#to. and i procrastinated it quite a bit. i forced myself to deal with stuff previously so i could go to the store and that was the same case

[be-good-to-bugs]

i wish i wasn't so shy

[unicorn-gallerexy]

Hello, my name is Uni and im a chronic procrastinator. I've been meaning to post so that way it wasn't just a random year of nothing but as we can see, i did it. Just not like i wanted to. Anyway, here's a little something for ya. I'm still posting backlogs so give me a moment pls. Oki luv u, mwa

CW: NSFW (MDNI), Drug use (fully knowing and mostly willing to do so), minor taste of coercion if you squint a bit, dubcon, Dealers Sugawara and Tendou (this was made as a thing between a friend and I so shh), exhibitionism, reader x Suga.

Help me out?

The party was just as lively as any other, and i was just as bored. Normally while Tendou and Sugawara made deals, i can usually sit in the car and wait til they're done but every so often there's a party that i have to attend with him as his arm candy. I'm not normally one for parties, only going for the sake of someone else normally. Suga used me to his advantage, being bait to lure in new customers and catch the attention of regulars alike. After pointing people in the right direction, i had to occupy myself with something else. With parties like these both of them normally tried pushing new things they made onto party goers, and they'd normally manage to do it with at least one or two for quite the good price.

Being called over to the couch where he sat, selling, was the odd part. He'd usually just leave me to wander around and do as i pleased in order to focus on pitching product. "There's my lovely little sugar cube, here." Koushi proceeds to hand me a small heart shaped baby blue colored pill, making a hand gesture. I simply raise my eyebrow at him, looking the pill over. "Where did this come from?" He sighs but leans his head against the back of the couch, looking up at me with eyes on so pretty. "It's something new Tendou and i made, it's safe, i promise. I tested it already." I keep my expression as i play with the pill in my hand. "Well if you've already tested it, why do i have to take it?" He manages to keep his smile as he explains. "I can't test it for our new clients, love. One, that's a sure way to get robbed. Two, it doesn't look credible. It could look like im overexaggerating or faking. Just be my little tester, baby, please?" He pouts, and it's times like this that i'm reminded that i'd harvest his liver if he weren't so pretty. I sigh heavily and give in, popping the pill in my mouth as Suga grabs my wrist. "Let it sit and dissolve a bit." He catches me quickly as i almost swallow it. He guides me around the side of the couch into his lap, holding me close.

"How's it taste?" He keeps eye contact with me from the moment i sit in his lap, his eyes telling me not to turn around and acknowledge the group of people he was trying to pitch this stuff to. I knew he could tell i was uncomfy, the stares i could feel making me fidget and shift in his hold. I mildly zoned out in a small panic, wondering if i truly looked presentable enough in front of these rich ass kids, their rich ass aunts and uncles, in the nice ass castle of a mansion. Koushi can read me like a book, tapping my thigh to gain my attention again. "Honey, how's it taste?" the look in his eyes is intense, wanting an answer. "Sweet... why does it taste like fruit?" I couldn't help the slightly confused face i made at the flavor, making him chuckle as he turned me so that my back was was against his chest. He held me close and kept his hands on my thighs, prompting me to swat away his hands as they kept creeping higher under my dress. "It's meant to be mixed into a participants drink or be fed to them straight like you. So we made sure it tasted good, like an easily dissolved candy." He always used the word participant when selling in order to not seem like he was promoting assaulting anyone. He might sell drugs but he has at least a few standards.

As the pill in my mouth dissolves, i swallow the rest, continuously swatting at Koushi's hands as he keeps trying to lift my skirt and force his hands between my thighs. It can't have been more than 10 minutes, but things started seeming hazy. My body was feeling hotter than before, like i was going through my own personal heat wave. I was starting to sweat, wanting nothing more than to peel away the dress that began to cling to my skin. It was an uncomfortable heat, causing me to shift and squirm around in my boyfriend's lap as he kept trying to feel me up. I lost track of when but at some point i stopped trying to smack his hands away, allowing his hands to travel up between my thighs and play with me as he kept up with the casual conversation of drugs and life experiences. I could tell i was still being closely observed by the group, though i couldn't really tell if the group had gotten bigger or not. My eyes were closed as my brain tried it's best to sort out the heat, feeling like the pleasure i got from Sugawara simply gently rubbing my clit over my panties was way more than normal.

