as beating up on the test dummy character in Tekken (and being scared that one day he'd glitch out and hunt me down instead)

[3] I wonder if part of the hatred for "asset flips" that they just replicate the shape of a videogame without filling it up with justificatory content, abstracting it somehow.

[4] Mangled from a line in F. Jameson's "Marxism and Form"

[5] Like early digital forms of old mechanical arm wrestling machines and punching bags - which slowly became part of that mysterious stock repository of ancestral videogame dream imagery, the minigame collection.

[digressfromreality]

When a Villain Loves a Hero

She’s still living with all the pieces of her that want to die. Aizawa’s wife is more complicated than he ever imagined. (Reader’s quirk is the ability to “Summon” tangible items and I made a random cult)

----

Their First Day

He met her by chance. Mic had dragged him to some event where he announced. Of course, he couldn’t leave Shota at home to rest. No, he wanted his single buddy to accompany him as his plus one.

As tired as he was, he managed to brush his hair back, and shuffle his banding cloth out of sight, well… under another less conspicuous scarf.

Not even a half hour in, Mic had already become more... fragrant in his movements and smacked his hand into a woman passing by.

Toppling over, Y/N had landed into Shota’s lap. Waves of hair and sweet perfume had obstructed him. With a grunt he shifted her upright and tried to steady her.

“Sorry listener, just got a bit excited there. Here let me-” Present Mic stopped his apology, seeing how he was on the business end of her infamous glare.

Shota had counted off the seconds until this woman decided to get off him, and be on her way.

Her skin felt hot, her outfit had several cutouts. He noticed scars, scissoring up and down her back and arms. Almost like a homemade doll stitched together. Not crude, but meticulously done.

Surgery? But it didn’t appear to be corrective. Quirk related?

“Ahh... tough crowd. Shota could you help a hero out?” He nodded, the woman jumped up, now realizing she was sitting on some stranger’s lap.

“I apologize, I’m usually more aware of my surroundings.” She summoned a towel noticing she had spilt the rest of her drink down his leg. She kneeled down to pat dry the mess. “I can pay you for-“

She paused as his eyes grew big, she dropped her towel and picked herself back up. She was manhandling.... a delicate area... of someone she just met.

“Shota.” He raised his hand to greet her, he might as well get the first name of the woman who had been closer than most.

“Y/N.” She smiled, accepting the handshake.

——

5 Years Together

Nearly after 1 year of marriage, she had slowly, careful not to force him away, she revealed her true self.

The scars…they encompassed nearly her entire body. Although, she was not shy of showing her skin, there never had been an explanation to the stitching.

Just the shallow and breathless uttering of “Hell is empty, all the devils are here.”

Whatever had happened, Shota surmised, was a traumatic event. And was best left unspoken.

Another trait he noticed was that desolate thousand mile stare…it was intense, dark and dangerous. He had been fortunate, he never to be receiving end of her stare, but he had observed it over time.

The chill of resentment and bitterness tended to freeze its prey in their tracks. Usually some rude person, or Hizashi playing the part of prey, having unknowingly offended her some way.

It wasn’t part of her quirk per say, but it was severe and effective. Having perfected such a behavioral defense, had always made him wonder how unkind her life must of have been prior. Always secretive and avoided at all costs, he only knew her name and she had grown up at an orphanage.

But her sadness was minuet and minuscule. In a serendipitous way, they had lived mainly happy and comfortable. Between the two of them, they had been able to afford comfortable living quarters and breathe easy.

She was an accounting executive at the radio station that Hizashi regularly announced at, while he secured a position at UA.

Her smiles could inspire writers of those trashy romance novels he confiscated from his female students or inspire the pulsating hearts of his male students into further hormonal fuel idiocy.

Whatever it was, the nature and cultivation of his wife was an ever evolving mystery.

-----

7 Years Together

“Aizawa! Y/N!” A stout man waved down the couple who had been enjoying a rare night out together. Tired and sweaty, this man looked awfully eager to gain their attention.

He paused, feeling his wife’s hand tremble within his own. This was far from normal, Y/N cowered from nobody.

“It’s been forever and a day, Y/N! No invite to the wedding, not even a postcard from the honeymoon. You’ve been married for 3 years now, is that right?” The man chortled his wife, while her expression soured.

Staring at him made her want to wheeze under the pressure of a thousand unheard screams. Seeing the dimple in his smile made her clench her fists and brace for hundreds of beatings she had received in memory of it. This greedy, evil bastard dared show his face once again. Y/N had no sympathy for this man, no peace or love when thinking of him.

“Why are you here, brother?” Her question venomous and angry.

Brother? Hadn’t his wife grown up in an orphanage? This man certainly looked familial. This bothered Shota.

There were too many inconsistencies for him to ignore. The more he learned about his wife the less he understood.

“Cold as ever little sister,” the man while perturbed, seemed familiar with his wife’s trance, “Nana has been asking about you these days.”

Again, Shota was floored by Y/N’s demeanor. Although she was putting on a brusque front, she was utterly petrified of this man. She was taking steady calculated breaths, either to calm herself or to prepare herself to attack.

“Don’t…” She appeared pained, struggling to find the right words (threats). “I told you, Nana, everyone in that filthy compound to never contact me again.” Unconsciously, she traced the scarring down her arm, which did not go unnoticed by Shota.

This man...he had…

The banding cloth restrained the man before he could uttered another word, he will squeeze him until…until… Y/N knew…

“Shota, stop.” She begged, her hand touching his face. He grit his teeth, as he watched her lips quiver when pleading for the man’s release. “Shota, you’re making a scene.”

He sighed, dropping eye contact and loosened the banding cloth reluctantly. Y/N glared at passersby, giving them a breadth of space.

“Oh...hahaha.” He wheezed out of a chuckle, “A pro hero? It’s just like you to seek protection.” He turned to Shota, jabbing him in the chest. “What did she say to you? What poor me story did she cry as you fucked her? I’m curious to what she could have told a Pro Hero for him to take an ex-villain for a wife.”

“I’m not like them. Shota, please I’m not.” She sighed, exhaustion seeping into her pleas. He remained silent, still trying to process something that just shook his entire world.

Her brother shrugged, “Trash will always be trash.”  

“I’m former,” she emphasized, “Dark Order.” Admitting the truth astonished both of the men standing in front of her. She turned to husband again. “Decide Shota.” She held his hands limply, ready relinquish her hold if he wanted her to. Her past was exposed, although a small glimpse, it was enough for him to arrest her. To leave her. To forget everything about her.

It may appear on the street as a lovers quarrel but his decision here would determine whether she walked away. She would turn the other direction with the clothes on her back and the money in her pocket and never look back. Never to return to her job, her home, or her love.

The children of the Dark Order. A cult. Her existence had entirely relied on whether how her quirk could benefit her “family”. The Dark Order was something the Heroes Association had little to no real information on. The recruiting was secret. Their crimes were nearly untraceable. They fronted themselves as martyrs of an idealistic society, often overzealous and unquestioning, which had lumped them the category of a cult.

Finding a former member…was deemed impossible at one time.

The heartless glares, and bouts of detached perception now were crystal clear. But she had escaped that life, with little to no retribution. Which was delicately put, was more than likely a tremendous feat in itself.

She now had a life that involved him. She was his, as he was hers.

“Leave. Or I will have no choice in dragging you in. I won’t subject my wife to your sadistic behavior any longer.” He warned.

“Listen here, I will not be spit upon by a traitorous slut and her pitiful bastard…”

Her eyes and stance turned frigid once more. She wasn’t here to play games.

She summoned a wad of bills into her right hand. Definitely an amount that made Shota’s eyes double. “Jung, never approach me or my husband again.”

She threw the money haphazardly in the air, causing him to jump and try to catch it before it hit the ground. But she could care less. “If any of you come near me again, I will summon all the bullets in this country to rain upon you.”

Shota turned pulling his wife with him, “Y/N, I love you.” He pressed a reassuring kiss to her forehead. “But you can’t threaten murder in public, no matter much they deserve it.”

[future-critical-blog]

How Pacing Fucked Steven Universe

Note: this is anonymous because I know what will happen!

Steven Universe is without a doubt one of the best shows I've ever seen. It's certainly the best cartoon series I've ever watched. The first four series, and a large amount of the fifth, are truly wonderful.

So, I'm going to be entitled and complain about the last little bit that didn't work for me. I got all those hundreds of episodes, and I’m just going to take a moment to really honk about the stuff I don't like.

