#i love losing more money when I’m already in poverty

[neptunes-sol-angel]

Pick the picture(s) that you're drawn to the most, then scroll down for its corresponding message about the pov of your spirit guides and their message to you

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Pile One

I feel like your relationship with your guides is like “hide and seek”. They have an old presence in your life. Even if you are just now beginning your spiritual journey or are just now having the urge to seek out more about them and who they are, it seems as if they have always been in your life, and already have a connection or have had close contact with you. Specifically when you were a kid. Perhaps you’ve had “imaginary friends”, repetitive encounters with the same person or entity in your dreams, or have parents who recall you being distracted and smiling a lot at what appears to be mundane things as a baby. I call this hide and seek, because it’s like a lot of your occultic knowledge or experience psychic gifts were things that you’ve already learned as a child, but were conditioned to move away from for whatever reason. Your stunted relationship with your guides could appear in interests that you also had to separate from, like studying mythology, an interest in plants but also marine animals, gaming, drawing comic book characters, collecting items for yourself but stopping because someone considered that as not intellectual or important, and even crafting things yourself, regardless of how good you were at it, but because it gave you peace and happiness. Your guides see you as their family, they protect you like they are your parents, because their love for you is like having a child. They love it when you’re being silly and they love to sneak in silly things for you, to let you know that they’re here and when something is going to be ok. Maybe you use dark humor frequently as a way to cope with something that you’re struggling with or when you think about the ways that you’ve been let down in the past. You joke that way because you feel that it’s the only way to have some control in a situation that you predetermined will go down hill and be the end of you. You could talk to yourself or talk about your life in a way that is self-loathing and impeded, but your guides work and send you messages meant to bring you back up whenever you’re losing your determination to keep going. They’ll joke with you, but not in a way that encourages you to lose hope or to fail in seeing the good in yourself. It’s more like instead of showing you to laugh at yourself, you laugh at your mistakes, or you laugh at how crazy other people can be when they displace their negative inner feelings onto other people to show that it has nothing to do with who you are, what you do, or what you look like. Money is strong in this pile. This could be a message saying that you won’t have to fear about money forever and that a financial breakthrough is going to happen for you and you’re going to be financially stable doing something that you love or are currently building to support your living situation. However, mainly, I’m getting that in your spirit guides’ eyes, they’ve watched you grow up feeling less than because you didn’t grow up with a certain luxury, maybe you grew up in poverty, felt insecure about the things that seemed so easily accessible to everyone but you, or don’t know what it’s like to have a loving parent, but your guides have always seen you as a rich person and it has nothing to do with material items. They see you as brilliant, you work so hard for what you have and you’ll see the results multiply in the future, even if you struggle to find the right words for yourself–You always know what to say to others about stuff that they struggle to see within their own lives.

Pile Two

Your strongest clair could be clairaudience. If not, then it feels like you guys are good with picking up things by what people or say, or you have a strong intuition for what isn’t visible or said, but you have a poor time going forward with your intuition. When you get “right”, you tend to go left, then regret what you find out because you didn’t listen to what was initially divinely given to you. Your guides are nature beings, you can connect with them through plants but also relics or shrines. I keep getting inanimate objects, so you could have a few deities that govern planets, like moon goddesses watching over you. I feel that the connection that you have with your guides is like Yue from Avatar: The Last Airbender. You mirror each other and embody dark feminine energy. They’re gentle, ancient, and wise. People think that all spirit guides are like that, but no. Guides have personalities of their own, and not all are good. They see you as loving, maybe too loving, meaning you love without boundaries which could cause you some pain and a lot of repressed anger. You may not like to be perceived or put on a pedestal, but they do, because they truly see what’s in your heart. You just need guidance. They accept you for your good and bad traits, but it doesn’t mean they don’t lead you into improvement and learning to take accountability. You can be sweet, but you can also be bitter. They feel hurt when they see that you’re hurting, but they don’t want you to hold on to bitterness because people that harmed you will see that again and it’s not your business as to when. I will say that this isn’t to mistake them as peace and turn the other cheek, because they are not. They are wrathful behind the scenes towards people who hurt you or even think about hurting you. They’re very protective over your life, but there are some things you have to do to look after yourself since you guys are from two different worlds. This pile feels extremely hazy. They say that you are so smart, beautiful, and talented, but you have trouble seeing this and it pains them. You have potent manifesting abilities that range from making things happen yourself with your skills to knowing how to conjure with spirituality. It’s like you can create and create, but that’s still not enough for you, even when you are likely to top the latest thing you achieved. You need to learn how to rest and also be okay with yourself. There’s this habit of working and studying a lot for credentials, but still feeling less confident, leading you to give your power away to people who are boastful. This is a problem if you are psychic and are trying to find your way in spiritual communities or communicating with other spiritual people. Stop falling for words that convince you that someone knows more occultic knowledge than you or about your own personal journey and intuition. This is also a message for people to stop shying away from making content or starting a business in the occult because you fear that other people are better than you when that isn’t true, and stay away from people who influence you to think like that because they are not your friends or someone to trust.

Pile Three

You guys could have a lot of ancestral type spirits in your team and are probably reincarnations of ancestors in your past bloodline. You guys are cycle breakers and reapers of work and good karma that’s been gained in the spiritual world, meaning lots of inheritances, especially if you have passed down closed spiritual practices. This pile reminds me of the 4h-10h axis in astrology, each house rules over many different things but what sticks out that relates to this reading is the fourth house dealing with ancestors and the 10th house dealing with your public reputation. A lot of celebrities are famous because they have strong ties with their ancestors who are well respected spirits. People in this pile are destined for blazing success and fame. This can reveal itself in different professions, that could be but are not limited to, writers, actors, singers, entrepreneurship or something related to public speaking. Even though I feel practitioners and believers of spirituality in this pile, especially since this is a tarot reading, there’s a lot of skepticism here. There’s not enough trust or belief and this could be upsetting to your guides, they’re able to see things beyond your present reality which could make them patient, you could even be an impatient person, but it seems like both of you need to allow time to do its thing. Your guides see what you’re capable of, and before you are finally able to see it if you don’t already, they don’t want you to become arrogant and feel like potential is enough to back you up. They believe in putting in the work. They also see that you’re traditional even though you don’t want to be. You guys could be raised around a religion where witchcraft is shunned upon, and speaking about ancestors is discouraged which could explain the impatience. This could also be interpreted as you seeing this success but frustration over how far away it feels or how impossible it could be, and it’s like they see you as being dramatic or frantic about things that are going to inevitably work out. There was a message that I channeled for pile one and didn’t mention but I’m receiving it strongly here instead. It’s like things could be taking their time because you have to learn self-control. They don’t want you to let money and social climbing get into your head and make you forget where you come from, humility, and being in community with others. The fame and success isn’t given for you to hoard, but so that you can continue spreading the blessings to others, especially in your family.

[neonlight2]

Jaehaera Targaryen (oc)

Masterlist

Warnings: smut mentions, sexism, touch of homophobia, and mentions of incest (and step-cest)

Again— it’s the Targaryens, what do you expect.

(Only the older parts of the family cause… the younger ones don’t know the difference)

What we’re their relationships like as she got older?

Viserys

First off— Absolute pushover.

Shouldn’t be a surprise with how he treats Rhaenyra. Man will literally break all tradition, with the justification of “I am king”.

Jaehaera wants to wear pants instead of dresses. Done, without a second to waste. And if she did want to wear a dress, you best believe it was the best money could buy.

His darling daughter wants to study with high scholars— only the best teachers of course. Anything she wished to know or learn she’d be taught. Books would be imported from the farthest edges of Westeros. Oh— and best believe he built her a private library. He knows how she loves her privacy, how she detested the public and fuss of events. He’d catered to her every need as she grew.

Even when he didn’t necessarily agree— like with swordsmanship. Viserys would be so freaking worried at the beginning, not wanting his little girl to get hurt. But he lets her anyway.

And even though it’s “against the rules”, Jaehaera could compete in tournaments whenever she damn well please, and he was always there to watch with pride.

There was not a price in gold that would hinder her requests. If the girl has asked him for a fucking castle bigger than king’s landing, it would have been made— and he’d put every man he could to work in order for it to be done quickly. Amazons quick delivery service would have NOTHING on this man’s will.

However, she was never extreme in that fashion. The kingdom was honestly lucky that she was far more rational and conservative with money, or else they may be in poverty.

So as she got older, matured, and got around to marrying age— all suitors of all ages came in like filthy vultures. And of course, no one was ever good enough.

He thought the same for both his daughters, the only reason why he made Rhaenyra marry was in order to secure he claim to the throne— heirs. Jaehaera on the other hand…

Jaehaera at 14/15: Father I don’t wish to marry—

Viserys: GREAT ITS SETTLED THEN

Of course if she did fall in love or wish to marry, he wouldn’t be able to say no. It’s damn near impossible. I swear to god this man would actually rather die than say no to her.

Jaehaera would DEFINITELY become more of an adviser to Viserys as she got older. She was already like his own little personal spy, so as she got older, made more connections, and was actually able to stir the pot without being harmed (because now she’d love for a bitch to try—), that relationship only grew stronger.

Most people when they watch the two together could get mental whiplash I’m not even gonna lie. One moment Jaehaera is kneeling before Viserys calling him “my king” or “your majesty”— basically going through ALL the damn formalities even though viserys has told her a thousand times she doesn’t need to— just to act like a child the next minute. Sure, if she has something political or otherwise important to tell him, Jaehaera stays more calm, professional even. But the moment the formality is over and done she like, “Hi dad! Wanna watch me dual? Oh! I learned a new trick on Shkros!”

She’d also just tell him the most random shit and facts she learns, probably rant about stories or things she’s gotten insanely fixated on. Viserys would EAT THAT SHIT UP. He could listen for hours and smile or laugh at the girl.

Oh, and Viserys literally became deaf at some point to all slander toward her, even if it came from Otto. Man would not hear of any of it.

In his mind Jaehaera did no wrong. So when anyone questioned her innocence or reputation—

“All of these are mere, petty rumors from jealousy for my daughter’s brilliance.”

“I will not hear of it, next person to say such a thing will lose their tongue.”

“Jaehaera would never, and even if she had you have no proof.”

“Who are you to question the princess? My daughter?”

To the day until she inevitably starts leaving more frequently, they would meet almost every night in the kitchens, sharing bread and milk like the day they first met.

Sadly, around the time his sickness gets really bad, she would be gone even longer. He knew why.

She had spent months before trying to heal him, and she did a better job then the scholars and maesters could ever dream. But they both knew that it was only slowly his demise. There was no cure for time, as it was fast on viserys heels.

A lot of people thought they had a falling out during this time because of her absence, but the truth of it was that they had an agreement. Jaehaera had made a promise to secure and protect their family. Not just Rhaenyra’s claim to the throne, but the state of it all.

She went to every kingdom to make alliances, or to strengthen old ones. She made deals to compact no army could penetrate them. And she would be damned if she failed.

Jaehaera had barely the idea of what love felt like before she became Viserys’ daughter. So with all her being she’d protect her home, her life, his legacy, her family.

Daemon

Two words— Teddy Bear.

He’s an absolute simp.

Would and does worship the ground she walks on.

If you thought he was insufferable when she was younger, following her around, constantly seeking her attention, giving her anything she stares at too long, and talk about protective— times that by a million.

The moment he came back and saw how she had…matured. Daemon went feral. I’m talking glaring at every person who so much as glances Jaehaera’s way that wasn’t family. He even had a small bit of beef with Sir Harwin because of how close he had become to her. It was only until she told him to back the fuck off that he calmed down.

He’d also use every excuse he could muster to be close to her. And Daemon likes to be sly, or try at least, so it would start innocent.

*walking literally anywhere, even around the castle, and he hold her hand* “Don’t want you to get lost my little wanderer.”

*Leans against her: arm around shoulders, or wrapped around her waist to rest his head in the crook of her neck.* “I’m tired.” Or if your at an event, “You soothe the throbbing in my head, love.”

Then this bitch would push his luck.

He’d slowly slip his fingers up her shirt or any bare skin he could get his hands on— and being that she didn’t normally like to wear much, he had so many places to choose from.