"Ko..." The whine i let out was quiet, and the response i got was just as quiet. "Yes, love?" I could feel him press his lips against the back of my neck, devil like smirk plastered across his face. " 'M hot... wanna leave..." It seemed like my brain had figured out why i was so hot, so willing to let him touch me, vision so hazy i could barely see straight. I grind against him again and again, the feeling of arousal coursing through every fiber of my being. It was almost like i was having to hold back from fucking him in front of his clientele, feeling that if he'd just fuck my brains out, i'd finally be able to cool down and recollect myself properly.

"Awww, but i wasn't done talking... There's still so much life left in the party." He fakes a pout as i lean my head back against his shoulder with a real one. As he continues mocking my pouting face, i feel his fingers slide under the fabric of my underwear, tracing around my entrance. I involuntarily buck my hips at the feeling, whining and pushing back into him. "Koushi, please... I wanna leave, i can barely sit still or think right... Let's just go home already, promise i'll make it up to you." I beg, making him giggle more into the back of my neck, sliding 2 of his fingers inside witha bit too much ease.

"But sugar, i'm making a sale and you're doing so well for me. You're the perfect little test subject in public, especially for this." I do my best to keep my mouth shut as he quickly picks up the pace, my body feeling even hotter. I turn a little and push more of my face into his neck, breathing in the scent of his cologne as i kiss up and down the side of his neck. The growl he lets out is quiet in my ear, his fingers moving even faster, his free hand wrapped around my lower waist to keep me from squirming away. I burry my face into his neck as much as i can as i release around his fingers, whining loudly in his ear. The heat subsided for a second, allowing me to catch my breath before coming back tenfold. I could feel Suga mildly grinding into me, still managing to talk to the people that surrounded us.

"Yeah, one sec..." He puts his mouth against my ear, starting to slowly move his fingers again. "Babe, you could've just said you were that horny, our friends here wouldn't mind a show. How about you get on your knees and help me focus so i can make this sale, then i'll take you home and fuck you like you want." The preposition was too good to pass up, but for different reasons than i expected. I slid off of his lap and settled onto my knees in front of him, mouth watering. He smiled from around his coated fingers, placing his other hand on my head and ruffling my hair.

He lets go of his fingers, muttering about how good i taste, before undoing his pants and sliding himself out. His tip is flushed and drooling just as much as i am, his hand taking a tight hold of my hair as he pulls me closer so that his length rests against my face, eyes locking as he stares down at me. "God, you look so pretty when you're this eager for me." He turns his attention to the group of people who haven't moved nor turned away, my eyes sliding to see them out of my peripheral. "See? Just 10 minutes ago she was swatting away my hands under her dress and worried about you all watching. Now, she's on her knees, drooling for me, and unbothered by you guys." He gives them that same thousand watt smile, my mind spinning with the small thought that it's only been 10 minutes. He lets go of my head, leaning back completely as he keeps his eyes on the group and motions to me with his hand. I go to reach for him only for him to smack my hand and make the same gesture. I pout but obey none the less and take him as far as i can into my mouth, pulling up to swirl my tongue around the head.

He lets out a minor groan, taking a deep breath as he relaxes in his seat. "A question... Does it work on both men and women?" I hear a younger woman, hair long and dress longer, ask. He nods and hums in affirmation. "I test everything my partner and i make, and she just thought i was being a horny pervert. This is the first time she's even seen it. Guaranteed to work on anyone who doesn't have a viagra addiction." He manages to rouse a small chuckle from the group, groaning more himself as i go faster than before. "Fuck.. So, what are we thinking? Got a deal or two?" I hear a few yes's and confirmations, but i can hear a hum of apprehension. I pull off of him with a gasp, moving to suck on his balls as i see him raise his brow.