Because we live in an age where Nazis are back, feminists think trans woman are the biggest threat they face and the world is burning - at this point, a bit of a moan about Steven Universe/Future will get lost I think.

Bear in mind: this comes from a place of love. I care about Steven and the characters because they took me on an amazing journey that really had an emotional impact on me. Then they tripped me right at the end, and now they're fuck-twaddling around taking up space in my brain that should be used for thinking about how great the show is.

This is about how the inability to wrap Steven Universe properly sucks and undermines all the amazing work the creators put into it. Now, that work hasn't gone anywhere: I can, and will, re-watch the series to reminisce about it. About what could have happened. Nobody has taken that away from me.

But still, there's nothing worse than a story that buggers up the ending. Worse yet, that ending is still going in Steven Universe: Future.

So what's the problem? Let's start.

Pacing, pathos and atmosphere

Things used to be teased, hinted and slowly revealed. Steven Universe used to a slow-burn that really built things up with the even-hand of a masterful storyteller.  Remember that long shot at the end of 'On the Road', after the characters leave? We see just the empty, sinister kindergarten whilst a discordant note builds in the background before... bang, credits. It builds atmosphere and tension.

What happened to that? Slowly building a feeling, weaving a narrative, and taking us on an emotional journey? We got a very rushed pay-off to all this with Series 5. The crew thought the show wouldn't be renewed, so they made the executive decision to wrap it all up.

·       Everyone’s fixed now. Pearl, Garnet, Amethyst, Steven.

·       Diamonds are friendly now. Blue got sad, Yellow got angry and White got… put in her place by a comeback?

·       The bubbled gems/corrupted monsters are all fixed.

·       The Off-Colours and Lars just got home.  No further adventures, they just got home.

Bits got missed out. Things got rushed. Homeworld, the Diamonds and five series of build-up got dealt with in the space of 40 minutes. For comparison, just Series 1 alone was 8 hours long.

Yeah, the network created that situation. You're cancelled! They seemed to say. No you're not! HA! They continued.  But it still sucks, narratively, and the creators are now compounding that problem by trying to go back and add in the bits they missed.

Worse, there's no pacing now because there’s no more overall story.  No atmosphere. Fundamentally, post Change Your Mind, everything is done. The series was wrapped up.  All we have left now is some loose-ends and Steven being moody.

It came back mostly just to tie up random ends. But more of something isn't always good: Series 1-4 and about half of Series 5 are amazing. We shouldn't clap and applaud we get more just because it's more for its own sake, we should cheer things for being good in their own right.

I don't just want more meep morp, I want the morp to have something to say and to mean something. Victory laps and adding unnecessary lore is pointless: characters and emotion are what drive stories.

This isn't about 'filler' episodes as such, nor is it about breaks and hiatuses. It's about spreading the story arc (and the individual elements within that arc) correctly over the allotted time. A story that takes 700 pages to set up, only to be resolved in 3 pages feels badly unbalanced - I'm looking at you, Stephen King. And that's exactly the problem Steven Universe has. The set-up is incredible, and the payoff is badly disappointing. That's pacing.

Being the Underdog

This was covered nicely, if ironically in hindsight, with the episode ‘Historical Friction’.  The play about olde-time mayor William Dewey was utterly uninteresting until Pearl rewrote the play’s script to make him an underdog.  This is part of pacing. It's dull to watch a winner win constantly. The characters need to be in situations where they're facing actual threats, otherwise we're just watching a series of foregone conclusions unfold.

What would Lord of the Rings look like if the Hobbits just marched from The Shire to Orodruin, with no setbacks or problems, and then just lobbed the One Ring into the fire? What's the point of the story? It'd be like a grand-scale version of watching someone go out for groceries.  Nobody wants to watch that, not really: you can go to the supermarket and see it if you’re that interested!

This couples with suspension of disbelief. Usually, the good guys win. We know they're going to win. We need to be able to suspend our disbelief, and that's something that the pacing and storytelling need to enable. We need to be able to get caught in the story, even though we know everything will probably work out by the end.

When you get it just right, even the creators don’t know for sure everything will be alright.  Remember when Picard was assimilated by The Borg?  Even the writers weren’t 100% sure how it would play out, because Patrick Stewart was playing hardball with the studio at the time over his contract.  There was a chance this could have been the end of his character.

But Steven isn't an underdog anymore. He's a bossy, self-important grump with a martyr complex. He wins all the time, not least of all because of the pacing problems. By this point:

·       Steven has healing powers that can literally bring people back to life

·       He has all the powers of a Diamond

·       He has the backing of the three other diamonds

·       He now has an army of friends who will fight at his side

So where is the story to tell? Consider, in Steven Universe: The Movie, Greg's arm gets hurt by the injector. There's no danger, no worry. We know Steven has healing powers. So why bother showing it? It's about as relevant or interesting as watching Greg brush his hair.

There’s no danger.  There’s no suspension of disbelief because the hero is now so super-powered.

This is even worse when coupled with the uneven pacing: when something takes so long to be painstakingly set up, only to be knocked down in a heartbeat, then why get invested in it?  The 21st Century reboot of Doctor Who falls into this trap a lot: multipart episodes about a Dalek (or whatever) invasion… but luckily their Evil Machine has a ‘reverse’ switch that fixes everything. Dust hands, job done. All that build-up utterly squandered on an almost supernaturally fast resolution.

You Need a Story to Tell

The first five series have a definite story. It gets rushed, badly, come series 5 but there is still a story. That is done now: there's no grand, overarching tale now. We're very much into 'oh, what if...' territory.

What's the problem with that? Things get missed, because they don't need to fit into a cohesive whole. They just happen because they're cool.

Consider The Movie:

·       Spinel goes from a cuddly, professional buddy to a would-be mass-murderer

·       Spinel knows where to find a stupidly powerful injector

·       She knows how to work it

·       It is tuned to work to her 'trumpet' sound

·       It is shaped like her gemstone

·       She knows specifically where Earth is

·       She knows how to fly a massive injector, with no obvious engines, to Earth

·       This all happens in an afternoon

And the explanation we're given, after the event in a Q&A session? It's because Spinel and Pink Diamond were close. That is supposed to explain the entirety of those bullet points. It rankles me because it's not truthful. Those questions aren't answered by that, they're answered by 'because we thought it would be cool'. It's an unsatisfying explanation, but it's true and they’ve tried to handwave it into something else.

It's also what happens when you run out of proper story. Sure, you can still come up with little adventures but there's no big narrative anymore. There is no large picture for everything to fit into.

That’s dangerous territory. Not only does it lead to weird scenarios, but it also starts generating new lore at a maddening amount. The fans don't help this, it seems to me that some people purely watch Steven Universe to demand moar fusions, moar songs and moar lore.  Even when that’s all they get, it’s not enough.

It's like demanding more swimming pools in your home because you're bored with foundations.  Sooner or later the whole structure falls down because swimming pools can’t hold a house up.  Neither can lore hold a story up: stories are about characters.

Similarly, the concept of 'fusion' relies on characters otherwise it's nothing more than the character dumps we used to get in toy-driven franchises back in the 80s. Songs have to have an emotional resonance otherwise they're just empty pop.

Remember the X-Files? How they got into a rut just generating series after series with no pay-off, but lots more wrinkles to an already convoluted story? Then it got to the end and... you can't end it. It's too sprawling, too stupid and too contradictory. That's where lore without a story takes you. Lore has to serve a vision, not the other way around.

Filler

Not filler the way it's come to mean to SU fans. I like the 'boardie' episodes - they're full of interesting characters and ground Steven's world in something resembling ours. No, I mean filler in terms of stories that don't mean anything: the characters don't learn anything, the world isn't made any more interesting. Things just happen in a self-contained bubble with no payoff or consequence.

In itself, that's fine. Some episodes are like that. If that were the only aspect to 'filler' episodes in SU, then who cares? The problem is the pacing. After glacial teasing, hinting and laying down groundwork... things get wrapped up so fast it'll make your head spin.

·       The cluster? We talked it into staying bubbled.

·       The Diamonds? They're fine now.

·       Bismuth? Steven chatted to her.

·       Lapis? She's sort-of fine, but not really.

·       Spinel? Sent to live on a farm.

These are all things that took many, many lines of dialogue and building to create and were knocked down in the space of a couple of sentences.