“My hands are cold!” *it’s literally like 100 degrees out*

He also has a weird obsession with her hair. Like he’d dimly admire it at first, wondering what it feels like. Was it was soft as feathers? Or smooth as silk?

Well one day he impulsive touched it. Of course he made it seem as if it were a normal interaction— brushing it away from her open shoulders to show off the dip in the heavenly dress she wore to some banquet he couldn’t even remember the occasion for.

All he knew was that he instantly became addicted to the feeling of the strands between his fingers.

They’d be talking underneath the trees of the gardens and he’d randomly start petting her head. At first Jaehaera would tense up because of the foreign feeling, but after a few seconds and Daemon asking her permission, she’d let him to it again. Oh he’d be jumping for joy in his brain.

Especially loving it when her eyes would flutter shut when he’d start to scratch her scalp and massage her temples.

And however wholesome this man could be at sometimes, he’s mind would definitely wander. He’d start to wonder what it’s be like if she were underneath him, hair and body sprawled out for him to play with. To make her feel good.

Or perhaps if she were to ride him and as she leaned forward, her hair would drape around them, all while tickling his thighs, arms and face. Oh how pretty she would look.

Oh and don’t get him started about how hard he gets when she pulls her hair into a ponytail or high braid. All he could think about was taking her from behind, pulling on her hair so that her back would be flush with his chest.

God she drove him crazy.

So the infamous Prince, know for being I’ll tempered and cruel, would be siting with the girl in her free time, taking turns braiding each others chair.

What he doesn’t know is that she’s not as oblivious as he thinks. It wasn’t hard to notice how he’d have to shift in he seat around her, or the growing bulge in his pants as she laid her head in his lap— letting out shameless moans as he kneaded her scalp.

Jaehaera just thought in rather fun to tease him, and to make him think she was totally innocent in her acts.

But besides the obvious sexual tension— Dameon would respect Jaehaera a lot. Of course he’d still be hot headed, crazy, and rebellious. It was his nature. And it also happened to be hers in some cases.

It was almost like putting two delinquents in the same room with some gunpowder a few matches.

The only difference was that she was more rational when it came to future consequences. She actually looked ahead. Dameon… not so much. He’d rather jump into battle or war, only depending on himself and his sword “dark sister”.

But.. if he had to, the person who’d he’d listen to was Jaehaera. And that’s because in his eyes, she was always right.

And that was not to be disputed.

Rhaenyra

She’s spoiled. We all know that. So she’s definitely get more possessive of Jaehaera.

When she married Laenor, it was hard because she longed for intimacy that he could not give her. But she was content with him because she thought she had at least evaded being married to an imbecile.

So even though it was unheard of, Rhaenyra still insisted on sharing a bed with her almost every night. Both girls were always close, and comfortable with each other physically. Rhaenyra had been the second person to bless her with gentle affection through touch. One might say that other than herself, Jaehaera trusted Rhaenyra with her body the most.

They would cling to each other in the night, bodies intertwined, grazing each other carefully, or tenderly squeezing flesh. All of it was natural to them. And to Jaehaera it was all she’d ever known when it came to the pair. It was only after their incident at the brothel that caused a shift in their behavior.

Rhaenyra had only heard of what had happened with Jaehaera because of her fathers reprimanding. It was light compared to what she faced, but she still felt something brewing in her stomach. She couldn’t quite place the emotion, it resting somewhere in between jealousy and curiosity. And it scared her.

Soon she found herself growing paranoid and angered at everyone Jaehaera looked at fondly. Especially a particular maid of hers…

Soon Rhaenyra would lie awake at night, Jaehaera sleeping soundly beside her, and she’s let her mind wander to what she thought the girl may have been doing with other women.

Soon she’d been touching herself at the thought of it being her who received such attention from Jaehaera.

And later as she noticed Daemon’s actions toward them both she couldn’t help but dwell on the thought of having them both. Even after Daemon married Laena. She’s simply add her to the equation too; she knew how much Jaehaera fancied her.

However, as the drift between her and Alicent grew even larger— especially after the whole air Criston cole situation— she became more worried that Jaehaera would leave her.

She had no reason to worry, I mean Jaehaera absolutely adore the girl. She would do practically anything for her. And the two princesses were almost attached at the hip at some point.

Yet as Jaehaera began to venture farther out, her time away from home increasing every voyage, Rhaenyra would make sure to claim whatever time Jaehaera had to spare when she had returned.

Of course, she didn’t mind sharing this time with other people she loved: Viserys, Daemon, Laenor, Sir Harwin.

Jaehaera knew. Anyone could tell that her children were not sired by Laenor, but Jaehaera knew that they were his kids.

And that’s because she walked in on them fucking once.

To this day she’d tease Rhaenyra about it, occasionally praising her for how quiet she could be with such a large prick inside her.

(She would also confirm to anyone that asks that Sir Harwin is hung— because let’s be honest he is.)

And after Rhaenyra had Jace, she’s notice that happened to grab even more of Jaehaera’s attention. More of her protection. Jaehaera would visit more frequently, ask if she was being properly taken care of, if anyone had disrespected her, and constantly hovering around her and Jace when she was at home.

As much as Rhaenyra loved Sir Harwin, she couldn’t deny that Jaehaera was a huge reason for her having more children. For the more she had, she more of Jaehaera she got.

Alicent

Obsessed and paranoid.Gonna be real— we all saw this coming.

Alicent would definitely be giving yandere, but she would never tell Jaehaera when she could or could not leave. (Like shed be able to in the first place.)

At first, when they’re in their later teens, Alicent really just wants to keep Jaehaera in her life. So she sees Rhaenyra as a threat, because they’re at all odds.  She gets extremely worried whenever Jaehaera starts to pull away because of her marrying Viserys, and a little scared. Alicent really didn’t like lying to her, but she was as equally as scared of her father’s backlash. So when Jaehaera started to catch on with the whole scheme, Alicent didn’t know what to do or think.

Jaehaera was never actually cruel to her in anyway. In fact, the rather opposite. She’d still join her for tea or visit her whenever Rhaenyra was busy with her duties. But there was always a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that made her need validation.

“You’re not mad at me are you Princess?”

Glancing up intently at her, Jaehaera would answer, “No, Ali. I just hate your father insists on hurts those I care for.”

Hitching her breath, there was a small flutter in the pit of her stomach. Jaehaera made it sound as if she were included in the category. That sent Alicent’s heart on fire.

“And don’t think of defending him darling,” Jaehaera snipped, standing up to grab ahold of her chin. “It’ll just make me hate him more.”

Would definitely become paranoid later on as Rhaenyra has kids because well… Jaehaera increasingly becomes more attached to her as she does. Not that Alicent’s children don’t get enough attention as is. Jaehaera spoils every single one of them. But Alicent doesn’t see it like that, so what does she do? Talks shit.

She’ll start sneaking in comments or rumors of Rhaenyra’s children’s the obvious hair color difference, and other features. How they’re “growing in to very clad, dark handsome boys” and how she “adores their curly brown hair”.

Then, on top of it all is— she thinks she’s getting away with it at first because Jaehaera will laugh occasionally and say something back. Soon she becomes unaware of the warning stares being sent her way. Her growing audacity eventually leads to a more intense reaction after she questions their birthright.

“I’m not sure if they would be given the thrown that easily.” She’d say calmly with a soft smile while pouring Jaehaera a drink.

She’s hear the princess hum and ask, “Why’s that?”

“Oh you know, their features are rathe strange for a Targaryen. Some might question if they are truly—,”

Alicent would be cut off quickly, and the bottle of wine would have slipped through her hands from shock and broke into pieces by their feet if it weren’t for Jaehaera’s quick hand. With one hand setting the bottle aside, the other held Alicent’s jaw firm, making it so she couldn’t talk, yet it would not leave a bruise on her skin.

Jaehaera’s were practically predatory as they glared into Alicent’s. And as she leaned closer to the woman’s face, Alicent couldn’t help but gasp at the proximity.

“Don’t start acting like your father Ali. It doesn’t suit you.” Jaehaera would whisper firmly, pulling away only to keep a burning gaze. “And if you ever say something like that again around me, I promise you, I will kill him.”

After her hand leaves her mouth, Alicent would rub the tender skin, weak in the knees and almost desperate for it to return. “Why?” She’s ask in a whisper.

Tilting her head to the side, Jaehaera’s expression softened and she caressed her cheek. “Because he would have killed something I care for. And I cannot allow that.”

Otto

He’s a petty bitch.

Would not know what the fuck to do when it comes to Jaehaera.

Would also try really hard to spread rumors about her under the kings radar. Probably called her a homophobic slur at some point and made a backhand comment about her being a woman. We all know it’s true.

He’s well aware that she hates him after Alicent marries Viserys. Would for sure get tortured by Daemons antics even more because of Jaehaera’s permission.

Honestly he’s just fucked, so he’s constantly trying to find a way to keep himself in the good graces of the king, so Jaehaera won’t kill him.

Also another reason why he’d push Aegon to succeed the thrown— also also another reason why the greens pull this shit while she’s gone on her voyages and travels. He knows he wouldn’t be able to get away with it otherwise.

Sir Criston

Another petty bitch.

Jaehaera finds him annoying after a while. She gave him a little sympathy at first because of the whole Rhaenyra brothel incident, but she’d always choose Rhaenyra.

Lightens up around Alicent because she likes her. But she’ll roast the shit out of him at any time. Unprovoked.

And if he really pisses her off best believe she’s threaten him (and let Daemon loose).

“I gave you the position in the kings guard, I could easily take it away. Even if it hurt Ali’s feelings for a while. She could never stay mad at me. She’d forget you in a heartbeat.”

Sir Harwin

Homies Fr

These two would just make a bunch of dirty jokes, cursing like sailors, and spar.

Canon that they would call each other bad worms as pet names:

“Good morning my little bitch how are you?”- Jaehaera greeting him in the mornings for training.

“Hey arsehole! You owe me one!” - Harwin after covering up for her to go sneak off with a lady/lord and/or when he’d lie about seeing Daemon first in the nighttime competitions.

Causal greetings or hellos: “Hello there cunt!” “Ahhh there’s my favorite little shit!”

Both were definitely into each other some point but it was a fleeting crush. He fell in love with Rhaenyra, she loved him, so Jaehaera loved them and that they were happy.

Harwin along with Laenor we’re her personality wingmen and cheerleaders.

He’d cover/lie for her in a heart beat. And he has soooo much respect for her. In another life they’d probably be siblings.

Laenor

I’ll say it again for the people in the back: Laenor is Jaehaera’s cheerleader.

If they had the word bestie back then, best believe he’d be like: “GO BESTIE, GO!!!”

Ton of gay jokes, but also would comfort each other being of society and internal homophobia because people fucking suck. (I’m looking at you Otto)

Definitely have seen each other naked, probably drunk or honestly skinny dipping. Also— because they’re constantly covering for each other so they can… Y’know… they’ve probably stood guard for each other at some point. So I can definitely see Laenor or her just opening the door once as the other and whoever they’re with is mid fucking, and be like: “can you hurry up Rhaenyra (or some other person) is looking for you?”

And if Laenor ever finished quickly, Jaehaera would say: “damn took you longer than I thought, ten whole seconds, I had my money on five.”

Oh and Laenor absolutely giggles or chokes on his drink anytime someone says anything remotely disrespectful toward Jaehaera or him because he knows this person is about to die.

Rhaenys and Corlys

Definition of second parents. Basically adopt Jaehaera whenever Viserys isn’t around.

Corlys is so proud of her when she gets older and leads a battalion and or her own voyages. He would also get teary eyes whenever he sees her helping Luke learn how to navigate and captain a ship, then blame it on “salt water that splashed into his eyes”.

He LOVES being a girl dad (excluding Laenor). Prizes Laena and Jaehaera. And even low key ships them because let’s be so for real… he knows. Later he’ll make jokes that it must be in the gene’s because both his kids came out fruity.

And Rhaenys and Corlys adore the relationship between her and their kids.

Rhaenys especially. She loves how safe and natural both her children are around her. They don’t have to pretend. She swears she’s trust her with both their lives because she knows Jaehaera would always protect them and vise versa. (Also ships Laena with her, and claims all the time that Daemon is just a third party.)

