#it started going downhill mid-'80s

[thebramblewood]

The Vatores, mid-'60s, pose for their decennial portrait while wishing you a groovy holiday season.

Everyone should force their favorite siblings into these poses by @somneasims!

[a-headless-angel]

Title: “Still open, somehow”

All photos taken by me.

Hello. And welcome to my Ted talk.

This particular mall first opened in the early ’80s, back when department stores were still king. It started out anchored by a couple of big names, and a few years later it expanded with even more recognizable stores. By the late ’90s, the whole mall under went a glow-up to stay competitive with the newer/flashier shopping malls popping up in my city.

However, by the early 2000s, things were starting to shift. The area, where the mall was built, began changing. Local politics, rising crime rates, and years of disinvestment started to take a toll. But in the mid 2000s, came the unprecedented: a natural disaster.

That event sealed the mall’s fate.

It didn’t destroy it completely, but it was the catalyst of what little momentum was left. Despite the near decline, the mall went through a series of renovations and ownership. Eventually, a mega church stepped in and took full ownership in the late 2000s.

It’s strange.

The mall technically isn’t dead, but it definitely isn’t alive. It was disappointing to see how it has gone downhill. Regardless, this mall holds a special place in my heart and too many awesome memories to mention.

I could go on and on but…

[ramblingsfromthytruly]

my academic journey (warning: i ranted) -

so ever since i started school till about the end of 8th grade i was always a 90%+/straight A student. the kind of child my classmates & cousins would be compared too. not trying to glamorize comparison btw, i personally think that's really toxic & pressurizing. so yeah, i was a "good" quiet kid. i listened attentively in class and submitted all my homework on time. the only complain teachers had about me was that i was "too quiet" but that wasn't a real issue. i was just shy but talkative with my few friends yano. i spent the entirety of 7th grade & most of 8th grade in online classes so my habits of studying went to shit. still somehow managed 91% in my 8th grade finals. and then 9th began and it all went downhill. teachers kept saying 'next year is ur board exams, u need to study a lot, etc, etc.' so if u're not from india we basically have these major 'board exams' at the end of 10th & 12th grade. but 10th boards don't really matter all that much, teachers just make a big fuss about it. 12th boards matter, but that's also the time we give college entrance exams and that sorta matters more according to most ppl. n yeah, idk what happened but i got overwhelmed. i could no longer just do well in class and study before exams and get good marks. i felt dumb. my grades didn't see a single improvement. i honestly gave up in the middle of it all and got sick of school. and at one point, it became less burn out & more clinging to the familiarity of not doing anything. i became lazy. and i became a hypocrite. i'd always tell myself, this time i'm gonna study, this time i'm gonna score well. well that 'this time' never came. 10th grade got even worse and i scored 73% in my board exams because i barely studied at all. at the same time, my relationship with my parents has constantly been unraveling. and i saw just how much of their 'pride' was dependent on me being the kid they could show off and smile widely when others replied 'wow she's going places'. my father can't hold a single conversation with me now that doesn't go back to me being a disappointment. and now i'm the kid who has to listen to her parents compare her to others. 'be like her, your friend', they say. halfway though 11th rn and i guess what?? still no fucking improvement. but the thing is i know this is the last straw. i can feel it. i got around 64% in my first tests (pa-1) of 11th. haven't gotten mid term results yet but i'm estimating just above 50%. and the thing is it's not that i can't score well. i know my potential all too well. i know i can score such high marks. but the problem is i don't study. if i just studied a couple hours every day, i can easily manage above 80%. with constant improvement i can manage above 90% again. but i don't. and that's ending right this instant. i'm not gonna turn into an academic weapon overnight or smth ik that. but i'm gonna start slowly but surely working hard. i have big dreams, i know i can achieve them if i just put in the effort. plans have been made, all i need to do is execute them. execute my laziness. i'm gonna get better. i'm gonna prove everyone who thinks i'm never gonna do it wrong, and i'm gonna prove myself right. this comeback will be for me, my inner child. the little kid in me deserves to not wind up a washed-out failure.

academic goals! -

pa-2 - 75-80%

11th finals - 80-85%

12th pa-1 - above 90%

uni - iiser (college for pure science research, bs + ms integrated)

[tired-n-trying]

my academic journey (warning: i ranted) -

so ever since i started school till about the end of 8th grade i was always a 90%+/straight A student. the kind of child my classmates & cousins would be compared too. not trying to glamorize comparison btw, i personally think that's really toxic & pressurizing. so yeah, i was a "good" quiet kid. i listened attentively in class and submitted all my homework on time. the only complain teachers had about me was that i was "too quiet" but that wasn't a real issue. i was just shy but talkative with my few friends yano. i spent the entirety of 7th grade & most of 8th grade in online classes so my habits of studying went to shit. still somehow managed 91% in my 8th grade finals. and then 9th began and it all went downhill. teachers kept saying 'next year is ur board exams, u need to study a lot, etc, etc.' so if u're not from india we basically have these major 'board exams' at the end of 10th & 12th grade. but 10th boards don't really matter all that much, teachers just make a big fuss about it. 12th boards matter, but that's also the time we give college entrance exams and that sorta matters more according to most ppl. n yeah, idk what happened but i got overwhelmed. i could no longer just do well in class and study before exams and get good marks. i felt dumb. my grades didn't see a single improvement. i honestly gave up in the middle of it all and got sick of school. and at one point, it became less burn out & more clinging to the familiarity of not doing anything. i became lazy. and i became a hypocrite. i'd always tell myself, this time i'm gonna study, this time i'm gonna score well. well that 'this time' never came. 10th grade got even worse and i scored 73% in my board exams because i barely studied at all. at the same time, my relationship with my parents has constantly been unraveling. and i saw just how much of their 'pride' was dependent on me being the kid they could show off and smile widely when others replied 'wow she's going places'. my father can't hold a single conversation with me now that doesn't go back to me being a disappointment. and now i'm the kid who has to listen to her parents compare her to others. 'be like her, your friend', they say. halfway though 11th rn and i guess what?? still no fucking improvement. but the thing is i know this is the last straw. i can feel it. i got around 64% in my first tests (pa-1) of 11th. haven't gotten mid term results yet but i'm estimating just above 50%. and the thing is it's not that i can't score well. i know my potential all too well. i know i can score such high marks. but the problem is i don't study. if i just studied a couple hours every day, i can easily manage above 80%. with constant improvement i can manage above 90% again. but i don't. and that's ending right this instant. i'm not gonna turn into an academic weapon overnight or smth ik that. but i'm gonna start slowly but surely working hard. i have big dreams, i know i can achieve them if i just put in the effort. plans have been made, all i need to do is execute them. execute my laziness. i'm gonna get better. i'm gonna prove everyone who thinks i'm never gonna do it wrong, and i'm gonna prove myself right. this comeback will be for me, my inner child. the little kid in me deserves to not wind up a washed-out failure.

[hazbin-hotel-the-rewrite]

(TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of abuse towards humans)

"Baxter" Fischer, Lived until his mid-twenties (26) and died in a drowning due to a boat crash while traveling to America after WW1 to try and start a new life and make a name for himself in the American Science community.

Fischer was involved during their time in Germany as a research assistant to their town's local scientist a rather mad one though; together they would "research" humans to test them out to see how far the human's sanity and morality can last in very stress environments it had...mixed results, but it was entertaining to research and they would give them different concoctions of medicine and liquids to give them to...enhance their behaviors.

Afterward, Fishcer decided to move to America but before they could reach America the boat Fischer was on crashed and sank Fischer drowned as they were being wrapped by angler fish.

After getting into Hell, Fischer was very pissed and tired after all their hard work they get rewarded by going to hell; well at least it wasn't all that bad for the first few decades, they could do new and more interesting experiments and even had a lab partner who was a rather snake-like fellow but due to differences in science, they broke off in a rather explosive way.

Around the late 80s, Fischer decided to change their name from [REDACTED] to Baxter, identified themselves now as a male, and had some fun modifying his body, but of course, things went way downhill for Baxter when the research center where he worked at got sold out for one of the big overlords known as VOX. And all the people who weren't under his contracts were told to leave.

So now Baxter is nothing more than a washed-out old scientist whose experiments barely saw the light of day, he could barely pay for rent each month, and VOX turned his old workplace into the now VVVcorp building. Until... he remember seeing some Ads about the princess of hell opening a rehab hotel for people who want to be redeemed...this could be the place to get a free room and maybe work on a new science experimtent.

Facts about Baxter:

Baxter was raised in a small German town with a mother a father and an older brother who ended up going into WWI...that brother never came back.

2. Besides Baxter and Doctor Ackermann doing horrible experiments on people, Baxter was also a very hardcore Agnostic who dismissed people's views on religion which might have also been another key as to why he was sent to hell.

3. Baxter is a Transgender man who discovered after he went to hell and did his own self-transformation, but he is still attracted to women; although Baxter's romance is low due to their interest being more into his experiments he still would fall in love with a women if theirs a build-up and or if they would respect him.

4. Baxter has their own room in the hotel and uses the basement for experiments with Charlie's permission and Aggie has to supervise him so that he doesn't exploded the entire building.