This is where the 'filler' comes in. Instead of another story about Onion being weird, why not devote it to tying up the plot in a way that feels paced properly? Instead of answering questions about Watermelon Stevens, why not draw-out a little more the actual conclusion to a big story point?

Why do I think Onion and Watermelon Stevens should be singled out for Calvary? Simple: they have no explanation and don't matter. They don't matter to the day-to-day lives of the characters or the world. They serve no narrative purpose. They don't advance other characters' arcs. They don't ground the world they inhabit. They turn up, do 'stuff' in a little bubble and then go back into the toybox until the next Onion episode.

As a side note, I would lay a lot of money that Onion will never get any sort of pay-off. He doesn't age. He's deeply bizarre. He's apparently a wanted criminal. He's terrifying. And I don't think for an instant he will ever get a reason for being any of those things: he'll just carry on as a quirky in-joke and take up episode space because apparently that is a story-telling priority now.

Songs

Songs are sung when something is too important for the characters to just say it. The song needs an emotional resonance, to show what a character feels effectively. Contrast 'That Distant Shore' to 'Independent Together': one is about a deep longing and sadness for a home the character has never had. The other is a soft-rock ballad about how great stuff is when you can be your own self but also be with other people... or something.

See the resonance that the former has, and that the latter lacks? Whether you like Lapis or Steg, or the songs, is irrelevant to the story and the characters. One song has something to say, the other is there for the sake of giving fanservice. Independent Together isn't something so important to say that the characters feel they need to sing it.

This really kicks off around the middle of Series 5. Previously, songs were a special event. Now, they're commonplace. Even in Mr. Greg, a fully musical episode back in Series 3, the songs have so much emotion. Plus, Mr. Greg is an experiment: 11 minutes, mostly held together by 6 solid songs:

·       Don't Cost Nothing: how much Greg and Steven just love one another.

·       Empire City: how excited they are to go on a trip together

·       Mr. Greg: Pearl almost lets her guard down, then realises and shuts down.

·       It's Over Isn't It? : A heartbroken character sings for a life they never had.

·       Both of You: A child shows the two adults they have something special in common.

·       Don't Cost Nothing: reprised as a coda.

I won't pretend that all those songs have a huge emotional impact, but they do all serve part of the story arc. You can see it there: the status quo, the trigger, the choice, the quest, the showdown, the resolution and the new status quo. Couple that with the fact that at least 4 of those songs (counting Don't Cost Nothing and its reprise) do have a very real emotional punch, you've got a great episode.

All in 11 minutes.

That's the level of truly amazing, genius storytelling we're working with. Now contrast that to the 1hr 20m of Steven Universe The Movie:

·       The Tale of Steven: A prelude to a re-cap song

·       Once Upon a Time: a re-cap song

·       Let Us Adore You: The Diamonds are emotionally disturbed and co-dependent! How adorable!

·       Happily Ever After: The status quo. Also another bloody re-cap.

·       Other Friends: The trigger! Not huge emotional resonance, but up-beat and plot-relevant.

·       system/BOOT.PearlFinal(3): The quest.

·       Who We Are: NICE. This one has emotional impact and says something important.

·       Isn't It Love?: A Garnet re-cap. So at this point we're recapping what we re-capped when we recapped the re-cap. Lost yet?

·       No Matter What: Again, NICE. Emotional relevance and says something about Amethyst and Steven.

·       Disobedient: Kate Micucci hadn't been given anything to do yet?

·       Independent Together: Aimee Mann brought a friend! Can he have a job and some dollarydoos?

·       Drift Away: CHARACTER. PUNCH. PATHOS. It's here, folks. They can do it!

and so on.

See the pattern? For every one song that brings what we saw in Mr. Greg, there are at least four that are there just because. Because we thought it'd be cool. Because we needed more tunes to fill the runtime. Mr. Greg achieved more in 11 minutes than Steven Universe: The Movie achieved in over 80 minutes.

What's the reason? The Movie doesn't really have a story to tell. It's a victory lap. It's not bad: it's fine. Bits of it are simply excellent. But this is what happens when you stop having a big, cohesive narrative arc that you're trying to bring together.

Characters

Characters grow and evolve. Specifically, they have arcs. Just like the plot as a whole, and just like the subplots that compose it.  Generally, the stages are:

·       A status quo (Luke on Tattoine)

·       A trigger (his Aunt and Uncle die)

·       A critical choice (he leaves to become a Jedi)

·       A quest (the adventure)

·       A climax (the fight at the Death Star)

·       A turnaround (the Death Star is destroyed!)

·       A new status quo (the Rebels are ready to take on the next challenge)

SU gave most of its characters arcs broadly representative of this. The problem is, once those arcs were done the characters got put back in their boxes. They were 'fixed' and that was it. Amethyst's arc probably worked best: it spread over most of the first five series and felt like a real progression. Hence her fusion with Steven (Smokey Quartz) felt 'earnt'.

Pearl doesn't really grow or evolve much at all until Series 5. Ditto Garnet. Lapis is basically the same throughout the show: she broods, runs away and then comes back because of Steven's coaxing.

So, it’s back to my main drumbeat: its pacing is badly off. Some things take their good time and evolve naturally, others are wrapped up quickly and cast aside. Examples:

·       Peridot worked to become friends with the CG. She had a character arc that took half a series.

·       The Diamonds: it mostly turned on a sixpence in the 2nd half of Change Your Mind. Off-screen they then became annoying relatives, rather than murderous galactic tyrants.

Why does this matter? Well, most of the characters are now 'done'. Pearl is no longer co-dependent. Ruby and Sapphire know they're together (as Garnet) for love. Amethyst no longer hates herself. Peridot is a sweet (albeit socially clumsy) sidekick. Lapis is... well, the same as she's always been but seems happier with it now?

How do you tell more stories when your characters are already done? When the veg is cooked, you can't put it back on the hob because you've decided you want dinner prep to take longer.

SU keeps wrapping things up, believing they're 'done', then getting more time and needing to draw it out. This means either dawdling around with characters not going anywhere (which feels like either a smug victory lap or just something for its own sake) or actively unpicking their development.

Scrubs, in my view, is the poster child for the latter option: the show's cancelled, quick wrap up JD; Elliot; Dr. Cox; Carla; Turk etc! Oh no, we got another series! Undo the happily-ever-after so we can do more stuff!

That's why the pacing, particularly around characters and where they're going, matters.

Fusion

Fusion is the absolute biggest muddle of a metaphor. Is it friendship? Understanding? Sex? All? None? In any case, it used to be meaningful. Fusion meant something, even if that something would vary depending on the characters and the circumstance.

It took special effort to do: characters had to synchronise themselves through dance, to bring their thoughts together to fuse.

Now? It happens at the drop of a hat. No synching, no dancing. Fanwank it away any way you like: the characters are all 'fixed' now, they all trust each other, whatever. Fusion now doesn't mean anything because it takes no effort: pop here's Sunstone, pop here's Smokey, pop here's Opal. The fusions have just become like alter-egos that take no more effort than a quick-change in a phone booth.

And then there's Steg. Yeah, I get it: he represents the familial love between father and son. But why is he so built? Why does he look like some sort of sex-god? I'm a long way from a prude - it's just weird is all. A 16 year old boy + his middle aged father + the memory of the mother/wife shouldn't create a weird Adonis! But let me set that aside: the true problem with Steg is we had no build-up. Greg and Steven didn't talk about it, Steven just suggests fusing (through whispered dialogue we don't hear) and then it just happens.

Steg also isn't saved by being an interesting exploration of either Steven or Greg. He's fanservice. Fans wanted more fusions and more 'what if so-and-so fused!!' so they got it. He has 0 character. Just like Sunstone has no character beyond being an 'after school special'. Rainbow Quartz 2.0 has no character, aside from being chipper and cockney.

Contrast that to Smokey Quartz. Smokey is a delightful, self-deprecating scamp. She has a definite personality and stood up to a full interview with Sardonyx.  Smokey has enough of a character that it would be possible for her to act out-of-character.  What would out-of-character look like for Rainbow or Sunstone?  Provided it was cartoon-English and early 90s cartoon dialogue (respectively) it could be anything.

What happened? Fusions used to be characters, they used to have personalities that couldn't be written down on a postage stamp in luggage marker.

The answer is the story ran-out. The characters are all fixed now - so there's no emotional or narrative drive for their relationships. Hence the concept of fusion is now just serving fans who want to see 'what if' combinations of characters.

Too Many Endings

I’ve touched on this already, but here it is again.

