#more to follow 1000% guarantee lol

[scribbledghost]

hiiiii !! i randomly just got invested in ur writings n its crazy. anwww im not sure if ure taking requests rn but like i was kinda imagining what if yautja had a deep and heated argument w reader that causes her to walk out n like reader never came back in yautja's arms for 3 weeks and he got so so so sad but eventually she(the reader but u can pick gn or afab) came back to him n made up and stuff !!, (u can make a continuous plot for this i actually angst thats why lol)

Note: This is such an interesting idea!! I'm so glad you like my writings, I hope you like this one as well!

So, first off, I actually wonder if there would be an instance where you could just walk out and your yautja not know where you are for weeks.

Like, hear me out. He knows you're mad. Like, REALLY mad. At him.

He could tell that by the fight you two had.

And he knows you took off.

But he also has invisibility cloaking and is super good at silently following things.

You see where I'm going with this.

BUT. Let's turn the tables around a little and say he lets you go.

Like I said, he knows you're mad at him. Mad enough to walk away from him. So, as much as it pains him, he lets you go.

Truthfully, he probably figures you'll be back by nightfall.

But when you don't return? For weeks?

He's distraught.

Part of me feels like he's going out and finding you after that first night when you don't come back.

But on the off chance he just waits patiently for you to return, you will return to find a very upset yautja.

Yautja are typically very composed, stoic critters, but when it comes to worrying about your safety, that kind of goes out the window.

Guarantee there's going to be at least one piece of tech or one part of the ship that's just shredded when you get back.

Poor guy got so worried and emotional that he took it out on whatever inanimate thing was closest.

Even if he knows he was on the right side of that fight, even if he is 1000% sure he was in the right, he's willing to apologize as soon as you get back.

Truthfully, you scared him. It's very rare for him to lose track of potential prey, let alone his mate. That fact alone unsettled him.

So now that you're back, unharmed, and (hopefully) not really ticked off at him anymore, he's sort of. Dropping everything to cater to you for a while.

Don't be surprised if he doesn't let you out of his sight for a bit either.

Also don't be surprised to find your Giant Space Alien Boyfriend has gotten about a thousand times more cuddly since you left.

[flamingplay]

Letters From the Hole

When we imagine Sisyphus excited to get his workout in, Plato’s cave is alive and well. There’s no shortage of culturally relevant allegories that speak to a) the futility of progress, b) humanity’s willful ignorance, and c) the fact that both of those concepts are central to modern-day American capitalism. We forget about the oppressive nature of wage labor when we think, If I work for 2 hours, I can afford to get myself a little treat. And after I get that little treat, then I’ll be more excited to have to work to stay alive. If we live in a world where life is not guaranteed without needing to work for it, then maybe we don’t live in a world that cares if we live.

Mountainhead, Everything Everything’s upcoming album, gives us a new, eccentric, and equally bleak allegory for unchecked capitalism and its meaningless growth. Set to release March 1st, the UK group tells the story of a world not built from the ground up, but dug from the top down. Mountainhead takes place in a society whose existence is dedicated to endlessly growing a mountain by digging deeper at its foot. As a teaser to the album, Everything Everything frontman Jonathan Higgs writes a letter as one of the lower-level members of mountain society. Those at the bottom work tirelessly to keep the elite elevated at the mountain’s top. It’s something we know a bit too well. As one must imagine Sisyphus happy, one must imagine the mountainheads watching Disney+.

Introduction Izzy Capulong

Letter Jonathan Higgs

Photos by Steven Gullick and Everything Everything

Dear Raymond

Greetings from the hole!

How are you doing? I don't know if your last few letters got lost on the way down or what but it would be great to hear from you. How is life on the slope? Things are very much the same here, every day we build the mountain and every day we dig a little deeper into the earth. There is a load of new stuff being installed in the pit at the moment, we have a simulated daylight bulb in the centre of our cavern, full spectrum, and it's on at least 5 hours a day. A new set of bird song recordings are being trialled and there is a renewed sense of urgency and hope down here. Yeah it's dark, a lot of the time, very very dark. But we're getting Disney+ soon apparently.

We're yet to hear anything but I guess you must have been ordained by now. So what is the daily life of a “Hellkite”? It must be so bright and the air must be so clean on the mountain. Real trees and real fur and breath and feathers and all the animal things around you. We have our own priests down here of course, and they do their best not to tire of us. They're so kind to give us their time and to warn us about drifting off into the dark. David says they are manipulative but I think they're doing us all a favour. One day we can all be like them, we can all get up the mountain, we just have to follow the rules and keep building. David calls it a pyramid scheme, I said “it's not a pyramid lol it's much, much, much bigger than that”. Is it true the mountain reaches the moon now?

There are rumours about what's at the top. Have you ever heard this? Some say it's a big mirror, 1000 miles wide. Some say it's a video screen and all that's on it is an infinitely reoccurring picture of whoever is looking at it. Is that really true? Why would you want to see yourself a million times over stretching into forever? Sounds mental. I heard some people say it's really a statue up there but the face changes into the highest person on the mountain. This all sounds magical and lovely but I think it's going over my head. Have you seen it? Do they tell you what's at the top?

At the deepest, darkest part of the cave they say there is a snake, an immense golden snake that will eat anyone that comes near. I don't know if it's bollocks or what. The priests are very adamant about it and prevent anyone from talking about it. I think it sounds quite cool. Have you ever heard about this snake? I used to be afraid of it but now I think it's the priests that are afraid of it. On some 'nights' we do hear a rumbling that is quite different to the machinery.

David has got a terrible cough, he says it's from the thick black smoke down here but I don't think the fumes are anywhere near as bad as they used to be. Yes we do still have deaths, quite a lot to be honest. Electricity has become quite expensive so we're using fire a lot of the time for heat. Grandmas are a thing of the past. The mining isn't ideal for my back but that's age for ya. My eyes are also getting worse, some of the pigment has gone from them and it's a bit of a strain to see through the smoke especially in the dark. Who needs eyes though really, I can dig and I can carry and I'm going to do my bit to make the mountain bigger. Kevin's head has flattened right out, it's like a slab of cheese, whatever that is. Also, our skin is translucent, more like a jelly or a tadpole. Again, no idea what a tadpole is. Or a jelly actually. Hair is white but that's normal. We get all the vitamin D we need from food it's not like we need sun, plus we'd actually get burnt to a crisp if we ever went outside.

Handsome William is now one of the many shapes of black and grey that slope through our tunnels. I lent him 101 Dalmatians on CD-ROM but his brain started coming out of his nose. David has started to wear the sign of the snake on his face, he says it's the only way to get what we want.

Teeth. Teeth teeth teeth. They've all gone. Kevin has one or two left but mine are all gone. Can teeth fall out of a brain? That's what I feel like, toothless all over, especially in my noggin. I know we don't technically need them anymore and we do have a lot of flavours now. We've got edible brown, ordinary grey, partially submerged grey, extremely colourful brown — we've got flavours coming out of our ears. That reminds me, I'm mostly deaf now but whatever, there's been an incessant hum for most of my life but it's slowly being replaced by a kind of hissing. Neither of which I'm that bothered about. We've got channels too, hundreds of them. Lots of choice. I watched a true crime series about all these crimes and it was entirely true. Well, I say “watched” but I can't see or hear and we don't have a TV.

I don't know if I've been going mad or what but I just feel like maybe I'm starting to maybe possibly have some doubts about this whole mountain thing. It's just, we never get told when things are going to change. I know the mantra is to keep making it bigger, but when is big enough? It's been growing all my life and my parents' life and their parents' life. It's fucking massive. There are millions of us down here just swimming back and forth in the dark and we're dying without ever seeing a crack of light. It's shit in the pit. Please get back to us, we can't keep waiting we need to know when it's our turn to go up.

We have to know why we're building it, we have to know what's at the top. The mountain is in the exosphere and I'm in a disposable nappy. Toothless in the blackness beating my head against the walls of the cave.

But I'll stick with it, I know I will, it's just around the corner. We'll grow it and we'll win it and we'll expand it and we'll do all the things they want. I just miss you and I want to see the sun one day.

I'm 45% microplastics and 55% mountainhead, what a time to be barely alive.

QF

From Office Magazine

[sonic-transmasc-swag-tourney]

The bots would be an actual concern if in the poll Starline was winning for a wide gap, which isn't happening. Let's do some math :D

Currently (At the moment of this ask), the poll is at 12,585 votes, with Starline winning by 54% and Scourge with %45

Turning that into actual numbers it would mean that 6,795 people have voted for Starline

Meanwhile, 5,663 have voted for Scourge

In the case of it being bots, Starline and Scourge would have a larger gap than just ~1000 people

Also, as Nintendoni has stated in the tags, they've been sharing the polls in Discord Server and so have I, as well as sharing it in my socials. I have 3k followers here on Tumblr and 18k of followers on Twitter, which could explain why the polls involving Starline has so much reach (and I'm pretty sure that my other Starline fans friends have been sharing the polls around as well)

Not only that, but with the passion that everyone is reblogging it to tell people to vote for Scourge, it also gives more visibility to the polls, giving more people the option to vote for any of their preferred characters regardless of what the OG reblogger is telling them to vote for. Polls with Starline tend to get pretty heated because people keep spreading them in order for people to vote for Starline's opponent, but reblogging it asking people to vote for the opponent doesn't guarantees that they're gonna vote for them, it only opens the possibility of more people voting with their own choice (Which can be Starline)

I hope this helps! o/

Thank you!! Honestly this helps a lot,, I was thinking the gap wasn't too high and usually its higher if they're there

I've been kinda nervous about the poll results/possibility of bots so this helped lol :]]

[juliapark13]

Tbh what i think is if you think being a fan of an artist is not fun anymore SOLEY because of his other fans, you never really loved that artist to begin with. Yes it's a Fandom, there are 1000 different types of people but that doesn't mean we should know what 999 type of people has to say or do.

For eg : Being JM stan is one of the difficult thing in fandom. He's the member who's ALWAYS attacked by his own fandom, kpoppies and western stans. He's the one who's ALWAYS belittled for his achievements and skills. He's the member who's reporting page is filled with antis every hour. He's the member who's least active on sm. Guess what ? None of it made me feel like being his fan is not fun anymore. If anything I love him and find everything about him entertaining each day passing by.

I literally don't care what those 999 of his antis and haters and so called fans has to say about him. This is a relationship between only him and me. No third parties involved on quantity of enjoyment it gives me lol. Yes i made few friends here, I follow some of his fan accounts who I feel extremely comfortable in. But that doesn't mean it's them controlling how I love him and his contents. If one of them deactivate tomorrow, ofcourse I'll miss them but it's goodbye anyway because when I came to this Fandom none of these stan accounts nor stans were the guarantee or reason for me to love him. It was just Park Jimin. As of now, 5 years into fandom, I've never felt any platforms I'm so active in tiring (as I curate tl accordingly). If it becomes I will just either log out or won't read others opinions.. because at the end of the those robots will go away once I switch off my device lol. After all nothing these accounts say about him affect my real life anyway. After I scroll through sm, I go with my day as usual just jamming to music and maybe scrolling through some JM pics lol. There's irl family, friends, chores and activities for me to engane with.

This love will only go away IF I personally lost that connection with him (without influence of anything else).. you know maybe it's because of time going on or life getting in middle or even my interest or taste changes and Park Jimin no more gives me butterflies lol. I hope that day never comes 🤞 till then I'm gonna be on Jimin land without care of anything else. It's just between him and me.

Same. Even if it’s sad to see pathetic people hating on the members I love the most, they could never stop me from enjoying seeing them or they could never affect my view.

And JM’s solo music literally showed how much jealous of him everyone is. Including so called ot7s.

[cha-melodius]

Not to drag the mood down but this is something I think about a lot:

Napoleon is with Illya when they find out JFK got assassinated.

Napoleon is not a patriot but this would not leave him unaffected, Illya neither despite it being the *American* president. I wonder how they would cope with the shock? (I mean given they are already in an established relationship by then)

Do you know that you sent this ask in a year ago. A YEAR. I'm so very sorry that I sat on this for that long. My ask box would get filled up and emptied, and occasionally I would catch sight of this one down there. Ah! The JFK ask. I figured, a year later, it's time to finally answer this.

For all that I thought I had little to say about this, apparently I had the ability to ramble a lot. SO. No guarantees this makes full sense, lol.

I think I put it off because I have so little sense of how this would go for them, tbh. I'm not sure I agree that Napoleon is not a patriot (I think I've talked about this on the discord before). I think he has a very complicated relationship with his feelings toward his country at the time of the movie. He volunteered for the army at 16, meaning he had to forge documents to get in, so he had to really want it. I suppose you could headcanon that he was running away from something—a bad family situation, perhaps—but I tend to think of him as being kind of idealistic at that age, tbh. He was gonna go fight Nazis and do something with his life.