5.Favorite foods are: Coffee(an unhealthy amount of it too), and unhealthy amount of sweets(Like chocolate both human and hells)

6. Their height is currently 5"2 (157.48cm)

7. With Baxter now joining Cry and Angel Charlie dubbed the group the "ABC rehab Gang!" (Which Crymini hates, Angel thinks its cute and Baxter doesn't care)

8. now has an underbite(when alive they had an overbite)

[the-firebird69]

XPremium Black | Mid-Drive eBike | Lectric eBikes

This is my bike and it is what used to start and is electric like he said and the top speed is probably around 50 mph if you change the tires and that's very fast for the evike it's scooter speed and if you don't change the tires it's like 45 miles an hour. It only uses One battery at a time it's not a huge motor it's a 500 w for him he would need a 750 but with that motor the top speed is about 70 mph just like we've been talking about. And it goes on the chain drive and it's for sale now and I'm making a lot of them. I'm going to have to take a lot more. And the distance it goes is about 120 miles on two batteries with me on it and I weigh 125 lb with him and a 750 watt it was about 80 miles with two batteries and he says twice as much as he gets now and he says also it depends on how you use it I'm saying average use and you got 30 miles an hour and it gets the best mileage and you can probably do that he says on the road it's actually true if you go right down the middle of the road you can get the best mileage I'm converting some of these two mopeds and I'm leaving the foldable option and so people can bring it into work and it's working great and this is partly his suggestions for the design he had a lot of design input what is concerned about was he weighs a lot and I fix that and he looked at it and said it's not bad and things would fit nicely in his small apartment and it would it would fit in the corner and he has space for a desk and I'm starting to think that this is a nice bike for him and so is he his wife seems to still be keep going no I don't what it goes through. Part of the reason is I wanted him to go up to the northern laundromat but it's not really a car and with him in the laundry on it the battery get burned out faster and his is going along faster too so the greatest idea what he's doing but improved that it can do the job he's a big guy he's got a hundred and twenty pounds on me that's another one of me and he's a bear and these people are nuts here they don't want to leave alone and he doesn't do anything to anybody for the most part the hell there kind of abusive but the empire is pushing them around that much but they go to the best. He saw a couple up there and he said those are the best and I said why I said you put a like an Enduro tire and he said v tire sandstorm and I saw them with it and instead it goes like 70 miles an hour. Not real big and before they get like 50 or a little bit under and didn't think it was that great they put the tires on it he has and they said this is the fastest bike on Earth and I keep telling him that's what it is

Bg

It's just a small difference in design but it makes a lot of sense cuz people have been using the bicycle to go faster and not slower and these e-bikes are ridiculous you can't go in traffic and you can't do anything now there are older mid drive that you can switch over to the other side a lot of mid drive are on the chain and they noticed that they're just faster so they're trying to buy them and there aren't that many of them out there so they are actually buying conversion kits and they're buying a regular wheel and it is a big big business right now and we said that they're everywhere and they really are you thought it was a fable again but it's not so you changing tires on these and they go all you have to do and they feel very fast with our son on it with his feet tire sandstorm vee tire and we seen someone who weighs 250 they go about 60 to 65 mph on this bike on a flat terrain going downhill it's like 70 and I'll tell you what they can go to traffic all the time I haven't seen anybody have more fun than on this bike and they bring it to work put it in the office cubicle and they ride it home and when you're bringing it on to the elevator has a little handle and you screwed along on one wheel and you don't have to scooch over mostly it's really nice and our son and daughter help design it.

She behaves like the redhead in the iron Man movies and that's Sarah like she's not doing anything and then one day in the movie and people caught it she came up and she started talking about it and she left and that's what she does but not in person not out loud and she was kind of brutish but that's not what she does but she she does stuff I know it's not Brutus

Thor Freya

Olympus

[hyperact]

02/09/23

recapping everything that's been happening to me...

i made it to third sem *crowd cheers*

osjur. a LOT of pros and very little cons

college starts. kinda mid as of now

well, since i will be in my second year of my college, here's a few goals i have been hoping to achieve:

learning new skills. i will try to enroll to MySkill by next week and hopefully i would be discipline enough to achieve my goals. i want to learn at least 5 skills, especially about data analyzing and business plans, in the six months of my enrollment and implement the concepts and mindset i've studied during my osjur

since i have been accepted into my himpunan jurusan, i want to be active and know more people in there. i will join at least 3 kepanitiaan, either within himpunan or at college in general within my second year

last but not least, i will keep my GPA gradient positive and receive 0 B grades on my second year while maintaining my relationship

now that that's done, let's recap my life!

my friendship with my college friends from high school is at an all time low. frankly, i don't really care because our circle has been described as too apathetic and [redacted]-based. also, i have new friends! i'm genuinely happy about it and i hope it can get to a deeper friendship. i also have been trying to be active and contribute something to my angkatan, especially since we'll be very very busy soon.

next. osjur has been very fun! i won't be saying too much but they have teach me a LOT of things and i will try to implement each of it to my daily life.

my relationship with d is... well it's not going anywhere. actually, it's probably going downhill since we'll only meet when we pass by every wednesday. i'm 80% fine with it, romantic relationship isn't really something i look for, as long as d stays as my friend i will be happy.

i've been trying to save money too! it's currently at 33% of the goal i make. but at the same time i've been spending money on merch and i promise i would budget better haha. merch buying will be only once a month max and if i buy merch, then i am not allowed to check-out anything from shoppee and vice versa.

i haven't been very clean lately... i should call someone to clean my room and laundry my stuff. i should also buy and stock food for my midnight snacks. also: i should continue walking to campus, it's the only physical exercise i do.

i've stick lots of photobooth pics and letters i receive on my wall as a way to make myself feel happier. i think it's working. i'm trying to change the way i speak because i feel like i sound angry or annoyed whenever i criticize or talk about something passionately. hopefully it worked...

lastly: i want to eat pork so badly.

[allronix]

True. The EU wasn't well known outside of nerds (and being a fanfic writer with a brother in law whose house resembles the Jedi archives, I forget that a bit). I'd be remiss in saying that wasn't a pretty hefty factor.

I think part of it is that the EU started going grimdark at around the same time the PT was in development or hitting theaters, the late 1990s and 2000s. One fed into the other. As the Prequels started becoming more and more depressing, so did everything else. Legends is actually still chugging along because SWTOR is like a dinosaur who missed the invite to the meteor shower.

Disney may be its own canon and rather glad it is, but they only pretend not to sneak a ton of the old "Legends canon" in the back door, with the writers of Disney canon HEAVILY influenced by it . I can totally see that they took elements from Jacen Solo to whip up Kylo Ren. They ported in Thrawn. There's a bit of Jaina Solo in Rey's design. The writers for TLJ and The Acolyte (two of the most depressing Disney entries) cite a particular piece of EU, that being KOTOR 2.

I know you haven't played those games, but...well, KOTOR 2 was written by a guy with a philosophy degree he likes to take out of the frame and wave around. And KOTOR 2 is quite bleak. You wake up on a space station full of corpses and things go downhill from there. EVERY character archetype gets turned on its head at some point. But it is an elaborate and thoughtful examination of the morality and setting of Star Wars that it's become "required reading."

You also have aspects of The Mandalorian and Bad Batch that take inspiration from Republic Commando and other entries from Karen Traviss. Traviss was...controversial (to put it mildly) but she leaned in hard to the screwed up aspects of the Clone Troopers, the Jedi attachment policies, and the crooked parts of the Republic to "can't unsee it" levels. She's pretty easy to hate with her occasional wild takes and complete lack of tact, but you also can't talk Mandos or Clone Troopers without mentioning her.

Y'know how Watchmen came out in the mid 80s and changed the game on comic books? The next decade was trying to reply to Watchmen, either by going Gritty McGrimdark on their costumed heroes or trying to debunk the cynical conclusions Watchmen came to regarding costumed heroes.

Star Wars is still kinda stuck in trying to rebuild from its grimdark era that was in place during the Disney buyout. Disney may be trying to make its own canon, but the writers are all very steeped in that 90s and 00s depressing output.

Star Wars isn't a tragedy. Only the Prequels are. Disney (and most of tumblr it seems) may think all of Star Wars is supposed percieved in a sad or tragic manner, but it's not. Return of the Jedi is triumphant, redemptive, and uplifiting. It's the fairytale ending that bookends the greek tragedy. The combination of fall and then redemption of the human soul is the entire point.

Anakin is a tragic character, but the Skywalker saga itself NOT meant to be tragic, neither in its tone nor its actual outcome.

[venomroses]

for the younger Dr. D headcanons:

- I think his DJ name was inspired by a pre-killjoys nickname: Doc, which people still call him cuz that’s how he introduces himself to everyone. Probably given to him by his dad or something.

- Doc was pretty much raised by his only older brother. But he never saw him as a parental figure.

- The radio DJ dream was well underway by the time he was supposed to graduate high school. He wanted to start his own radio station for their small town. Like 13,000 residents small. They didn’t even have a local radio station, and he wanted to at least make stuff interesting and play a lot of rock music if everyone was going to be stuck there for the rest of their lives.

- Obviously he was a total music nerd but I Also think he read a lot of books and poetry to perfect that speaking in riddles thing he always does.

- ^ this is probably the first example of him using escapism to distract himself from the very average, borderline repressed life he lived before the apocalypse. Later it manifests in his radio personality and *literally* living through the end of the world.

- Missed Metallica’s tour with Guns n’ Roses and still thinks about it decades after the world ends.

- Visited family in Mexico a lot, so he’s decent in Spanish although he became less fluent over time due to lack of exposure.

- Probably also liked movies. I can see him being into 80s stuff. Mostly action movies but he’d watch literally anything with Patrick Swayze in it.

- Considered going to college, really wanted to actually. But his brother managed to guilt trip him into not pursuing it to “support the family”. And Doc resented him for a long time after that because he had to suffer from the mess his brother made. Doc was never glad the world ended, but if it hadn’t he’s not sure they’d even still be alive (minus his brother).

- Joined the army out of high school. He didn’t really want to but he had to put food on the table somehow so that was it. Did a tour of eastern europe circa mid-90’s (got his ass kicked) and got back around 2000 with 6 years to spare before Helium 1. And everything went downhill from there 💀

THANK YOUUU i love these so much I would lovee to hear more about his brother and their relationship if you wanna talk about it!!

[2wheels1bite]

“I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Dark rain clouds were to the east, bright red clouds to the west as I was riding south on one of the most iconic roads in New England. If you’re a motorcyclist you most likely have heard, and hopefully taken your motorcycle up and down Vermont's route 100.

At this moment the reflecting sunset that was setting towards the west was transforming those angry gray clouds to bright red bursts in the sky

I was following a good friend, a motorcycle friend just finishing up a fantastic day of riding motorcycles around the back roads of Vermont.

Early October in this part of New England you can count on Mother Nature to put on a show for you, and it’s free! All you need to do is go outside and open your eyes and look around. Or you can do one better, hop on your motorcycle and go experience it in a way that really cannot be explained or truly shown in photos.