The problem with wrapping up a show is you put all the pieces away as well as you can, and implicitly make work for yourself if it is not the end. You've just set up a load of strawmen you need to kick over if you decide you've got more story to tell.

That's what happened here. Change Your Mind ended it. Except it didn't, so we went back and unpicked what we could. Even though everyone is basically fixed now and the characters have no real growth or underdog-fight. Then The Movie ended it. Except it didn't, so we went back and unpicked what we could. Even though everyone is still basically fixed.

Will Future be the end?  Probably not.

That's why Steven is now a moody little jackass with a hero complex - we needed some conflict to drive what little plot there is, which exists only as a vehicle for tying up loose plot threads (Jasper!) we left out because of how rushed the first ending was.

It's a bit like when you misspell something, then you go back over it with your biro. But now it looks unclear. So you go over it a few more times to make sure it's clear. But now it looks like someone took a biro and leaked half the ink onto the page. The very act of trying to tidy it has made it less clear.

A Special Note About Garnet

This isn't about pacing, but whilst I'm on the moan I'll leave this here.

I feel wicked for this. Garnet is a brilliant character. I love Estelle: she brings Garnet so well to life. Any LGBT representation in a cartoon is rare and amazing, and we need more. But Garnet also sucks.

Why?

She's a metaphor. She's a metaphor for being gay and together in love. She is a symbol of a same-sex relationship.  On a side-note: yes Gems don't have gender technically, but let’s not be wilful here: they have female-coded designs and the subtext is so obvious as to barely be subtext.

It's nearly 2020. We're now 20 years into the 21st Century. 2001 A Space Odyssey was set 20 years ago.  First contact between Zephram Cochrane and the Vulcans is now only 43 years away.  And we can still only talk about gay (or, God forbid, bi or transgender) characters in children’s' media through metaphor. I cannot emphasise enough how utterly shitty that is, and how glacial progress has been.

Now, that isn't SU's fault. However, what is SU fault is their clever (and I mean that genuinely) ploy to sneak a same-sex couple into the show means that we don't see them as a same-sex couple 95% of the time. They're hidden. Ruby and Sapphire's love and relationship literally lives under a disguise called Garnet.

And that sucks. It makes sense as a plan. It's great we have Garnet. Garnet is still amazing. But she also sucks, because she acts as invisibility for the lesbian couple she represents.  Yeah, that’s some tough mental gymnastics to work that cognitive dissonance but I managed it.

My God, I Get It: You're a Cat Person

This is also nothing to do with pacing, it's just a creator conceit that bugs me. I freely admit it's also piddly and petty.

So: I'm not a cat person. And no, it's not because I haven't met your adorable little Tiddles or whatever. I don't hate cats, it’s just that most of the cats I've ever met are simply ghastly little shits. Their owners, through some mental blind spot; ancient Egyptian curse or brain parasite have become convinced that these hairball-gobbing, furniture-shredding, wildlife-destroying little cunts are angels. Somehow they've convinced themselves everything they do is adorable.

No amount of murdered birds or small mammals change their minds.

I've met, officially, two nice cats in my life and I treasure their memories. The rest can go to hell.

Why does this matter to SU? Cat Steven. Lion. Peridot and Amethyst doing little kitty-mouths when they're being cute. My God, crew, you love cats. I got the memo.

Why does that work me up? Well, do you know what I'd like instead? If a tiny amount of that 'cats are brilliant!' energy went into a proper wrap for Pumpkin. Created by Jessie Zuke and obviously a puppy metaphor... what happened to her? The crew don't care, because they won't tell us. If they cared even a jot it would have a story around it. Instead, we got some half-arsed bullshit from Joe Johnston about 'pumpkins don't last forever' and... scene. That's it.

But Cat Steven, OMG, yes we have to make sure to include him. Whenever we're at the Beach House. Especially if Garnet is there. Because... lesbians all love cats? Or something? Just... CATS. MOAR CATS.

Couldn't you show a little more respect for a character, albeit a not particularly important one, rather than worrying about how much airtime the various cats all get?

In Conclusion

It bears restating, this is mostly ire directed at Series 5 onwards. The other series are all still there, and I can watch them to reminisce. I can still enjoy some truly wonderful episodes of just about the best cartoon I've ever seen. This show is incredible... but the endings kinda suck. And that's down, mostly, to pacing. And how it kinda fucked Steven Universe.

[allstarsstorymode867]

All-Stars -Story Mode- [CHAPTER 14] Part 3

Part 2 - [YOU’RE HERE] - Part 4

All finished with Part 3, I hope you’ll like it.

And looks like this part is short so I will leave it @sampoststuff and @gulliblepineapples to figure out how Pyro thinks of this after they had met Dempsey’s Ultimis self in this part. Good luck reading! 😉

Helghans, troops and soldiers alike, a small group of them sent by Visari himself. Are now in a fight with the Earth Dwellers known as Humans, bullets are flying everywhere and screams of the dying or a battle cry from someone in anyway while the heat of war is rising up.

*Welcome to Killzone.

Demoman is hiding behind the crate while Dempsey and Erron are out there fighting, as a Mercenary, war games are deemed the new normal when he was first hired by Redmond and it was the first time he will use his skills of denotations and demolitions on the first day of battle.

He had never thought that he would do it on his fourth day in an seemingly empty city that was inhabited with zombies, on a day like this even or any other day! Yet, now here he is, hiding behind the crate for cover listening to what was going on and waiting for a time to peek over the crate. Another gun fire is heard and as well with the scream coming with it, then a body of the Helghan Trooper plops onto the crate under him as Demoman jerked a bit in disgust.

“Like how it happened in Gravel Pit…” he whispered silently to himself as he palmed his temples with his free hand while another hand is gribbed on tightly on the Stickybomb Launcher. He peeked over again and see Takeo is shooting with the others, Dempsey slashed and then shot one of them and his teammates fighting to secure the area.

He then slowly and carefully got on his feet as Pyro passes by but then they stopped when they noticed him, “Demo!” they called out to him as they walked over to him and lends out their hand to them.

“Thanks mate.” Demoman said as he got on his feet quickly with the help of Pyro, “No problem.” they answered and before they could be on their way, Demoman stopped them as he looked at what was heading for them. Making Pyro looked at him and said “Demo, wha-” but didn’t had time to finish their sentence as they saw that a group of Troops are heading their way.

Demoman smiled as he had an idea in his head but needed Pyro’s help, “Pyro,” he said, making the pyromaniac looked at him and suddenly been grabbed by the wrist then being pulled along with Demoman as he continued “Come with me!” while they both ran.

Troops are behind them as they ran to the nearby connected iron overhead just standing on top of the train tracks and gone under it as Demo stops when he looked at it along with Pyro then a smile of inspiration grew on his face.

“Pyro!”

“Yeah?”

“I have an idea that includes yer skills of fire!” he said, Pyro turned over with interest.

The Troops are coming in as weapons are aimed and ready in their hands, running on foot to catch up to the duo as they are getting ready for them to come, with each stickybomb and oil dripping out from cans done by Demoman and Pyro as they hear each footstep coming closer and closer.

The Troops are coming in as weapons are aimed and ready in their hands, running on foot to catch up to the duo as they are getting ready for them to come, with each stickybomb and oil dripping out from cans done by Demoman and Pyro as they hear each footstep coming closer and closer.

Troops around the corner and saw Demoman and Pyro just standing there as they ran towards them with promise of bring an end to their lives but one of them looked around as saw why there were just standing there; they were prepared for them to come into their trap after they rigged it.

Demoman stopped drinking when he had a feeling that one of them noticed so a smile smugly as he then throws a mock salute to them as Pyro waves a goodbye at their pursuers before donating the bombs on them as they blew up into pieces of them through the sky as the remaining troops were left to burn in the flaming fire as Pyro gleefully laughs.

Demoman, who is laughing merrily as body parts and blood rain down around them as he goes up to a severed head of one of the Helghan Troops before kneeling down to it and smugly yet proudly saying "Oh, they're going to have to glue you back together... in hell!"

Pyro picks up one of the body parts to examine it as that body part is just a torso of what’s left of the Trooper before searching through it,

*Searching… *... *Pyro finds a ammo for a Wunderwaffe and wielding torch light! *These two items are adding to their Back-Pit.