Following the war, he obviously stayed in Europe and probably was 1000% more jaded by politics and governments. But then. THEN he gets caught. Recruited by the CIA. But he doesn't just work for them. He becomes their best agent. WHY? Illya asks this question in the movie and comes to the conclusion that it's shame for his criminal past. Yeah, right. Napoleon has no shame, certainly not about being a thief. Probably a lot of his motivation is pride in his work, and the simple fact of wanting to be the best, but I think that some part of him still wants to serve his country. I don't think he buys into to the America is the Greatest Dogma, but I do think he is unabashedly American.

So when his president gets assassinated... shock, disbelief, anger. I can actually see him being angry in a way that surprises even himself; he doesn't want to be, wants to think he's above it, but he is angry. Illya tries to offer his quiet support (more on that later) and Napoleon lashes out at him—of course he's fine, why wouldn't he be, one politician is the same as any other, he doesn't care. For Illya, if we're assuming they've been together for a while and thus, probably, that Illya's been living and working in the West for a while, it's just gotta feel weird. As much as I feel unequipped to guess at how Napoleon would feel after JFK was shot, I really cannot guess how a Soviet agent would feel. FWIW I also feel like Illya has a very complicated relationship with his own patriotism.

So JFK gets shot (btw, I had no idea before this that Oswald lived in the Soviet Union for a time and married a Russian woman? I really don't know much about this history), how do they deal with it? Honestly? Poorly, lol. Neither of them want to talk about it. They just want to pretend like nothing has changed. As I said above, I think Illya would try to be a good partner/boyfriend and offer his support, but Napoleon would brush him off, which probably would create some tension between them.

They're also shaken, they don't know how this level of upset in the American government will play out. What if Johnson's policies greatly changed the relationship between the USA and the USSR? How would that affect them? How does it affect UNCLE? I can picture them fighting because Illya worries he's going to get recalled to the KGB and taken away, that they'll be enemies again, and Napoleon just insists everything will be fine. This of course irritates Illya because he feels like Napoleon isn't taking it seriously, while Napoleon is absolutely freaking out inside about the possibility of losing Illya, but burying it under a flippant exterior in that way he does. Probably it ends up blowing up in some big argument with some cathartic breakdowns, and they come out of it realizing/confirming how much they love each other. Also probably come out of it with the understanding that if shit DOES hit the fan, they're running away together.

All right, I think that's all I have to say, lol. I sincerely apologize for taking so long to answer this... when it got to like 10 months I might have figured I'd just wait until a year had gone just for the heck of it. 😉 And apparently I did have some strong ideas once I sat down and forced myself to start writing them out!

[sarcasticsra]

I’ve always been very “death of the author” as far as media interpretation goes. Once you put something out into the world to be interacted with, your “authority” over the text, as it were, is gone. Media belongs to the people who consume it, and your voice is now just one of many.

So you can write something and intend one thing, and maybe I can see your intention, but there’s no guarantee I’m going to be convinced by it. I’m going to interpret it through the lens of my own values and experiences, and maybe we’ll line up, or maybe we won’t, and either way can be just as correct.

If the intention was to showcase selfishness on Rue’s part by the stopping of the marriage, that part specifically just doesn’t sell for me. I could see it better if we didn’t have the revelation that they were kidnapped into their court. I could see it better if the “negative” consequence of it was more than that a court didn’t gain status. I could see it better if they hadn’t spent literally millennia organizing Blooms for others. Hell, I could see it a lot better if it wasn’t made clear that Apollo fucking sucks and Grabalba is 1000% better off now, happy with an actual love match. That context in particular reads, to me, as textual support of Rue’s action there being correct—they did this, and oh, turned out it was a good thing after all.

But on its own, literally nothing will ever make me give a fuck that a court just lost some status? Political arranged marriages for power are in fact terrible, lol. So the concept of one being prevented as a “negative” just falls super flat to me, right away. I just don’t care. It’s like, oh, okay, too bad for you? Sorry your dumb hierarchy didn’t gain influence and power? If we had some indication that Apollo and Grabalba really had been secretly in love, or that the Goblin Court was closer to BINX’s court in structure and the marriage symbolized some kind of changing of the status quo, or that something tangibly tragic had happened like with the Court of Craft because of it being called off, I’d be more inclined to buy it. Any of those would be amazingly juicy unintended consequences that would showcase the action being shortsighted. But… “the other terrible royalty won’t respect us now :(“? Hold on, let me find my tiny violin…

Taken all together, for me, all I see in this action right now is a person who has been putting other people ahead of themself for thousands of years, ignoring their own values, and something in them finally snapping, finally saying, “this is dumb and wrong and I’m stopping it,” and finally deciding to do what they think is right (followed by the consequences seemingly supporting that decision). Is that selfish? I guess? If it is, it’s fully 100% necessary selfishness. It’s a “put on your own oxygen mask on the plane first before assisting others” level of selfishness. So I don’t see it remotely as a negative. Particularly as Hob desperately needs some of that brand of “selfishness” for himself.

And like again, I fully get what it means to Hob personally, and that part definitely makes the revelation juicy as hell, (and so befitting the genre) but I also know his perspective is genuinely super warped. So while I feel for him and his pain, I’m also over here like, “but it doesn’t matter, Hob, because you have inherent worth outside of the honor of a court. You have worth just for being you. You just need to see it.”

(And there’s the part where if he had gotten Rue’s letter, maybe he would have started to see it, because his interpretation of their actions would’ve been directly contradicted, and it might lead him to eventually wonder what other interpretations of his were incorrect.)

Now, as a caveat, we do still have one more episode to go, so I’m willing to be convinced, if there’s more to it, for sure. As it stands now, though? Eh.

And for the record, while I do think Rue displays some selfishness (though, it must be pointed out, still a hell of a lot less than most of the other archfey we’ve met), I just currently don’t buy this as an example of it. It’s been shown far more convincingly, for me, through their relationship with Wuvvy than with Hob, IMO. (Thinking of the Command spell in particular right now but I know there are a couple other moments.) And it’s important to remember, just like Hob’s behavior, it’s also tied up in a whole host of survivorship trauma, a persona as a defense mechanism for the court they are a captive to. Both Rue and Hob have sublimated their true selves as a response to the traumas of their courts, but it manifested as grandiosity on Rue’s part, to keep themself safe through being a facilitator, above it all, “you might not hate me if I’m entertaining you,” and subservience on Hob’s part, to keep himself safe through being a tool, waiting for orders, “you might not hate me if I’m of use to you,” which is both an amazing parallel and delicious contrast. They truly are two sides of the same coin.

God, I just love this season so much. I don’t even normally dig Regency-esque stuff because misunderstandings as a trope 99% of the time only make want to yell JUST FUCKING TALK TO EACH OTHER but something about the way this one has been done is just, ah. Chef’s kiss. Perfection. Inject the tropes straight into my veins, thank you.

[kurazaru]

I tried drawing 5 frm the umbrella academy:) I've switched to sketching with ball point pen so I can identify my mistakes more easily. Lately I haven't been doing art, which idk why. Probably has to do with my crippling fear of failure. Oh well, whatever. Posting my sketches here is my way of trying to get over this fear. I'm gonna start posting everyday from now on, I promise.

Nowww some life stuff. Basically, I came across an old photo of a summer camp and remembered my friend whom I was bffs with for like a week. Then after some stalking on Facebook I managed to find his name, and obv no one my age uses Facebook, so I searched him up on insta, found his id, and omg hes so hot now, but his acc was private, I sent him a request and he didn't accept it, which was expected. He doens't even know who I am and we have no mutual friends. I was devastated when i first got rejected, but then now that I think abt it, it's what anyone would hv done. And honestly, we were frnds for a very short time that too some 7-8 years ago. He probably doesn't remember who I am, and what we did in the summer camp. And even if he does, why would be want me in his life? Coz it's been years, and we probably have vastly different personalities compared to when we first met. There's no guarantee that we will click again. + He has some 1000 followers so I'm assuming he's popular as fuck in his school lol, and he's hot so that's that. Well, I removed my friend request, and I've gone off insta. Staying off insta is actually so helpful. I'm gonna stay off forever now, coming back only on birthdays and when I wanna post art. Though i really miss how funny insta reels are. They are top tier dude. But once again they led me to having spent 6+hrs on reels EVERYDAY which isn't healthy at all. I'm gonnaame a pact with myself today, the next 3 years, till i graduate from my college, i will not fall for anyone, and relationships are out of question(which already were considering my gay ass and i live in the ever so judgemental India)

Okkk see ya !

[heymarketeer]

Warning! 4 Signs That Your Facebook Ads Manager Sucks

You need help with Facebook advertising badly and hired somebody from Fiverr or Upwork.

If you’re starting out and wanted to start real quick on Facebook advertising, my guess is that you’ll jump into anything cheap on these platforms. 

Did somebody guarantee you 1000 real estate leads at $0.01/lead? 

Have you been promised 2500 new email subscribers at $0.001/signup?

Maybe they told you they’ll get you 3000 webinar sign ups for $0.5/sign up?

Or you’ve been guaranteed that $500 ad budget will definitely secure you that 6 figure launch?

Cue in ALERT WARNING — you’ve been lied to. You became their new victim.

Unless this “expert” has worked with you in the past, in your NICHE, on a similar OFFER and you absolutely KNOW this expert can deliver these promises…they suck. In Facebook advertising, there is no “set to stone” guarantees.   

Beware of these experts who promise SPECIFIC figures and dollar amounts with this service offerings. No two businesses share the same success on running ads, be it in the same niche or on a similar offer. Believe at your own risk, but subscribe ONLY if their package comes with a guaranteed refund when your campaign doesn’t perform as they promised.

How to spot an expert? Here’s a quick rundown.

1 He will show you results of his campaigns in the same niche or similar offer. He’ll show some proof of work and explain what works and how the campaign fared in terms of success metrics.

2 He will not promise you any figures and blind you with fake claims. A true expert knows that the cost of a lead varies on many factors like the following: your offer, your niche, your target market/audience, the campaign itself, etc..

3 He will educate you on the importance of developing a sales funnel and helping you work on creating campaigns for every step of the funnel.

4 He will tell you that running a successful Facebook campaign needs time – preferably a minimum of 3 months.

But we’re here for the signs that your manager sucks, so let’s cut this list herer. (lol)

1) Their service fee is less than you pay for a Starbucks coffee

Have you hired your Facebook Ads manager on Upwork for $2.50/hour or on Fiverr for a one time gig of $50? Are you effing crazy?

Most people spend more money on their Starbucks coffee than what you are investing in Facebook Ads management.

Yeah, it’s cheap. But how far can this fee move your business success? Eventually, you’ll get what you pay for.

Facebook ads management can be a full time job — especially if you have a large advertising budget. An expert Facebook ads manager is there to help you set up the strategy and optimize your campaigns daily to maximize your advertising investments. Expect to pay at least $500/month or $1500/campaign depending on the size of your ad budget.

Pro Tip: Find an expert whose service pricing aligns with your budget and the level of performance you expect to receive.

2) Your ads look like a 10 year old created them

Does your ad look like it was created from Microsoft Paint?

Was it published in super low resolution?

Does your ad copy contain spelling mistakes (that weren’t done on purpose) or grammar mistakes?

Maybe your ad image has nothing to do with your product or target audience…

You’ve got a case of the UGLY ADS.

An ugly ad creator can not call themselves an expert

Is failing fast your objective? If yes, then stick to ad creatives and ad copies that don’t align with your product, your brand or your target audience.

Is succeeding faster your true goal? Then fire your ads manager and hire a true expert.

3) They are always incognito – you both play cat and mouse.

You needed that report yesterday!

The PROBLEM: you rarely hear from you Facebook Ads manager. Weeks go by without an update. You don’t have any idea what is happening.

You’re mid launch and your ads manager has gone MIA. You are already on the edge with all urgent stuff. You’re going crazy worried about how much you’re spending on Facebook ads.

A great Facebook Ads manager will proactively update you every week or on dates you both agree to in the beginning. An even dependable ads manager will periodically report to you when he make a change or have a suggestion in improving the ad results.

4) They don’t know what “retargeting” means

RED ALERT

In this business, anyone can watch Facebook advertising videos on YouTube on how to use the Power Editor, set up audiences and figure out how to fire up a Facebook Ad campaign.

But…

Not everyone knows how to target.

Go to Fiverr and you’ll learn that there are many gig providers for Facebook audiences there.