We were talking in our helmets, the ability to communicate with a Passenger or fellow riders these days is another gift from technology. We had spent the entire day chatting about life, motorcycles and everything in between. I don’t remember what exactly he was saying to me as we came around a gentle downhill right hand corner, but I Interrupted Karl with just one word…..”wow!”

The hill in front of us was alive in bright yellows, Oranges and reds. There may have been a few green leaves mixed in but my goodness you could not see anything but those bright colors.

In my head I thought my god I always fall in love again with October every year ! I’ve lived in New England my whole life, And started traveling on my motorcycle around this great area back in the mid 80s. One of the very first rides I ever took was on a 1985 ninja 600 up to find this road I had heard about in northern Vermont, Smugglers Notch . Doing so I also discovered route 100, and then the beautiful sites of Vermont in October.

If you have a chance go see what I’m talking about, it’s somewhere along the ride, a left hand corner or was it a right hand corner?

Either way you can't miss it! You need to go experience this in person.

If you’ve already been there go find the pleasure in doing it again !

[lampmeeting]

D for Charles/Magnus, I for Magnus/Toki, L for Charles/Pickles, and F for Melm/JT.

eeehEHEHEHE DILF *rubs my little hands together* don't mind if i do~

D for Drunken Love Confession - Charles/Magnus

pre-klok. :') magnus has been chipping away at charles' resolve. there's just something about the bookish, put-together little chuck offdensen that makes magnus wanna break through all his defenses and see him come undone. he always did like a challenge. they have heated, passionate debates about the direction of the band. they get in each other's faces. magnus even kissed him once, but charles pushed him away, furious and blushing, and demanded he leave his office.

after six months of this weirdly charged back-and-forth they have, the band invites charles to come drinking with them to celebrate pickles' birthday. charles declines, concerned they're just inviting him to come because they want someone else to play designated driver. but magnus intervenes like "nah i'm driving tonight, promise. so go nuts." and charles seems to think it over... and eventually agrees.

so they all go out! at first charles seems to be pacing himself, but pickles gets shots, and it's all downhill from there. magnus, staying dutifully sober, watches the rest of the band + charles get sloppy and silly, not minding in the slightest the way charles leans against him a little in the booth and touches him when he laughs. he starts to regret not getting drunk himself, but he'd promised charles. it's enough just to see charles' mask slip, albeit not quite in the way magnus wanted. but he'll take it for now.

at the end of the night, magnus drops the band off at the apartment and then continues on to charles' place. he pulls up, and charles tries to get out of the car, but stumbles and falls. he's a lot more fucked up than magnus suspected. magnus helps him to the door, but charles seriously looks like he's about to black out, so he takes him inside, cleans him up a little, and puts him to bed (on his side, in the recovery position, he knows the drill). before he leaves, he can't help himself... he runs fingers through charles' sweaty hair and strokes his jaw. charles opens his eyes, seeming surprised that magnus is still there, and then... he smiles at him. a genuine smile. and as his eyes close again, he whispers something that freezes magnus in place.

"...mmfm...mmlove you..."

"...what?"

but charles is under again, and magnus leaves in a panic. charles doesn't, can't, have feeling for him. that's too much. magnus just wanted some fun, right? maybe get charles worked up enough for an angry fuck. but...love?

magnus can't sleep. the next time magnus sees charles, charles pulls him aside. "i apologize that you had to babysit me like that the other night. i can't exactly recall everything that happened, so if i said or did anything, ah...embarrassing, i'm very sorry."

so charles doesn't remember what he said. or he does and he's just trying to save face. magnus should be relieved about this, but for some reason his heart feels suddenly sore...

"oh, yeah, no...you were out like a light. don't worry about it."

--

I for "Idiots in Love" - Toki/Magnus

post-post-galaktikon. weirdly enough i'd probably write this from like nathan's pov or something. he's having everyone over to the house for some reason, maybe a holiday or his daughter's first birthday or something (her cool uncles wouldn't dream of missing it). this means..... rrugghhgh magnus is coming over. it's the first time he's interacted with magnus since pickles and charles' wedding, so maybe a good couple years, and he's not looking forward to it.

everyone arrives. toki and magnus are the last to show up, and nathan has to do a double-take because this is SO not magnus. half his hair is back in a ponytail, he's let his beard grow in some, and he's wearing a sweater?? and he's smiling? he genuinely seems happy to see nathan, gives him a hug, says a warm hello to abby.

over the course of the afternoon nathan has to keep looking at him and reminding himself that's magnus fucking hammersmith because he's just so... animated? friendly? he's sitting next to toki and they're holding hands, and when others are talking the two of them are making eyes at each other and cuddling and laughing at little things they seem to be sharing between themselves. they're being a couple of absolute goofballs together, and honestly it's a bit sickening to watch. is magnus just faking this?

at some point nathan excuses himself to the kitchen for something, and while he's in there he's joined by magnus, considerably more subdued.

"sorry, man, i just...i thought maybe we could talk for a sec."

so they talk. they catch up a little. nathan learns magnus has been hitting the therapy especially hard over the past year, making some meaningful strides. it's not an act, he's genuinely happier now. or at least trying to be.

"i mean, you know how it is, nate, right? doesn't abby make you wanna be better just because she exists and she loves you?"

okay, nathan can understand that. he still doesn't understand... them. but it really seems like magnus has turned a corner, which... good for him, he supposes. as long as he's treating toki well.

when they return to the party, nathan watches magnus sit back down with toki and give him a kiss like he'd been gone all month, and they giggle to themselves again. this time, it seems...all right.

--

L for "Love at First Sight" - Charles/Pickles

i'm gonna flip the script here!! i've already done the whole "charles sees pickles on stage and goes gaga for him" twice now... so i'd pull away from the 80s and do a fic where they actually did meet for the first time in the mid-90s when pickles was in dethklok.

so they've got their shitty original manager (the one from doomstar) still, and he's just not pulling his weight. he's managing a few other bands and his heart isn't in dethklok the way it used to be. pickles is worried they're stagnating, and when he learns that it's been magnus lately making sure they get booked, that's the last straw. they all come together, and they tell the dude to fuck off. but then this leaves them without a manager. magnus offers, but pickles has already been wary about how possessive magnus seems about the band recently, so when pickles says no the rest of them vote the same.

pickles blows through his old contacts looking to dig up some manager from his past who can either wants to manage dethklok or has connections to someone else. no dice. skwisgaar comes up with no one. magnus is still trying to campaign for himself. shit gets dire when somehow seth finds out dethklok is lacking management and leaves pickles a voicemail offering his "valuable fuckin' services". pickles blows his fucking top, swearing and screaming. "HOW HARD IS IT TO FIND ONE GUY CAPABLE OF MANAGING A FUCKIN' BAND??"

the doorbell rings, and pickles, still raging, throws it open.

"WHAT??"

"ahh!"

it's just... a dude. like a normal-ass dude. glasses. a nice dress shirt and slacks. nice hair. handsome. he's nervous as shit, but that almost makes him more handsome.

"i, ah...i-i was told that van on the street belongs to, ah...to someone here? i clipped the, ah, the bumper. just a little. but it's noticeable."

anger forgotten, pickles just... stares at him. are his eyes green or brown? and that jawline...

the man shifts his weight just a bit, peeking into the apartment with wide, curious eyes. "sorry, that, ah... that's quite the drum kit."

"huh?" pickles looks back at it and steps inside, and the man follows as if he's simply meant to be there. "oh, yeah, thanks. you play?"

"hardly. a small jazz kit in college for a friend's music project but it, ah, obviously didn't go anywhere." the man glances around and seems to realize that he's just waltzed inside. "right, ah, so about the van--" he pulls out his card. charles f. offdensen of finch & associates. an honest-to-god lawyer. huh. so he's a smart guy. good-looking to boot. knows a bit about music, apparently. and he's looking to make things right about hitting the van...

pickles smiles, hearts in his eyes. "ya like metal, charlie?"

--

F for "Fake Dating" - Melmord/Twinkletits

aaahahah... okay. so, this would be when melm is living with john as part of his continued therapy. a few months pass, and they've actually become good friends, melm thinks, not just therapist and patient. it's nice living there with john.

and then, john gets a call from his ex-wife, joy. she's in town, and she wants to come over for dinner one night before she leaves. the only thing is, she's got her new fiance in tow. she and john ended on pretty mutual terms, so there's really no bitterness there, but even so, john knows it's going to be an unpleasant evening. and then there's the question of what to do about melmord.

"you can just stuff me in a back room and pretend i don't exist. i'll be real quiet."

"absolutely not, you've been watching too many sitcoms."

"excuse you, that's jane eyre."

john just doesn't exactly know how to approach explaining melmord's presence in the house. because he knows joy, and joy will ask.

"tell her i'm a friend who needed a place to crash?"

"joy knows i don't do friends anymore."

ouch go melm's feelings.

"well, uh... you could just tell her the truth? that i'm your patient and i live with you?"

john pulls a face. "absolutely not."

in a flash of sitcom inspiration, melm snaps his fingers. "i got it! i'm your boyfriend! we'll pretend to date!"

"pretend to--?? mel, honey, no. okay? i understand you're trying to help, but--"

"but what? what's your brilliant idea, doc?"

cut to john introducing melmord to his ex-wife.

"and this is my... well, he's uh, my boyfriend actually. my boyfriend melmord."

melm is all smiles as he leans in and takes joy's hand. "please, just call me mel."

and then of course at the end of a long night, joy and her fiance leave, and john and melm pat each other on the back for a job well done. they really gave it their all, put on a convincing performance full of long embraces and doting glances and romantic touches. neither of them really want to talk about how easily it came to them, and how unwilling they both are to bring it to an end.

"well, uhh... good night, then." john chuckles. "darling."

"yeah, haha, sleep good, uh... sugarbear."

they laugh. they're standing in the hall laughing. they should really move apart from each other and go to their respective rooms if they're going to sleep, but they're not moving. and they're still laughing. and now melmord is touching john's shirt, fingering a button, and john has a hand on melm's hip...

"maybe," melm says quietly, "we can just pretend for, like... a little longer?"

[themilkoviches]

Hey Kam, happy Saturday! Here are some questions for youuuu:

I used to live with a girl who refused to watch anything made after the year 2000. Do you like old movies? And what is your definition of an old movie?