Demoman looked at the text as he drink what was left of the scrumpy inside the bottle and watching it fade away from sight. “Aye think we better get used to it now that we’re here.” he drunkenly said, Pyro nodded

“Loud and clear Demo.”

as they played around the lighter again but they didn’t noticed a familiar man in 1940s Marine uniform, coming their way as he surveyed the scene around him: Body parts, a few puddles of blood and weapons scattered throughout the area around him and the two RED Mercenaries.

“Hey guys-” a familiar voice of a man called out but Pyro and Demoman immediately got their weapons out, axe in the fire-lover’s hands and an empty bottle in the Scotsman’s left hand as he smashes it, breaking it into pieces except a part that allows him to hold it as a broken yet sharp melee weapon as they turned towards him, ready to fight if needed but soon thought that this man is Dempsey but they noticed a change in his usual style, buzzed haircut, a uniform used to be worn in the 1940s and a scar on his nose.

“Dempsey?” Demoman said, to winch it surprised Ultimis Dempsey to know they had know his last name as the Scotsman continued “Bloody hell, don’t scare us like that, lad.”

“Sorry?” Dempsey said, rising an eyebrow toward the two, Pyro tilts their head as they looked him; they can’t decide if the BLU Spy is trying to fool them again or not like back in Double Cross Map.

“Dempsey,” they started to say before grabbing a collar of his shirt, “Whatever happened to your jacket?” as he looked at them with more confusion as well with the Corporal who is looking at them. “H-Hey ma- er lady or… Whatever you are,” he began, making Pyro look up at him, “Can you, like let go?” he asked, trying to be nice and Pyro lets their hand let go of his collar in suspicion and confusion as they mumbled again “Okay, whatever…”

“Don’t cha remember us?” Demoman looked at him, “I’m Demoman and this is Pyro.” he gestured as Pyro went back on his side, still looking at him. “Well, ya know my name.” Dempsey said, crossing his arms as he looked at them.

Pyro was gonna hit him with their axe as they fully believed Ultimis Dempsey is the enemy spy from the BLU Team but as they turned, they noticed something in the skies as the familiar rocket thrusters had sounded the surrounded area as Demo and the Marine continued to talk.

Looking up, Pyro sees a ship nearly the same size as a tank with wings with thrusters soaring through the skies and heading for the west side of the city. Pyro looks around then they found a shovel on a nearby shed before walking towards it and picking it up, they then walked passed Demoman and Dempsey til they are just 5 foot from them as they looked at them before digging a trench with the shovel.

Demoman didn’t noticed that Pyro is digging until Dempsey pointed it out “Hey, what’s that doing?” as he looked at the pyromaniac digging, Demo looked over his shoulder and sees them digging winch it was odd to Demoman because they had never done something like this before.

It doesn’t take a while when Pyro managed to finished digging a trench and then opens up a Back Pit (Or in this Game-like Story; they had entered a Pause Menu like in video games) to pull out...

Class: Pyro

Real Name: Nova Eldon Gender: Female Birthdate: 01/1/1940 Birth Place: Tokyo, Japan Health Points:175/175 Overheal Points: 260/260 Quick-Fix Overheal Points: 220/220 Condition: Pyro Normal: 100% (If wielding a Powerjack; 115%) Backward: 90% (If wielding a Powerjack; 104) Crouched: 33% (If wielding a Powerjack; 38%) Swimming: 80% (If wielding a Powerjack; 92%) LV: 68% Gold: 117

Items (Bag): -Fabled Ribbon [Equipped] -Notebook >[Brodie Helmet] -Shovel Weapons: -Flame Thrower (Primary) -Shotgun (Secondary) -Flare Gun (For Emergencies Only) -Panic Attack Shotgun (Just in case there’s an Alien invasion again)[Equipped] -Fire Axe (Melee) -Powerjack (It is an antique automobile jack with a team-colored car battery strapped to its base with tan leather straps. It is count as a Melee.) -Thermal Thruster (Jetpack)

Back-Pit: -3 Blankets -Pillow -Tent -Drawing Pad -Crayons -Lighter -Wunderwaffe Ammo

*Pyro puts on Brodie Helmet on.

“Pyro, what are ye-” Demoman had time to finished when Pyro hurryingly grabbed him and U!Dempsey before running and jumping into the trench, taking cover from whatever it was in the skies. They then painted above the eyes with black sports paint, making them look like they are angry and ready for anything.

Pyro had prepared a trench just in case it’s going to be another Alien Invasion

Then three heads popped out of the trench, first one was Demo, then Dempsey and then Pyro with the Panic Attack, an pump-action shotgun with a drum magazine attached to the front and an external firing hammer hence the weapon’s name as they held it in their hands. Pointing it at the sky, looking around for the flying rocket-powered ship from the space age as Pyro adjusted their helmet on their head.

They are fully expect an attack as Dempsey tried saying “What the he-”

“Ssh…” Pyro shushed him with a old-finger-shushing motion on the muzzle.

“Hey I was talking-”

“Ssshh…!” They shushed him again still looking at the clouded sky as they halts him with a helt-motion of their index finger before holding the shotgun with both hands again.

“Pyro, what has gotten-” Demoman was then shushed by Pyro as they had placed their finger on his mouth and then doing a zipping-a-zipper motion as they shushed “SSsssshhhhhh….” before returning on the look-out for the ship. “What are ya looking for?” Dempsey whispered to them finally, Pyro looked over to him and mumbled “UFO, an Unidentified Flying Object.” before turning their attention back to the sky and of course, they heard him laughed on their right and saying “There no such things as UFOs.”

Pyro hickled back with a mock laugh, “Yes there is.” as Demoman said “Pyro, be nice.” while he looked at the sky.

“Oh, like you have encountered one before.” Ultimis Dempsey teased, Demoman looked over to him and said “Some things are different in yer Universe, isn’t it?” as he looked through his Back-Pit to find another weapon.

“Yeah?” the Corporal shrugged, looking over to him now and saw that he is serious. “Are you serious?” he asked, rising an eyebrow at this when Pyro nodding but doesn’t look at him as Demoman gives him a thumbs up.

“Anything, Pyro?”

“No.” they shook their head.

Pyro looked around, turning their head left to right as they gripped tight on the Panic Attack, looking for any alien ships coming in but… None so far but they not going to take any chances to relax at their most vulnerable as they got out of the trench, holding their hand out for their teammate as he grabbed it and being pulled out of the trench.

“Aliens had tried to take over our world once but both sides of RED and BLU are still too busy with the bloody war games until one day we had to defeat them with a giant ray that destroyed- Destroyed whot?” he said as he looked at Pyro before they both answered together:

“The mothership.” “The mothership.”

“Okay then…?” he said awkwardly, lending his hand out for anyone of the two and the one who grabbed him with Demoman and pulled him out of the trench with little trouble. “Anything else happened after that?” Dempsey asked next, “Only another time laddie.” Demoman shrugged as he looked around before Pyro placing their hand on his shoulder as gunfire is heard from elsewhere.

“Bloody hell… We better catch up with the others, Pyro!” Demoman rebuked as Pyro nodded with no argument. Then they ran with Demoman saying “We have to inform this to Richtofen!”

“You know the-” Dempsey questioned before being interrupted by Demoman yelling “Yeah!” while he runs as Pyro stopped to look at him and giving him the “I-am-watching-you” gesture before jugs up to catch up to their teammate.

“Wonderful…” Ultimis Dempsey groaned, “First it was with a goddamned Nazi, now this. Has the whole world gone crazy??” as he looked with caution but he is confused. How did they know who he is when he didn’t meet them?

“Ungh, I gotta get back to the others!” Dempsey said as he ran to where Demoman and Pyro are heading.

Something is going on around here and he’s going to need answers to that.

[staticsandstationery]

Okay, so you want to start a bullet journal? But you don’t have the right notebook or the right pens or the right washi tape or the right ruler or the right vibe?

SO WHAT??

Don’t let a fear of your bullet journal not being able to compete with the bullet journals you see on Instagram keep you from jumping in. The trick to being successful by using your bullet journal is to just get started!

So I’m going to walk you through how I set up my bullet journal in about 45 minutes. There are plenty of ways to get a brand new bullet journal set up in anywhere from 10 minutes (trust me, it can be done to an extent) to upwards of a handful of hours. 

It all just depends on how much work you want to do up front and how much of a project you want your bullet journal to be each week and each month when it’s time for a new spread.

I, for one, used to fall into the category of people who spend way too damn long on setting up a bullet journal. When I first got started, I used about 12 different pen colors, I used to paint the covers of a new journal, and I used to try to do all these random things to decorate the pages (if you don’t believe me, just watch this pen pile grow).