It is a profitable business. Why? It’s obvious that not everyone knows who to target in their specific niches.

One important measurement of a Facebook Ads expert is how well they RESEARCH and REACH your target audience.

Age, gender, location, competitors, behaviors, demographics, ad placement, device usage… all of these factors and others come into play with audience targeting.

Oh… and if they have no clue what “retargeting” is.

Fire.

Them.

Immediately.

If a “self proclaimed” expert’s promises sounds too good to be true, chances are they are too.

You’ve been warned.

If you are looking for a team that considers Facebook advertising our zone of genius – move over and let us take care of it for you! Find out how you can work with us.

[vtsvro]

detective conan chapters 1 - 1000

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 316: We've Had One, Yes, But What About Second Explosion

Previously on BnHA: Deku was all “[powers up like whoa because it’s time to end the fight]”, and he saved Overhaul from getting not-shot, and then smashed up Nagant’s arm with the power of his new rechargeable super knees. Nagant was all “yoooo this kid is crazy strong whaaaat, it’s like he’s some kind of protagonist or something.” Deku was all “I AM A PROTAGONIST, ACTUALLY, DO YOU WANT TO JOIN FORCES AND FIGHT BAD GUYS WITH ME?” Nagant was all “ah shit why the hell no -- ” and then AFO was all “SURPRISE” and everyone was all “?!?!?!” and AFO was all “TIME TO EXPLODE NOW” and made Nagant explode because he’s an absolute fucking dick. And then Hawks showed up, because Horikoshi just wanted to stuff as many plot points as humanly possible into a single chapter I guess.

Today on BnHA: Hawks is all “good job giving motivational shounen redemption speeches Deku but I’ll take it from here” and screams very earnestly right in Nagant’s face until she finally wakes up. Nagant is all “oh hey it’s my successor, you seem surprisingly unfucked-up from your own HPSC tenure, how did you manage that?” Hawks is all “fandom is going to love hearing this one, but basically it’s because I’m very upbeat and also I had the world’s best role model Endeavor to look up to,” and I swear this man stirs the pot on purpose, but damn it I still love him so damn much. Overhaul is all “HELLO AGAIN, JUST A REMINDER THAT, THE BOSS!!” and Deku is all “MAYBE TAKE TWO SECONDS TO REFLECT ON HOW YOU TORTURED A LITTLE GIRL,” which, thank you, lol. Nagant is all “btw AFO’s hiding in a house in the woods”, and so Deku and the gang go to the house in the woods. Video recording!AFO is all “hi I’m AFO welcome to Jackass” and blows up the house. Sometimes I wonder if this manga is just a weird dream.

I am once again reading the Bean version because I think it was actually the best out of all three translations last week. and that is surprisingly including Viz’s. “faux” is not nearly as entertaining as “knockoff”, and also I have literally no idea why Caleb thought Deku was saying the Third’s lines lol

oh hey, Endeavor’s here too! not that you’d ever be able to tell from this first panel lmao

glad you received All Might’s call, mysterious unidentified glowing smudge

oh snap he says he’s weaker in the rain. is that why AFO told Nagant to attack then?? except that as we discussed the other day, I believe that AFO fully intended for Nagant to lose the fight, so him giving her info that would give her an advantage doesn’t really fit in with that. maybe he wanted Deku to be separated from Endeavor and the rest for maximum angst, though

btw Deku’s eyes are unsurprisingly back to the new normal here

alas, the angst continues. I say, pretending like I’m not totally eating it up each and every week and writing essay after essay about it lol

anyway so apparently Hawks can’t actually fly lmao. he was just yeeting himself with style

for some reason this is the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever seen omfg. wave to Hawks, kids! say “bye, Hawks!”

j/k of course Deku is catching them. -- except???

wow so he was just running on fumes there at the end. well, good to know there is actually a limit to his shenanigans, particularly regarding this new “knockoff” 100% OFA. it will definitely not alleviate any of the discourse, but it’s good for my own peace of mind because it’s solid confirmation that he still needs his pals in order to win this thing

anyway, but on to the rest of this conversation, which is basically Deku deducing what we all deduced last week -- AFO implanted some sort of trap into Nagant when he gave her Air Walk. though I’d still like to get the actual details from AFO and/or Horikoshi, because this was particularly wild even by quirk standards lol

omgggggg

she still has a face after all!! so it’s confirmed, Horikoshi has no idea what “blowing up” actually means. we might have guessed, based on what happened to Toga in the MVA arc, and also based on everything Katsuki does ever, but shhh

so now Hawks is all “NAGANT PLEASE WAKE UP, IF I SHOUT MY NAME AT YOU WILL THAT DO THE TRICK”

this is actually kind of touching though because even though we all know (or most of us acknowledge at any rate) that Hawks is a pretty caring person, it’s rare to see him actually panic over someone’s welfare like this

oh shit Horikoshi is really doubling down on it

I wonder how much Hawks knew about what really happened between Nagant and the HPSC. regardless, he probably sees her as a kindred spirit of sorts, and I’m more than happy for Deku to pass the redemption torch onto him now that he’s on the scene. like no offense Deku but they actually know each other and stuff lol

DAMMIT NAGANT CAN’T YOU SEE HOW LOUD HE IS YELLING

apparently being freed from his HPSC shackles has finally given Hawks the space to embrace his own inner shounen protagonist. is there anything more shounen than trying to motivationally scream someone awake when they’re lying in your arms inches from death?? 100% guaranteed to work

!!! IS THIS NAGANT’S POV OMG

SO SHE IS ALIVE. THANK GOD. Horikoshi doesn’t want to meet with my emotional distress lawyer today after all

love how she’s all “just gonna stir up the weekly Hawks Discourse pot here by implying that he probably committed a lot of Atrocities just like I did, so now people can get all hopped up about that, even though there’s no evidence he’s ever killed anyone aside from that one horrible ‘damned-if-you-do...’ situation with Twice.” no one asked for your provocative speculation young lady!! trust me Nagant, our rabbles don’t need the rousing lol

but nice save there with the “so how are your eyes so untainted” well you see it’s because even when he was following the HPSC’s orders he always went to great lengths never to go against his own moral compass. which just to be clear was incredibly difficult, and led to a ton of pain and suffering on his part, because the life of a spy is basically just one impossible situation after another. but in spite of that he never stopped trying to do his best to help people. I don’t really know where this tangent came from or is leading to, lol, but anyway p.s.a. I love Hawks a lot and he’s a good kid dammit

oh shit??!?

how is the League always able to swing all these fancy forest mansions. where do they find them. how many do they have

so Deku’s dropping them -- very roughly, not sure if he was reacting to finally getting AFO’s location, or if his energy really is giving out -- and now Nagant’s saying that AFO hired other villains as well. well of course he did. gotta keep chipping away at OFA’s ninth successor little by little

now Nagant is asking Hawks how he’s able to keep making “that” face. I assume she’s again talking about the fact that he somehow didn’t let the HPSC wear down his spirit

oh my god???

thanks for stuffing this chapter to the brim with good nutritional Hawks Feels, Horikoshi. what a good. he just keeps on trudging forward undeterred no matter what bullshit comes his way. what a steadfast little guy. I WILL PROTECT YOU FROM DISCOURSE MY SWEET SUNSHINE

lmaoooo

“SPOTTED THIS DUDE JUST CHILLING OUT THERE ON THE ROOF WITH NO ARMS, SEEMED PRETTY SUS” good job Endeavor

anyway so you don’t really need me to tell you that Overhaul is immediately starting in with the “BUT THE BOSS WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE ME TO THE BOSS YOU PROMISED YOU WOULD TAKE ME TO THE BOSS” stuff again. but I will go ahead and tell you anyway. so yeah. he’s doing that

OMG YOU GUYS LOOK AT DEKU’S “of all the fucking assholes to just randomly drop in on my life once again why did it have to be you” FACE THOUGH, OMG

fun fact, if you go back to chapters 124 through 160, there was an entire story arc where Overhaul imprisoned and tortured a little girl. yeah, I know!! suuuuuuuuper evil. anyways just an interesting little anecdote for you all that’s somewhat relevant to the current situation

OMG, YES. FUCK YES, DEKU

THEN WHAT ABOUT SPARING ONE FOR HER!!! YES!!! EXACTLY!!! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, SOMEONE GETS IT

HERE’S THE PANEL OF DEKU SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING I’M SAYING LOL

(ETA: so apparently there’s some discourse about this because some people are interpreting this as Deku saying “you should apologize to Eri”, which would obviously be a terrible idea even if Overhaul actually wanted to do that, because Eri shouldn’t ever have to see him again. however I just want to point out that there is a HUGE difference between saying “it would be nice if you could direct that feeling of regret/being sorry towards Eri as well”, vs saying “you should also apologize to her.” all Deku is doing is rightfully pointing out that Overhaul has hurt way more people than just his boss, and if he really is remorseful, then he should extend those feelings of remorse to Eri and the rest as well. it’s not a directive to take any specific action, and I’m 1000% sure no one at U.A. would let Overhaul within 100 miles of Eri ever again.

tl;dr “try feeling remorse sometime” =/= “do you want me to fly you over to U.A. right now to surprise the little girl you traumatized”, lol.)

[slings an arm around Deku’s shoulders] you’re a good kid. I like you. I don’t know if I tell you that enough, but it’s true

meanwhile here is Overhaul’s “spare... a thought... for Eri...???????” face sigh

the struggle is real y’all

(ETA: and that’s... the last we ever saw of Overhaul, I guess? well all right then. I assume Deku will make good on his promise, so we know he’ll get that little bit of closure before going back to jail or whatever, and I confess I’m more than fine with leaving the rest of it open-ended, especially given his character’s history. I think this was pretty generous all things considered.)

lmao holy shit

All Might what did you do to those tiki torch guys?? did you thrash them. did you give ‘em those hands. did you deliver their own asses to them complete with a sticker reminding them Amazon Prime Day is on June 21. we missed out goddammit

so Endeavor, who wasn’t the one he was asking, is telling him that they captured (well let’s be real, Deku captured, give the credit where it’s due) Nagant and Overhaul. and so I guess they’re going to take Nagant to the ER now

fire is no one’s weakness

-- oh my GOD I scrolled down and audibly gasped

[is politely but firmly approached and asked to remove my arm from Deku’s shoulder by the physical manifestation of all this Dekuangst] “we’re sorry, he’s not allowed to have visitors right now” oh shit, my bad. [goes to stand behind a police barricade]

lmao what. did you run out of room on the previous page

what an exaggerated fade to black lmao

-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I actually can’t see what he’s reacting to so maybe I’m just seriously jumping the gun here lol, but THE HELL WITH IT. the next panel appears to be a cut to Haibori Forest, so I’m just gonna go ahead and declare that Deku ran off on his own all wounded to go have more Dekuangst, just like I manifested. now go call Katsuki goddammit

[scrolls three more inches down] oh

yeah so like I said, Deku is walking very slowly a few feet in front of Endeavor, who’s telling him to wait up. yep. we’ve all gotta be so careful to not just jump to conclusions. I know we’re excited but still

anyway, so! welcome back to Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods (ARE YOU GUYS DATING) and Edgeshot! have fun walking into this obvious trap lol

dammit Deku why are you so determined to tempt fate

[monkey puppet meme faces]

OH MY GOD THIS IS PURE GRADE-A CHEESY COMIC BOOK VILLAIN 101 SHIT AND I’M HERE FOR IT

that’s such a weird way of clapping who claps like that

unlike certain other people who shan’t be named, AFO doesn’t feel the need to inexplicably take his shirt off when recording sinister villain monologues. I think we’re all pretty grateful for that

high fives to everyone who called it!! yep yep

anyway so this whole scene has major booby-trap vibes, which I’m enjoying immensely even though I don’t think anything is really going to come of it lol. probably just another long-winded AFO Speech. but wouldn’t it be funny if like the ceiling started lowering down to try and squish Deku afterwards lol

(ETA: well the explosion was still pretty funny too ngl.)

ffff

[“Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies]

anyway so yeah. he’s just hitting up all of his usual villain talking points. we get it, you’re so smart and you see right through the thin veneers of society and people who don’t conform are left to fend for themselves and labeled as villains and history is written by the victors, and blah blah blah dude are you just jumping randomly from one soundbyte to another lol. literally what are you talking about. what does this have to do with you blowing up Nagant

-- holy shit??

[”Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies MORE?????]