Have you ever bought anything off the tv? If yes, what?

What is your favourite word right now and why?

😊🖤

Hi Howl! Happy Saturday to you too!

1. For starters, I can’t believe that about your roommate? I honestly love some good mid-2000’s movies even though most 2010’s movies I’m just like, “Eh…” over. That’s when it started going downhill to me. I do like old movies though, yes! One of my favorite movies is from the 80’s. I love a good old horror movie in particular though. The oldies are the best ones. I guess I would consider 70’s and 80’s ‘old’ movies now, but not 90’s yet for sure.

2. I have never bought anything from the TV, no. If you’re talking like informercials, growing up my mom was always super skeptical of that stuff and never bought it, so I guess that carried over into me being an adult I guess.

3. Never thought about it. ‘Fuck’ is always towards the top for me always. It’s versatile. It’s a mood. I guess that’s what I’ll go with!

Thank you for the questions! Hope your day/night is lovely for you! ❤️

[formulinos]

Hyperfixation Corner | The 1982 Formula One World Championship, Part 4 | The Triumph of Keke Rosberg and the Grief of Ferrari

there are wacky seasons in formula one. some have 5, 6 drivers fighting for the championship right until the end. there are mid-season changes. but then there is one who separated weak boys from repressed men and created the collective generational trauma for those who went through the absolute fucking hell that was 1982 formula one world championship. fittingly enough, the person who won it wasn't the greatest winner, but almost literally the one left standing.

background: the fisa-foca war

physics for psychopaths: the killer regulations of the 70s-80s

heating the tires: the drivers strike in kyalami!

the 1982 formula one world championship, or, the triumph of keke rosberg and the grief of ferrari

this is the fourth (and last!) part of a series i'm doing this week, fruit of a month of investigation and bingewatching. please consider giving me any sort of sign of life once you read it! liking and reblogging is great, but comments and asks are just fine too! even just a letter saying "dumb" will suffice. we also touch some heavy topics - even though i don't go into detail - so please be careful as you read it! thanks a lot, today especially to those of you who are supporting this series since the start of the week and those who have me heard despair about writing it! this work was a suggestion of the great @hurricanewindattack and while i have an idea of what i want to do for the next ones, i am always open to suggestions. thanks once more and let's FINALLY get to the rest of the series.

4)  the 1982 formula one season, or, the triumph of keke rosberg and the grief of ferrari

I'm so tired, Robbie. We've already established that FISA and FOCA were going at it, that the car regulations were enough to ship a man straight to the moon and that the drivers were capable of creating a mosh pit and putting everyone inside it if they had to. We had ONE race and there is a strike then everyone gets suspended. I have to say you guys, it's only downhill from here. There were 15 or so races and everything happened, so prepare for 2 paragraphs per race in this bitch. I'm not sorry, honestly, you are embarking on this journey with me knowing fully well what i'm capable of.

After the whole South Africa shenanigans - which, btw, was won by Alain Prost, with Carlos Reutemann's Williams standing between him and his Renault teammate René Arnoux in the top 3 - and the cancellation of the Argentinian Grand Prix, Brazil was going to host the second race of the season in March (that, to be honest, feels like the proper beginning of the tournament). Curiously enough, it's during this race weekend that Nelson Piquet gives one of the most accurate interviews of his life, unfortunately:

The race wraps with Piquet and his new water cooled brakes Brabham winning in his home soil, so tired that he fainted on the podium celebrations, while Keke Rosberg was on second using the same technology and Prost was in third alongside his turbo charged car. The footage is so unintentionally funny, when Nelson faints Keke was looking the other way so it's a domino effect in slow motion while Alain looks like he has no idea what's happening.

However, FIA thought the new tech was a bit sketchy. There's not even any "Physics" tbh, basically the "water cooling" technology were two heavy tanks of water that would make the car heavier for pre-race weighing. Throughout the race, the cars would just empty their tanks and become lighter (and faster) and because this was the 80s, they would be allowed to re-fill them before the post-race scrutineering so it went back to legality. When the morons at FISA realised they were let had, they took away both Nelson's win and Keke's podium - since both Brabham and Williams had similar rig - gifting first place to Prost. Bernie was livid and here go hell come. Again.

Note: it was here that, in Carlos Reutemann's end, he decided to be done with racing. He had seen it all anyway, the glory of a championship, the accidents and the politics of F1. The bottom line for him was that, besides everything that was going on, he was an Argentinian driving for a British team in the height of the Malvinas war. It was time to let the fat lady sing and hit the door.

They moved on to Long Beach for the first out of THREE grand prix they would hold in the United States this year and at this moment everyone was lost in the sauce AND in the game to be honest. Ferrari decided to show up to the grand prix with two rear wings (SIDE BY SIDE), just to show the extent of the regulations' stupidity. They were like "we either don't get disqualified and you look dumb bc you allowed this or you disqualify us and look dumb because this is technically what you HAVE been allowing all along." Like, thank you, but also, why? Also, can the SF21 be like this.

The way even with a Wacky Races-worthy car he still managed to have an exciting battle with Keke and almost got podium....

TBF, it went well, since the guy who was driving it, Gilles Villeneuve, got to third after all, following Niki Lauda in his first win since returning from retirement and Keke Rosberg's now legal Williams. However, because Ken Tyrell was salty, Ferrari's double winged car got disqualified and gave place to Riccardo Patrese. Can you sense the running theme here? No? OK, i'll give you a few more races.

Oh, by the way, remember the whole appeal about the Brabham wet car? It got denied by FIA's court of appeal and Nelson and Keke lost their podiums. Bernie was throwing a HUUUUGE temper tantrum over it since the water cooling system was basically his first way of responding to the bitching turbo charged cars of the manufacturers and going toe-to-toe with them. Most of the other FOCA teams were like "Bernie shut the fuck up no one noticed that we also have water cooled cars" but it was too late. One for all and all for one and we were heading to YET another episode of the FISA-FOCA war on the opening round of the European leg at the Autodromo di Imola.

Again, these men were slick - call them Pirelli tires. Bathed in baby oil. FOCA needed to find a way to look, so they come up to FISA like "hey babes so the San Marino GP is right on the way and you guys are saying that our water tanks aren't that cash money so can we have one more week so we can get these guys off blease?". FISA, of course they would, just said "naur". and then they went "oop! i guess we have to boycott the grand prix then! can't help being constructors!". 

Race week comes, only Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Renault are there - the turbo charged girlbosses at FISA. Toleman arrives shortly after since they were so new to the game they couldn't even join FOCA yet, followed by two smaller FOCA teams, ATS and Osella, who claimed they were also getting fed up with the situation but in reality? They were just happy they would probably be able to qualify all their cars. The last team to join, hilariously so, was fucking Tyrell, one of the key players at FOCA who were practically broke - they spent two years without any sponsors before signing with Candy and Imola Ceramica, two Italian companies who OBVIOUSLY would want them to race in Imola. 

Yep, only 14 drivers in a grand prix, just a bit over half of what the season so far had seen on the grid and the triple of total cars in F1 contention that year. Easy race then, right?

Ok, so far in this post i have been relatively quiet about Ferrari, which, honestly, usually means trouble. In context, even though in pre-season the terrific Ferrari 126C2 was incredibly fast and seemingly reliable by the way, if you want to see pictures of the babe that the 126C2 was, look no further: @hurricanewindattack's paper crafts have far more details than any other pictures could do it justice and I HIGHLY recommend you guys check their blog out.

What more could you want? Look at that suspension, baby!

However, the dream team led by Pironi and Villeneuve hadn't managed to capitalise on it, with Didier only having one point after the first three races and Gilles none after his DSQ in Long Beach. When they arrived to the sacred ground of Imola and found out that it was basically going to be a battle between them and Renault to sort out who would take the win, it wasn't a matter of if, but who for Ferrari. The actual race started with a Renault 1-2, but luck played a factor into it when both of those went kaput and Villeneuve and Pironi inherited their positions.

Indeed, there was no need whatsoever anymore for them to race the rest of the grid, they might not have had as much experience with the turbos in comparison to Renault's but they still had a turbocharger and with their competition in the pits, it was fiiiine. They could in theory race each other, but this was just race four of the year and there would be plenty more opportunity for them to do so over the next 12 races. It was, therefore, quite vital in Ferrari's eyes that they brought the full points to the team at the end of the 60 laps: no mistakes, no tomfoolery, no mechanical failures. 

The order was simple: slow down. By simple, I mean that the more you think about it the less you get it. Like, what does it mean, do they want these guys to just lower their speed but keep the fight or do they want them to basically vibe and bring the car home? Pironi thought the first option, while Villeneuve thought the second. So, when Didier first overtook Gilles, he was like "bestie is so thoughtful of our tifosi crowd trying to make it interesting for them :D let's go bestie!"... but two laps later when Pironi still was in the lead, it was ON. They battled hard, Gilles got the lead back only for Pironi to snatch it back from his hands in time for the checkered flag.

Gilles was mad. GOOPED. He refused to take part in the post-podium victory lap and left the GP storming, saying that he would never speak to Pironi again and that they would settle the score. 

I'm kinda obsessed with the concept of post-race clarity when the driver that gets the best out of it just comes out of his trance and realised what he did. Didier's little podium smirk just screams "oh boy I am SO FUCKED after this," it's brilliant.

The garages couldn't even try to make it better considering the poetic nature of a team order such as "slow down" meant that not even Mauro Forghieri and Marco Piccinini, then Ferrari head engineer and team principal, respectively, quite knew where they wanted to get at. Gilles, I believe, spoke every single profanity you could imagine about Pironi and declared their friendship was over and they weren't on speaking terms anymore. Pironi was ok with it, since his POV was that he hadn't done anything wrong. Let the racing do the talking? Even better, let the drivers do the talking immediately after the race as they always do.

Pironi: People seem to think we had the battle of our lives! I was coasting those last 15 laps. The 'slow' sign means only to use your head [... not that] if you think you can win, don't do it.