[lilithsaintcrow]

“They want more assurance they have a hit. I’m constantly asking people what they’re reading, what’s unusual — the kinds of books just harder to publish today. We also benefit from a variety of voices once ignored by the industry, writers from around the world. It’s important a writer offers more than a popular Instagram account.”

I found this interesting. Flynn’s right—trad publishing is looking for the sure, sellable thing instead of good books. Bean-counters have their place, absolutely—but it’s not at the wheel.

And with only five big trad publishers instead of a healthy ecosystem of players, you get a bland monoculture very quickly.

In the short term, a bland monoculture of pablum does sell, because people are hungry to join what the crowd’s talking about. In the mid- to long-term, it robs your entire publishing house of anything approaching legitimacy or real art.

Unfortunately, the mid- to long-term isn’t where the focus is. It’s all about those short-term profits, and when they stop happening a vicious spiral of squeezing authors’ already marginal payments begins.

The industry’s ripe for a major realignment. But when that happens, a lot of new, marginalized, emerging, and midlist writers are going to be tossed out because they can’t absorb the financial hit of still writing while the Big Five are crashing or splitting.

We’re going to lose so much when that happens. And it’ll probably happen while Amazon is tanking at the same time.

Because Amazon will tank. Its metastasis isn’t sustainable, and after it’s consumed everything it can it’ll ravage itself right out of business.

The only question is how bad the damage to everyone and everything around it—including publishing—will be.

This won’t happen overnight, and may not even happen soon. But it will happen, most likely when economic forces shatter the Gilded Age bullshit going on in every industry right now, not just publishing. The coal-mine canaries are dead in their cages, and it’s only a matter of when the right spark will hit the creeping gas.

And when it happens we’re going to lose so much. So many voices, so many books, so many stories will never see light of day because writers—the people PRODUCING THE DAMN WORK—are already paid a below-poverty-level pittance and treated as less than serfs.

It’s not going to be pretty. And self-publishing’s perceived “ease” (which has the same privilege requirements getting on the internet in the first place does) will not pick up the slack.

The internet is NOT ubiquitous. It just feels that way if you have the hardware, time, and and money to access it. Self-publishing is not easy or ubiquitous either, for the same reason.

Anyway, I hope I’m wrong. I’d love to be wrong. Please let me be wrong...

[disneydatass]

I’m not an attorney of law but I’m legally allowed to kill during pride month correct?

[cake-apostate]

One flaw in Persona 5 Royal’s false utopia

The short version: Since the Persona series takes place in the same multiverse as SMT, the false reality would leave them even more susceptible to the same threats.

As a disclaimer, I haven’t gotten to that part of the game, but I do have a general idea of what happens. Not naming any names for who’s behind all this. 

So the creator of the false utopia has the goal of eliminating crime, death, poverty, etc. They do this by filtering everyone’s perceptions so that all their desired are fulfilled. People interact with illusions of dead loved ones, there’s no need to steal because all their material desires are fulfilled, and anyone who would commit murder or other crimes for fun simply get brainwashed out of it. It’s a perfect system... if everyone subscribes to it. 

Interdimensional visitors wouldn’t. I think that it takes time for the system to absorb them, and even then it has to be willing. 

Let’s say that people from the Blasted and Infernal timelines of SMT4 can hop into this timeline; if Flynn can do it, why can’t they? (Flynn has the White’s blessing, yadda yadda; let me have this.)

The default scenario is that they accidentally open the floodgates for demons. Since the perception filter neatly edits out death and suffering, they can’t defend themselves. 

The visitors from Blasted Tokyo would probably just steal their stuff. They wouldn’t even need to break in; just gather up some junk and tell shopkeepers that it’s money. They might lose a bunch of people who want to stay in this perfect world, Kiyoharu among them. 

(Now I’m imagining Akira wheeling a shopping cart through the streets of Yogen-Jaya, whistling, while a pack of demons carry the rest of his stuff. Nobody notices the giant monsters because they know they’re not real).

The Demonoids from Infernal Tokyo would turn everyone they could into Neurishers. People in this world don’t notice when they’re being fed on, and all they can feel is happiness. “They’re already like cattle; is this so bad?” they would say to themselves. More pertinently, “Is this any worse than what we’ve already done to our Neurishers?” 

Some Neurishers might be allowed to stay in this reality, but Demonoids would be a problem. You’d have these demon people who don’t know they’re demons, and they still need to eat people. The system might not be able to deal with that.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

I agree with your Jily thoughts but wondering if you could talk a bit more about it? Why did James bother wasting all that time chasing Lily? Was she just that pretty? Were they ever happy or truly in love? Why did she say yes? If the war didn't happen who would have Jily ended up with? I'd like to think someone like Andromeda (not her exactly, but someone from a pureblood family who held non racist values) for James and i dunno maybe a muggle for Lily? Considering muggleborns arent exactly set up for success and I cant see Lily being okay with living as a second class citizen

For reference, some heretical thoughts on James and Lily's marriage. Also some thoughts on James which include some thoughts on his relationship with Lily.

And you really want me to get flayed over the internet, don't you anon?

Well, I guess that's what I'm here for. So here we go, hopefully people very upset by this sort of thing have their anti filters up.

Why Did James Bother Wasting All that Time Chasing After Lily?

For what it's worth, especially when they're teenagers before real life sets in, I do think James likes Lily.

She's very pretty, which certainly helps, but she's also very driven, very smart, and seems to be very personable (though it does not seem as if she is close with many).

Lily has a lot of likeable qualities beyond just her face that James could be interested in.

That said, there's also her background. I think, especially for a young James in Hogwarts, Lily being muggleborn would make her very appealing.

By pursuing her, he is actively spitting in the face of the Blacks, the Malfoys, and pretty much name your smarmy pureblood family. More, Lily is... not the token muggleborn per se, but the golden standard.

She's pretty, very smart, achieves very good results, again is personable, and all around pleasant. She's the muggleborn that defies the rules and you can take to parties and say, "Wow, look how amazing muggleborns are!"

Compare her to Snape, who is a halfblood, comes from an abusive household, is impoverished, is not good looking, and is not personable.

Notice that James and friends torment the living hell out of Snape, but it's cool, they're progressive because James likes Lily.

And then there's also the challenge of it.

Lily keeps saying no.

Rather than get discouraged, this just encourages James, as it means he's not trying hard enough. James seems to be the guy who likes the chase, if he wasn't, then he would have given up years ago as you said.

Were They Ever Happy or Truly in Love?

I imagine there was a time when they were happy.

They did date shortly in Hogwarts and it must have gone well enough for the relationship to survive graduation. If it was unbearably awful they would have broken up with each other long before that point.

Now, do I think Lily knew the full extent of how much James and pals harassed Snape? No.

Do I imagine Lily had to put up with a lot of talk about how progressive James and Pals are because Sirius has an ACDC t-shirt? Yes.

Do I think Lily's life without Snape proved very bleak and she faced a bleaker future with prospects of unemployment and poverty? Yes.

Do I imagine that Lily got in the way of bro-time for James? Well, he probably made bro-time happen anyway, but she must have to some extent and I'm sure Sirius asked him, "Dude?! What happened to us?!"

But again, if they really were miserable together, they wouldn't have made it to graduation.

In love?

Well, it's hard to say, but I'm inclined to say no.

In Hogwarts they're too young, they don't know enough about each other. They might be riding high on puppy love, maybe, but that's not the same thing.

What we see outside of Hogwarts points to constant stress and hardship that would ruin even the most functional relationship. The small glimpses we do have into their marriage then (that James would run off while in hiding with the invisibility cloak, risking all of their lives, for no reason) is not good.

I imagine as the realities of being in hiding, of having a prophesied child, sunk in their relationship fell into complete disrepair.

If they were in love, I don't think love could survive that, at least, not with these two.

Why Did She Say Yes?

God, you people are going to kill me.

Well, first, Lily as a muggleborn has no prospects and after losing Snape she has no friends.

Lily's last few years of Hogwarts are desperately lonely, James seems to have toned it down and appears to be one of the few purebloods sympathetic to her, and he really seems to like her. He has never wavered in liking her once over many years.

He seems like he's changed.

Perhaps, she can give him a chance.

I imagine Lily at first tentatively agrees to go on a date, and he is charming and funny, so one date turns into two and then they're officially dating.

As for marriage.

... Yeah I just have to say it, shotgun wedding.

They get married and have a child very quickly, and granted, that seems to be the norm in the wizarding world but remember their circumstances.

Both Lily and James are active fighters in Dumbledore's illegal vigilante group, neither appears to have a career (James being old money doesn't have to but I imagine Lily tried (and failed) to find one).

Lily is muggleborn. I don't care how progressive James' parents are, as the heir of a very wealthy and established pureblood family I'm sure they looked at this red-headed muggleborn without a galleon to her name and just died of a heart attack.

True, James was their only child and the product of many difficult years conceiving, and he's from a more progressive family but...

I just see the Potters and many other of the 'lighter' pureblood families having more of the philosophy of "Muggleborns should absolutely go to Hogwarts, get an education, and have a place in society. But don't invite them over for dinner."

That James is allowed to marry Lily very quickly, with seemingly little fuss, with seemingly no obligation of turning down a previously arranged marriage (though the surviving Marauders could have left out such details when recapping things to Harry), and how quickly Harry is born in the times he's born in...

Shotgun wedding.

If the War Hadn't Happened Who Would James and Lily Ended Up With?

Well, I think the shotgun wedding would have happened regardless. But let's say that's not in the books and that there's not a war disrupting things either.

I imagine the relationship doesn't work out as they realize they have different interests and are too different of people. There's very little tying them together.

James likely marries whoever his parents arrange for him to marry. A daughter of a well-to-do established, pureblood line. Which of these women this would be is anyone's guess, but somebody. Probably not any of the Black sisters as they're already accounted for.

As for Lily, I imagine she remains single for a good while. Everyone she knows in her age range is from Hogwarts, this world is very small, and she's probably not going to end up with any of them for the issues you list.

Purebloods really don't get it. The closest are... Arthur Weasley. And when he and Sirius Black riding motorcycles are the closest your culture gets to respect, you're in for a rough dating scene.

If she does end up in a relationship it's with somebody outside of canon or non-obvious.

(And look at me not plugging my ship because I know it's ridiculous. Be proud of me readers.)

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

FFS, I can’t believe I’ve screwed up this badly with my math!

Here I am, about to go do my once every two week shopping, and as usual I go check my bank account before getting out the cash.

Oh, that surprises you. Yeah, I use cash. I have a refillable debt card, but I reserve it for things I have to order or pay for online, and after trying to pay with a check at Walmart and being refused by their system because I “hadn’t written enough checks”, I’ve stuck with cash. It makes it easier not to screw up, having to keep a strict count while I shop, with no wiggle room, no space for impulsive “Why not?” It’s tough, but at least I don’t accidentally overspend….

Except I just found out I have!!!

It totally took me by surprise. My debit card it down to $12. I bet I forgot to count those new ankle braces I had to get, but the cause doesn’t matter right now. What matters is, if I get out my usual once every two weeks amount to buy the food for me and the animals I won’t have enough in my bank account to pay my $30 phone bill next week!

So here I am, kicking myself for every “luxury” (those blueberries) I bought and realizing I may not be able to buy the stuff I intended to get for the 4th. The 4th is my family “junk food” day, and I won’t have any more money until after!

I mean, I know it’s weird to complain about not getting to buy hot dogs, soda, and potato chips when you are already going “right, maybe you should skip meat and fresh fruit this time”. But darn it, I only buy junk food once a year! I look forward to it!

But the truth is fretting about food choices is distracting me from the real problem: The bills that might crop up before the 5th or 6th of July. The phone bill is the top of the list, but it is hardly the only thing.

Look, I’m used to being broke. Wear my parents’ old clothes, buy store brands, don’t drive anywhere you don’t absolutely have to, and that sort of thing. I STILL can’t drive the pickup because the next time I do it will hit empty and I haven’t been able to afford gas. It’s annoying, but I just shrugged and figured I’d get a few gallons with whatever cash I had left over after shopping. I’ve been saying that for two months now. But it hasn’t upset me too much. It’s just how poverty is.