LOL WHAT

BRO. WHAT IS WITH YOU. DON’T YOU KNOW HOW TO LAY ANY OTHER KIND OF FUCKING TRAP GOOD LORD

“YOU’RE NEXT” THE CALLBACK?? THE PARALLELS?? THOUGH WHEN ALL MIGHT POINTED HE MADE IT LOOK WAY COOLER. AFO’S POINTING JUST LOOKS LIKE SMOKEY THE BEAR

HAS ANYONE CHECKED IN ON KAMUI WOODS I HEAR HE IS WEAK TO FIRE?? THE ONLY ONE WHO IS, APPARENTLY

r.i.p. to this particular forest mansion. don’t worry they have a ton of backups

remember last week when I said maybe AFO thinks explosions are gauche. well never mind. he fucking loves explosions

anyway so that’s the end of BnHA, everyone. hope you enjoyed. it was a good ride while it lasted. see you all, good luck in your travels

[kokiyandereblog]

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Last update: 4/18/22

[retvenkos]

alright, Olive, I'm back with a weird question. (but first of all, I hope you're doing good! how awfully rude of me to not start my ask by that) because you're so good at psychoanalyzing people (and I adore your rambling thoughts), I was wondering if you could maybe help me? I've always wondered who my godly parent would be in the PJO universe - it's been the biggest mistery in my life since I was 8. I just haven't found myself in any figure of the Olympus, maybe because I'd be the child of a minor deity? I've thought about Apollo, and I genuinely like it, but idk, maybe I need a more thorough analysis. I've also gotten Iris and Hemera from other people? I just think your piercing mind could see right through me. anyway, this is weird lol, I hope you don't mind me asking this! and don't worry if you can't answer, it's totally fine. 💜

asdfgfddfgfd, when i get my two weeks off for summer break, i should just do placements for inquiring mutuals because honestly it's one of my favorite things,,,

also, before i get into it (because i have some thoughts™), i'm going to plug one quotev quiz that i think is better than the rest when it comes to these matters: this godly parent quiz.

now, clara, i am not nearly as versed in pjo cabin placements as i am in hogwarts houses, but i'm going to give this my best shot:

first, i think i would be remiss not to mention that you are a libra, and libra is associated with themis, (idk really what that means since i'm not into astrology, lol), but themis isn't mentioned as one of the gods with a cabin, so i'm disregarding that. if we are following this logic though, i think that aphrodite is also associated with libra, so perhaps you could fit into that cabin? personally, i don't see it as strongly as i see others, but you do have a hopeless romantic streak, and a strong sense of community, which could sway you in that direction.

as for apollo, i'm going to unpack that for a minute, because it's very interesting that you'd place yourself there, and i'm on the fence with that myself, lol. (this is very stream of consciousness, so let's see where this section takes us)

i definitely see the association with the arts - music and poetry - although in my mind apollo has always been the performer, and less of the creator. i always associated the muses more with the creation stages of music and poetry. like... the muses are the fashion designers and apollo is the model going down the runway. or the muses are the writers and collaborators in the writers room and apollo is the actor or director. so, while i see the association, i think it's a little weak, because you strike me as more of the quiet artist who's behind the scenes, rather than the bard singing in the pub, trying to get coins. but, you know yourself better, so maybe it's a good association.

and after that, what always strikes me about apollo is the volatile contradictions of his personality. i mean, he's associated with the sudden death of children (rightfully so, i mean he slaughtered all of niobe's sons), along with his sister, artemis, but he's also a healer. he's like that "i'm a healer, but..." meme, which is funny as hell but also a little concerning. like, in many stories he is that godly sort of intelligent strength, but also he's really volatile and has quite a temper on him. i don't really think this relates a whole lot to you, because i get the vibes that you are generally mild mannered, but when something pisses you off, you let is really simmer. i feel like you aren't one to fly off the handle - if you do, it's probably been stewing within you for a while, and whoever your anger is directed at really knows that you're upset, and they knowingly pushed you to that place. i feel like you're more of a grudge holder than hot-tempered (but girl, same).

and then, of course, we have apollo's prophecies. now, maybe this is me reading too much into your scientific mind, but i think you are concerned with the future, but also don't think too much of it is predetermined. i feel like you are more of a trailblazer than that, and might just be prone to ignoring or actively working against anything you saw in the stars, asdfghgfsdfggfdsdfggfd

oh, and, apollo just has so many unfortunate romances, and on one hand, i have you quoted that you are more of an eponine than a cosette, but also, no hate to apollo and his tragic affairs, but he's openly mocked eros, and that truly gives off the vibes of working off of one (1) braincell, and you are too good for that, clara.

and just going back to personality, i think you have a lot of flexibility that just doesn't fit with the apollo cabin.

tldr; kinda but no?

now, i'm gonna kinda hop back into possible theories.

one of my gut reactions was the say athena, but after thinking about it, i'm still a little unconvinced. you have the intellect and pride for this cabin, and i feel like you would get roped into helping a lot of heroes like athena, but you also just have a charm to you that athena lacks. part of athena is that she's unapproachable and her pride is excessive. you, again, are too flexible to be athena. she's staunch where you are willing, and i feel like the rigidity of her nature is too constricting for you. it's very similar as to why i didn't place you in ravenclaw.

i also considered nike because of your competitive streak, but this placement kind of takes away from the underdog vibes i get from you. the righteous fury... the glee in the moment... it's definitely there, but i feel like there's a level of unsurety to your psyche that you don't really get with nike.

which leads me to my final analysis, where i think you would do well as a child of tyche.

let me go through this. so, i mentioned your competitive streak with nike, and that is 1000% evident in tyche. tyche is all about luck and fortune, and i feel like competition is a shoe in. children of tyche like to dabble with the unknown or the novel - it makes life interesting. they like to go against another and see where the cards fall, and if lady luck isn't on their side.... well, tonight's just not their night. they have a secure base to fall back on, and that allows them to stretch their wings and fly.

furthermore, with nike, victory is expected and guaranteed. luck is far more fluid and unpredictable - it's harder to pin down. you can have a lot of luck and a lot of things working in your favor, but still, the desired end result isn't set in stone - it's likely to happen, but there's always risk. this risk leaves for an air of quiet self-assuredness that isn't overbearing. there's always uncertainty in the mix, and that leads to less overt confidence. it also adds to the thrill (or the anxiety).

plus, i think that the gap between fortune and certainty (a pitfall of risk) leads to a lot of checks and balances that i really see in you. there's a lot of clear headed logic that gets weighed against ambition and desire, and it makes for a kind of pragmatism that doesn't stomp out dreams, just looks at them realistically.

which means i feel like a lot of people ask you for advice, clara. it also makes you a decision maker for sure. you might falter for a moment, but in the end, you make a choice and you live with it.

also, i have a personal headcanon that children of tyche are really well rounded, which harks back to my gryffindor analysis of you, where i mention that you have many tools in your box. you are able to manipulate many different things, and you can look at them from many angles, and i love that for you.

i also think this is a good placement for you because luck is all about what-ifs. it's about actively manipulating the world around you. like i said when i mentioned apollo's prophecies - i don't think that you do very well with the predetermined. some things, certainly, but one (1) you are too stubborn to believe you can't change things (oh, the contradictions of a gryffindor and child of tyche), and there's also a level of desperation that things won't always be like this. luck can come to anyone in any place. this is definitely tied to your bleeding heart - you care for people who have fallen on hard times, and you can't help but pray that it's only temporary.

oh, and i headcanon that tyche holds grudges sO BAD. she is only outdone by nemesis and hades.

anyway, this was long and it winded, but TLDR; i hereby herald you a child of tyche. you are my lady luck, clara.

[getlitaesthetic]

Okay so I wrote a little drabble for if the humans decide to rebel. This is my first time writing anything semi-serious in years though so I can't guarantee the quality.

TW: gore, implications of rape, torture, drowning, blood

You didn't know whether to tremble or to stand there slack-jawed at the scene unfolding before you. You knew the plan wouldn't work. You refused to be a part of it from the very beginning. Trying to overthrow the demons? That's suicide. All you could do was brace your back against the wall, sliding down to sit on the floor.

You want to shut your eyes, to not see the carnage that is happening before you - your classmates, being torn apart, limb by limb. The lucky ones were being eaten alive by Beelzebub, the quickest death any of the demons were willing to grant. By contrast, his twin, Belphegor, was taking his time torturing his victims of choice. You hear bones snapping, the disgusting squelching sound of organs being torn out, and the most wrenching screams that would forever haunt both your sleeping and waking nightmares.

“...h...elp…” You hear a young student rasp. Turning your head to look, you see Barbatos dragging the young student away by the hair. The demon butler smirks, flashing his fangs at you, before disappearing around the corner with the student.

A part of you was relieved that Asmodeus had taken his victims away to a private room. You saw some other demons and even some angels following him, the promise of an orgy full of rape, torture, and ending in death for the humans was promised to them by the fifth-born. Your gut churns as you think about the fate of those classmates.

Suddenly, the ground shakes and you look to your left to see Leviathan has created a huge pit in the floor that is now filling with water. His tail whips out and curls around the nearest student’s ankle, dragging them into the water. At least when they’re under water, you can't hear them scream.

Satan appears from around a corner, looking pristine save for a few specks of blood the collar of his shirt. His eyes wander around the room, looking for his next victim.

“Please have mercy! I didn't want to be a part of this!” A student begs him.

Satan smiles. “I'm sure, little kitten. Let's get you out of here, yes?”

He takes their hand, leading them down a corridor. You wonder if the student knows this is only a farce or if they genuinely believed him. His looks and his demeanor often deceive the more naive students but you knew better. Maybe the student thinks Satan’s methods of killing are less painful than the others. Oh, how wrong they are.

You hear a few screams of pure terror mixed with pain from Lucifer’s side of the human hall. He must have switched from ripping them apart back to his preferred method, agonizingly slow torture. The eldest demon of the brothers flew between either ripping the humans apart or seeing how long they could hold out under his torture.

It seems like decades until the slaughter stops. It's followed by the booming laugh of Diavolo.

“Would you look at that, I managed to take out all their ribs before their tiny human heart stopped beating!” He grins as he shows Lucifer the mutilated corpse.

You glance around the room, there were only a few of your fellow classmates left, the only other ones that had refused to go along with the doomed plan.

You didn't even get a chance to fully digest the situation as a mop suddenly lands in front of you with a loud clack against the tiled floor.

“Clean this up!” Lucifer smirks down to you as you reach for the mop.

The other students are given a few items to clean with too but you know it's not enough to finish the job. Still, you're surprised they're even giving you anything at all to help clean up this mess.

A new feeling overcomes you as you stand up with the mop, anger. No, not towards the demons. It's towards your classmates for choosing to rebel and creating this mess.

Hope you enjoy! I tried lol 😅

——-

GUYS WE HAVE A FANFIC!!!! And more importantly, the characterization is literally 1000% spot on for every single character. Asmo convincing angels to join his orgy? Satan all pristine with a little smile? Barbatos snatching his favorite one away and dipping? Diavolo’s pure excitement about his experiment??? I’m losing it. It’s so good. I’m obsessed.

[forbidding-souda]

About Mod Souda

You guys should talk to me in the ask box more smh you guys are fun

Like just tell me about your day but I won’t guarantee that like 1000% I’ll respond but I’ll read them all.... efkjlwdbsc or or ask me questions or something idk I like talking

1500 followers face reveal when (shocked emoji) /srs

Anyways here’s some things about me because I never really introduced myself (since this is my account and why would I do an introduction)

THIS IS LITERALLY MY LIFE STORY GOODBYE BAHSBAH

-Mod Souda 

Hi I am Mod Souda and I go by he/him ofc ofc I am a gay man.

Uhh I am an a native amercan mixed kid AND an Aquarius ugh I’m so unique right. I was raised by a raver and a metalhead skater in Vegas. I’ve been in the pit since I was 4 years old (specifically at a Primus concert LMAO).

The first fandom I was in was Creepypasta, and I was about 8 years old. It’s funny because the first musician I ever actively liked was Madame Macabre. 

As a child (like 7-11) I mainly listened to Vocaloid, Madame Macabre, and Nicki Minaj.

When Avengers came out I was still in elementary school. And .. Loki... wrjhfbwejdhb bro!! gay awakening!! holy shit. I was in love with him but I didn’t want to admit it smh shhh.

The first anime I ever watched was Black Butler. I was IN LOVE with Joker from Book of Circus ehbwdjqshdfb. The last episode of that season ended the day I moved to California. I remember crying bc of the last scene inside of the moving truck.

I also got into Fairy Tail a lot. Also tragic. I had the hugest crush on Gajeel Redfox mmmmmemdwkgsnekfdjsglkvcx

I live in the Bay Area, and grew up in the same house, compared to living in Vegas where I moved every two years. There are ... so many poc here ... and in vegas I was in a class with all white people. Being around so many poc was so like ?? fun ?? idk how to describe it but it feels like how life should feel like; not stressful at all.