Villeneuve: I've declared war. Absolute war. Finishing second is one thing – I'd have been mad at myself for not being quick enough if he'd beaten me. But finishing second because the bastard steals it…

The fact is that when they got to Zolder for the Belgian Grand Prix, they were interested in settling the score on track. I'm not going to say the details here, there's no need for that. All you need to know is that Pironi had locked sixth place during qualis 0.1 seconds ahead of Gilles, who went for a fast lap with 10 minutes left on the clock. When he got to it, Jochen Mass was riding slower than him, and in a misunderstanding they both turned at the same time to let each other through, kind of like we do with strangers on the street. Unfortunately, it was a racing incident Gilles would never recover from and his passing was confirmed on the same day. It didn't even take the confirmation for Ferrari to withdraw from the grand prix, only finding a "replacement" for Gilles in Patrick Tambay 4 rounds later.

It's a romantic idea, I think, to speculate about how Gilles went all in because he was careless and all he could think about was beating Pironi, but the bottom line is: driving was incredibly dangerous, claiming people every season - time elapsed between that Piquet quote and the Belgian GP was less than two months. It's true that drivers can't really think too much about the ephemerality of life or else they might lose the spark, but this was particularly valid for that period between the 70s and 80s when the teams were so lost in their own games of beating each other that they weren't concerned about how that would impact the people inside the cars - and to be fair, at 1982 drivers were clearly as I have stated so far highly dedicated to improving the safety regulations. Fuck, Zolder held the grand prix in Belgium only because 10 years prior to this the drivers had refused to drive in a much more deadly configuration of Spa-Francochamps! It was raining, but there was 10 minutes left to try to improve his time and a driver from Gilles Villeneuve's caliber just had to have faith in himself and in his car (a Ferrari, nevertheless) to be able to pull this one through. In fact, there is a quote from after his accident in 1980 that goes like "You know, I am content, because I hit the wall at 280 km/h and the car took it - resisted it. That means the car is solid and I can drive it like that again". Holding Didier Pironi accountable for something like this (directly or indirectly) or even Gilles himself for being "reckless" is just completely ignoring the context of what was Formula One back then.

This isn't related to any of this, this is just a cute gif of Gilles in Brazil. To lighten the mood.....

Either way, the fact is that the GPDA's official statement, ran by Didier Pironi himself, painted the picture as inevitable due to the recklessness of the ground effect cars:

We have been protesting since the start of the season. The cars have become too dangerous. The conflicts of interest in Formula 1 are stronger than all the feelings about safety. We proclaim that it is necessary to get rid of the lateral skirts. Gilles’s death is a dramatic consequence of ground effects. The cars are at the limit of their adherence and flat to the ground. And they go faster and faster. At the least shock they take off, transformed into an uncontrollable missile. Since the introduction of ground effects and wings, the cars have made incredible progress in the corners. At the place where Gilles had his accident you’re doing 250-260 km/h. A few years ago, when skirts didn’t exist, we were doing only 180 km/h.

The rest of the race weekend was also chaotic, with only 9 cars finishing (and Niki's being disqualified after the race due to its weight) and John Watson getting p1, with Keke and Eddie Cheever from Ligier right behind him. We also had Scuderia Fittipaldi's last F1 point scoring race, with Chico Serra getting 1 point in P6. 

Note: it's not a fun fact per se, but it's heartfelt - at the time of his death in 1987, Didier Pironi's girlfriend was pregnant with twins. The two boys were named Didier and Gilles after the Ferrari duo, and some of you might recognise this name since Gilles Pironi is currently an engineer for Mercedes and went to the podium to receive their 2020 British Grand Prix trophy. Time is a flat circl- [gets sniped]

I know you are probably done with the championship play-by-play at this point but we need to talk. I'm not particularly religious, actually you could say I am quite a skeptic at the end of the day but I do believe that there are things out there stronger than us, whether it's our psyche or the paranormal. This comes into play in Monaco, the first round after Gilles' death. The range of feelings of those there was from kinda weirded out to full grief according to whoever you talked to - although I remember Murray Walker saying "this is the most pornographic race I've ever been to" if I'm not mistaken. The audio feed from F1TV is very weird sometimes. Gilles was the previous year's winner and many people saw him as the face of Monaco, since he lived there and loved the city. but you know, the show must go on etc. And overall, I think besides Ferrari, everyone was dealing with it as they could (repressing their feelings, babeh!).

René Arnoux was leading the GP up until lap 15 when he just spun all by himself and stalled his car - out. The lead was inherited by Alain Prost, who kept it pragmatic while the cars around him started to have failures of all sorts: engines, oil leakage, suspension, just turning off and saying "no," you call it, it happened. Even Keke, whose reliability at this point shouldn't have gone unnoticed, retired after a collision. Well, the barriers of the soul decided to merge with the barriers of the metaphysical world once and for all when there was but two laps left and it. started. fucking. raining.

Alain crashed. HARD. and with the car, gone were his hopes of scoring for the first time since Brazil and keeping the lead he had managed to build. Riccardo Patrese inherited it for one lap (and tbf to him, he was trying really hard for the whole thing to overtake Prost). Before he also spun and stopped, with Pironi managing over half a lap in P1 before his car started slowing down in the tunnel… because of fuel shortage. Don't fear though guys, because Andrea de Cesaris is busting through!!!! And stopping meters after Pironi also out of fuel. But it's okay, Derek Daly is charging through the track and he already can feel his fingers snatching the trophy from Prince Rainier's hands…… No, nevermind, his gearbox is fucked. Somehow during all of this Patrese managed to bump start his car and dragged himself to the checkered flag, wrapping this bullshit with it. If there is a video I will recommend (and embed just to make sure you guys know I'm not making this up), it's this one right here: 

It was kinda cute even because Patrese gave Pironi a lift (a very dangerous one btw) so they could have their lap of honour.

After this hellish European leg, they headed back to North America to have a double header starting in Detroit. Looking back, it definitely wasn't as messy as it could have been: they did a street circuit but it wasn't ready in time and they only had 2 hours of practice in total for a Brand New Track before qualis on Saturday, and the second qualifying session happened in the rain. Yep, there were accidents and scenes but overall? Not bad, not bad. Watson-Cheever-Pironi weren't complaining on the podium, at least.

You can see the track was rough.... but somehow, rave reviews? Wasn't the worst race of the season imo.

The second part of the double header was held at the just renamed Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Canada and things started off well with the Brazilians Chico Serra and Raul Boesel fighting it out after a free practice. However, as race day came things got dark again and it just sucks to have to write this one more time so I'll be brief. The lights took too long to turn green and as Pironi raised his hand to warn the cars behind him, they turned on. Raul Boesel followed the lights queue and clipped the Ferrari, spinning around. Most of the following cars managed to react to the accident and go around, except Ricciardo Paletti, who hit the stalled Pironi. Again, things got way too graphic and grim and Paletti didn't make it. 

quick intermission: Riccardo Paletti

Sincerely, Paletti's death hits me harder than Villeneuve's (not that this is the death olympics at all). But unlike Villeneuve who gets remembered as being a most likely future World Championship, beyond his passing, Paletti was just racing for the second time in F1. Beyond that, many people just cite him (including myself, I suppose) when it's time to talk about the horrific details of what happened -  looking up his name on YouTube means you will for sure come across with NSFL thumbnails. So, I just want to write a small paragraph about what he actually did in life that deserves to be celebrated.

Riccardo Paletti was born in Italy on 13 March 1958. He was an incredibly skilled athlete in his teens - he had a karate medal AND was called up for the national alpine skiing team. By chance, he had found himself in motorsports, after jokingly racing with his father when he didn't even have a drivers license yet! Known to be a calm, and shy person, he used to say it himself:  

I haven’t a lot of friends and I find establishing a rapport with people of my own age particularly difficult. Doing sport is a way to be with other people, get closer to them. I’ve competed on the ski slopes, I’ve taken part in measured kilometre events on skis and then I came to car racing. It is a strange world but when I am inside the cockpit everything seems beautiful to me. And I feel happy.

He didn't have a particular stellar career in junior formulae before joining Osella for the 1982 season. He was, however, one of the few drivers back then who believed just knowing how to drive fast wasn't enough and his athlete background meant he took the mens sana in corpore sano way of life very seriously, focusing on exercising and having a healthy diet during his F1 stint. He was sponsored by Pioneer, who had faith in him even though he was a professional driver for only 4 years, and even though that showed whenever his car didn't fail him by itself during qualis, he was showing steady improvement in comparison to his teammate up until Canada. His family and friends have a small website dedicated to his memory (in Italian) and I was really moved by the testimonials they have. 

I think this is the best video of Riccardo I managed to find, so I just did a gif. It's genuinely better to remember him like that than what happened to him in my opinion.

back to the season

Hooo boy. You can call that section of this write-up a mercury thermometer, because it was heavy af. Thankfully, during the middle of everything, Brabham were down bad. Of course there were good results (like the second place in the Dutch Grand Prix - in which btw Arnoux barely made it from a serious crash), but mostly not, specially considering their car was outlawed, their water cooling system as well, they had the currently reigning champion but there was about it. That plaque wasn't going to stop Brabham, because they didn't know how to read, and therefore they devised something for the next races that in English media became known as "The Ploy," but I like to call "The Bernie Ecclestone Master Plan".

The idea: race with less fuel, fly like a motherfucker ahead of the grid and build a 40 second lead so that when came back from the pits after refuelling for the second stint, they would still be in first and light af. When you think about it…. Galaxy brained and literally the standard that was held by the refuel era until the cars became good enough for them to afford to choose if they wanted a lighter or heavier car. Brabham also had the advantage of being a top tier team, so with brainiacs like Gordon Murray as their car designer and the slickness of Bernie, they were able to do The Monster Math and calculate how the tyres would wear off, how much the fuel would weight on their car, how could they make their fuel tank smaller and they ended up running with a brand new and improved version of their chassis onwards - they also had the advantage of FISA wanting them to change their car after the whole water cooled bullshit.

However, back in the day when the cars were a canned soup with wings and a fidget spinner for an engine, it was more of a bargain, and unbeknownst to Brabham, Toleman had also thought of the same thing, except they just cut to the chase and said "hey, we're gonna with half a tank, we're probably gonna crash anyway lol". 

But overall, congrats to Brabham, great plan! Just a few points:

Issue 1: you have a brand new chassis and thus basically a new car;

Issue 2: you are in Brands Hatch for the British Grand Prix;

Issue 3: if God is real, she is probably in a manufacturer team and affiliated to FISA.