But screwing up, doing my math wrong, buying a spare ankle brace because it was on special instead of the two new ones I needed right now, knowing my dumbness might mean I lose my already crappy phone service…..

I dunno. It’s not even the stress and anxiety of it, it’s the anger at myself over something I can’t fix that gets me. Like, “Oh good, I’ve driven off a cliff and all I can do is wait and see if I survive the crash.”

**sigh**

Well, someone sent me $5 through Kofi I still haven’t transfered to my bank account. That’s a start. Maybe I should go hunting for spare change in the parking lot. I won’t find $30, but every penny really does count…..

So if anyone likes my photos and/or sculpting feel free to tip or use my ko-fi once in a while. (If my tech cooperates I will add some fresh pics to my ko-fi page)

I hate to even write that, and I do NOT want anyone to feel pressured. As long as my tech holds on by it’s fingernails and I can keep my internet I will keep posting, and besides, I’ll figure something out or get lucky maybe. It’s all so humiliating.

But still, to remind folks:

Thanks for letting me vent.

[insomniac-arrest]

how NOT to do a tournament arc

It’s kind of sad, I really enjoyed the first book in the “Darker Shade of Magic” series by VE Schwab, I even rated it 4 stars on my Goodreads! People told me that the second book, A Gathering of Shadows, was even better and I was pretty excited.

However, I cannot get myself to finish the last 80 pages or so. I am really close to the end, but I just Do Not Care. I have stopped caring about these characters or what happens to them. I think the main problem is that I actually really love “tournament arcs,” they are literally always my favorite arcs in Shonen manga.

the tournament arc in the Naruto series?? life-changing. the tournament arc in My Hero Academia? literally the only full arc I’ve seen of that show. The tournament arc in Yu Yu Hakusho? so much fun. even outside of manga, the second Hunger Games book is my favorite of the three because I think the arena/game itself is really interesting and I’m a shallow bitch.

Lee vs Gaara?? 😩👌

I think it’s this love of the trope that kind of ruined the book for me because Schwab fundamentally mishandles why audiences care about our heroes joining or winning these things. *SPOILERS AHEAD*

So I literally hated the reason for every single character joining the tournament. Not only are most of them way too OP to be joining this tournament (it’s like the reverse underdog trope and I hate it), but the reasons they join are generally weak and actively make me want them to lose.

Why does Naruto do the tournament arc? He wants to go up in the ninja hierarchy and it’s a stepping stone to his overall goal of becoming a hokage. And, as always, he’s trying to prove his self worth as a person by punching people real good. He is an underdog and seeing him win is thus satisfying. You want him to win for practical, emotional, and cathartic reasons. It’s not that complex.

None of the heroes in A Gathering of Shadows want to join the tournament for practical reasons and seeing them win achieves no catharsis. They do have emotional reasons for joining it, but their emotional reasons actively make me want to bully them. Let’s get into it.

Lila wants to join the tournament to test her magic and also run away from her cool pirate life she always wanted because of Issues I guess. I found her reasons for joining the most acceptable of the 3, but also frankly vague and boring. She kind of just has this sense she has to join. The thing that really got me is how she goes out of her way to kidnap and replace this rando in the competition.

She is technically an underdog here, but having guessed by this point she is a *SPOILERS* Antari, I already know she is super powerful and is way too magically gifted for being in this normal-people magic Olympics. I don’t watch Haikyuu for the tall people dunking on other teams! I watch it for the short king overcoming height-ism! Your stories about genetically superior magic people suck!!

If she had like, an actually compelling reason to insert herself into the competition-- such as being in poverty and needing prize money or seeking revenge or political sabotage or wanting to win the heart of a girl, I might be more forgiving. But the fact she just kinda wants to . . test herself, and fucks up someone else’s life to do that, just made me angry. I get that’s she’s a spunky, wild-card, the author describes her as a “self-serving badass,” but she was just so weakly motivated that the self-serving part made me root against her. She’s out there messing with someone’s entire profession just to “test her abilities.” This is some villainy shit.

This and the fact her “not-like-other-girls” fuckery was all over the place in this book (one of her love interests literally says “you’re not like other girls”) rubbed me the wrong way.*

*Note: the first book also had this problem too, but I was kind of willing to forgive it bc I was interested in the magic stuff going on. But Schwab did NOT course correct and I had to have this whole do-I-dislike-Lila-bc-of-internalized-misogyny debate with myself. Luckily, I discovered that the only character I really liked in this book was Rhy regardless of gender.

Alucard is also there. I don’t clearly remember his motivation for joining, but he is already wealthy and has status and allies and doesn’t really need to join this tournament so I also did not particularly care if he won or lost. He’s also just, very pompous. Which, yeah, made him likable enough, but again, pompous characters in tournament arcs are not the ones you’re rooting for. That’s not why you watch.

Finally, Kell, king of the Over Powered angst trope, wants to join the tournament because he dreams of violence. He wants to fight other people. He has some bloodlust which he feels real bad about, but also damn does he want to use his magic powers to punch people. Like, dummies and training are not enough, it has to be real flesh and blood people to pummel.

I can’t emphasize how thoroughly this turned me off. Characters who join tournaments literally just for the purpose of smacking other people around are villains in these type of stories. They aren’t doing it for the prize or redemption or self-worth shit or love. And I wanted Kell to lose so bad!! I wanted him to get water-slapped across the stage! Not only was he way too overpowered in this tournament for me to care, but the reasons he’s in the tournament actively pissed me off. You want to find freedom in violence Kell? :( absolutely not.

And like, he does lose, but it’s only because he lets Lila win. No struggle. No gay little speeches. No random heartfelt trauma reveal or character development.

I hate it here.

Naturally, a western book does not have to follow random anime tropes, but shouldn’t readers be a bit invested in this staging since it takes up a large part of the book?

None of these characters are in the tournament for interesting reasons that make me want to root for them. Some characters who I was neutral on to begin with, literally made that Sims relationship thing pop up above my head when I read this

I know what you’re thinking: But Insomniac! The book isn’t about the tournament! It’s just the set-dressing! You must have noticed, the tournament fight scenes were really brief and boring. The main conflict is between the real villain and the main characters.

And I’m like . . . then why were the magic olympics there? Also, the fact all these characters were joining this important sports event for shallow reasons really did a number on my perception of them. None of them even want to be Hokage. This is ridiculous.

Anyway, as a side note I was interested in the Rhy/Alucard interaction, but I’ll probably never finish this book so  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[druid-for-hire]

new hadestown au: BIKER ! EURYDICE, in which she’s a rogue lone-wolf biker dwelling in the urban jungle of a Neo Tokyo-type city called Hadestown, wracked with biker gangs, violence, poverty, corruption, and civil unrest, still recovering and rebuilding from an apocalyptic event many years ago. Heavy-handed with the AKIRA inspirations here, haha.

She fights for herself on the dangerous streets, an illegal racer with a consistent top-three placement and a reputation for ferocity that earns her the money she needs to scrape by. And then she meets Orpheus: a dopey bartender who has no place being in her business.

okay okay okay i’m gonna be jumping around a lot here. be warned. thanks @supercantaloupe, @regzillas, @birdmanlyss for your contributions! (sorry if i missed someone it’s been a while)

she's a lone wolf in a city infested with biker gangs and it's brutal

she's run over plenty of limbs in her day

then there's orpheus, this gentle, kind-hearted soul, an indie musician and shes like. fuck. now i gotta keep this bastard safe

puts a long pipe with a mess of bolts and metal on the end in his hands and tells him he'd better buckle up and learn to fight the road

this sort of thing is common among biker gangs to cause destruction and knock people off their bikes onto the road. other types include mallets, hammers, baseball bats, etc

shes small but knows a lot of self defense and is very good at handling herself on the road

besides teaching orpheus to steel himself and yes use that pipe on people, push them off and jam it in their wheels and let it break if it does, she's gotta teach him to hold on while she pulls all this crazy shit on her bike

she avoids taking him on the road because having to fight people gives him so much stress but he also stresses about her so it's all weird

the first time orpheus sees her run over someones arm hes like ""???????????????????!!!!!!!!"

"Don't worry it doesn't happen often" "WHAT IS 'OFTEN'"

she has a red songbird on her helmet and flowers on her jacket

and flowers painted on her bike too probably

or patterns like on the album cover

orpheus thinks it’s the prettiest shit he’s ever seen

so eurydice races, right? everyones like “who is this tiny little upstart” and then she takes off her helmet and shakes out her hair and everyone loses it

somethingsomething ig hades (who is something of a crime boss here, similar to Tombstone from the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon, but not so unambiguously villainous in nature) becomes a contractor and he catches her in like, a bad contract that's hard to get out of without some kind of consequence

and now orpheus has to topple a capitalist again

anyway she like, meets orpheus in this little bar he works at

it's about lower middle class, so it's not too bad but it's still mostly populated by like, poorer people and bikers, etc.

they meet and it's cool and fun blah blah Come Home With Me shit

also this is a scene:

biker!eury: we gotta cross through downtown orpheus: what???? but there's a riot going on there! right now! eury: that's too bad, it's the fastest way! that's why you get this! (tosses him her pipe weapon) orpheus, barely catching it: sajskhsfdfs ???? eury: and i am gonna take this. (kicks open a trunk and takes out a rifle) orpheus: ???????!!!!???!?? WHERE DID YOU GET THAT AND DO WE REALLY NEED IT eury: Yes we do now come on orpheus: H-HOW did you get it eury: (loads gun) no worries orpheus: No i have many worries HOW DID YOU--

actually, on this emergency ride, orpheus proves surprisingly competent with her pole weapon—ruthless even, and eurydice wonders just where and how the hell he learned that

the conversation she has with him about that is the same one where he shows her his old, old scars

(besides ruthless—orph has apparently learned how to pose and intimidate. he does stuff like putting the tip of the pole-pipe to the asphalt as they’re riding, skipping on the road and creating sparks)

eurydice loves her bike more than certain relatives 

certain complications lead to it being destroyed by hades as punishment for doing him wrong. and it destroys her. that is her most trusted sacred bike, that thing has been with her since she was a teenager

once she repurposes that devastation into white-hot anger orph has to physically restrain her from hunting hades down and breaking his kneecaps with a thick lead pipe

he's never seen her this absolutely devastated and furious

he goes to persephone for more work because he wants to buy eurydice a new bike

he keeps it a secret from her until he leads her out to a garage, hands over her eyes

(some of these bits are copypasted from my friend @regzillas​)

orpheus takes his hands off and says Tada!!! it's just like the old one, there's no painted birds but she can do that. She just stands there in total silence mouth open, and orpheus goes 'so? do you like it?' before she bursts into tears. and at first orpheus is like :O!!!!! oh no!!! do you not like it? and eurydice through sobs just says 'nobody's ever done something like this for me’

it's... beautiful, it's touching, it's deep and it's love and she's so in love and she loves him so much, and she cries and holds him close and takes him in and she's so overwhelmed by her emotions, full of the care that orpheus so freely gives to her; and it's a breath of newness, fresh air in the cycle of dread and bitter anger that haunts the city (but she's still going to find hades and shoot him in the foot)

he just holds her and kisses her head

they spend the day painting it, the day after he buys the bike

hand-painted. and they both leave their handprints in paint on it, like carl and ellie do on their mailbox in the beginning of Up

a significant amount of time is spent thinking of a good name

theres lots of joking and eurydice playfully shoves orpheus and he falls over into paint

okay i wrote something like. Obnoxiously long for orpheus. i sort of have his backstory in this down, but i don’t have anything for eurydice unfortunately :( suggestions are welcome! but first: Hermes

biker!au hermes owns a chain of bars, several of which find their patronage among the ruffian youth, several of which are more refined and serve the middle class, and another several of which serve the upper crust hermes has a hand in every world and it serves him pretty well, and his chain is a bit of a channel of communication and its unspoken rule that whatever socioeconomic class or gang or organization you're a part of, hermes' chain is neutral territory no fighting allowed

eurydice walks in and hermes just gives her a Look and taps the 'no fighting' sign and she huffs

hes >:( if anyone does try to start shit. the honor system is strong enough that usually the other patrons will just throw them out, and if there are really problems, they'll hear from hermes personally

he maintains a very strict "no bitching in my fucking kitchen" atmosphere

and now, Orpheus

this really is kind of akira but without the government conspiracies; the city is a neon corrupt hellscape that’s still struggling to rebuild after an apocalyptic event that wiped it all through. the city is wracked with frustration and violence and anger, there are still urban ruins everywhere and the scars of rebuilding and struggle are plain in every corner of life; plain to see are the shells of ruined buildings, gigantic boats levelled from the sea and left in the middle of inland sectors.

orpheus was abandoned by his mother at an early age—kind and timid, he had to learn fast how to be suspicious and cautious in cruel ways. he couldn’t land himself a spot in any of the groups that other ragtag raging folks had eked out for themselves, still too hesitant or ungraceful or young for any of them. sure, he made friends, sitting and talking with lots of people, but never got to really team up—all he could do was just fight for himself in the blown out corners of the city. weapons made from whatever he had. a young child already spitting blood and teeth in hadestown’s vicious ground-floor landscape.

hermes is his mother’s close old friend, though the times they see each other are few and far between. when he saw him, hermes hardly recognized her son, wild-eyed and clawed and alone in one of the city’s more dangerous neighborhoods, with a pole full of screws slung over his back. how did she lose track of her kid for so long? he thinks. and takes him in.

hermes eventually realizes that his mother didn’t lose him. meanwhile, tiny orpheus, kind-hearted orpheus, despises hermes at first. he’s full of suspicion and desperately wants to lean into hermes’ kindness, but the streets have taught him to hold back. he spits curses at him, though the words slide right off hermes’ shoulders. it’s not genuine.  just frustrated. and picked off of the delinquents that were his friends, just like most everything else about him.