I started listening to goth music when I was 12 because I was in the Mr. Creepypasta amino and somebody was like “you guys should join the goth amino” and I was like oh that sounds so fun !!! Boom... goth Mod Souda arrived.

I was all about Sopor Aeternus and Switchblade Symphony. 

I discovered my lifelong favorite artist in like 2016. It was because I was making playlist for my Fairy Tail oc (tragic) and I added this song I got off of a “Creepypasta Theme Songs” and it was Bernadette by IAMX (which was assigned to Laughing Jack). And I listened to the song and was like meh this is cool. Then one day I played the playlist and it just.... hit different. LMAO I was like waiitittttititit. The next day, on the way to the airport, I downloaded all 7 (at the time) of his albums and listened to them the whole way. I’ve seen him live too like mm chris corner I love you.

I got into DR in 2015 because of an edit of (anime) Syo and Junko to Pound the Alarm LOL. I was like “this looks cool” so I watched it on my phone while sitting on the couch all in one go. Spoilers but I cried the most when mondo and sakura died, fun fact. Life went down from there smh!! 

I really believed that I was dating Gundham Tanaka. Like everything in my life was Gundham Tanaka related like I was ... obsessed with him. And I coudln’t see art of him and sonia because it would make me have a breakdown bc I thought he was cheating on me PLZ BHDSABHJBAHAAHHA it’s funny because I kin sonia now and I’m in love with her.

This was the same year where I ???? got bruises on my eardrums somehow (I asked my dad recently how I got them and he went uhh idk) ???? and I couldn’t hear anything for like three years plz. My hearing has gotten better but idk if my ear percentage is 100%/100% or if I’m just grateful it isn’t what it is before LMAO so that’s when I started learning ASL.

This is also the same year where I got hospitalized for being a neurodevelopmental schizophrenic lol OOPS !

A funny story of me growing up with danganronpa is uhh when future arc was still airing ,,, Spoilers,, and the episode with Juzo passing aired,, I literally printed the frame of him talking to himself confessing his love and BROUGHT IT TO SCHOOL. I LIT A CANDLE FOR HIM TOO LIKE BYE

Freshman year of highschool I started dating an emo kid who brought his electric guitar to school. TRAGIC. We dated for like two years please what.

Sophomore year I started getting into metal and punk. This is mainly because I went to a Slayer concert. I was trying to branch out of my goth bubble and !!! metal really stuck with me. My favorite subgenre is goregrind. It’s mmm so good. Punk... was a miss. I absolutely hate punks. If anyone in the alternative community is reading this right now I’ll tell you this: the punks that I interacted with to learn more about the community were from OC .... goodbye

I still listen to Glass Street tho ^ they are hc/crossover and I really like their music omg I have their merch now plz HBSAJKH and I still like the patch pants / crusties I made so that’s cool. A lot of kids look up / glamorize me just because of my fashion but at least they give me clout ig ...

The year after that I downloaded Spotify for the first time. I was an apple music/youtube person (tragic). Uhh what else omg. I finally figured out that I was neurodevelopmental and that it affected my way of thinking and that ,, it wasn’t JUST because I am sch so that was an awakening.

Anyways now trying to get a minor in asl interpreting mmmm and trying to get a job SMH !! why is it so hard. I’m into DND now oo that’s new and I’m collecting the dice.

I started this blog in July 2020 when I was staying with my friend in a tent in New York for a couple of months. I forced her to watch despair arc (LOL) and now she’s a junko cosplayer so B^)

Metalhead anon and everyone else who’s been here for a long ass time make me SOOO happy like woah.. it’s been so long omg. I used to post fics three times a day like wtf the EFFORT (that was before school started lol oops my bad)

Since then I’ve got a boyfriend and a whole wave of danganronpa cosplayers who are my friends now. It’s really cool to talk to so many young people (sometimes) who are hella into like,, open conversations about gender and politics and whatnot. I’m used to talking to 20 year old goth people you know? 

Whenever I do something “cringey” (like if I want to do dr character impersonations or if I want to rant about how much I love this anime character or if I want to try out neopronouns) I’m like hmmmm I can go to the danganronpa cosplayers and I know they won’t judge me for this.

Anyways that’s it. It’s 22:50 where I am right now aaaanndd I go on this blog way more than I should LOL

[illfoandillfie]

Ch-Ch-Changes

Horror Movie (Right There On My TV)

Request:  hi there! i feel weird requesting a sequel to this one since it’s so recent, but i loved it so much and i love your celebration so: do you think you could do more in the Horror Movie (Right There On My TV) universe? maybe a sequel where they’re all settling into the more serious/newer aspects of the relationship, or ben and reader missing joe when he has to go back… or literally anything lol it was so perfect and i’m so starved for bxrxj content and the way you wrote them was so perfect!!

Pairing: Ben Hardy x F!Reader x Joe Mazzello

Warnings: Angst city my dudes, implied sex, one mention of daddy kink but nothing explicit, it’s really just new relationship woes and adjustments.

Words: 7851

A/N: Written for my 1000 Follower Celebration . I was so so glad to get a request for more bxrxj because I just adored writing them but I wasn’t sure what to do with them next. Halfway through plotting out this one I came up with a concept for a third part as well so, keep an eye out for that lmao

Taglist:  @laedymoon  @dtfrogertaylor   @ezmina98  @vee-ndetta @atomic-watermelon @kellypenac @labessieisallama @deakyclicks @jennyggggrrr @drowseoftaylor  @hannafuckingsucks  @i-cant-hangout-im-drumming @queenmylovely

@mrbenhardys @sitonmyhot-seatoflove​

It was quiet when you woke, the morning air crisp and still though you felt overly warm from where you lay between the two boys. Your boys. The previous night’s confession came back to you along with the sore muscles and satisfaction left over from the reward you’d earned. Carefully, so as not to wake either of them, you disentangled yourself and scooted out of bed. It was while you were in the kitchen making coffee that Ben emerged, hair mussed and eyes still scrunched up against the morning light.  “Morning,” you said softly, unable to keep the smile from your face, “you want one?”  “Please,” he pushed his hair out of his face as he looked at you, “you beat me to it.”  “The coffee?”  “No, last night. The thing you said,”  “The whole I love you thing?”  “You meant it right? Because I was- that’s what I was trying to say when Joe was off looking for the blindfold but I-I wasn’t…I couldn’t quite bring myself to say it. In case you didn’t.”  “I meant it, Ben.”  “Okay good,” he sighed in relief as he accepted the mug you were handing him, dropping a peck to your lips as he did.  “D’you think Joe meant it too?” you hadn’t thought anything of it last night but you were hit by a sudden pang of worry, “It wasn’t just because he was caught up in the moment or anything like that?”  “He meant it. Me and him stayed up talking a bit last night, after you fell asleep. Said he’d been wanting to say it for a while but didn’t want to ruin things if we weren’t on the same page. The only question now is, what does it mean for all of us?”  “I don’t know. Guess I didn’t really think this part through.”  Ben hummed as both of you took a sip from your respective mugs, thinking things over.   “Well, we’ve never really labelled anything before, right? Do we have to start now?”  “I s’pose not,” he still looked concerned.  “Unless you or Joe want to, what’s wrong?”  Ben bit his lip and then took another sip of coffee, stalling, “Do you think this could be a bad idea?”  “You mean the three of us being together?”  “Yeah. I don’t know I’ve just… I’ve had my concerns for a little while. Nothing serious just, like, a couple things in the back of my head. But if this is going to be a real thing now then they become real concerns.”  “What sort of concerns?”  “Well, with me and Joe being actors, like,” he paused and sighed, “Bo Rhap took off and it’s opened a lot of doors for us both, 6 Underground and this thing joe’s working on and everything else, and that’s great but it also means we’re getting a bit more attention than before and I know we don’t have to label anything but if the press got hold of it they would and they’d probably spin it into something weird or bad. And then on the other hand there’s fans and stuff and that could end up with all of us getting unwanted messages that are either really negative or proclaiming us as some sort of representation we aren’t necessarily aiming to be. And I know me and Joe have made our peace with living in the limelight and having people be constantly interested in our personal lives, you don’t get into Hollywood without thinking about it at least a little. But you didn’t. I don’t want this to backfire and get you caught up in something we can’t control. What happens if someone hacks our phones and finds our messages? Or if we go visit Joe in the US and the paparazzi get photos of you kissing both of us or something like that?”  “Neither of you are quite that famous,”  “I’m serious, Y/N. There’s a big-” Ben stopped and looked towards the doorway as Joe joined you.  “Couldn’t wait for me?” he said as he made his way to the bench, pulling down his own mug from the cupboard.  “Sorry. Mostly just been filling Y/N in on what we talked about last night. The,” Ben pointedly looked back at you, “big risks involved.”  “And I’m trying to tell Ben the risks aren’t as big as he’s worried they are.”  “Y/N, come on,”  “Joe can you back me up?”  “Awww our first argument,” Joe laughed until he turned and caught sight of Ben’s face, “fine. Y/N, I’m sorry but I gotta agree with Ben here. There are definite risks and we need to discuss them.”  “I’m not saying there isn’t. I just think you’re making mountains out of molehills. Also it’s unfair that you’re both teaming up against me on this.”  “Thought you liked being double teamed? Joe wiggled his eyebrows at you, earning a laugh from you and an eyeroll from Ben.   “Look,” you said softly, “Joe’s only here for a little while longer. Paparazzi aren’t a problem for us right now. Let’s just try this and see how it goes okay? We can play it by ear and work out all the kinks as we go. Don’t.” you held a finger up at Joe whose mouth had opened at the word kink.  “I wasn’t going to!” he protested as he took the seat between you and Ben.  “You absolutely were.”  “Oh for fucks sake you two, can you at least pretend to be interested in this conversation?”  Joe sighed and patted the back of Ben’s hand, “okay I’m taking it seriously, I promise.”  “Good, now explain to Y/N why this could go bad because apparently she won’t listen to me.”  “I am listening Ben, I just don’t understand why you’re being so pessimistic about it all.”  “I don’t think he’s being pessimistic,” Joe cut in, “you have to admit this isn’t the easiest situation in the world and it’d be unrealistic to expect everything to be smooth sailing. Not just from a we’re-working-in-an-often-intrusive-and-voyeuristic-industry way but also because I think it’s safe to say none of us have ever dated two people at once before.”  Ben opened his mouth but Joe cut him off.  “I mean two people who know about each other.”  “Pretty sure it’s called a throuple,” you shrugged, earning a chuckle from Joe and a reluctant laugh from Ben.  “Well, whatever it’s called,” Joe continued, “it’s probably going to take some getting used to.”  “Okay but isn’t that every relationship?”  “You really want to go through with this? Even with…everything. The press, the fans, explaining it to our families and friends, the fact that Joe lives in another country? There’s a lot that could go wrong without even taking into consideration normal new relationship shit, and this is your chance to decide if it’s too much and back out.”  “I think you’re forgetting I’m the one who had the balls to verbally admit how I was feeling first. I’m not backing out.”  Ben’s eyes met yours and he nodded, seemingly persuaded, “Okay then, as long as we all know what we’re getting ourselves into. Is it horrible of me to suggest we come up with some…I don’t wanna say rules but like just something so we can guarantee this stays between us until we’re ready to be open about it.”  “What sort of non-rules?”  Ben smiled at the word, “I don’t know. Maybe um, no PDAs? And that includes holding hands and stuff as well as kissing.”  “I can do that,” you said with a nod, “never been hugely into PDAs anyway.”  “Yeah, makes sense not to,” Joe said, “Though Ben if anyone’s gonna struggle with it, it’ll be you. So very clingy,”  “I’m not clingy.”  “If you say so. I know this probably goes without saying but, since we’re talking about it, I don’t think we should tell anyone until we are all in agreement that it feels right, if even one of us is unsure then it stays secret. And that includes telling our families. Even if they keep offering to set you up with someone or things like that.”  “Your mum still going on about that friend’s daughter?”  “Yes,” Joe sighed, “But I’m going to keep putting up with it for the sake of you two. Anything else?”  “Maybe,” you ventured, “Maybe keep each other off our insta feeds and other social media. I mean, you two can post whatever you want and it probably won’t matter, but I think it’d be best to keep me out of it so that people don’t start speculating.”  “Yeah, okay, that’s easy. Is that everything?”  “I think so, yeah. S’pose we just see how it goes and figure things out.”  “Okay. So what happens next?”  There was silence as you all looked at each other and then Joe piped up, “Celebratory date night?” 