This time, I wanted to take a different approach. I’ve been using either a Passion Planner or an Erin Condren Life Planner for close to two years now, but neither has every feature I need. Also, long story short, I wasn’t using my planner effectively anymore. Grad school is a little less...intense I guess? My to-do lists are shorter and my days aren’t as packed, but things carry more weight. Does that make sense? So my planner has a lot of wasted space at this point in my life, and last semester I didn’t use a planner at all because all I had was my team design project. I fought with myself for almost this entire semester about what to do to be a better student, keep myself more organized, and keep myself on top of my assignments and deadlines. 

The answer? Get back into bullet journaling.

I set my bullet journal up in about 45 minutes this morning before I sat down to study for my upcoming statistics exam, so let’s walk through how I did that.

1. Gather Supplies

First, I got together my existing Erin Condren Life Planner (which, let’s be honest, I will always love), an empty notebook I had lying around (I am the type of person that people gift notebooks to and I’m definitely not complaining), some highlighters (I only ended up using the gray one), and some black pens. I happen to have Faber Castell pens laying around because I like to sketch and they don’t bleed when I go over them with watercolors, but seriously, any black pen is totally fine. I promise.

2. Make your Index

Fortunately, the Leuchtturm1917 notebook I have comes with an index in the front already. However, if your notebook does not have one, you’ll want to go ahead and add that at the very beginning of your notebook.

I’m going to be honest, I don’t love that it’s called an index in the bullet journal community because to me it’s a table of contents if it’s a the front, but whatever.

3. Create a Future Log

Skipping the index and one blank page, I dove right in. I will say, I had a bit of a plan going in. I knew I wanted to have 6 columns, one for each month, so I spaced those out using a mechanical pencil. Using a brush pen I had laying around (you can also use a crayola marker or a plain pen/marker if you’re not feeling script fonts), I wrote out the first 6 months and gave my page a title.

I then did the exact same thing for the next 6 months.

Next up, I went over those pencil lines with a black pen. Pencil can be skipped, or going over with a black pen can be skipped - it depends on how confident you are in your spacing and what you want your bullet journal to look like (in the end, that’s what your bullet journal is all about, right?). Once I had my six columns, I went in and put mini calendars in for the first 6 months. I’ll go back and do May - October later.

Once I had my columns, I went in and started added some dates to my future log. If you’re on a time crunch and just want your bullet journal started so you can add in your first list, then by all means, power on through and skip this part!

4. Make your Monthly Spread

Okay, so this is 100% where my pencil and my eraser saw the most action. I had no idea what I wanted my spread to look like, just that I wanted a teeny calendar and a place for goals.

I started by sketching out some boxes, writing in what I wanted those boxes to be, debating whether I actually wanted any of those boxes, etc.

Eventually, I decided it’s what I wanted and I went over everything with some black pens.

I included a section for monthly goals, some important dates, and an overview of budget benchmarks. 

5. Add a Habit Tracker

100% optional, but I decided that on the page facing my monthly spread would be the perfect place to track some of the habits I want to get better about staying on top of. Since it’s a tracker for the month, it made sense to keep it with the whole month.

This is without a doubt the part that took the longest when I was setting up my bullet journal this morning. Not only did I have to figure out what exactly I wanted to track, but I also had to go through and ink in all the lines because once I started, I was committed.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it turned out great and I’m really excited to use it, but I wish I had left it until a few days from now, just because it did take almost 20 minutes for this one page (ridiculous, right?).

6. Make Your Weekly Spread

I decided to keep my weekly spread relatively simple, especially compared to what my bullet journal used to look like, and stuck to just black pen and gray highlighter.

I kept things as simple as possible. I’m hoping that with a simpler layout, I can maybe get a new weekly spread going in under 5 minutes as my weeks progress.

Along the lefthand side, I have my work and class schedule. Then the rest of the two page spread is dedicated to to-do lists. Can you spot the mistake I made on Monday? Who cares?? Make mistakes in your bullet journal!! This is JUST FOR YOU!

I may switch to more of a horizontal situation in the upcoming weeks, but for right now I’m on board with this one and we’ll see how it goes!

7. Finally, Make Sure You Have a Key

I forgot until the very end to set up my key, and honestly, it wasn’t the end of the world. I stuck it up on the page just before my index starts and called it a day.

I did my best to keep it simple. My keys in the past have had a habit of taking up an entire page. 

All in all, I’m really happy with the more minimalist direction this bullet journal is heading. I’m excited to only need to carry like two or three writing utensils to be able to use it, I’m excited to not stress about messing up, and I’m excited to be excited about school again.

I plan on adding a few more pages, like a cleaning schedule and a workout tracker or something similar, but that’ll come after I finished getting ready for my Stat exam!

What do your bullet journals look like? How long does it take you to set yours up?

[kelsmister]

Phoenix Fan Fusion 2019 -- Artist Alley Review May 23-26 2019 *Thursday - Sunday* ==Opinions expressed are completely my own, and from my own record. If your experience differed, then good for you. This is how the event unfolded for me. You are more than welcome to write your own review, and even allowed to vend at this event. Keep in mind my opinions are again, of my own accord.== Once again I decided to brave the desert sun and venture out of my comfortable air conditioned room to sell my various wares in the hopes of making a decent buck. After my hard drive crashed two weeks ago I had high hopes this event could at least cover part of those expenses. Oh boy, did this show do a 180 and nose dive into the deep end of the pool without bracing for impact. Where to start? I’ve been doing PCC (as it was formerly known as before the lawsuit involving San Diego vs some weird event in Colorado), for about 6 ish years now. Maybe closer to 10 by now. Point is, I’ve seen this show go from great things to downright lousy. This year was one of the lousier ones. For those who don’t know, or plum forgot, around 2 years back a man brought in real weapons, real bullet proof armor, and had threatened the life of one of the guests at the con. Idiot posted said exploits online where his one and only online chum alerted authorities and he was swiftly apprehended before he could do such vile acts. The next day the con had to crack down hard on security, as the city pressured them to not have one of those ‘mass shootings’ happen in THEIR city. (Hey I don’t want to be shot at either!) The whole scramble to get metal detectors and REAL security personnel (not just teen volunteers) took it’s toll as lines stretched for hours around the buildings in 110+ sweltering heat. Some passed out, others drenched in sweat, it was bad. Many vowed never to return, as last year did show a slight decrease in attendance. However the damage was already done. Last year the increased costs for security left the con with empty wallets and almost zero budget, they fell seriously into the red nearly going bankrupt because of it. So this year they revamped everything by cutting corners wherever they could. First thing- entry points restricted to just 3. I believe the prior year it was 5, so right there it’s not as many personnel you need to hire, or rather pay the company to hire. Secondly, they moved registration back inside the building, so saving on rental tents and such. Third, they really cut corners with the artist alley. They added more artists. Pipe and drape were scraped. Tables were now side by side, no gaps no 2 feet of spacing between you and your neighbors. Now everyone resided in 8 table deep rectangles with taped down walkways behind everyone to ‘allow entry/exit’ for the middle tables with mini pipe and drape at the ends to block out the attendees. Did I mention more artists? Seriously, they squeezed in so many that the aisles did not match up with the vendor aisles. Row 900 was actually row 1000 in artist alley. This confused several attendees walking by who would look up to see a huge banner saying one thing but the ground saying another. Our once nicely printed up table signs, which use to hang off of the pipe and drape backings were now lazily stapled to the front of tables, which fell off rather easily fyi. The rectangle of selling for each cluster of artists left many to just push their now brought from home photo backdrops to the very edge of their space, some not caring at all and just going over these 1.5 feet of ‘walkway’. Many tri-pod legs stuck out, I myself kicked a few out of frustration and even had to yell at a neighbor behind me who somehow thought the double lines were ‘his’ space. Again, no one ever came by and demanded the space be free. If pipe and drape were used instead it wouldn’t have been an issue. But being right up against each neighbor was infuriating to say the least. You couldn’t hang anything on the sides of your display for fear people would think it was your neighbor’s work. Without the pipe and drape the sea of artists looked horrid. Random photo backdrops as far as the eye could see. Some looked good, but others yuck. For those who don’t have backdrops it looked just like a big yard sale. And a lot, and I mean A LOT of tables were left empty. At cons it’s common for a few people not to show up, emergencies happen, but heck even my neighbor didn’t show allowing me to stretch out onto his space (free of charge kind of nice). Besides this they never did closing announcements. You got one at 5 minutes till but nothing else. Not saying every con does this, but at a show this big, and a hall this grand, you have to warn the public. “Hey guys 1 hour until the vendor hall closes!” “Not to alarm you all but the hall closes in 30 minutes!” “Better make those last minute purchases, hall is closing in 10 minutes. Please start making your way to the exit!” Nope, none of this. Also, randomly, on Saturday around noon someone got a hold of the overhead PA system and started blaring music. It was so loud we all were covering our ears. After song number two started to play I rushed over to the exhibit hall manager booth where I kid you not an ARMY of angry vendors were ready to lynch someone. Eventually the music cut off and we all cheered, but never heard how that happened. Maybe a blu-tooth thing?