(hermes knows he’s gotten his trust when orpheus starts getting soft, when he’s crying over littler things; it means he’s been deemed safe to be vulnerable around, and he damn near starts crying himself.)

orpheus owns a little vespa! it’s covered in stickers, some of them worn out and old, some places with just the adhesive and the fuzzy white paper from where he tried to pull them off. some of them aren’t even proper stickers and just shit he peeled off from places while he was wandering around and stuck onto the vespa

even in canon i see him as the kind of guy who like. you look at him and think jesus how is this guy still alive he’s so noodly and soft, but he’s unexpectedly sort of street smart

anyway i mentioned this before but didn’t elaborate. biker au orph, to eury's surprise, does have his collection of scars, since he had a bit of a rough go at life

also he’s just ungainly and runs into shit

you can see em on his sketch page. he has a bit more than what’s shown, but what’s visible is a little slash across the bridge of his nose onto his cheek, and two on his left forearm. he probably has a stab scar in his side from just getting fucking knifed. the ones on his left forearm are from when a drunk coming out of a bar charged him with a fork

eurydice also has scars. kind of hard not to with the kind of life she lives

ok thats it. For Now. i don’t know how persephone or the fates or the workers factor in, if at all. I barely know how Hades factors in, mostly what i’ve said so far and that he does what he does to support himself and persephone. ah well! just have this

as this is extremely based off of AKIRA, i verily recommend listening to the movie’s soundtrack. besides the fact that it slaps hard as hell, the opening song, Kaneda’s Theme, has the perfect vibes for the city and the tone of eurydice and orpheus riding at night through it

[cafedanslanuit]

RFA with a MC that grew up in really bad poverty

@gompereatsall​ sent me this awesome prompt:  “One of them is MC who grew up in really bad poverty, like so bad that she didnt know of she would have food on the table or not. Even as an adult, shes still extremely cautious with money and tries to make unnecessary sacrifices just to save money”

It took a long time for me to write it, not because it isn’t amazing, but it hit too close to home lol. I’m still so happy about how these turned out, so I hope you like ‘em too! <3

Zen

He’s really surprised you know all the tricks to save money because it comes in handy when he’s in between gigs.

Is really surprised when you tell him you don’t have dinner, though.

“But… you had dinner with us the night of the RFA party”

“Yes, but I usually don’t. It’s just a habit, I’m good with a cup of tea”.

He thinks it’s because it’s part of a strange diet, so he talks to you about the importance of eating well and that if you wanted to lose weight, you could accompany him on his morning runs.

It takes a while before you admit to him you started doing it because it meant spending less on food. You had done it when you were younger and now you were so used to it you didn’t think about changing that.

Zen’s heart breaks. He knows about having little money to go on, but he never wanted you to experience that or feel like you had to keep doing that. Sure, he didn’t have a lot of money but he didn’t want you to feel you had to stop eating in order to save money.

So, he makes sure you have dinner every night and when he’s not rehearsing, he will sit with you and eat together.

Yoosung

One night while you’re both lying in bed, too dark to see each other’s faces, he asks you whether you prefer PlayStation or Xbox

You say you really don’t have a preference.

He keeps insisting on which made you feel more comfortable or was easier to play with.

You confess you’ve never had a gaming console

“Not even a Nintendo?” “Nope”

He has a hard time understanding it at first. He’s lived with a family that made sure he always had clean clothes, a bed and a warm meal waiting for him, how could you have gone without knowing if you were going to eat the next day.

After making some questions, trying not to make you uncomfortable, he holds you tight against his chest, promising you’ll never have to go through any of that again. That even if someday you’ll no longer together as a couple -which he hopes will never happen-, you’ll always have a place in his family.

Jaehee

You were both getting drunk on wine Jumin had given you, laughing at everything and anything, when she had to take a call. Jaehee excused herself and left you on the living room.

When she returned, you were looking at your phone, your eyes filled with tears. Her smile fell instantly.

“MC, what happened?”

“You know this wine is over $200?” you said, amused, your eyes glued on the screen. “I was curious and google it. We’re drinking $200 wine. I… I never thought I’d ever be drinking wine that didn’t come from a box”

Jaehee sat beside you and took the phone from your hands, worried that more and more tears fell from your cheeks. She didn’t know what to say, she didn’t understand why you were crying when you had just been laughing five minutes ago.

“I can’t believe I would go from going to bed on an empty stomach to drinking expensive wine with my girlfriend. Fuck…,” you laughed dryly, not being able to stop the tears anymore.

Jaehee held your hand and squeezed it, reassuring you. You turned to her and tried to smile. 

“I love you so much” you whispered, kissing the back of her hand.

“I love you too”

Wiping your tears with your free hand, you tried to regulate your breathing in order to keep talking. You took your time in telling you about your childhood, how rough it was for you sometime and how weird did it feel to have a warm bed, a loving girlfriend and food available at any time now that you were living together.

Jaehee hadn’t experience a harsh shortage of money, but she could understand the loneliness. She held your hand as you told her about your past life and nodded at the appropriate times.

“I know you’ve been lonely and afraid. But… that part of your life is over now. You know that, right? You’ll never be on your own anymore,” she assured you with a small smile. You smiled back and then hugged her, inhaling the soft aroma of her perfume that still lingered on her neck. Yes, you weren’t alone anymore. You wouldn’t be anymore.

Jumin

You never wanted to tell him about that, as you were afraid he wouldn’t understand.

But one day he was too busy to eat the dinner the chef had made and threw it on the trash.

He didn’t expect your gasp.

“Why-- why you would throw it out!?”

“Did you want to eat it? I thought you already had dinner”

“No, I didn’t want it, but why would you throw away food?”

“I’m sorry love, I don’t follow”

“You don’t through away food!!!”

Jumin embraced your trembling body and held you against his chest until your breathing returned to normal. He kept caressing your hair, trying to soothe you the best way he could. After a couple of minutes, he pulled away and cradled your face with his hands. He wiped away the tears with his thumbs, a concerned expression on his face.

“My love, is everything okay? Did something happen?”

After taking a deep breath, you tell him about the problems you had years ago. How you would eat leftovers from four or five days ago because you couldn’t afford to throw it away. If a vegetable or bread got mould you would cut the bad part and use the rest. Even if it’s been years without having to do that, seeing someone throwing away food still shocked you.

Jumin listened to you in silence. He promised he would never do that again and that both of you could come up with a plan on what to do with the leftovers that didn’t trigger you.

The next few days, Jumin started working a project to help people in need and then offered you to take the lead on that. You accepted and within a few months, he helped you organize a soup kitchen where you offered food. Sometimes you would go there and help out yourself and even Jumin joined you some of those times, happy to see you smiling once again.

Saeyoung

He kind of knew about your situation when he first did his background check on you. He didn’t mention it on the chat, but rather waited until you told him about it.

He had noticed how you would always pick out the cheapest options when you went to the supermarket and who you would always negotiate for a lowe price at the farmer’s market, even after you knew how much money he owned and the expensive cars he drove.

One night, you were both laying in bed, looking at the glow-in-the-dark space stickers he had on his ceiling. After a lot silence, you took his hand, your eyes fixated on the starts. You started telling him about how hard it was growing up, the nervousness about not knowing whether you would be able to have lunch or not the next day.

After you were done, he confessed about what happened during his childhood, how his mother would get wasted and stop buying food for them. How he had to get food for Saeran and him and how the would go to bed without dinner most days of the week. How he would give his food to Saeran when he got sick as he needed to be well-fed for his body to battle the disease.

“But that part of our lives is over, okay?” he said, grabbing your chin and making you look at him. “I have a bunch of money now. Even if something happens to me, I’ll make sure you get that money so you never have to go hungry again”.

“Hey, don’t say that. Nothing’s going to happen to you. You, Saeran and me, we’re a family now. We’re stronger together, so don’t ever say that again, please. I don’t know what I’d do without you”

You kissed him on the corner of his mouth earning a smile for your boyfriend.

“Okay” Saeyoung nodded, hugging you as tightly as he could. “Stronger together, then”.

[sadistgalore]

Hi hi :))) this has probably already been written somewhere but how did Luther know Killian before? Sorry, I'm new around here but I really love your stuff! :D

hi hi :)!!!! also welcome since you’re new, and i appreciate the compliment! if you have any other questions, i would love to answer them!

and no, i’ve never written the real reason why Killian and Luther already knew eachother. i wanted it to be a big reveal, but honestly i’m not sure when i’ll ever get to writing it.

so i guess i’ll reveal the real reason under the cut because of how fucking dark (no pun intended) it is.

now, this probably is going to make little sense, but it really adds to Luther’s character. and if you’re really disturbed by this, please check out my previous post so it can give a little bit of clarification on their more…sexual matters.

warning for incest

judging from the bolded lettering, you can get a pretty good guess of how they know eachother.

Luther is Killian’s uncle.

yeah

sorry

lemme explain

as you know, Luther was originally very poor. he lived on the streets with his brother, who was a petty thief. Luther, on the other hand, experimented to make very dangerous but unique drugs. one day, Luther met Dark and showed him his experiments, and Dark offered him a position with the Jaguars.

there, Luther fell in love with Helene (Ida’s sister/Beth’s boss/Dark’s current wife) but Helene was the daughter of the main boss of the Jaguars (Ida’s dad) and he forbade their relationship from ever happening.

during this time, Luther’s brother, Alexander/Lex, was married to a woman named Clara. together, they had a son named Killian. thanks to Luther’s new job, he made a lot of money and they all lived in a very nice house with Luther. Clara was also very smart, and helped Luther out with his experiments sometimes (keep that in mind).

however, once Evelyn (dark’s wife) died, Helene’s father wanted Dark to marry his daughter because he knew that Dark could be a good heir (he didn’t want his own daughter to take over his position). completely against both of their wills, they were forced to get married and Helene McKinley became Helene Darmine.

Luther was fucking pissed.