After some discussion you landed on dinner at a restaurant you’d gone to together when Joe first came to visit. Ben called to make a reservation and that night, after a day mostly spent lazing around the house and relishing each other’s company and your mutual happiness, you got dressed up and hit the town.   “You look stunning,” Joe said, eyes taking in the elegant dress you’d chosen and the heels that bumped your already tall frame just a smidge higher over his and Ben’s heads.  “You scrub up pretty well yourself,” you adjusted his collar as you spoke, fingers brushing lightly over his neck, before reaching for your coat.  “Allow me,” he said softly and then, much louder, “Ben, you ready?”  There was a muffled noise from the bathroom in reply.  “I swear if he’s still styling his hair.”  “I heard that,” Ben held up a finger, pointing it at Joe as he came towards you.  “Love when he gets all stern like that,” you nudged Joe’s shoulder.  Ben stuck his tongue out at you both sending you into a fit of giggles, “Dorks,” he laughed as led you out to the car.  

The drive itself was fun, singing along to the radio and discussing how hungry you suddenly were while Joe turned in his seat every few seconds to make a comment or joke and Ben stole glances at you in his mirror. When he pulled up Ben opened your door, and gave you a hand out of the car.  “And why didn’t you open my door Benjamin?” Joe said, mock aghast, “Terribly bad manners.”  You all laughed though there was a sudden slight tension in the air. It wasn’t by any means the first time you’d been out with the two of them. Plenty of days had been spent showing Joe the sights – trips to museums and art galleries and parks, dodging couples holding hands and parents trying to stop kids from touching what they shouldn’t. And you’d been out for dinner together more than once, fancy restaurants and the local sushi place and everything in between. But that was all before when you were just friends who sometimes slept together. If Ben had grabbed your hand to pull you to his favourite exhibit or if Joe had offered you his coat because you looked cold, it was all done in the name of fun, accompanied by jokes and laughter. But now there was meaning behind it. Ben’s fingers brushed yours as you walked up the street towards the restaurant and he quickly pulled his hand away.  

It got easier as the night went on. The table you were seated at was towards the back corner of the restaurant, so it felt a little more private than walking along the street had. And the longer you were away from the bubble you’d created in Ben’s home and car, the less worried you were that people were watching you, staring, trying to figure out your relationship. There were still a few awkward moments when one of you would go to do something that previously you wouldn’t have thought twice about, only to second guess yourself and falter. When Joe asked how your meal was, your first reaction was to offer him a bite from your fork though you stopped yourself this time, quickly shoving the food into your own mouth to cover the stuttered word that escaped too soon. Ben kept moving as if to touch your hand or Joe’s shoulder, only to remember what you’d agreed upon that morning and stop, leaving his hand resting awkwardly in the middle of the table. Eventually though he contented himself with playing footsie with you both, hidden by the tablecloth and each other’s chairs. So, by the time you were looking at the dessert menu, you felt much closer to your usual selves than you had at the beginning of the meal, laughing easily, mostly unworried by the people around you. You ordered a cocktail once the bottle of wine had been polished off, handing it around so Ben and Joe could taste it, and you opted to share two desserts between the three of you, no one hungry enough for their own.  

The second Ben turned the key in the lock to let you back inside, Frankie could be heard bounding towards the door.   “Hey girl,” he cooed, dropping to his knees to pat her as you and Joe stepped around them into the hallway.  “That was really nice,” you said as you hung your coat up by the door, “going out on a date, I mean.”  “Yeah it was. We’re straight up crushing this throuple thing.”  “Took a little getting used to though. I kept feeling like everyone was watching us.” Ben stood up from the doorway, lifting Frankie into his arms as he did so, “here go to mummy for a sec while I get your dinner,”  “Mummy?” you laughed, following Ben towards the kitchen, “Since when am I mummy? Thought I was auntie Y/N.”  “Auntie doesn’t fit now,” Ben shrugged, a can of dogfood in one hand and a can opener in the other.  “That raises so many questions,” Joe butted in, fingers wildly scratching under the dog’s chin, “The least of which is, if Y/N’s mummy does that make me daddy? And do those names transfer to the bedroom?”  “Absolutely not,”  “Spoil sport.”  “Alright you can put her down now, her dinner’s all sorted,”  With a final pat you placed Frankie on the floor. She stood staring at you and Joe for a minute before Ben clicked his tongue. Her ears pricked up and she followed the sound, faster once she realised food was involved.   Ben washed his hands and turned back to you, “Anyone want anything while I’m here?”  “No thanks, couldn’t possibly eat another bite.”  Joe shrugged, “I could go a snack, something a bit sweet?”  Ben and Joe shared a glance from across your shoulder and the next thing you knew Ben was sweeping you up as you squealed in surprise. He hoisted you over his shoulder, holding your legs still, as he carried you towards the bedroom.  “Show off,” Joe said as he followed, grinning, while you banged your fists against Ben’s back.  “Joe help me,” you whined, almost laughing as Ben adjusted his grip on you.  “Sorry sweetie, been thinking about getting you out of that dress since I saw you in it,”  “Me too,” Ben dropped you to the bed with a grunt that made you thankful the dress was easy to remove, “but the shoes stay on.” 

Despite Joe’s assertion that you were crushing it, your new dynamic turned out to be harder to adjust to than any of you had imagined it would be. When things were good, they were really good. The domestic bliss you’d fallen into over the previous few weeks continued, but small things began bugging you. Since Joe had moved in with Ben there hadn’t been any worries about leaving him out, no more distance to contend with, so there hadn’t been any problems when you spent the night with one and not the other. It was just how things shook out and no one made a fuss about sleeping alone. But now that you were dating it seemed they both expected you to spend every night with them. When you slept in Ben’s bed, Joe would start joking just a little too much about being excluded. And when you stayed in Joe’s, Ben would spend the next day being extra clingy, barely masking his jealousy. You briefly tried sharing a bed every night but found it untenable. It was lovely sometimes, but somehow you always seemed to end up in the middle and you very quickly got tired of waking up sweating and unable to easily get up to pee or grab a quick drink. Plus, before when you’d stayed over it was generally because of the sex. There’d been a few nights, particularly leading up to the night you’d admitted your feelings, where you’d stayed because you’d been too drunk to drive home or you’d fallen asleep on the couch or just because Ben said you should, but for the most part if you were staying over it was to hook up. Now though, things weren’t solely based on the physical so you didn’t always have sex before you fell asleep in one of their beds, and it led to accusations of favouritism and more than one argument.  

The arguments themselves were unfair too. Before, disagreements were quickly solved with a round of rough sex or at the most a couple of days apart before one of you pulled your head in and apologised. But, though you tried to continue that pattern, it didn’t seem to work anymore. Disagreements spawned arguments, often forcing someone to take sides. It was shit being dragged into the middle of an argument you had nothing to do with and it was shit when the person in the middle took the other’s side leaving you feeling ganged up on and attacked. Joe was best at mediating, so fights between you and Ben never seemed to last long but when Joe was involved in the argument things tended to escalate. Neither you or Ben were particularly good at staying impartial or coming up with compromises, both too stubborn to give in without a push from someone else, which just led to more hurt feelings. You ended up going back to your own apartment more often. It was smaller and dingier and lonelier but at least it gave you some space and didn’t gang up on you when you loaded the dishwasher wrong. 

On one evening, after a particularly long day at work when you were feeling extra snippy, Joe called you and Ben into the kitchen. You found him leaning against the bench, three mugs laid out in a row as the kettle boiled – a tea for himself, an instant coffee for Ben, and a chai latte for you.   “This isn’t working.”  A cold fist clenched around your heart as the words hit you. You began to protest the breakup at the same time Ben did but Joe held up a hand to stop you.  “I didn’t mean it like that. Shit, sorry, badly phrased. I just mean something about this isn’t right and we need to talk about it so we can fix it.”  You breathed a sigh of relief and sat down.  “Scared us, fucker.”  “Sorry, didn’t mean to,” he pulled out a packet of biscuits and placed them in the middle of the table, “All I want is to talk.”  “About?”  Joe brought the mugs over and took his own seat before he continued speaking, “I was reading some stuff online last night about situations like ours, relationships with more than two people, and every single site I found really hammered home how important good communication is to make them work. A normal couple takes a lot of communication as is but there are three of us – three personalities, three sets of opinions, maybe even three ideas of what this means or what we want from this – so we need to be better at talking about it. And I know it’s not easy, I don’t love talking about my feelings and stuff, but I think if we’re serious about this then it’s a discussion we need to have.”  “Makes sense,” you said softly, “how do we start?”  “I guess…maybe if we take it in turns to talk about anything that’s been bugging us lately? Y/N do you want to go first?”  “Oh, um, okay. The thing that’s been annoying me most is how um…”  Ben placed his hand on yours, “go on, we won’t be offended,”  You took a breath, weighing up the best way to say it, “it’s how, uh, how possessive you guys have been.”  “Is this why you’ve been disappearing a bit lately?”  “Yeah. It’s… you know I love you both but sometimes it feels like you’re fighting over me and expecting me to choose between you. I mean, like, I don’t have my own bed here so when I stay over I either have to sleep on the couch, which feels stupid, or I have to sleep in one of your beds. But no matter who’s bed I choose one of you always seems to be pissed off about it. It’s like you’re both trying to be The Boyfriend without considering each other. You don’t have to compete for me or whatever I’ve very clearly chosen you both.”  “Oh my god, I didn’t even think it might be making you feel like that,” Ben said with an apologetic smile, “I know I can get a little jealous and I’ve been trying not to but I guess that’s what I’m used to. In every other relationship I’ve had, it’s like, we agree to be serious and we share a bed, those things go hand in hand. So seeing you in someone else’s bed feels wrong, which is unfair to Joe and you.”  “I get it, Ben, I do. This is all very new and a little weird and I knew there’d be teething problems to start. But it’s tiring always feeling like I’m being pulled in both directions.”  “Can I just point out, and this isn’t meant in a bitchy way,” Joe said, “but you’re the one who ruled out all of us sharing one bed. So do you have a solution? Because, I admit I’ve been a bit of a jerk about it. Like Ben said I still kind of feel like you should spend more time with me, which I know isn’t right but it’s hard to just switch those feelings off.”  “I might have an idea,” Ben dunked a biscuit into his coffee, although he didn’t seem particularly interested in eating it, “Your problem is how stuffy and claustrophobic it can get when we’re all crammed into one bed right? Well, what if we bought a new bed? King sized so it gives us a bit more room.”  “That could work, but might I suggest something else on top of that. What if you were the one who slept in the middle, Ben? At the moment it seems to always be me, which is very sweet of you both and I do enjoy it, but you are definitely the biggest cuddler of the three of us and you tend to not need to get up to pee as much as I do. Not that it has to be a structured thing, obviously, but I think I’d be more comfortable on the end more often.”  “I am completely fine with that and I kinda feel a little dumb for not thinking of it earlier.”  Joe grinned at you both, “It’s working,” he sing-songed, earning eyerolls from you and Ben.  “Yes okay Joe, you’re very smart for thinking of this.”  “Thank you,”  “Was there something you wanted to talk about?”  “Now that you mention it, yes. The arguments.” the laughter dropped from his voice.  “Yeah, figured this would be brought up,” Ben said, rubbing the back of his neck. 

By the time you were done talking the biscuits were gone, your mugs were empty, and you all felt closer as people and partners. It took a while to sort out why arguments seemed harder to break now than before, but you came to the conclusion that it was largely because you hadn’t really talked about how each of you felt since that first day, each of you making incorrect assumptions because of it. The conversation covered a range of topics from how to split household chores to what you had imagined being in a throuple would mean. It took a lot of work to actually be able to voice some of your concerns, and you were sure not everything that could be said was, but you all had the chance get things off your chest, frustration and feelings of inadequacy and concerns about what the future held for you. Together you came to the conclusion you needed to make some changes. Some, like the bed situation, were easy to fix, but others were harder. You decided to set a weekly check in time. A time when you’d all have a chance to talk about how things were going, discuss where you stood, and if your expectations had changed, and work out any problems that arose. The aim was to get to a point where you could have that kind of discussion at any time it became needed, but you all agreed setting a specific time would be a good way to start building the habit.   “One final thing,” Joe’s voice sounded horse from talking, “Sex.”  “Not sure I’m in the mood Joey,”  “No, dingus, we should talk about it a bit. I don’t think it’ll take as much to sort out as some of this other stuff since we’re already pretty familiar with our boundaries and everything but, I figured we might as well while we’re here.”  “I don’t really have anything to say about it,” Ben shrugged, “I like how it’s been going so far.”  “Yeah what are you expecting us to say?”  “Well, okay, um, one of the articles I read mentioned how some people might not be comfortable knowing the other two are screwing, or they might only want to have sex as a threesome,”  “I don’t think those really apply here,” you said, “I mean, obviously we like the threesome stuff. But I also like having time one on one sometimes and I don’t expect you to always need me there when you two wanna fuck.”  “Yeah, same here,”  “Told you it wouldn’t take as long. But I think that’s it then, unless you have anything to add? No? Okay cool. I don’t know about you two, but I’m ready for bed.”  You and Ben agreed, yawning. Being so emotionally open was tiring.   “Where do you want to sleep Y/N?”  “Your bed Benny, but I want Joe there too. As long as I’m not stuck between you two.”  Ben gave you a sleepy smile as he wrapped his arms around you and dropped a soft kiss to your lips, “of course, love.” he turned towards Joe, catching him in a kiss too, “Joe I hope you’re ready to have the shit cuddled out of you.”  “Gosh I’m lucky,”  “Just saying, gotta thank you for forcing us to have that conversation somehow and it’s absolutely going to be cuddles all night. Maybe a morning blowjob too, haven’t decided.” 