Security. Oh boy. They had MAJOR problems. This was supposedly the same company hired the prior year, but man they didn’t act like it. Prior year everything ran smoothly, never a problem, but this year it felt like rookies-r-us training camp or something. Day 0 I overheard one of them, as they searched me ask another “Uh.. what do I do again?” Not exactly encouraging to hear. I get not all of them can be trained veterans of this, but most acted like day 1 newbies. Each day their ‘allowed/not allowed’ list changed. Sometimes they allowed bottled water, other days nope toss it. Luckily being a vendor they allowed me all the bottles of soda and water and snacks, but I heard the rumors. Some said they had to toss their sealed Gatorade or sandwiches in bags. And sometimes I was allowed in any entry point, the last two days they forced me to the one furthest away. Again, you guys can’t change the rules EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Pick something stick with it. Heck on one day, I think Friday, I got in the specialty line but the staff pointed me to general and said it “would be quicker”. Ok whatever. So I hoped over, nope. It wasn’t. Guys in front of me reeked of BO, and this was at 9am, and of course had bags in a bag in a bag. So searching took FOREVER. As I’m waiting for my turn a supervisor approaches me and points to the other line saying “Madam vendors are supposed to go through the specialty line-” I cut her off “YES I know, YOUR employee sent me HERE. I’m not hopping lines, I’m staying here. Go yell at her.” She tried to make me go but gave up after a bit.  Never had this problem before. Makes me wonder what this company did to suddenly get a bunch of rookies working for them who haven’t got a clue. OH. With the weird ness too, some days they made me open the money box and shuffle through it, other days nope didn’t care! AGAIN IT WASN’T CONSISTENT. NOT ONE BIT. Bathrooms. Another disgusting beast. This convention center has multiple bathrooms, I’m thankful for that, but the one closest to me oh boy, it was busy almost every hour. It reeked by the end of day one and never lost that lovely wretched odor of feces, urine, and chlorine. Did I forget to mention that cleaning staff, fed up with doing their one job of cleaning, almost went on strike during this? They complained to the con saying the bathrooms were too hard to maintain during this crazy event, and had threatened to just up and close the downstairs restrooms as a consequence. Con luckily put their foot down, but it did explain why at one point I saw the barrier up around the bathroom while the cleaning crew gave me the stank eye as I had to walk further down to whiz. So, the take away, if you didn’t bother to read my lovely little rant. PROS: - 8 foot table - 3 badges per table - Largest show in AZ - Easy to get into (application wise) - Big attendance numbers - Several hotels near by - Easy walk from light-rail (public transit)

CONS: - Table cost over $300 (for inline) - Table cost varying $300-500+ (endcaps higher) - Security and flip flop rules - No ‘cheap’ food alternatives - No food trucks, only con center food court - Strict food ban (cannot bring in whole pizzas) - No free parking - Booth space reduced - Pipe and drape gone (possible cost in future) - TONS more artists now - Guests not best draws - Crowded but not a lot of buyers - Huge homeless problem (it is downtown) - Ticket scalpers, you have been warned - Aisles narrowed - Tables side by side (no exits for some)

[remedial-wit]

28/02/19

Femslash February Day 28! - Skimmons (Bioquake)

5 + 1 - The five times they almost got together and the one time they did.

Skye’s never had a family, really. The orphanage, crappy foster homes, and a few, short-lived, nice ones certainly don’t count.

But she’s on the Bus, which is a stupid name for their home in the sky but that’s part of the charm, with Coulson, May, Ward, Fitz and Simmons. They’re playing scrabble, which is totally unfair since Fitz and Jemma have, like, triple their IQ, and the other three agents know like seven languages. Skye has the dictionary app on her phone, but she doesn’t dare use it with three spies in the room.  

“It is so a real word,” splutters Jemma, outraged — she’s currently winning, of course.

“Sure,” says Coulson. “If you say so.”

“It is.”

They’ve all got mugs of hot chocolate, even May, each personalized to their own tastes. Skye has whipped cream and marshmallows and cinnamon and basically all anything sweet that can be found in the kitchen. Her hands are closed around the warmth of it, a classic comfort. And everything is good.

Jemma falls back into the couch in frustration, suddenly resting her head on Skye’s shoulder, burying her face into the crook of her neck. Soft brown hair tickles her skin and Jemma complains lightly about “bloody Americans and Scots taking revenge on the English.” She smells faintly of peaches and some floral perfume scent and the hot chocolate on her breath.

Like an idiot, Skye immediately freezes up.

The mug falls from her fingers, and hot milk immediately seeps through her clothes to her skin.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Jemma exclaims, instantly jumping up from her position, frantic, blue paper towel from nowhere already in her hand to clean up.

“No! It’s fine, Simmons.” Skye replies quickly, shaking her head adamantly. “Don’t worry about it.”

From the opposite couch, she sees May eying the two of them warily, scrutinizing them. Skye swallows and says nothing and hopes her blush isn’t as prominent as it feels.

If Skye didn’t know better, she’d think Jemma’s cheeks are glowing a little red as well, helping her clean the hot chocolate and cream and everything else off her shirt, and she’s so close. Skye could almost kiss her.

But she won’t, obviously. And Jemma probably isn’t blushing, it’s just the lighting, and the rest of the team are literally sitting around them, Fitz is right beside them.

And Skye’s never had a proper family before. Anything more would ruin that.

    2. It’s in the aftermath of her fall, after Ward jumped out of the quinjet and rescued her and the antidote worked, that Skye is finally able to breathe. Her arms fall automatically around her, fitting, holding her close and tight.

Jemma is alright.

Jemma is alive.

Jemma trembles in her embrace, slightly, quietly shaky. And neither of them let go.

Honestly, neither of them have known each other for that long a time, a few months, really, but Skye already knows she doesn’t know what she would do if she lost Jemma — if she lost any of this newfound family, really. But especially Jemma.

How could you do this? She wants to say. How could you jump and think that it wouldn’t destroy us? How could you be so callous with your own life, that you would jump to save us?

Don’t you know that I already —

She doesn’t say it, though. Of course, she doesn’t. How can she? Not when she already knows the answer. That the same reason Skye can’t wait as someone goes out to catch her again is the same reason Jemma would do it again, and again, if presented with the same situation.

It’s almost funny how these things work. It’s part of the reason why Skye cares so much — because Jemma cares so much. And she’s so afraid to lose that.

Skye squeezes her a little, and presses a kiss into Jemma’s hair, breathing her in, and this moment and how she’s here and okay.

Don’t you know that I already can’t lose you? Don’t you know what that means? She wants to say, but she doesn’t.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she says instead.

    3. “Jems,” says Skye weakly, once she comes back out of that morphine haze. “C’mon, I need to tell you something.”

She’s lying in the med-pod on the Bus, finally conscious and no longer dying. She is much too weak to move the blankets to exam her stomach or the bullet wound, but she suspects Quinn really did a number on her, because, geez. She’s mostly numb but she still feels like shit.

The room is too bright and small and closed in. And the only things in it are the bed and all the machines and chemicals, monitoring and stabilizing her vitals. And the only source of noise in the room is the heart monitor, beeping steadily.

They could have at least given her a laptop with Netflix, or some damn hospital jelly.

“Simmons,” she says again, wincing at the way her voice croaks.

Jemma is standing at the door of the room, busying herself with prepping another syringe to either inject Skye with something else or take another blood sample. She looks up.

Finally.

Because Skye really does have something to tell her. Something important and not the usual blood-taking-vampire jokes. She’s figured, between now and the last time Doctor Jemma was here, with her almost dying and all, there’s no time like the present.