Luther loved Helene, and his best friend had the fucking gall to just marry her and take her away from him. when he returned home and saw his brother with his wife and son, he became extremely jealous.

and angry.

in his mind, Luther had sacrificed everything for him and his brother, Lex. he was the one whose drugs got discovered, he was the one that joined one of the most dangerous gangs in America just so him and his brother could get out of poverty and living in the streets.

and Lex had the fucking nerve to just take his money, and have a happy life with his wife and child. but Luther couldn’t??

that wasn’t fair to him

so he killed his own brother

this was the breaking point in Luther’s mind. after killing his own blood, he wanted to erase his entire family. luckily, Clara saw what happened and knew that there was no return for Luther. so she took one of the drugs that they made together and injected her son, Killian, with it, so he could forget everything that had to do with Luther.

the two of them escaped and moved across the country, where they lost Luther’s money and had to live in poverty once again. Killian had no memory of his uncle, and barely even remembered his childhood. Clara soon became a drug addict because of her grief over losing her husband and her best friend.

but Luther wants his revenge. killing Lex wasn’t enough for him. he needed to kill Clara, and his original plan was to kill Killian as well. but, once he found them once again and manipulated Killian into living with him, he realized that he could do so much more.

instead of ending his revenge right there, he could extend it. Luther was easily manipulated, and seeing all of his peers that he worked with having his own pets, he figured he could keep Killian and hurt him, so that his revenge against his brother would last forever. what better than get revenge on your brother than making his son your personal dog?

so Luther took Killian, and later found Clara and killed her. Luther knew that Killian was his nephew, but Killian didn’t; he still doesn’t know. i would really recommend reading “All He Sees Is Red” because it explains how Luther feels.

obviously them being related is pretty horrible, so like please don’t cancel me lol. but i just think it adds to the story and really makes Luther even more of a villain.

ok byeeeee sorry for ruining your brains

[doberbutts]

C/P from a group regarding inclusivity in the dog world, an interesting discussion I had to comment on:

I am a black balanced- LIMA- trainer. I have stated, in the past, that being militant regarding +R training is a problem rooted in racism as well as furthering problems that disproportionately affect disadvantaged groups. For some examples:

Cost. Already stated higher in the thread, but dog training costs money and so does higher education. I have a dog that needs to be trained. Which will I do: buy a choke chain for $10 at my local Walmart, or sign up for dog training classes at PetSmart for over $100? A clicker might only cost $1 but no one knows how to use them.

Time. Balanced/heavy handed board-and-trains might be several thousands of dollars, but people really like the idea of their dog being perfectly behaved in two weeks. Petco's training classes are structured for it to take AT LEAST eighteen weeks for you to get to CGC, despite being 10% of many board and train facilities' cost. If my dog is screaming in its crate while I'm out and I'm in a rental, I cannot wait however many weeks it will take for +R to get that behavior to stop.

Perception. I am a black person with a doberman. I am viewed as dangerous with my well behaved, quiet dog at a strict heel. Now try that same picture with my dog pulling, lunging, barking, acting a complete fool. Knowing that most dog owners do not know how to train the dogs they have, and knowing that most PoC are well aware of how a badly behaved dog makes them look to other people, can you really be surprised that someone wants results as cheaply and quickly as possible?

Complications. So you have a young GSD who's a bit of a punk with other dogs and you need to contact someone to fix the problem. Well, PetSmart and PetCo both say that they can't take a dog with aggression issues, so your cheaper options are out. Now what do you do? You want your chihuahua to be nicer to strangers that come into your home, but the local trainer says they don't have the insurance to handle bite risks. Now what? While us in the industry know how to locate someone who IS capable of handling these more complicated problems when the easy options are out, most people don't even realize that other options exist.

Ignorance. This is both regarding the owner AND the trainers giving advice. In an area with incredibly strict BSL laws, I had a client once with a pit bull who I can only describe as happy-aggressive. He was so happy to see people that he would lose control and start landing several level 3-4 bites if he could reach them. The owner had asked her family for advice and they told her to get an E-collar. She went to PetCo for an E-collar and was told by the trainer there that E-collars are exactly the same as using a taser, and thus she should buy dog training, except her dog was aggressive so she couldn't buy dog training there. Would you believe this woman, ignorant and feeling out of options, started using her taser on her dog? To this day I'm impressed she didn't kill him doing that before someone gave her my number. The kicker is that this woman didn't even seek out this dog, her kids brought him home and she felt too bad for him to give him to a rescue because the laws in the area called for him to be euthanized. The family was black, in a mostly-black area, and the trainer who gave her such shockingly disingenuous advice was white.

Available dogs. It's something I've spoken about before, but if you KNOW you are dealing with a population that is frequently forced into poverty, why are we surprised that most are not getting pedigreed purebred dogs with nice genetic temperament? They rescue, but with the rising rescue costs of 400-600$ in some areas, many just get the free dog from a friend's litter or pay a hundred or so for a dog they saw on craigslist or whatever. Then we consider the breeds of these dogs- majority of the "pet overpopulation" is going to be chihuahua types and pit bull types, both of which can be weird with dogs and humans if genetic temperament and socialization is poor, and we put them into the hands of someone who doesn't actually know what they're doing. Here in New England a lot of dogs are imported from the South or even from other countries, and they're sick or shy or aggressive and are going home before any of these problems are even remotely close to being fixed. Now I have clients who are spending all of their money making sure their dogs are healthy and are at their wits' end because this dog they love so much is attacking their neighbor's kids.

Speaking as someone who doesn't use +P on my dogs outside of an NRM until they're over a year old, and only if that's required (outside of emergencies), yes, it's true, the majority of pet dogs are perfectly trainable with +R ideals IF they are mentally stable IF they are in capable hands IF there are no additional complications IF the person is willing to invest the time and money into these things. But many times people seek out dog training AFTER the dog has an ingrained bad habit, and the person needs that habit to stop NOW.

[copiouscouples]

Random Thoughts on Abbott Elementary Episode 5

Yay for Melissa getting her date on! I love how Mrs. Howard was such a good wingwoman. But color me intrigued about her and her ex. They had a really flirty vibe.

I love Janine’s optimism but also how she crashes and burns sometimes. It gives the show a real fresh flavor. It’s annoying when shows have optimists always win in the end or always fail to be the butt of the joke. It’s nice to see a realistic balance of you win some you lose some with watching Janine’s journey.

So for this week’s session of Copious Couples gets on her ex-teacher soapbox....

I get what Gregory was saying about feeling left out of GT. I literally was a few points shy of testing into GT back in the day and I was jealous of the GT kids, but in my district it wasn’t such a big deal because we had Honors and AP classes you could take that didn’t involve testing into the program - it was more teacher referral. Also, I think other kids should get to have fun and engaging learning experiences too. The Gardner multiple intelligences he was talking about is spot on. When I taught, I tried to teach each standard through as many intelligences as possible. Being engaged is how you learn.

I also think parading around and announcing the gifted kids a) broke confidentiality and b) was a morale killer for the other kids. That was no bueno.

That said, I support GT and advanced level classes. From a personal perspective, I took on-level and honors classes in middle school and high school. The on-level classes were terrible because the kids there just didn’t take class seriously. The conversations in the advanced classes I took were more engaging because I was interacting with other students who were at the same pace as me.

Imagine you were taking an iPhone class where you wanted to learn cool ways to take pictures/videos and you were in a class with 60 year old grandmas who needed help finding the camera app on their phones. It’s not fair for either party. If the instructor slows it down for the grandmas, you’re bored. If the instructor speeds it up for you, the grandmas are confused and likely to get frustrated and angry.

Research proves it too. “The benefits of ability grouping for gifted students are well-documented. Studies have found that when gifted students are ability grouped with similarly motivated and intelligent peers, they advance as much as a whole year compared to students of a similar age and intelligence. This type of intellectual growth likely occurs because grouping allows gifted students to move at a pace that is appropriate for their abilities.” Link

It may seem unfair that the GT program gets money but honestly if the school is high poverty they should be getting quite a bit of Title 1 money to use for curriculum and TAs and such. Our grade level team got about $1-2K a year to spend on math and reading manipulatives/games/centers due to Title 1.

I’m a strong believer in you don’t have to drag others down to build others up. The ending was a little eh for me.

Gregory, the movies got to stop some time. Realize you want to teach there already!

[theravennest]

Hey, I saw your post about 3 will be free and binged watched it one night! I'm confused though, did Neo, Miw, and Shin got together at the end, or were Shin and PP a thing? Is it like a poly open relationship? Also, if Shin kept working in his dad's business how is he "free"? Shin deserves better🥺 I'm so confused istg😭 help a fella over here, will you?🥺

@nerdinacoolway

It’s def up for interpretation but let’s do a bit of scene dissection, shall we?

Shin lives and works primarily in Bangkok but visits the resort. How often he visits up to the point of the epilogue, who knows? But Neo and Miw weren’t in any way shocked that he showed up nor did they react like they haven’t seen him in months, so it seems he visits enough. They only teased him about his fancy outfit (that deep, sexy V that the costume director keeps putting him in).

Shin mentions that he wants to visit more often and is there to buy a house nearby. Since there’s nothing else on the island I can fathom he’d care about, this makes me believe he’s moving closer to be near Neo and Miw. Neo then says he should stay with them since their place is his home and place to eat. Shin smiles and gives a kind of head nod like he welcomes the idea even if he doesn’t verbally decide on if he’ll take them up on the offer yet.

That’s when PP comes in. When PP flirts with Shin and insinuates he helps Shin with “personal” business too, Shin wasn’t embarrassed or shy. Instead he gave PP a small glare to censure him. Was it because Shin didn’t like that PP was flirting in general...or because he was flirting in front of Miw and Neo, Shin’s partners?

At the very least, Shin’s reaction when Miw and Neo were teasing him definitely makes me believe him when he says he’s not interested in PP at this time. If that will change in the future, again, who knows?

Then our trio moves out to the beach to reminisce about the last time they were there. Neo especially brings up when they all kissed and had sex. Miw scolds him and says that he shouldn’t be explicitly talking about that since the islanders already can’t stand them. Neo counters that it shouldn’t matter who talks about them nor does it matter who they love or how many they love. Shin agrees with Neo and Miw finally gives way. Then the three start playing in the water.

Since I don’t see why the islanders would give a damn about Neo and Miw being in a relationship given they are a man and a woman, I took this to mean the whole island knows Shin, Neo, and Miw are dating and many of them disapprove of the arrangement.

Based on these context clues, I genuinely believe that Neo, Miw, and Shin are in a relatively open poly. I don’t believe Neo and Miw would ever date anyone except each other and Shin but they are ok with Shin also dating PP if he wants. They’ve both expressed disliking putting restrictions on their relationships with Shin both before the finale and again in the epilogue.

But, hey...maybe that’s just my wishful brain wanting them to be a confirmed, stable poly-V.

Now, onto the second part of the ask: whether Shin is “free” since he’s now taken over his father’s mafia...

This is also up for interpretation but I think there are degrees and qualities of freedom that the main characters all achieve. I think all (including Ter and Mae) have fairly bittersweet endings, some more bitter while others are sweeter. Ter and Mae have the bitterest endings, for sure.

Ter finds spiritual freedom from his violent habits and life of crime by embracing Mae but he doesn’t get true freedom as he is brutally killed before he can find happiness with Mae.

Mae finds freedom from her grief and pain over Phon, finds freedom from her own self doubt about standing up for herself, and finds freedom in having the transition surgery she’s wanted for years. Despite this, she still loses Ter and is plunged into grief, rage, and vengeance all over again. The only freedom she gets after that is exacting her revenge on his killer. So...sour.

Neo is freed from the danger and fear of running from the mafia. His life of poverty and disenfranchisement is behind him and he finds the monetary, spiritual, and emotional stability with Miw and Shin that he’s craved his entire life. Regardless of Neo’s hard won bungalow freedom, tho, his brother was still murdered because of choices Neo made. He likely won’t ever fully find peace with that.

Miw’s ending was the sweetest, I think. She was able to completely face her past as someone who killed her abuser, she reconciled somewhat with her step-uncle before he died, cleared her name, came to terms with her relationship with her mother, found love with Neo and Shin, and calmed the internal storm that always urges her to screw over others and run away. Miw came out on top, for sure.

Shin’s ending is the most complex outside of Mae’s, in my opinion, maybe more so since they gave more time/importance to his journey. His freedom is found with no longer being under his father’s thumb. He is completely in control of his own destiny. That he chooses to take over his father’s mafia is not necessarily a sign that he’s not free, I think. Not only is he clearly good at what he does, since Neo implies that Shin could buy the whole island, but his new empire also grants him authority and monetary security. Plus we don’t know that he’s not working to legitimize his business and clean up his father’s dirty money so maybe he won’t be a mafia don for long.