"What's wrong now, Harry?" He has this determined look on his face, only faltering a bit when i make my way back up to his dick and far enough down him to gag. "I'm just a bit skeptical is all, i mean, how do we know she's not faking? Or just a whore in general." At that moment, i feel Suga's hand on the back of my head, pulling me off and pulling me back onto his lap. I squirm around, mildly helping him as he pulls my dress up to my waist and my panties to the side, sliding in with ease. I toss my head back against his shoulder and moan as he immediately starts moving. "A couple of things, Harry. Number 1, i dont appreciate you talking about my girl that way. If anything, all of you are getting a front row seat to something i only get behind closed doors. Consider yourself lucky for the view and watch your mouth. Number 2, I assure you, it's genuine. Under normal circumstances, she'd have gotten off my lap awhile ago and probably slapped me for trying to touch her during a public party."

He pulls the neckline of my dress down beneath my chest, taking my tits in his hands as he turns and plants both feet firmly on the ground to fuck me even harder. I squeal at the change, letting him have me any way he pleases, moaning loud enough for at least the people in the kitchen to hear me over the music. I hear a few more confirmations of deals to the side as he leans to whisper in my ear. "Look at you... Look at how much money you're making me. You really are a good luck charm, aren't you? So fuckin' good for me, bet if i asked you to suck one of them off to close a deal you would, wouldn't you? Fucking dumb slut." I whine loudly at his words, moving my hips to grind against him as he brings himself to a stop and moves a hand to wrap it around my neck, choking me as he tells me to keep going. I put my arms on his thighs and use what mild strength i have left to fuck myself onto him, having him let go of my throat and chest to instead opt for my waist.

The more desperate i get, the faster i get, Suga encouraging me by telling me he's close and to make us both cum. I hit the wall before he does, sitting firmly on his dick as he starts thrusting up into me again until he fills me in front of his clients. He pulls me close, taking a moment to catch his breath against my neck before pressing a kiss against my jugular holding me tightly as he looks back over to the group. "Now, which of you wanted to make a deal again?" I turn my head slightly to see the now even larger group of people, everyone with a hand raised. "Wonderful."

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Kiss of Death

Warnings: nonconsent (fingering and intercourse)

This is dark!(mob)Loki and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You (literally) run into a powerful man but find it hard to shake him.

Note: So we’re taking a tiny break from Painted Windows. The last chapter was intense and even my heart needs some respite. So I let myself wonder down the backstreets and wrote some mob!Loki with a good chance of a sequel.

Thank you. Love you guys!

Please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

After a long day and a longer week, you were looking forward to the small get together. Several nights in a row you came home late and gulped down a microwave dinner before passing out on the couch. An unglamorous life, to say the least.

For Nisha’s birthday, you agreed to meet up at a nice restaurant downtown for drinks and hopefully dinner. Tiana and Ana were already there with Nisha as you rushed in. You weren’t used to being the last to arrive. Usually you were the first there and waiting for at least twenty minutes.

You gave a frantic greeting to the small group and dropped your purse in your empty chair.

“I’m so sorry. Nisha, happy birthday but I’m gonna burst,” You said as you caught your breath. 

They laughed at your panic and waved you towards the restrooms. You snaked around tables and to the narrow hall that led to the facilities. You were quick to sweep inside and into a stall. Your pants were barely past your thighs before you sat; the stream was painful and squeezed your bladder terribly. You sighed and took a moment to gather yourself as soft classical music plucked from the speakers.

Finished, you washed your hands and stared at yourself in the mirror. Your jacket hung open over your flowery blouse and pressed slacks. You wore a pair of low wedges that gave you a few inches. You were exhausted and you looked it. A night of drinking would surely wake you up… or at least lull you into the sleep you’d been lacking.

You smoothed out your shirt and slipped out of the jacket. You slung it over your arm and tried to fix your hair as best as you could. Your latest client was demanding and worse, a perfectionist. Usually, your suggestions were accepted without a single glance but Stacey Forrest was very particular. She needed to impress her new circle of peers; many twenty years her senior. Just thinking of her stabbed your temples with frustration.

You shook off the moment of chagrin and took a breath. Work was done. You had Saturday to sleep off the hangover you planned on feeding tonight. Sunday was far away at the present. 

You pushed open the door and strolled back to the dining room. You spotted the table of women awaiting you, giggling as they sipped from their respective glasses, and set off to join them. In your tunnel vision, you didn’t notice the party to your right. The man whom you walked directly into and barely kept you from tripping over his leather shoes. You were so embarrassed, you hardly realized how the entire room had gone silent.