“Skye,” tuts Jemma, frowning cutely. “You really shouldn’t waste your energy like that trying to speak. You aren’t in pain are you?”

“No, but — “

“Oh good. I know you’re stable now, and you aren’t about to die, but you really mustn’t push yourself,” she continues, light but scolding, before Skye feels the needle poke into her arm, and whatever drug it is that Skye can’t pronounce, flows into her blood.

“I just wanted to tell you that I like you,” says Skye in one breath, pouting a little now.

Jemma tosses her head back and laughs. “Oh, I like you too Skye. Very much.”

“No, I mean I like-like you. Like —” and Skye has never been the most eloquent, but her tongue feels like it’s truly struggling to find the words right now. “Romantic stylez.”

Jemma hums, and shakes her head lightly, almost to herself, looking fond as she walks back to the door.

“Now, that’s just the morphine talking,” she says, before the door slides shut.

Skye suppresses a groan.

    4. SHIELD is gone.

SHIELD is gone. SHIELD is gone. SHIELD is gone.

And Skye feels like she is an agent of Nothing. Her family is separated. Ward, her mentor, was a traitor.

They are silent on the way there. Tired, exhausted, from everything. Trip takes to pacing the grounds, May stays in her pilot’s seat, Coulson just lies down and closes his eyes, but he’s not really sleeping, she thinks.

Skye sits in her bunk. Months, almost a whole years worth, of memories here. Outside in the common area, there’s so much broken glass and splintered wood and burnt parts, but in her bunk, it’s untouched. It could almost be like nothing has changed.

Except it’s too quiet outside. There’s no sound of Coulson’s cheesy music, or Fitzsimmons science-ing, or May and Ward sparring.

When they arrive, finally, at the coordinates, wherever it is Nick Fury has sent them, they all stand at the door. Tired, but ready for anything. They have to be.

The first thing she sees, standing there, is Jemma.

Her feet move before her brain even catches up, body moving on instinct, her arms finding Jemma and holding on tight and adamant that she won’t let go. Ever. And Jemma relaxes into her and grips on just as strong, just as fiercely, and knows Jemma won’t let her go either.

Almost everything is broken, but they’re okay.

Oh, she could really kiss her.

But Jemma holds herself small in her arms, and even though she seems freshly washed, she looks about ready to collapse, and there is something so delicately held about her expression. As though she’s clinging onto Skye because she might be the only thing left.

“Where’s Fitz?” Skye asks, dread welling up in her stomach, glancing over Jemma’s shoulder to the empty space behind her.

And Jemma releases a breath, heavy and shuddering and too shallow. “Alive,” she says finally. “He’s… alive.”

Jemma pulls away, but not completely, and Skye holds her hand firmly, both shaking, and says nothing.

Right now, this is enough.

     5. She doesn’t quite know what to do when Simmons comes back from HYDRA. She’s different.

Though, they all are.

And there’s no time to really do anything except hope that they make it out alive

Because suddenly, they’ve been thrust into this world where HYDRA is still at large, where it’s not aliens and a few obscure people on an Index with powers now. It’s one of them, it’s a whole community, it’s how Skye has been searching for her past, her origin for so long and in the space of a few weeks she’s met her father and mother, and lost them both too. It’s that an enemy became an ally, Raina and all her manipulations and her sacrifice, and family became the enemy. It’s that her father was mad, sick with it, but ultimately good, and that Skye’s name is really Daisy — though, she still can’t get used to it.

When Simmons comes back from HYDRA, there’s so much chaos it seems almost minute. And there’s no time to discuss anything. If it was up to Simmons, she’s sure, there would be nothing much to discuss at all.

Skye knocks on the glass before she enters the lab. It still feels a little odd, in this big open lab and this actually secret base of operations, instead of the Bus, but the air isn’t as…stilted as before. It’s less uncomfortable.

Fitzsimmons are beginning to sync back up to each other now, though, there are still some things unsaid, she can tell.

“Skye,” says Simmons, looking up with a smile that’s getting easier and easier these past few days. It still does something soft and flutter, after all this time. “Your here. I have new gauntlets for you to try out.”

“That’s great, Simmons. Thanks,” she replies, tucking her hair back behind her ear. She swallows.

Behind them, she hears Fitz slip silently out of the room, and somehow she sees Jemma breathe, and the unresolved tension in the room fall away. It’s not perfect, and Skye misses the effortless comfort that came with the Bus, back before once more. They’ve all been through so much, though, multiple perils in every variation, they’ll be okay. She has to believe it.

Jemma turns, busying herself with adjusting the gauntlets before helping to fasten them on. They fit flawlessly. Of course they do.

“Now,” says Jemma, releasing a shaky breath, fidgeting. “Do you— How would you like to test them out?”

They set it up simply, just as Jiaying showed her. There’s a glass of water on the table, and that’s all. No more no less. Jemma attaches some biomonitors to her, with her permission, and watches, fascinated, and without fear, every so often reaching up to adjust their positions.

Jemma is standing close to her, watching every part of the process intently. Skye closes her eyes and she can feel Jemma, the scholar, observing her expression, watching for any sign of pain. She’s hyperaware of the way her hand opens, stretching towards the table, shivering with the careful release of control. Jemma stands there, muttering softly to her about the vibrations of every molecule of water, the bonds within them and between them, and how Skye is affecting them and it’s incredible.

When Skye opens her eyes, exhales finally, she meets Jemma’s eyes. Neither of them are saying anything, but it feels right. It just feels right. That it’s them, that Jemma is helping her through it, this time, looking on in awe and wonder and pride. And it feels like they trust each other again.

Her eyes flicker to Jemma’s lips, kind and brave and which remind Skye of the family she hasn’t lost yet.

She’s not sure if she wants to say it now. Her throat catches the words before they pass her lips, held there for the longest while now, because she’s not sure if it’ll seal the moment or if it will shatter it.

There’s the sound of Coulson calling everyone back to the common room, and Jemma pulls her gaze away and steps back.

Skye takes a breath, looks back to the glass still there on the table, the water turned to ice, and melts it back down again. She turns and follows Jemma back out the door.

    +1. They’re sitting on the couches — Jemma bundled into a too-big hoodie with the sleeves stretched over her hands, knees pulled up to her chin, leaning gently into Daisy’s side, and Daisy has her arm tucked behind Jemma’s back and is resting her head on hers — in the common area, in the long unused shell of the Bus.

It’s been a while.

Daisy has her old, trusty laptop, from before even her SHIELD ‘consultant’ days, back from when she was with the Rising Tide, playing music softly. A playlist of hits from 2012, which was an era ago, it seems.

They’ve been coming back here more often now, just the two of them, after she’d had another sleepless night and wandered down here and found Jemma having one as well. And Jemma had told her everything. About the planet, six months alone, always running because there were creatures — monsters — and someone else, a half feral man, stranded there for fourteen years, Will Daniel, who lived amongst the corpses of his friends. She talked about HYDRA and why she left, and how Fitz loved her and she loved him but she just couldn’t…not in the way he wanted her to love him. That they’re better now, and comfortable and still best friends, of course they are, but things can’t ever be the same. And that she was sorry, sorry because she’d been afraid when Skye — Daisy — had chained and acted fearful when she should have tried to learn.

And Daisy had listened and listened and then Jemma said she wanted to listen too, and they’d stayed up all night.

That was three months ago.

There’s a hot mug of English breakfast tea on the coffee table, the steam rises gently into the air, ghostly against the dim lighting, only the blue glow of Daisy’s laptop. They’re sharing it.

The room is cold, which is partly why they’re curled around each other, a blanket over the both of them, legs tangled. The heating no longer works, or at least that’s what they presume, neither of them have actually tried it, and the lights are switched off.

“Daisy,” says Jemma, the name finally sitting comfortably on her tongue. Daisy feels her hesitate, tense up against her on the couch, and rubs little soothing circles into her back unthinkingly.

“Hmm?” she hums, closing her eyes.

Jemma sits up, just a little, and fiddles with little loose threads of the blanket. “Daisy I have something to tell you.”

Daisy pops one eye open and smiles at her, softly, serenely, because its moments like this which matter in the crazy, stupid world of theirs (and it is theirs, saving it multiple times has certain entitlements, she thinks.)

“What’s up, Jems?”

“Daisy, I like you,” and then Jemma swallows and frowns and shakes her head. “No,” and she lets out a laugh, sounding both nervous and relieved somehow. Like she’s letting something off her chest, finally. “No. I’m in love with you.”