Shin has also gained the emotional and spiritual acceptance of Neo and Miw. He struggled through the whole show in finding peace with his sexuality and with his difficult relationship with intimacy, duty, and responsibility. There is definitely a bittersweet-ness to the implication that he’s given up his dream of being an artist or at the very least has set it aside as a career goal. 

That said, Shin seems genuinely self assured and content in the epilogue. He’s making plans for his future with Neo and Miw, plus he allows himself to be openly affectionate and playful with them. All in all, not bad for him.

I think there’s definitely a way to finish 3 Will Be Free and feel that the end wasn’t what you wanted. Certainly some characters had more positive endings than others. I definitely don’t want to invalidate that takeaway for people. The impact of any artwork is deeply subjective, after all.

For me, the only character that got truly shortchanged was Mae. After all the tragedy and trauma she went through, I personally wish we’d at least seen a glimpse of her years later too, preferably happy in her life.

I was satisfied with where the principle 3 characters ended up. I think a show that had such a morally and emotionally complex journey earned an equally complicated denouement, so to speak.

I’m sorry to just dump this whole essay on your ask but once I started writing I couldn’t stop. lmao

[jackiesarch]

i’m short on brain cells so the ask got munched but @queennymeria asked for the family section of the character development questions i reblogged a million years ago and anyway here’s some andrew lore:

11. Do they have parents? What are they like and how do they act with their child(ren)?

Andrew has a mother and father, but he really only knows his mother. His father died when he was very young and the memories he does have of him are faded, hazy things.

His mother, on the other hand, has been present his whole life. Andrew tends to view her in an fairly idealized way — he was born when she was barely twenty, she was widowed shortly after and never remarried, and through it all she remained the kindest and most loving person he’s ever known. To him, his mother was a saint, and he misses her deeply after the outbreak starts. Truthfully, like all people, his mother was flawed and not a perfect parent, often being very lenient with him. Despite being a devout Catholic with fairly traditional (though not rigid) moral views, she often allowed Andy to get in his fair share of trouble as a teenager and young adult simply out of fear of losing him. She’d already lost her husband; the thought of pushing Andy away by being strict or overbearing was more than she could handle.

Neither of them were perfect, but Andrew was genuinely loved by his mother.

12. Do they have siblings? How do they interact with them? If not, do they wish they had siblings?

Andy’s an only child! He spent a chunk of time as a kid wishing he had someone else to play with, but he never really desperately found himself looking for a sibling. It’s harder when he gets older and his mother gets more dependent on him; it would be nice to have a sibling to share those responsibilities with, he thinks, but in the end he’s always handled it on his own. He doesn’t mind the only child life.

13. Extended family? Do they see them often?

He has a handful of aunts and uncles and cousins scattered across the country, but he’s lucky if he even remembers their names — and that’s before the outbreak. Afterwards, they rarely ever cross his mind.

14. Do they like where they live? (Is it a safe place?)

It really depends on where he is in his life. In canon, while he’s at the Sanctuary, he doesn’t mind much where he lives. He has a room to himself that he pays for with the work he does, the throngs of people and workers mean that more often than not it’s the safest place around, and he has his own little training room he can lock himself in when he needs to hit something.

Alexandria is a little different. He doesn’t feel as safe there as he did at the Sanctuary, but it’s leagues safer than living in a tent in the middle of god knows where. It doesn’t help that his first few months are riddled with whispers and accusations and clear disdain from Rick’s people — he deserves the treatment, of course, but he does find it hard to get settled when he has the knowledge that everyone hates him.

15. Where do they live? Are they wealthy?Poor? Middle-Class?

Andy was born in Fairfax, Virginia. I mentioned it above, but his father died when he was young, and with only his mother working his family really straddled the poverty line. They had enough to get by when he was a kid, but a lot of his clothes and toys came from thrift stores or as hand-me-downs from older cousins. Things did get a little better when he started working as a teenager and was able to contribute to the household. They were never wealthy by any means, but Andrew and his mom did manage to get to a stable place by the time he was starting to navigate adulthood.

As an adult, he was more middle-class. He worked as a firefighter and made enough money to have his own place plus enough extra to help look after his mother.

16. Do they have a lot of expectations/pressure on them from family to do great?

It sounds awful to say, but his mom did not expect great things from him. That’s not to say she didn’t believe he was capable of them, but she didn’t need him to do great to love him. All she ever wanted was for Andrew to be happy.

Honestly, he probably could have used a handful of expectations. Might’ve kept him out of trouble as a kid.

17. Do they have pets?

He sure does! Before the outbreak, he had an aquarium in his home and kept an assortment of fish. Some of their names, as a treat:

Pinky

The Brain

Bluebell

Cupid

Andrew

Bob Ross

Ugly

Honey Garlic

He misses those fish deeply.

Alternatively, he and Julie have a St. Bernard puppy named Eeyore!

18. Who do they look up to the most/are the closest to in their family?

Hands down, his mother. She was really all he ever had, and he admired her strength and willingness to carry on and get the job done once his father died. He learned a lot from her in that respect — that sometimes we have to do things we don’t like for the greater good. I’m not sure she would’ve approved of his application of that slice of wisdom, but it’s stayed with him his whole life nonetheless.

After the outbreak, he’d say his wife. By the time he and Julie get married he’s seen her in just about every situation he can think of, and he’s still blown away by her strength and tenacity. She’s his definition of ‘survivor’, she knows how to make him laugh, and she is his rock and his anchor once their baby is born. Sappy, sappy man.

19. Is there anything special about their family?

Not really! His family pre-outbreak was just like any other family with the exception he didn’t have a dad, but that’s not really anything special.

20. Do they wish they lived in a different family/household?

Never. He’s a ridiculously loyal man and no matter what kind of problems he had as a poor kid or what kind of scrutiny and hatred his family is subjected to in Alexandria, he would never actively wish for anything different. Does he entertain the thought of what it would be like to not live in those conditions? Sure. But that’s about as far as he lets it go.

[violetwolfraven]

Already Home

((Angsty one-shot time. Good luck, y’all. This is to Already Home by A Great Big World.))

...

You say

Jack was a goddamn idiot.

For getting on that stupid train, for crossing the country for someone who didn’t know he existed, for wanting Santa Fe so badly in the first place when he’d never seen so much as a picture of it outside his mother’s stories.

Love is what you put into it

His hands had been numb opening that letter, addressed to Anita Kelly-Sullivan. The boy who delivered had been paid enough that he’d looked everywhere, asking all around until he found out that Anita was dead, but her best friend owned a theatre on the Upper East Side. Her best friend told him that Anita was dead, but she’d had a son. Anita was dead, but her son worked as a Newsie and lived at the Duane Street Lodging House.

You say

Anita Kelly-Sullivan. A woman who’d moved to New York to become a dancer, but hurt her leg before she ever made it big. Who’d dreamed of owning a theatre with her best friend, but never recovered in time to get it.

Jack had never told anyone about her. The others probably assumed he didn’t remember his parents, the way Race, Smalls, and Crutchie only had a few vague memories of theirs.

Until the day when Davey walked in on him with that letter, completely in shock.

He’d wordlessly handed the letter to his lover, with only a brief explanation.

“My grandfather is dyin’. He spent his last dollar to send this letter for my mama.”

That I’m losing my will

“I have to go, Davey.”

Davey had thought it was a bad idea. The letter had taken a few days to even get to New York, and it had taken that boy weeks to find Jack when it did.

Jack’s grandfather didn’t know he existed. Anita Kelly had sent one last letter home when she got married, and never been able to afford to write to her father again after that.

Jack had always assumed, from the way his mama talked, that he was already dead.

That man was the one from the stories. The vaquero, the cowboy, Jack had always wanted to be.

Maybe it wasn’t smart to cross the country to say goodbye to someone who didn’t know he existed, but Jack still felt like he had to.

Don’t you know that you’re all that I think about

Davey’s face had said that he didn’t approve, but he said goodbye at the train station with the others as if they were friends. In the Lodging House beforehand, he said goodbye with a kiss.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

Jack wasn’t looking for a family or home anymore. Just closure. His mother had never gotten to say goodbye to her father, so he would for her. Then he’d come right home.

You make up a half of the whole

It had still hurt to watch Davey’s face get smaller and smaller from that train.

You say

The train ride wasn’t how Jack had always imagined it, but he guessed he should have expected that.

All he kept thinking about was how though he didn’t say it, Davey’s face had told what he was really thinking.

About how Jack was leaving him.

That it’s hard to commit to it

Jack knew that the others had a hard time believing him that he was really over that fantasy of Santa Fe. He saw the look on Race’s face when he looked at a western through a store window, the uncertainty whenever Crutchie called him ‘Cowboy.’ They were still scared that Jack would just pack up and leave them. Not that he could blame them.

You say

He saw now that they were his family. They were his home. He would never leave them without plans to come back.

He would never leave Davey.

Still, Davey’s words in their private goodbye stuck with him, replaying all through the train ride.

“I know you have to go. I know how hard it is for you to want to stay in one place, and... I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

Jack wished he could tell him how homesick he was from the second the train pulled out of the station.

That it’s hard standing still

Santa Fe was hotter than he was expecting.

Jack probably should have seen that coming. His mama had always said that he couldn’t imagine how hot New Mexico summers were, and September was the tail end of it.

He’d asked for directions, gone to the address on the letter, and found a middle-aged woman who looked too much like his mother sweeping the porch.

She’d asked him in English what he was doing there.

It took Jack a few seconds to answer, and when he did, it was in shaky, slightly-panicked Spanish.

“You sent a letter to New York for Anita Kelly-Sullivan. Only... only she’s... I... my name is Jack. Jack Kelly. She never got to tell you about me.”

The woman had gaped at him, clearly connecting the dots, doing the math on how old he was, scanning his face, then shakily responded.

“I... you’re Anita’s boy?”

Jack nodded, “She died when I was 5. I’m sorry.”

The woman had closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, then given him a sad smile, “I guess I’m your Aunt Sophia. I’m so sorry. You’re too late.”

It turned out that Jack’s grandfather was already dead, and while Sophia would have been happy to have him stay, she was understanding when he said he had a family to go back to. If anything, she seemed happy that Jack wasn’t alone, that he’d had someone after his mom died.

Don’t you know that I spend all my nights

So, Jack gave his Aunt Sophia Medda’s address so she could write if she wanted, filled her in on his mother’s accident, how their family had fallen into poverty after they had him, and how she’d gotten sick after her husband went to prison. He was sorry he didn’t have more to give her, but just knowing for sure what had happened to her sister seemed to be enough.

Knowing that he had an aunt out west... well, it was more than enough for Jack.

Counting backwards the days till I’m home

It wasn’t until he got to the train station that he realized he didn’t have enough to get back to New York.

If only New York wasn’t so far away

Jack was stuck in Santa Fe. He should have listened to Davey.

I promise this city won’t get in our way

The man working at the station said Jack could get maybe halfway, but unless he wanted to be stranded somewhere in Missouri, he shouldn’t get on a train.

When you’re scared and alone

God, Davey and the others were going to think he just left them.

So, instead of letting them believe that, Jack did what he did have enough money for; he sent a letter. His handwriting was terrible, made worse by anger and fear, but he sent it, hoping they would understand.

Just know that I’m already home

Sophia was surprised when he showed back up on her doorstep, but willing to let him stay with her until he had enough money to go.

Jack just had to hope he could find a job in the morning.

...

I say

Davey was trying not to be worried. After all, maybe Jack had just lost track of time catching up with his family and missed the train. There would be another tonight. No need to jump to conclusions when half the Lodging House was already panicking.

Jack hadn’t been on the train they expected him back on.

That we’re right in the heart of it

“Davey!”

Davey shook himself out of his thoughts as the door downstairs banged. Race, Romeo, and Crutchie were running up to him, what looked like a letter in their hands.

“It’s from Jack,” Crutchie said grimly.

“It’s bad,” Romeo added.

A love only we understand

Scenarios raced through Davey’s head about how Jack found his blood family and no longer wanted his chosen one, he was staying in Santa Fe, he was abandoning them but he pushed those aside to read the letter.

Jack was not abandoning them for Santa Fe. He was stuck, and didn’t have enough money to get back.