You backed up and slipped free of the man’s grasp. You looked up at him and caught your coat before it could fall to the floor. 

“Oh, sorry,” You said as your cheeks burned. “I wasn’t…” You glanced around. “Paying attention…”

“It’s quite alright,” The lilt in his voice surprised you as much as the glimmer in his green eyes. “These things happen.”

“Yeah, I… Sorry again.” You sidestepped between some tables. “Um, okay.”

You spun away awkwardly as you tried to ignore your audience. Even Nisha, Tiana, and Ana had turned to watch the debacle. Well, the night was never complete without you making a fool of yourself. You hung your coat over the back of your chair and moved your purse as you sat. The room was still in a hush.

“Smooth,” Tiana raised her brows.

“Shut up,” You grumbled.

“Only you.” Nisha chided.

You peeked around at those who whispered around you and followed their own attention to the man you’d nearly tackled. He was with a group of several men and was shown to a booth near the back of the restaurant. You turned back and shook your head.

“I need a drink.” You declared.

“I’d say you do,” Tiana shook her head. “And a knock in the head.”

“You do know who’s foot you just stomped, right?” Ana asked.

“When do I ever know what is going on?” You said dryly. “So we doing just drinks or dinner?”

“She doesn’t even care,” Tiana gasped. “We should leave before she gets in anymore trouble.”

“Oh my god, what is the big deal?” You demanded.

“Take another look at that man,” Ana intoned.

You huffed and turned in your chair. You looked at the man as the server listened intently to him and you felt as if he was familiar but you couldn’t place him. He smiled at the waiter and then his eyes met yours. You blinked and spun back so quickly your chair wobbled. You shrugged as you steadied yourself.

“His name, which I’m sure will shake something loose, is Loki Laufeyson.” Tiana scoffed. “You might have heard that somewhere through that haze you call sentience.”

Your eyes rounded. A waitress appeared and asked for an order. You opted for gin on ice and rubbed your forehead.

“Shit.” You swore. “Well, I mean, it was just an accident. Not like I pulled a gun on him.”

“You scuffed his shoe,” Ana mused. “I’ve heard stories of him taking offence at less.”

“Don’t,” You warned. “I already have enough on my plate without worrying about…” You lowered your voice. “...the mob.”

“Oh, we’re teasing you,” Tiana insisted. “So how is Mrs. Forrest.”

“Nee Marris,” Ana added.

“Oh, you know, the same girl she was in uni,” You grinned. “Only this time she’s married her sugar daddy.”

“And she hired you to style her new house?” Nisha asked.

“Manse,” You corrected her. “As she prefers.”

“Definitely hasn’t changed,” Tiana smirked.

You all laughed as the waitress set your drink in front of you and you thanked her. You continued to gab over your menus and eventually ordered. You forgot about the bumpy beginning and were soon lost in the cheer. You had longed for a night out. A rare occasion when you reverted to the college girl procrastinating on her studying.

When your dinner came, so did another round of drinks. You paused and stopped the waitress before she could flit away.

“Sorry, but we didn’t order another round,” You wondered.

“Compliments of Mr. Laufeyson,” She said quietly. 

You froze and the other women looked at you curiously. You raised a brow and tried to subtly look over your shoulder. You didn’t turn all the way as you sensed another’s gaze on you.

“You can thank him but we can pay for them,” You insisted. “Really…”

The waitress blanched and your friends tittered.

“Oh, what’s the harm,” Nisha chimed. “Better than him sending something else.”

“Loosen up,” Tiana took a large gulp. “The free drink should help with that.

You sighed and Anna added to the plea with a grin. You rubbed your chin and relented. “You can thank Mr. Laufeyson.”

She exhaled in relief and agreed to do so. You grabbed your glass reluctantly and sneered at the girls before you forced your finest smile. You turned and found the man in question watching you. You raised your glass at him as a gratitude and quickly righted yourself in your chair.

“Oh,” Ana preened. “You think he’d pay for the whole meal? Give him a wink or something.”

“An,” You warned. “Really. That’s not the type of man you want to owe favours.”