Even though they got the pole position last minute due to a failure in Keke's car during the formation lap and Patrese's also refused to start, while Piquet's dipped after 10 laps - it did kinda work though, since Nelson had managed to overtake 7 guys on the first lap to first place and was 1.4 seconds faster than the runner up before his fuel injection got away. The Bernie Ecclestone Master Plan became a secondary after thought as Didier Pironi took the lead of the championship after finishing second, between Niki Lauda (uwu he won again!) and Patrick Tambay, now a Ferrari driver. Needless to say, Toleman also ate shit.

The ploy went great!

Nevertheless, if there was one thing Brabham F1 Team didn't know was how to quit (and my god, sometimes they really should) and for the French Grand Prix coming up in Paul Ricard, they would try it again, for goodness' sake!! And they would fail again due to engine failures on both cars, for goodness' sake!!! to be fair as well, Patrese managed to lead the race from lap two until his retirement, handing over to Piquet, who did the same thing. plus, no one really focused on The Ploy going awry since René Arnoux's victory meant that he had violated a team agreement that stated that, in case Renault had a Arnoux/Prost 1-2, he would concede the lead to his teammate who was in the run for the WDC - huh funny how Prost always found himself in situations like these. Naur, hawld awn, let me speak about the petulance of that motherfucker: Prost went to the media to slate Arnoux's lack of team mentality and how he wasn't pragmatic enough, etc, but a while after said smth like "yeah, the team were kinda crazy to propose this to us when there wasn't a #1 and #2 driver, the] misjudged us... but I'm still kinda mad at Arnoux tho". I have no comments. [Victory's Theme playing LOUDLY IN the back]

I mean, to get the position from someone you at least kinda... need to get close to them, but what do I know about racing? What. Do. I. Know. About. Racing.

On other news, there is no better way to put this: Jochen Mass and his March got catapulted to the stands and caught on fire, leading to injuries on everyone who was close - no casualties, luckily! Immediately after his recovery, Mass' retirement from racing - not that he wasn't physically able to race anymore, it's just that fuck this shit, honestly.

There's a saying that goes "when it rains, it pours," and pour it did on Germany - quick note: wtf is this Hockenheimring - for both Ferrari and Brabham. the rainy weekend saw Pironi ahead of his competitors, locking himself on pole before qualis were even over. In a twist of fate - in this case the twist being a Möbius band i guess - Didier also went for a fast lap in the last moments of quali, he also saw a slower car ahead (Daly) of him a bit too late and he also swerved to avoid hitting him. This time, however, there was a second car just a bit forwards (Prost) and just like Belgium, a big shunt. 5 races from the start of the season, tifosi all around the world felt the loss of Gilles Villeneuve and now, 5 races to the end, it was time for the curtains to close on Didier Pironi, who fortunately survived, but with leg injuries so severe he would never be able to professionally race again. 

In terms of the championship, this also meant that F1 was reaching the moment when a winner was supposed to start taking shape, and as the most likely WDC was now out, it was game on. Brabham was still investing in The Ploy and I can only imagine how serious they were about it in the garage - it's not like at this stage they had realistically speaking the chance to win anything, specially with Bernie more focused on taking over the world and FISA breathing on their neck any chance they could - but there is that ego and financial difference between 6th and 7th in the WDC. that all made it even more frustrating after Piquet's race lead was AGAIN fucked over, this time by the world renowned crash into the slow Salazar ahead of him. I have to defend Nelson on that one solely because Salazar at that point was renowned for glossing over blue flags and being a klutz. Either way, F1 history was made that day.

"For me it is not a problem when he starts to punch me, I have my helmet on. He can punch me all day and I don’t care. But when he try to kick me here..." - Salazar on the tussle...

Arnaux and Rosberg got a sweet podium, but the win went to Patrick Tambay. Yep, let that sink in, the guy who had retired after the Kyalami strike because he was too done with the politics bullshit in F1 had just won his first Grand Prix ever with Ferrari in a wet Hockenheimring. This is just pure concentrated 1982 championship juice. The only reason I'm not done here it's because we still have four more races, and luckily for us, the Austrian GP that followed wasn't that eventful. 

Other teams were starting to consider The Ploy as a valid tactic, even though the Brabham hadn't managed to capitalise on it yet, and adopted variations of it. The Österreichring also marked the first win of Elio de Angelis in a Lotus, who by 0,05 seconds hadn't gifted it to Keke, still to have his first career win himself. It does go without saying that this was the last time that Colin Chapman would see his beloved team win, since he would pass away mere months later. Unfortunately we can't embed multiple videos on Tumblr posts and the Monaco wildness needs to be experienced, but I can't stress this enough: watch the last laps of Austria. Both Keke and Elio don't put a single foot wrong, this is close to driving perfection honestly.

Heading back to France, this time in the Dijon-Prenois circuit for the *fixes glasses* Swiss Grand Prix…. Things were spicy with Prost, Watson and Rosberg wanting to eat their way into the lead that was still held by Pironi, Keke holding the advantage because he was the only one who didn't get constantly bombarded by car issues. My good bitch Keke did his homework and even though he started on P8, the mad lad just bust through the track and overtook one by one until he got to the race leader Prost on the last lap and GOT HIM TOO. There weren't any shunts, any cars on fire, this was genuinely just guys being dudes and clean racing. Well, de Cesaris TRIED Keke, who was having none of it.

It took him one more lap than necessary as the race director conveniently forgot that there were 80 laps, not 79 - which they attempted to do - nor 81 - which they DID do - but he came out a winner anyway, followed by Alain and Niki <3.

Let's just take some time together to appreciate this man FINALLY got a win in this season from hell

McLaren were also grateful that Niki had made it to the end, but John Watson falling out of points meant that Ferrari still sat at the top of the WCC even though [points at the entire 1982 Ferrari season]

Note: To make matters more interesting the gap did close down between Ferrari, Renault and McLaren, the three teams ahead of the battle for the constructors' championship, since Ferrari didn't have a replacement for Pironi and Tambay skipped the race due to a pinched nerve.

It was time for MONZA, BABY! Easy peasy win for Arnoux who led the entire race even though he had started it in P6. Arnoux was on a ROLL by the way, since he had been announced to be part of the 1983 Ferrari line up, with Mario Andretti warming the seat for him as Pironi's replacement for the last two races of the season. Andretti didn't behave badly either, locking pole position and a podium for the last time in his career, Tambay there to watch. For the championship, the battle was alive for both constructors - with Ferrari the most likely winners after the duo podium but Renault and McLaren still having a chance after terrific results - and drivers - since Keke was miraculously out of points while his direct competitor, John Watson landed in 4th.

The tifosi celebrating like mad men their "1-2-3" podium in Monza. Notice the "GILLES FOREVER" message written on the circuit. Oh my God I am UNWELL.

We finally arrived in 1982's swan song. Perhaps call it a duck jingle actually, because they went to Las Vegas for a street circuit in Caesar's Palace. People might have liked it, I honestly don't think so because the track layout genuinely said "M". This is so fucked up I HAVE to share the circuit:

Anyway, to cleanse our palates, time to do the math:

So far, Keke had a 9 point lead over the second place, now John Watson. The point system was 1 point for P6, 2 for P5, 3 for P4, 4 for P3, 6 for P2 and 9 for P1… Wow. So, ideally, for Watson to win this, he needed both to win the race and for Rosberg to be out of points. In this case, their net score would be the same but Watson had one more win in his bag. The maths for McLaren or Renault to get the championship was more complex, but tbh the gist of it was that they needed to do as well as possible and hope that at least one of drivers from their competitors didn't score.

Drama filled the race as leader Arnoux had to drop out and with him, Renault's chances of winning the WCC. Watson drove the race of a lifetime, dropping from 9 to 12 and then recovering to second, while Keke played it safe. Michele Alboreto, the saint, decided to sort it all out by himself and become the 11th race winner of the season - we have a record, laid ease! - and although both Ferraris were out (Tambay suffering from his pinched nerve again and Andretti from from a broken suspension), Niki's early race retirement meant that Kohn Watson hadn't made the necessary scores by himself to win the championship for McLaren as well. Ferrari had managed to "overcome" their worst season ever with a consolation trophy (if you take a look at it, the F162C was the balance between reliabilty and speed that the rest of the grid lacked one way or the other) while Keke Rosberg's amazing persistence and solidity being rewarded with one of the most controversial yet earned titles in F1 history.

Arguably, the greatest legacy of 1982 was the push for greater safety and the ban on ground effects aero, with a now mandatory flat undertray wrapping the Venturi tunnels party and bringing back stability to the cars - enough so that F1 only saw tragedy as great as what had happened here again in 1994 (yup). As to FISA and FOCA, they actually calmed down to standard bickering as Bernie realised that if you can't beat them, then kinda join them and decided to make his way into the status quo since he had the commercial rights and thus the money anyway. Mostly, people got on with their lives and went on, trying to repress the memories of the season the same way I'm going to after sinking my head 50 feet deep into the whole lore for about a month. 

My conclusions on the whole thing? First of all, even though most of young folk tend to think of Nico Rosberg as the Worthy Champion in the father-son duo for spending three years of his life fighting the Silver War while his dad only won once during his championship season, Keke had to live through deaths, unreliable death machines and politics from every side of the paddock, turning up consistently in the podium while everything happened. Put some respeck on Keke's name. Men are petty and I wish no one had died, basically, there isn't much to conclude. Well guys, that's all for this lifetime of Hyperfixation Corner. I'm officially retiring and I will delete my Tumblr in 2-4 business days. Nah, just kidding, see you next time and thanks again for the support <3 Screw you guys, I'm going home!

[yusuke-of-valla]

If I mashed all of my swap aus together it would be basically:

Joker comes to Tokyo and on his first day meets Makoto, a punk biker upper classmen who's in a personal recurring war with Kamoshida

He and Makoto then team up with Morgana and Ann to change Kamoshida's heart.