I’ll come home as soon as I can. Until I have enough money, I’m staying with my aunt. Don’t worry about me, any of you. Especially you, Davey. Tell Race not to try to teach anyone to swim this year. Dave, you don’t wanna know what happened last time. I miss you all, but with luck, I’ll be home soon. Love, Jack

That was what the last paragraph of the letter said, and Davey knew it was as close as he could get to safely telling him he loved him, but that wasn’t the part he was worried about.

I will bend every light in this city

Jack wrote messy normally, but he only wrote this messy when he was upset—scared or angry.

He was worried he wouldn’t be able to get home, and Davey wasn’t about to let that happen.

And make sure they’re shining on you

“How many of the others would be willing to work extra to send Jack money to get home?”

“I will,” Race said firmly.

“I think everyone will,” Crutchie admitted, fidgeting with the grip of his crutch.

If only New York wasn’t so far away

Davey folded up the letter, putting it in his pocket.

I promise this city won’t get in our way

“We’re gonna bring him home,” he told the others firmly, “If we all work together, we can do it.”

And when you’re scared and alone, just know that I’m already home

...

“So, Racetrack and Albert are the ones who cause trouble?” Sophia asked with a laugh.

“Yeah,” Jack confirmed, “And sometimes Crutchie and Romeo, too. And they’re a handful, but at least I can tell when something’s bothering one of them. It’s the quiet ones I need to keep an eye on.”

“You have a lot of friends,” she noted.

“I do.”

Jack had been stuck in Santa Fe for a month now, saving what he could, but he also had to help Sophia pay for food, now that he was living with her.

His aunt smiled at him, “You’re so much like Anita, you know. She had a lot of friends, too. Such a big heart. I can see you got that from her.”

Jack snorted, “Well, I didn’t get it from my father.”

When life takes its own course

He still didn’t like to think about that man. Jack’s mama had deserved the best husband in the world, and instead, she’d gotten Francis Sullivan, a man who’d let a cruel world turn him cruel, too, instead of wanting to make it better.

Jack had sworn never to be like him. That was why he’d taken his mother’s maiden name, using the middle name she’d always called him by as his first. He’d decided to carry her legacy instead of his father’s.

He’d told Davey that just before leaving. He wondered what Davey was doing now, if he was back in school yet or if he’d even kept with the newsies without Jack there.

He really hoped so. Davey needed not to be alone and the others needed someone to take care of them until he got home.

“You want to know something else about your mama?”

Jack nodded eagerly. In the last month, he’d already learned more about his mother than he’d remembered on his own.

“She could never hide her feelings from me,” Sophia said simply, “When she was happy, or sad, or angry... or when she was in love.”

Jack froze.

He really liked Sophia. And he knew that the west was somewhat safer than New York for people like him, if only a little, but he wasn’t sure if his aunt was one of the people who didn’t care who other people loved. After all, she did go to church every Sunday and all that.

“You told me about your friend, Katherine,” she said, “The reporter. Is it her?”

Judging by her tone, she didn’t really think it was Katherine. Crap.

“Uh, no,” Jack responded, “I did court Kath for a while, but we broke up.”

“That girl, Sarah, then? Or was it Smalls? I can’t keep all of your friends’ nicknames straight.”

Jack was now regretting telling her about each and every one of his friends.

Because though he hadn’t told her about his relationship, he had told her about Davey.

Sophia smiled, “It’s not a girl at all, is it?”

Judging her reaction as safe as Esther and Mayer’s had been, Jack slowly shook his head.

Sometimes we just don’t get to choose

“Did you know that your grandfather had a male partner when he was young?”

“What?!”

Sophia laughed, “Many cowboys did. Not many women out west in those days, and some of them would have preferred men, even if there were. Unfortunately, Papa’s partner died young, but if he hadn’t, Papa might not have ever fallen in love with your grandmother.”

Jack was still wrapping his head around that information when his aunt spoke again.

“You must miss him.”

I’d rather be there next to you

He managed to nod, “I do. A lot.”

“Well, I hope I get to meet this man of yours someday. Which one is he?”

“Davey.”

Promise you’ll wait for me

...

Wait for me

“Damn it,” Davey swore.

Everyone had been slinging nearly twice as many papes as they usually did, Race was being more careful with betting, and even Kath had chipped in as much as she could spare since her father kicked her out. They were saving every little bit they could to send to Jack, but they barely had enough to send a letter, let alone any money in it.

It was nearly November. Which meant Davey had to choose between sending what they had to Jack or putting it toward keeping everyone alive through the winter.

Jack would know what choice to make, but he wasn’t here.

Wait till I’m home

As of now, they could pay for a letter to Santa Fe, but they’d only be able to put a couple dollars in it. Nowhere near enough for a train ticket.

“I could move out of my apartment,” Kath offered, “Staying in the Lodging House would be cheaper. I could—“

“No, Kath,” Davey mumbled, “Kloppman’s reluctant to let Smalls and Sniper stay, and they’ve been here since they were Littles. You’re a full grown woman.”

“To get Jack home, I bet I could convince him to—“

“We don’t have a bunk to spare, anyway.”

Kath shut up, still looking like she was thinking hard.

She’d already done so much for them, putting every cent she earned that didn’t need to be spent on rent or food toward bringing Jack home. She’d been taking every story available lately, from big articles like she usually took to the kind of flower show reviews she hated. And all of this was especially notable on the count that as a woman, Kath didn’t make as much as most reporters, anyway.

“Kath, you’ve done more than enough,” Davey muttered, “Winter’s coming up, and now that you’re out of your dad’s house, it’s going to be hard on you, too.”

Kath shrugged, “My reporter salary is more than most of you newsies make combined.”

“That don’t mean you can afford to be careless with it,” Davey insisted, “Kath, you’re gonna have to save up to buy yourself some real winter clothes. Less newspapers sold in colder months means less income for you, too.”

The look on her face said that she’d already thought of that, and had been planning on helping, anyway.

“I miss him,” she said finally, “And I’m worried. We haven’t heard from him in two months.”

“Believe me, I know.”

Kath sighed, “So... what are we gonna do? Save for winter, or keep saving for Jack?”

Davey really hated this choice, but he knew what he had to choose.

All I had was this feeling inside of me

“Romeo can barely fit into his shoes,” he mumbled, “Finch needs a new shirt. And that’s not even taking into account all the new kids who are gonna come ‘cause they lost parents to cold or sickness.”

Kath nodded grimly, “It’s what Jack would do.”

“I know,” Davey admitted.

The only thing I have ever known

...

If only New York wasn’t so far away

Santa Fe wasn’t even cold in winter, which made Jack feel strangely guilty. It made him think more of his kids, of Kath, Sarah, and especially of Davey, and how they had to be nearly freezing to death up in New York.

“I’m worried about them,” he admitted to Sophia.

“I’m sure they’ll be fine, Jack.”

He knew better than her that some of them probably wouldn’t be, and he wasn’t even close to having enough to go to them.

He hoped the flu didn’t come through too bad this year. They’d lost kids to it in the past.

The only thing worse than watching a kid die would be losing one and not being there for them in the end, not being able to even try to ease their pain.

Oh, God, Jack hoped Davey, Crutchie, and Race were handling things.

...

I will be there every step of the way

Davey swore under his breath as he took a step out of the bunk room for a five second break.

They didn’t know who had brought the flu home, but it was bad. Half the Lodging House was down, including Race and Crutchie. Davey was the only leader still standing.

Well, besides Katherine, technically, but they weren’t letting her in the house.

They had some medicine, bought with the money they were going to use to bring Jack home, but they couldn’t afford to give it to everyone; just the really bad cases. The cases that looked like somebody was about to die.

God, if Jack had been doing this every winter since he was 14, Davey was amazed he was still sane.

“You alright, kid?” Kloppman asked.

Davey nodded, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Kloppman raised an eyebrow, “That’s what Jack always used to say.”

“Especially when he wasn’t,” Davey mumbled, “I know. Fine. I’m not fine. Is that what you wanted me to say?”

“Bottlin’ it up never helps. I know Jack leavin’, even when it was temporary, hurt you more than the others. I know what he means to you.”

A smile flickered across Davey’s face, half-delirious. He’d always suspected Kloppman knew about them, and judging by the tone of his voice, he definitely did.

“Kid, it’s okay to miss him.”

“I do miss him. Every minute. But he’s not the one who needs me right now.”

Davey took a deep breath, grabbing a few handkerchiefs off the drying line, and headed back for the bunks full of sick kids.

“Hey, Davey?”

Davey stopped, “Yeah?”

“Thanks. For takin’ care of the boys while Jack’s gone.”

“No problem.”

Davey couldn’t imagine not taking care of them when they clearly needed him.

They needed Jack, in reality, but he would have to do for now.

God, he barely could. Especially when he needed Jack, too.

...

And when you’re scared and alone

Spring coming in Santa Fe wasn’t as noticeable as it was in New York.

Counting back the days, Jack realized that he’d been there for almost six months.

He’d been in his mother’s birthplace, his childhood fantasy, for six months.

Shit. He’d been trying not to think about it. How long he’d been gone. How different his family must be and how much they must miss him.

All he did was think about them. His brothers and sisters. The only family he’d ever known. His lover, Davey, that wonderful boy waiting for him back home.

Hopefully still waiting for him. If Davey had moved on by now, Jack wouldn’t blame him.

God, how had he taken so long to realize that they were the family he’d been looking for?

Why was he just realizing now that Davey was his Santa Fe?

“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?”

Sophia was standing on the porch behind him, and Jack had a sudden realization that from his new job to the house he was staying in with his aunt, he hadn’t spoken English in months.

He’d always loved his mama’s language. Loved speaking it with Jojo or whoever else happened to be around who understood.

He still loved it. Honestly, Jack couldn’t remember feeling as close to his mother as he did here.

But she’d been gone a long time, and he had more people he loved now still alive back in New York.

As hard as he’d tried, Davey had never been able to get Spanish. Jack missed laughing at his terrible pronunciation, then just switching to English and spending the whole night talking between kisses.

“I’m always thinkin’ ‘bout him,” he mumbled.

“I’m sure he’s thinking of you, too,” Sophia said.

Jack hoped Davey wasn’t feeling as lonely as he was right now, clinging to memories and missing the person who had become the embodiment of his dreams.

Davey wasn’t Santa Fe. He was New York.

He was Jack’s home.

Just know that I’m already home

...

Davey stared off in the direction of the train station on the first sunny day of the season.

It had been over six months since he last saw Jack Kelly.

They hadn’t lost anybody this winter, but it had come close. Now, the weather was starting to warm up, and Davey was debating whether or not to start saving for a train ticket again or not.

He was sure if Jack was still alive, he was doing everything he could to get home. He could use all the help he could get.

But on the other hand, after how close they had come to losing Crutchie, to losing Smalls and Blink, Davey wasn’t sure they shouldn’t just start saving up for next winter.

Still, he stared towards the train station. He still had dreams that he’d see a familiar silhouette coming home from there sometimes.

“Wanna go sell down there?” Crutchie asked.

They were selling together today. Les was selling with Mush.

He just shrugged, “If you want to.”

Davey was finding it hard to show enthusiasm for anything lately. He was getting to be nearly as good a liar as Jack, just smiling and joking around to hawk papers.

“He’s comin’ home. As soon as he can. Ya know that, right?”

“You don’t have to put on a happy face for me, Crutchie. I know you miss him as much as I do.”

Crutchie took a deep breath, “Yeah. Yeah, I mean, of course I do. He’s my brother, blood be damned. And we both know Race runs away to Sheepshead to hide how he does, too.”

The three of them were messes, weren’t they, desperately trying to keep the others from losing hope? Especially when they were the ones breaking the most from this.

Davey tossed an arm around his friend’s shoulders and squeezed, “Kath’s got a front page story again today. Let’s sell a ton for her.”

Crutchie grinned, elbowing him, “Of course. Bet I can sell more’n you.”

“In your dreams, Morris.”

His laugh sounded fake, but Davey didn’t let himself think about it.

One day, someone would come home from the train station.

Until then, Davey would make sure home was still there for him.

With one last glance towards the station, Davey turned and headed towards his and Crutchie’s selling spot.

Just know that I’m already home

Part 2 here!