After your big discussion things began to run smoother. The process of checking in with each other became a regular part of your week, more than a little uncomfortable at first but the more you did it the better you got at it and the less you held back. It mostly happened sitting around the kitchen table with a packet of biscuits and mugs of whichever steaming drink you fancied. The routine setting helped you adjust fast. Within a few weeks you felt comfortable enough about how everything was going to tell some close friends. Rami, Lucy and Gwilym were invited over for dinner one night so you could explain it and answer any questions they would subsequently have. You barely ate a bite of the dinner you’d helped prepare, much too nervous about actually telling others. It wasn’t that you were worried about any of them taking issue with your relationship, or even that you had misgivings about whether they could be trusted to keep your secret safe. It was that up until that point you, Ben and Joe existed in your own space, and didn’t use specific labels to describe yourself, but by telling people you were willingly breaking those boundaries. If you’d thought the word boyfriends or girlfriend, that was fine, but saying them out loud confirmed that this wasn’t just a fling or fucking around or casual anymore, there were real feelings involved and a real chance of getting hurt and no matter how much you wanted to be with them, that was a scary thought. Plus you were all still learning how to manage the relationship. Everything was better now that you’d started talking more candidly but there were still bumps in the road, and part of you felt like if things weren’t perfect then you shouldn’t tell anyone. It was likely that a relationship like yours was not something any of them were familiar with and you couldn’t help feel like you were becoming The Face of Throuples for them, and what right did you have to take that on if you still hadn’t worked out every aspect of how to be in a throuple? But, thankfully, it all went well. They’d been curious but most of the questions were easy to answer. How long has it been going on? How did it happen? The sort of questions you’d usually be asked upon introducing a romantic partner to your friends. And, of course, there’d been some teasing, particularly directed at Ben and Joe for taking so long to actually get together. Gwilym made a toast in which he declared he didn’t need either of them, playing up the jilted ex-lover role to much laughter. It felt nice to talk about it with new people, even if you still felt a little queasy. And it was even nicer knowing that when you were next invited to any of their places for dinner, you and Ben and Joe wouldn’t have to worry about pretending. There‘d be no need to hide your affection under the table or steal kisses in empty rooms, you could just be together.  

After the dinner went so well you felt more okay with telling people, inviting a few of your own closest friends over to your place one night so you could let them in on it and swear them all to secrecy. You talked about it with the boys first, just to make sure you were all still on the same page.  A small part of you was terrified that they’d let slip to someone who’d let slip to someone else who’s let slip to a reporter or, god forbid, your family. Telling close friends was one thing but you were nowhere near ready enough to explain it to your relatives and both Ben and Joe seemed to agree with you, especially with the holidays approaching. But neither of them were overly worried about it which made you feel less anxious too. There was still that niggling worry that your relationship wasn’t perfect enough to warrant anyone knowing - by telling them about your relationship you were voluntarily becoming the person your friends could use to earn gossip points or praise for having such diverse friends. You could almost hear the smug well I’ve got this friend, bizarre girl, in an honest to goodness throuple. But talking it through with Joe and Ben helped alleviate that too. They helped you stay relaxed on the day as well, dividing the hosting duties with you and checking on how you were going whenever they could. Telling your friends went well, although it was different to telling the other three. Your friends seemed more surprised by the news, perhaps because they weren’t as acquainted with either Ben or Joe. One or two of them had known you were sleeping with both boys but never suspected it might go further, or at least not with both of them. But you felt calmer after you’d answered their questions and stressed to them how important it was that it remained secret. It was a nerve-wracking experience, having to explain it and feeling like you had to justify your feelings but ultimately it was good, the spaces where you could comfortably be yourselves becoming more and more.  

Unfortunately, just as you were finally feeling settled in your relationship everything was turned around again. Joe’s movie wrapped and he began preparing to leave. You’d known it was coming, but still, walking into his room to find him packing shocked you, made you feel like the air had been knocked from your lungs. Mostly you’d all ignored it, pretended like it wasn’t creeping closer and closer, but you couldn’t avoid it forever. Joe looked over to where you were leaning in his doorway and smiled.  “When’s your flight?”  “Thursday afternoon,”  “So soon?”  “Yeah, kinda sucks right?” he dropped the shirt he was holding into his suitcase.  “Little bit. The selfish part of me wants to tell you to stay but I know that’s not right,”  “If it helps you can blame my family for being American, they’re the main reason I want to go back.”  “Helps a little,” you chuckled, pushing off the doorway and stepping into the room, “at least we know your ditching us for a good reason,”  “A very good reason. You’ve seen photos of my nephews; you know how fucking adorable they are.”  “Adorable as shit, no better reason to go.”  “I’ll come back as soon as I can, promise,”   “Oh I’m sure you will, you won’t know what to do without us. But maybe we’ll take pity on you and visit.”  You both broke out giggling for a moment, though the air hung heavy again before long. Joe wrapped his arms around you in a tight hug and you sighed as you buried your head in his neck.  “Are you worried?” you almost whispered, half afraid to hear his answer.  “About flying? No,”  “Joe,” you leaned back so you could look at him properly, “you know that’s not what I meant.”  “Fine. Yes, I’m a little worried. More than I’d like to be. Just feels like we’ve finally worked out how to do this and I’m ruining it. Long distance is hard and I can’t help but think it might fuck everything up.”  “You are not fucking this up Joe,” you placed your hand on his jaw and felt him lean into it, “Me and Ben won’t let you, even if we have to kidnap you or something.”  “You’re so sweet,”  “I know. But seriously, you have done so much to get us where we are now. You’re the reason we didn’t fall apart early on and that won’t change even with an ocean between us. We’re going to message all the time and we can do video chats and still organise time for our weekly check ins and date nights and everything, so you don’t feel left out. And you’ll have to come back because you’re contracted to do promo stuff for your movie here and you can’t get out of that. And, like I said, if you’re away for too long we’ll come to you. Ben’s got that audition tomorrow so he might end up working near you anyway and I can take some time off work if he does.”  “Plus, Christmas shopping will be easier when I don’t have to hide what I get you.”  “Exactly! Bright sides everywhere.”  “I love you,”  “I love you too.” 

The last few days before Joe left seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. His final night arrived before you knew it. None of you mentioned it though Ben, always a little clingy, spent most of the day with him, almost joined at the hip. Not that you’d done much better. The poor man could barely go to the bathroom without one of you offering to accompany him. But he didn’t mind. He’d mostly encouraged it. You made Joe’s favourite meal for dinner and Ben found his favourite movies on Netflix and as the hour grew later you’d ended up in a tangled pile on the couch, Joe in the middle with Ben’s head on his shoulder, their fingers intertwined, and your head in his lap, his other hand resting on your side. As the credits rolled on the final movie Joe cleared his throat.  “About tomorrow.”  Ben hummed to show he was listening but didn’t move.  “I don’t know if you should come to the airport with me.”  “What?” You and Ben spoke at the same time, both of you pushing yourselves away from Joe, sitting up.  “I just think it’s going to be easier to keep this secret if neither of you are there.”  “Fuck off, of course we’re going to be there. Friends can still wave each other off at the airport you know. The don’t hold a gun to your head and demand to know if you’re dating or not.”  “Ben, that’s not….” he sighed, “Won’t it be easier to do the goodbyes here?”  “So what?”  “Fine, come along then but we’ll need to discuss how it’s going to work.”  “Well Ben will drive us in a-”  “Not the part I’m worried about. It’s not like we can do the whole romantic farewell kiss thing. Aside from our no PDAs agreement, after I leave it’ll be both of you here and if people are going to think anything it’s that you two are dating. And maybe that’s not a bad thing. If people think you’re a couple, it’ll take a bit of pressure off and there’ll be less chance of us being exposed before we’re ready.”  You crossed your arms and bit your lip. There was sense to what he said, no matter how much you hated it.   Ben scoffed and shook his head, “bullshit,”  “You know I’m right. Y/N is here almost every day and people already suspect you’re together. In the first week I was here I had multiple friends of yours ask me if I knew what was going on between you, and that was when you were just fucking.”  “I can know you’re right and still dislike it.”  “I don’t like it any more than you. But I think we might as well use it to our advantage. And it means you won’t have to be quite as careful about going out together. You could go out and hold hands and kiss in public and people wouldn’t catch on to the reality of our relationship. They wouldn’t realise I’m part of it.”  There was silence as you all paused.  “Stop being so melodramatic Mazzello,” Ben crossed his arms over his chest, “We have a no PDA rule, you just mentioned it before, and that won’t change just because you aren’t around. Stop acting like we’re going to run off without you or something, that’s never going to happen. Also we’re coming to the airport tomorrow. We don’t have to stay and wave you off but we are at least taking you to the drop off zone and you will give us both a hug goodbye.”  You were a little stunned by Ben’s sudden burst of dominance, but Joe just smiled, and let out a breath he seemed to have been holding.  “Well?”  “Deal,”  “Deal,”  “Deal,” Ben stood, grabbing Joe by the hand and pulled him off the couch, “Now come on, last night means farewell sex and you clearly need a strong reminder of how much you mean to us so get ready to have your mind blown.” 

You woke in the morning with Joe between you and Ben, your arms tangled together where you held him. For a while you just lay there, intermittently making out and talking in soft voices, as if worried that being too loud would scare time and make it bound away. It did so anyway. The afternoon arrived sooner than any of you wanted and before you were ready you were parked in the lounge room, Joe’s luggage piled by the door, saying goodbye.   Joe squeezed you tight as you tried not to cry into his shoulder, “promise you’ll look after Benny for me.  “Of course,”  “And I expect you to tell me everything that happens, no matter how boring. You’re going to get so sick of your phone vibrating because I’m gonna be sending you so many messages,”  It was getting harder to hold your tears back, voice thick with them, “Not if I annoy you first. If I so much as eat you will hear about it.”  “Good, don’t think I could get through a day without hearing about yours. I’m going to miss you so much.”  “Me too. It’s going to be weird without you here. What if me and Ben can’t make it work without you?”  “Don’t be daft, you’re perfect together. Almost perfect anyway.”  You let out a watery laugh.  “Seriously though, you’ll be fine. I know you’re both stubborn asses but you will be fine.”  “Yeah, you’re right, I’m being dumb. You were right back at the beginning of this too.”  “I know I was, but about what specifically?”  “We’re crushing this throuple thing. And we’re going to keep crushing it, no matter where we all live.”  “Damn right. I love you,”  “Love you too.”  It didn’t matter that your voice cracked halfway through or that you were trying to blink back tears because Joe kissed you then, his hands trying to pull you even closer into his body. You kissed him back, trying to put every ounce of love into it you could manage. It was the kind of kiss that left your lips tingling and your head feeling vaguely dizzy when he finally pulled away, a slightly dazed expression on his own face. Gently he cupped your jaw, thumb stroking over your cheek to wipe away a fallen tear. The gesture was followed with another, softer, kiss to your lips and then to your forehead.  

When he let you go you stepped back and tried to fade into the background while he and Ben had their moment, though it was hard not to watch a little even if you couldn’t hear what they were saying. Seeing Ben lose his composure didn’t make it any easier to stop yourself from crying. When they broke apart Ben’s cheeks were stained pink and his eyes were watery but he cleared his throat and shook his head.  “Spose we should get you loaded into the car then.”  Joe let out a shaky breath as he ran his hand over his own face, “Okay, I’m good,” he made his way to the door and picked up the suitcase while Ben grabbed his carryon luggage. Ben winked as he passed you, both of you trying not to laugh despite how sad you felt. Joe would be very surprised when he got home and found the bundle of polaroid photos you and Ben had hidden in his suitcase, pressed between two of his shirts. You wished you could see his face when he did. Instead you contented yourself with trying to imagine the message he’d send you, finding it useful to stop your emotions from getting the better of you as you hopped into the backseat and Ben started the engine.  