Joker befriends Futaba and Kasumi, two new first years. Futaba asks Joker if he's heard of cognitive psience (unbenownst to Joker, Futaba knows about the Phantom Thieves and wants to understand the Metaverse better). Morgana suggests that this will be useful for Metaverse so he and Futaba form the "Psych and Cognitive Pscience" Club.

Haru overhears the about the PT while tending to the plants on the roof and unintentionally blackmails them into helping her change her dad's heart.

Ann's childhood friend Ryuji and the current Student Council president asks for their help dealing with a mafia boss named Kaneshiro. He eventually joins the team and helps with strategizing

The PT again get what they think is a blackmail text from a mysterious person who happens to be Joker's neighbor, a shut-in named Takuto Maruki who Sojiro has been checking in on for the past couple of years since his fiance died (apparently a running theme here is the PT assuming they're being blackmailed by people who are too nice to actually blackmail them)

Between all of this Futaba has been meeting with the other PT for her reasearch as part of the Psych club

Morgana starts to feel useless now that Ryuji and Takuto have joined the team so after the team can't agree whether or not to go after Madarame, he decided to the Palace by himself and gets his ass handed to him.

Luckily, he's found by Yusuke. Unluckily, Yusuke is happy to help the injured cat creature but has exactly 0 interest in helping him change Madarame's heart so Morgana has to spend a while badgering Yusuke into it while acting like he totally does not need the rest of the PT when they run into each other.

After some shenanigans and making up and stuff Yusuke runs into Madarame's shadow and finally snaps. He joins the PT and change Madarame's heart, only Madarame then dies mid-confession.

So things go downhill from there and the PT get actually blackmailed by Akechi into doing Sae's Palace much to Makoto's chagrin.

Sae's palace is thus 80% more a sisterly screaming match, but the plan works and Joker successfully fakes his death.

Things continue as normal from there until the Third Semester

Ryuji's wish is that he could keep doing track and Makoto wishes her dad were still alive still. Yusuke probably doesn't wish for Madarame to be alive because Madarame had gotten a lot worse near his death and that really soured the memories so Yusuke wishes his mom were alive. Takuto wishes Rumu were alive

Goro is not there because Fugaba found our he was responsible for her mom's death and is like "yeah no, not bringing that back"

LUCKILY, Haru's dad isn't dead in this au and things are pretty chill so she sorta takes Goro's place without all the grumpiness.

Anyway they confront Futaba and learn the truth about Sumire

Then they wake everyone up and go rescue Sumire.

Throughout Futaba's palace they see memories of her and her mother and her desire to get back at the people who killed her.

They confront Futaba and steal her treasure and then Futaba tries to punch you and it's more emotionally destroying to have to fistfight this traumatized teen than anything else prior to this.

But anyway, everyone gets out, it's fine. The end.

In summary: Joker, Ann, Morgana, Sumire and Goro are the same (except for the fact that Goro doesn't come back in the third semester), Haru pretty much gets everything she wants, Makoto is more rebellious but less stressed, Ryuji is more stressed but also more responsible, Yusuke is like 15% grumpier than he was when you first meet him in canon and that only goes down slightly after his mentor dies because once artist dies they become 10x more famous and get more praise so Yusuke is .2 seconds away from breaking a canvas at all times, Takuto is sadder but also Team Dad, Futaba tries to fistfight the administration after hearing about all the pressure they're putting on Sumi and filled with righteous anger in general.

[saleintothe90s]

424. Black Friday though the years (Hampton/Newport News, VA), part 1, 1980-1989

I know everything is going wrong right now, and I know, priorities, but sometimes I really just miss going to the store. I didn’t do Black Friday in person this year, due to the obvious. I only went grocery shopping for my mom on Black Friday this year. 

(Woolco, 1980 or 1981) 

So beginning with the parade on Thanksgiving, I hopped on ProQuest and began looking at my local newspapers for their Black Friday coverage in the 80s and 90s. 

I’ll try and set up the retail landscape of the area to the best of my ability and using my retail blog for assistance. Here’s all my information about Newmarket North / Newmarket Fair Mall. It started dying in 1989 when local retailer Miller & Rhoads shut down. By 1994 it was pretty much toast other than Sears, and around 1997, the former anchor stores were renovated into offices. Now the mall is all offices, except for the empty Sears which closed in 2018 and was one of the last locations in the state, and the Piccadilly cafeteria. 

Coliseum Mall was the mall in the area until about 2003? when Burlington Coat Factory moved in at the old Montgomery Wards, and Dillards moved out. After that, things went downhill fast, and by 2007 the mall was town down, and was rebuilt into an open air shopping area with apartments and a big Target and a rebuilt JCPenney. 

1980

Shopping was “fast and furious” at Newmarket by 11am. The stores opened at ... 8am. Toys R Us and Lionel Playworld were new to the area. 

1981

This is the only photo I’ve seen of this JCPenney location that was almost across the street from Newmarket North Mall, at the Newmarket South Shopping Center. I was surprised that it was still open in 1981, considering that Coliseum Mall had a giant JCPenney just a five minute drive away. 

1982

Five people had to direct traffic at Coliseum Mall! 

Unfortunately, ProQuest did not have the 1983 paper. Which I’m so mad about because I was born in 1983. 

1984

Back when there was traffic on Mercury Blvd. Also, can’t you imagine a giant six kid family coming out of that giant van in the parking lot?

1985

1985′s coverage was half-rear ended. It’s truly bizarre to me to picture Newmarket North being busy. By the time my first real memories begin in 1988, 1989, I never remembered the mall being “busy”. 

1986

Okay, so I had no clue that Sears was still selling real fur coats in their stores in 1986. I didn’t think Sears old fur coats all, even in the catalogs at this point. Miller & Rhoads had an on site fur vault at their Newmarket location. I wonder why those ladies weren’t picketing that.

1987

How could I forget 1987?! That was the year that the next town over, Newport News got their own mall: Patrick Henry Mall. Although in the beginning things seemed awfully slow according to this article.

Check out the Fisher Price vacuum cleaner a couple is buying at the Children’s Palace toy store at Coliseum Mall. I had one of those! 

1988

As I said earlier, my earliest memories begin in 1988, 1989. My parents did NOT go to Coliseum Mall back then, citing that it was always so crowded. So I have no memories of that mall until the mid 90s.

Nintendo Computer Games

1989

Wendy just wanted the 106 fm Wild Money Man. 

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[theastrophilearchitect]

I started writing a book.

And I’m mad about it, because I just started this post, brought up a new tab and lost it because I didn’t save my draft.

Anyway. That’s a thing I did. Wow.

As of this moment, this post won’t be going up until April 19th, but I’m starting writing this at 10.30pm on Sunday, February 21st, 2021. I’ve done a lot in the last couple weeks, and I want to have some record of all I’ve accomplished without just letting most of it fade over the next two months.

I’ve always wanted to be an author. From when I was reading under my covers with a torch past bedtime, through the years I wanted to be an artist, through the years I wanted to be a lawyer. It’s always been there - no matter what primary career path I went down, I wanted to be an author. The last few years, I’ve been invested in becoming a biologist, and that dream really took a backseat.

In the start of this lockdown, my mental health went downhill, and some advice my therapist gave me was just to prioritise myself. It sounds simple enough, but, even in my free time, I’d been focusing on schoolwork - revising constantly for exams I’m still not sure are actually happening. (Boris Johnson is apparently making an announcement tomorrow about beginning to ease lockdown, but we’ll see) So, on Saturday, February 6th, I started an attempt to coalesce the ideas I had floating in my head into something tangible.

I’ve tried to write books countless times (not technically countless - I have all the documents on my laptop, so I could if I wanted to), but mostly, I’ve never gotten further than a couple bare plot points and some characters, maybe some ideas for subplots, before I’ve stagnated and given up.

Three times, I’ve finished a skeletal outline. Twice, I’ve started to go back over those outlines only to realise they made no sense or just seemed week, and simply not cared enough to fix it. Until now, I guess.

February 6th, 7th, and fast-forward to my week off beginning the 15th, up until the 19th, I kept developing this concept I’d managed to form, but I was struggling to establish a coherent plot. I had up until and including a midpoint (which was later condensed into just a first act), but everything after that was just a void. I began searching for some skeletal structure I could apply to it, both to work on pacing and fill in the blanks. I tried several, and got a little further, but was about to give up hope.

Then I remembered a video by Katytastic I’d watched years ago about the 3-act, 9-block, 27-chapter structure she used, and couldn’t see the harm in giving it a go. And something clicked.

You can find the video here - the structure’s detailed and easy to follow, plus she even gives an example of using it to generate a plot.

I started binge-watching her writing vlogs in the background, and even started using her same writing program, Scrivener, which just made every a thousand times easier by taking away the need to juggle a billion Word documents. It’s fairly pricey, but I’m currently using the 30-day free trial - it’s 30 days of use, not of ownership, too: if you use it every day, it lasts 30 days, but if you use it once a week, it lasts 30 weeks.

Where Kat used the 27 parts the structure broke down into as chapters, I chose to refer to them as beats, and separate chapters later.

On Saturday the 20th, I finished defining my scenes and started writing an actual draft. I wrote two scenes, putting me at a collective word count (not including notes, synopses, etc.) of 2,580 words.

This morning, Sunday the 21st, I started over. I hated my opening. I’m not going to go through the mess of today’s process, but I currently have around 80 one-line-outline scenes, split into 3 acts. I wrote a draft of my prologue and detailed-outlined (which I’m mentally referring to as zero-outlining because it’s similar to how Katytastic does what she calls a zero draft, but is very much outlining, not a draft) two and a half other chapters. Scriver also tells me how many words I wrote in total, across notes, character profiles, location lists, a document I’ve named ‘Train of Thought’ for my ramblings as I go etc.

Today, I wrote a grand total of 4,141 words, which, rather counterintuitively, puts me at a draft total of 2,598. That makes sense. Anyway.

There are a lot of unknowns in the world right now, and I have no idea how much time I’ll have in the next six months to invest in this project, but I’d like, at bare minimum, to have one complete draft by the start of the next school year in September, which gives me just over 6 months. Which is probably too much time to actually motivate myself, but that’s not the point.

A manuscript needs to have a minimum word count of 50K words to be considered a novel, so, even though my ultimate goal for this project is around 80K words, 50K is going to be my goal for this draft.