The drive itself was more than a little tense. It felt weird to have done your goodbyes, emotional as they ended up being, only to trap yourselves together in an inescapable enclosed space. There was no singing along to the radio, just some soft conversation, mostly about Joe’s flight. Though you wouldn’t have missed the drive for anything, wanting to spend as much time with Joe as possible even if there was a weird vibe to it. The vibe shifted as you got closer to the airport, less weird, more straight up depressing. You and Ben climbed out of the car with Joe, Ben heading to pull his bags from the boot.   “Have a safe flight,” Ben said, dropping the bags to the ground and moving to give Joe a final hug, “Look after yourself and text us as soon as you land, okay?” You could see the way his hand lingered on Joe’s back, how he squeezed just a little tighter than he normally would, but to an outsider it would have looked like nothing more than good friends parting. You felt the tears beginning to form again and desperately tried to hold them back.  Joe nodded as they broke apart and then pulled you into a final hug.  “Don’t cry Y/N. Gotta keep it together so Ben doesn’t break down bawling,”  “Oi, I heard that, jerk,”  “Not disputing it though are you?” Joe laughed, “but seriously Y/N, there’s no need. I’ll be back as soon as I can be and then you’ll feel like a right dork for getting so emotional.”  “Better come back fast and prove it. Tell your nephews they’re lucky little jerks.”  Joe just laughed as he stepped back, “See you next time, then. Thanks for… everything.” There was a second where you had to fight the urge to leap at Joe and pull him into the sort of big romantic kiss reserved for romcoms but then he grabbed his bags and headed off towards the entrance, the moment gone. He paused once to look back and wave before he disappeared amongst the crowd. You and Ben stayed for a few seconds, watching the entrance just in case he appeared again but he didn’t. 

By the time you got home both of you felt exhausted, drained. Without saying a word you headed to the room that Joe had claimed as his own, Ben following without really seeming to realise. It already felt too quiet with just the two of you there. You toed off your shoes and lay down on the bed, Ben collapsing beside you, his hand falling to your waist.   The bed still smelt like Joe and you sighed, “It’s going to be different without him,”  “Yeah, probably. But it’ll be fine. It’s so easy to keep in contact, we’ll manage.”  “I know. Just gonna take some getting used to I guess. I already miss him so much,”  “I know babe,” Ben’s arms tightened as he pulled you into his chest. For a moment you just lay there and then the silence was broken by both of your phones buzzing in sync. There was a new message in your group chat, both of you clicking to open it, hoping just a little that Joe’s flight had been cancelled or something similar. Instead you were met with three words that made both of you sob. 

Miss you already

[rigelmejo]

Now, for fun, I just wanna compare MY past study methods to the massive immersion approach.

The massive immersion approach, stage 1 summary:

immerse 50% or more of the time.

learn kana *(or radicals if studying Chinese)

learn 1,000 kanji *(or hanzi) using SRS flashcards of Remember the Kanji, and use mnemonics if needed.

read through a grammar guide, just read through it do not worry about memorizing or understanding everything.

learn the 1,000 most common words using SRS flashcards

make (or use) sentence flashcards, in which you generally only are learning one new word/concept per card. Do this to continue increasing vocab, kanji (or hanzi) knowledge, grammar familiarity.

The study methods I used:

watch target level content from day 1 (but in english). Look up words/phrases I don’t know every once in a while. (In retrospect, I would have probably made more progress if I’d moved onto chinese-subtitles-only earlier on).

look up the radicals, get some familiarity with them and their relation to the characters. Mainly I read the writtenchinese.com “How to Read Chinese Characters: A Beginner’s Guide.” Free lists of the radicals can be found all over the place, and in most textbooks. This took a few hours.

read through a grammar guide, just aiming to get an overview of the grammar structures. This took two intense weeks of reading through it. I looked up “free chinese grammar guide” on google, and read through chinese-grammar.org. I also reference All Set Learning Chinese Grammar website on occasion, when I run into grammar that confuses me when I’m reading/watching something.

every couple weeks, I attempted: to watch a chinese show with only chinese subtitles, and to read a chinese novel with no dictionary. Ouch my brain felt fried. I did this mainly to gauge my progress, and figure out where I needed to study more.

every week, I attempted the same as above - except I allowed myself to look up whatever words I wanted. So for a show, I paused and looked up new words. For reading, I read with the aid of a Reader (Pleco Reader, Idiom, Zhongwen chrome extension etc) and looked up new words. I would do this in short bursts until I felt “drained/fried” lol.  This is the closest I did to the kind of “immersion” suggested in the massive immersion approach guide. Except I would say my immersion was “intensive” since I looked up a lot of things, and gave up within several minutes each time because the activity was so draining. 

I did attempt to learn some hanzi characters on their own. I bought the Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters (800 Characters), and Tuttle Reading and Writing Chinese (Simplified Edition). I did like both books, as they provided mnemonics to help me remember the hanzi (Also I just like reading books better than flashcards). I read through about 1/2 of each book. Even though I prefer reading, reading reference books is still a slog. I read through a chapter. Later, I’d pick up the book, take a highlighter, and would highlight hanzi I recognized on sight. So I read in bursts, until eventually the slog they were to read outweighed how much they were benefiting me. After that, I picked up most new hanzi by learning them as part of words in the following step (and when looking things up in immersion). I would, and still occasionally do, flip through the books again and highlight hanzi I recognize on sight. I hope that my highlighting gives me some at least estimate of the minimum amount of characters I’m familiar with.

learn the 1,000 most common words using SRS flashcards. I used Ben Whatley’s 1000 most common chinese words in dramas Memrise deck. I did this primarily because when I googled “how to learn to read chinese fast,” I found an article of a person who did basically what I was aiming to do, and they used this memrise deck to do it. I read the article “The Fastest Way to Learn to Read Chinese.” This article suggested learning the first 1000 most common words to help reading ability (rather than isolated characters, which are not always words on their own). Then, to move to graded readers next to start practicing reading while new vocab is built up easily with the reading material that’s at your level. Now that I’ve completed the deck, I agree with the article author’s experience. I am now able to comfortably read graded readers. It is now also much easier to watch shows with only-chinese subtitles, and read chinese novels that aren’t graded readers, and follow the gist by only looking up a few words (instead of virtually 1/2 the words or more). If your goal is to eventually be able to comprehend the main gist of target language materials made for native speakers, then learning the 1,000 most common words will give you a noticable improvement. Regardless of the language you are studying, I highly recommend doing this. (It also makes it much easier to talk to people, write, and listen to people in conversations... its still difficult, but much more doable with this solid basis of high frequency words).

The main differences between my study methods, and the massive immersion approach:

I don’t do nearly as much “immersion” where I sit down, engage with content and only look up something every several minutes. I usually either intensely study when I’m immersing by looking almost everything up, or I look up nothing and see how much I can comprehend. I plan to start doing more immersion like the massive immersion approach - immersion where I watch/read for enjoyment, and only look up things occasionally. This will be much more tolerable, now that I have a bigger base of vocabulary. I also feel this approach would be easier to do on a regular basis, since it is not as intensive.

I never did anything special to learn to ‘recognize’ the meaning of characters. I know why I didn’t - I studied japanese before, for 2ish years, and I did Remember the Kanji flashcards for it. And I hated it - cause I generally hate flashcards. I only tolerated the 1,000 word chinese deck because KNOWING 1,000 common words has a payoff that is SO worth the mind numbing hatred I have for flashcards. Now that i’ve done them, I just have to review them occasionally. 2 sucky months of flashcards, that was it. With japanese, I did months and months of flashcards... and I really never even got through more than 500 kanji. I struggled a ton with kanji. So with chinese, I decided screw it, I was going to just learn the characters IN words. Because when I took chinese in high school, that’s what our teacher had us do. Simple as that. In retrospect, I believe there is benefit in me going into Remembering the Hanzi and at LEAST reading through the book, and/or finding a nice website of hanzi mnemonics and reading through 1,000. Although I’m not sure how much benefit... as I already know 1,000 ish right now. I think the idea of having a ‘meaning’ associated with each hanzi would be helpful. That way when I run into new words, I’ve got these ‘building block’ meanings to help me remember that they combine to ‘create’ the new word. Right now I learned most words as their 2characters together (for example baohu, baozheng, baozhong). And I have no idea what bao means on its own, so I have difficulty remembering new words with ‘bao.’ But the examples I just gave, I’m better at remembering - because I know what zheng and zhong mean on their own, they help me remember ‘bao+zhong” = take care, and “bao+zheng” means guarantee. Baohu took me ages longer to remember, because it means protect, but I don’t know what bao or hu mean, so I just struggled to remember it was specifically “bao+hu.” I think if I had more building block meanings to attach to individual characters, it would help me learn new words better. If possible, I’d prefer to read through the Remember the Hanzi book, and/or a list of mnemonics for them. Then I’d like to just go through a Memrise hanzi deck (like Ben Whatley’s) just as review. I would prefer not to use a flashcard deck as the main way I learn them though. 

I did not plan to do sentence mining. I’m still unsure if I want to. If I do eventually do sentence mining, I’ll either use Spoonfed Chinese Anki deck (if it covers enough words, and if i can tolerate anki...), or Clozemaster Chinese course (since it covers 10K is words in sentence contexts). I also found a sentence deck on Memrise, but it seems messily made and it tests typing every single time - when I really only want to test meaning, so the cards slow me down by making me type full sentences over and over. 

At the moment I plan to do a majority of my study-time immersion on graded readers, and HSK 4 level webnovels. I would prefer to pick up a lot of new vocabulary by reading things that include the experience of “sentences with only one new concept/word” without making me use flashcards. The other main way I plan to pick up new words is to watch shows in chinese only, and look up new words in the subtitles every few minutes. I really... really... really hate flashcards. I can’t state that enough. Flashcard study is a huge reason I gave up studying japanese in the past - my study method was like over 50% going through 12 Memrise decks (the nukemarine Standard Guide To Japanese Literacy decks, which do work GREAT and gave me the first significant reading improvement I had in the language). I did so many flashcards though, and i hate flashcards. So I eventually dropped everything and stopped completely. Ben Whatley’s 1000 most common word deck is the ONLY deck over 500 items that I’ve ever finished. And a big reason I succeeded was being in lockdown, having nowhere to be, and my brain for once being focused enough to tolerate flashcards for a few weeks. So you can imagine how my progress went in japanese, I got through 4-5 of the 12 nukemarine decks, a few hundred items on the 10k core deck on anki, and then decided I had to stop.  With french, I learned the 300 most common, 500 most common, and 1000 most common words with lists instead. I bookmarked/printed wordlists, and read through them every few days. Reading long blocks is easier for me than short flashcards, I don’t know why. It literally... takes me an hour to get through like 20 flashcards. I am incredibly bad at focusing on them, my brain is just almost never in the mood to focus. So... while I might eventually try out sentence mining, and seeing if it helps me... for the most part it sounds wholly unappealing to me to do it through the use of flashcards.

So, in summary:

I’m adding regular immersion of shows/novels, with just a little word lookup, to my study routine. I think this is a good thing to add, in addition to my occassional intensive immersion where I look up everything.

I’m considering reading through Heisig Remember the Hanzi, and/or a mnemonics list for them. Does anyone have a link to a good mnemonics website for the hanzi? Please recommend me a good resource if you know of one. In addition, I might go through Ben Whatley’s hanzi decks just for a bit of review/exposure to the ‘meaning’ of individual characters.

I may consider using Clozemaster as a sentence mining tool in the future. I may consider sentence mining premade decks if I find any useful ones. I only plan to do this if I try it, and feel it’s helping me improve significantly.

And, unrelated to the massive immersion method comparison: I plan to complete the Ben Whatley 1000-2000 most common word Memrise deck. I also plan to just glance though the HSK 3-4 Memrise decks and study the words I don’t know yet. I like using the Memrise decks to get a measurable number I can look at of words I am sure I’m familiar with. I go through the HSK decks to ensure that I have a rough estimate of what level I’m at, in comparison to a standard measure of language proficiency.

I also plan to read through some of my textbooks, but that is a low priority, because they will contribute the least to my immediate goals. I want to read them just to patch up any gaps in knowledge I have of common characters/common words, and any gaps in knowledge I have of basic grammar up to HSK 4. I have not been struggling with grammar at all in my reading/watching, so I haven’t had the need to look at my textbooks for any more specific goal. I generally only prioritize studying my textbooks when I want to get more grammar explanations and exposure to grammar structures in sentences meant to explain them.