I’m being optimistic about sticking with this.

Tuesday 23/02/2021 - Word Count: 3,099 I wrote nothing yesterday; planning to focus writing solely on days off rather than work days, but last night, watching through the incredibly long queue of Alexa Donne writing videos, I came to the conclusion writing every day, even just a little, would be the best way to ensure I keep working on this, so I set myself a goal of just 500 words a day.

Wednesday 24/02/2021 - Word Count: 5,350 After doing a little bit of maths as to how long this outlining and draft would take me if I were to only write 500 words a day, I decided to boost that goal to 1,000. I got started around 1pm today, online school draining me so much I couldn’t face another two hours. I worked on and off until 6pm, and around 4.45pm, I finished outlining Act One!

Thursday 25/02/2021 - Word Count: 7,022 I continued my scene outlining into Act Two, but I hit a brick wall around the midpoint. I have to write chronologically - some people jump around, but I have to write linearly, or it feels like I’m trying to make something in a void. It just doesn’t work. I didn’t know how to get from one scene to the next - there were so many things I needed to establish to get there, but I didn’t want to backtrack. I decided to re-jig the whole thing, but, after dinner, I realised I didn’t have to, and instead, decided to just start a draft, conscious of the things I need to establish as I go.

Friday 26/02/2021 - Word Count: 8,208 Starting draft one, I rewrote the prologue I’d already written, technically putting me to my second draft of it, because I’d been thinking about it for days and just wanted to revisit it, and it was so much better. Then I moved on to chapter one, but decided I wanted to re-jig my chapters. While outlining, I’d split the whole book into only about twenty chapters, but decided to go for shorter ones for more effective divisions of the story. I got most of the way through the first scene of chapter one, but basically ran out of both time and motivation, since I hadn’t heavily outlined that scene. in total, I wrote over 2000 words today, but because I only increased the prologue word count by about 100 words, it didn’t do that much to the total count.

Saturday 27/02/2021 - Word Count: 11,050 I got some chores done Saturday morning and focused on finishing my book so I could include it in my February wrap-up, but I still had time to get some writing done around mid-day. My goal was just to hit 10K this weekend, but I though I could do it in one day. I wrote about 1,000 words before feeling a little word-drained, but took a break for lunch, got back to it and wrote 2,400 words. Though that only added a little over 2,000 to the word count, it took me to 10K! I’m 20% of the way to being able to call it a novel! We’re in quintuple digits!

And then eight hours later, I wrote another thousand words and got to 11K.

Sunday 28/02/2021 - Word Count: 13,722 I spent most of my Sunday morning writing, though it took me more than two hours to write about 1500 words, though it only added about 1100 to my count. I decided to set myself an overall and weekly deadlines to hold myself accountable. Due to the fact I don’t yet have a clue how many words this will work out as, I decided I wanted to have either a complete first draft or 100K words (which I doubt I’ll reach, but it seems like a good way to make myself finish the draft before my deadline) by the end of April. Which works out to a little under 1500 words a day, or just under 11K a week, which is perfectly doable. Bearing in mind my current word count is including outlines, but I still believe in myself.

I wrote another 1600 words later, which took me to 14K, until I deleted the 300 word outline I wrote for one scene, but I worked out my words per day for the next two months with the assumption of a 10K word count as of March 1st and a target of either a complete draft or 100K words by the end of April, so I’m nearly 4,000 words ahead of schedule. Which gives me 6,606 words to write this week, instead of 10,328. (If you couldn’t tell, I like numbers. They just make sense to me.

Monday 01/03/2021 - Word Count: 15,005 I didn’t quite hit my daily goal, but I was completely leached of motivation today, I’m ahead of schedule anyway and I was only under by less than 200 words. It’s alright. But, hey, we hit 15K! Two days after hitting 10K!

Tuesday 02/03/2021 - Word Count: 21,119 This was an insane writing day. My end-of-day target was only 16,480, and that was still ahead of schedule - if I was sticking to the 100K by April 30th, I’d only actually need to be at 12,950 today. This was the best writing day I’ve ever had. I wrote before school and during breaks, which kept both my writing and working momentum up.

I didn’t read a page of my current read, but I wrote a total of 7,681 words and increased my wordcount by 6,114 words, or literally an additional 40.75%. I hit 20K three days after hitting 10K, and am 42.238% of the way to being able to say I wrote a novel, be it a shitty first draft that won’t be complete at 50K words.

I also finished chapter three, which I’ve been working on for three days and came out ~5,000 words, and wrote chapters four and five in their entirety.

Note to self: this is day 10 of vaguely outline-drafting this project.

Wednesday 03/03/2021 - Word Count: 23,364 I've only written 490 words today, as of writing this update, but I just wanted to make note of the fact I've done some calculations, and can reasonably finish my draft this month. I'm still not completely sure how long it'll work out to be, so I can't quite work out my daily words to finish on the 31st, but if I stick to my current 1,475 words a day, I'll hit 63,894 words by the end of the month, which is a little less than I imagine this draft will be, but if I stick to that as a minimum, my first draft won't have to go into April.

I'd like to post this later this week, but I already have a post for this Friday, so God only knows how long this will be by the time it goes up. So far, I've written 1,900 words today, and I don't think I'm out of fuel yet, but I'm stopping because I need to read today, and I'd rather not burn out. I'm over my goal, anyway.

Oh, also, I'm nearly at 25K, which is halfway to a novel, but I haven't broken into Act Two yet, which means this book will be 75K minimum. I'm going to do some maths and work out how many words a day to hit 80K by March 31st. 2,030. That's doable. So I haven't read, but back to writing for like ten minutes.

I've now hit an additional 2,245 words for the day, though I wrote a total of 2,663

Thursday 04/03/2021 - Word Count: 25,415 I've decided to work out how many words I need to write each day to hit 80K by March 31st, and watch the fluctuations. (I like statistics). It should steadily go down throughout the month if I surpass it each day. Today's minimum word count is 2,023, already seven words less than yesterday's. How exciting.

The last scene of Act One was very heavy on world-building I haven't yet figured out, so I stuck what was meant to happen in brackets and just moved on, meaning I have now broken into Act Two!

I think, during the week, I'm going to focus on just meeting my minimum word count rather than exceeding it, just to save fuel for the weekends, when I can write so many more words.

And, we hit 25K! I'm halfway to a novel!

Friday 05/03/2021 - Word Count: 26,693 In complete honesty, I'm beginning to lose momentum. Maybe it's just today, but I don't really want to write and feel like I need a break, but I'm going to make myself write anyway. I'm going to make myself keep writing until this draft is done, however shitty it may end up. I really hate first drafts.

When you say 2,000 words is only 7-8 pages, it doesn't sound like that much to write per day but my god. Luckily, most of the stuff I've had to save to a Pinterest board called 'Writing Motivation' says if you write when you don't want to, it should pass instead of worsening. I wanted to hit 35K this weekend, but I'm not sure I'll have the momentum. I'll at least hit 31,270, though, which is my minimum goal for this week. I'm still over 700 words off my goal for today, but I'm taking a break because my head is foggy and there's still eight hours left in the day. Besides, 700 after dinner is easy. She says, realising she's probably jinxing it. Oh, well. 80K by March 31st would be difficult, even if I weren't going back to school soon, but that's a stretch goal. 100K by April 31st is my minimum, and I'm 9,000 ahead of where I need to be for that.

I think I’m stagnating because I’ve hit the ‘Fun and Games’ section, which I find really boring. I’m going to try to keep going with it, but I may just skip it and come back later.

Saturday 06/03/2021 - Word Count: 28,150 So, I did not get the extra 700 words in. Before dinner, some stuff I had to deal with came up, and by the time it was done, I just wanted to go to bed, so I did. Today, I'm going to try to make up for it, which I think is reasonable because it is now the weekend. I'm still kinda exhausted this morning, but I'm going to do my best, and my wrist hurts, but I'm not sure why. You'd think it would be from all the typing, but only one wrist hurts - you know what? Never mind. They do both hurt. I'm just not sure why, but it doesn't hurt typing this, so that doesn't make any sense. Anyway, to hit my word count for the day, I need to write 2,555 words, which doesn't sound like too much, but it kinda is because I'm primarily writing Act Two at the minute, and for every thousand words I write, I lose like 400 from my outline. You'd think I'd just not include my scene outlines in the word count, but it's too late for that now.

I'm thinking this over, and I really don't think trying to write 80K by the end of the month is going to be good for either my motivation, mental health, or ability to function back at school, so I'm going to stick to 100K or a finished draft by April 30th, and re-work out my goals from there, based on yesterday's word count, so I'm not making myself do catch-up today.

So, to hit 100K by April 30th, I only need to write 1,309 words each day (which will decrease over time because if that's my minimum now, I'll probably surpass it, decreasing the amount of words left etc.). That's so much less pressure.

God, I really don't want to write today. I just want to watch YouTube and Netflix and read.

Okay, so here's the thing. I've been working on this story straight for three weeks and I'm kinda exhausted of it. I'm not done with it, not at all, and I want to keep working on it because it exists, which makes it workable.

I watched a writing vlog by ShaelinWrites yesterday, and she said she writes different projects at once, alternating in week- or multi-week-long blocks. I think I might try that.

My plan with this post and the following updates was to keep updating it until the day it goes up, the day after which is when I begin drafting the next, but, since I may be switching projects for a while and this is really about the project I've decided to dub 'Bay Tree' (which is just, I guess, a pseudonym for here because while I have no idea what it would eventually be called, I know that's nothing like the title I'd want to give it) so I'd want to start a new post for a new project.

I'm now doing a little outlining instead of actually continuing writing, but I think this will help me, though I'm still not certain about whether or not I'm going to directly continue with this specific project for the minute. Instead of setting daily goals based on a target, I'm also just going to say 1,000 words a day, and see where that takes me.

I've just been outlining into Act Three, and I've met a major plot stumble, but I'm going to work that out and explain what I'm doing in my next writing update.

So, go drink some water, eat if you haven't eaten in the last few hours, stand in front of the mirror and tell yourself how wonderful you are and how much happiness you deserve, and, if you want to write a book, stop thinking about it, and go write.