“Really?” Tiana challenged. “Twenty minutes ago you barely recognized him.”

“Maybe not but I’d heard of him and his… supposed deeds.” You said. “You aren’t really encouraging this, are you?”

“He must like the whole clueless vibe you’ve got going for you,” Tiana trilled. “Rather endearing even if it does leave your toes a bit tender.”

“Hush,” You hissed. “Really. Let’s eat and then we shall relocate so that I do not entangle myself further with thugs.”

They laughed and you flaked away a piece of salmon with your fork. You shook your head. You had the sense of being watched and didn’t need to look to know why. It sent a frightful tickle along your spine. You were always quite skilled at walking, or rather, tripping head first into trouble.

🐍

That night was just another fleeting thrill in a series of missteps that never quite came to fruition. You didn’t need to worry about the mobster or your little stumble. Sometimes a kind gesture was just that and a coincidence was nothing more. No serendipity, no fate, just another anecdote about how your clumsiness had nearly gotten you in trouble.

You finished your dinner and found your way to a pub just down the way. The music was a little young for your tastes but the cocktails were on special and it wasn’t too rowdy. It was like Sex and the City but duller; and likely sadder. You shared stories of failed dates, workplaces peeves, and the latest drama witnessed on the tube. Provoking stuff.

Nisha crashed at yours. You woke on the couch, the birthday girl was offered the bed. You drank coffee with the curtains drawn but she didn’t wake up until noon. When she did, she finished the pot and dressed in her wrinkled clothing. You saw her off to the station and stopped by the shop for some orange juice and paracetamol.

You spent the rest of the day in the dark with Netflix in the background. You dreaded another day of Stacey’s obstinacy. What kind of person needed more than a dozen bedrooms in one house? Oh, and she did mention their summer house in the south? Well, if you couldn’t start appeasing her Cher Horowitz tastes, she might not need you for that.

The only thing you could do to prepare was set your alarm and sleep off your hangover. When you woke, the ice pick had dislodged from your skull and the fog outside helped mute the harshness of the sun. You dressed, had your coffee, a small breakfast, and readied to face off with Stacey.

The drive was an hour out of the city. Your small car puttered along but never failed to get you where you needed. You sang along to Petula Clark on the scratchy radio station as you yawned over the steering wheel. The old house rose before you; a hideous mishmash of an old Tudor cottage and a modern geometric renovation.

You drove up the winding drive and around the back. Classified as a member of the help, you weren’t permitted to park with the Bentley and the Rolls. You didn’t recognize the Aston Martin but you assumed it was another of Mr. Forrest’s associates. You climbed out, locked your car, and dropped your keys in your pocket.

There was a backdoor, formerly the entrance to the servants’ quarters, and you ducked through the arched doorway. The old corridor had recently been remodelled with a couple guestrooms, a modified laundry room, and a wine cellar. Paintings left by the former owners had been reframed and hung. Stacey couldn’t decide if she wanted to be old aristocracy or the new age elite.

You found Stacey in the kitchen. Her assistant, Deanna, was making her a green smoothie. She greeted you with a smile and flicked her finger across her tablet.

“Just in time,” She beckoned you over as Deanna set the glass down beside her. “I was thinking this lamp would be perfect for the master.”

You looked at the image. The clear glass body of the lamp was filled with large round sequins; a fishtank of tackiness with a feather shade. You had to hide your distaste.

“It could work,” You allowed, “But we would have to revert a few other choices.”

“Revert?” Her voice went deep and she sipped noisily through her straw.

“The curtains. You want sheen or lace. Not both.”

“Hmm,” She pressed her lips together. “I suppose. We could still have the curtains, they would be cute in the loo.”

“Cute,” You repeated as you resisted a laugh. “Well, as long as we keep to that theme in there.”

“I was talking to Paul,” She batted her lashes as she always did when she spoke of her husband; you suspected she held more affection for his last name and wallet than his person. “He did mentioned he wouldn’t mind a hint of snakeskin in his office. He doesn’t want anything too stuffy or old.”

“Oh yes, he is one for the… younger tastes,” You intoned. “We could probably work it in subtly. We don’t want it to be overbearing.”

“I suppose…” She rolled her eyes and took another long drink. “Well, I’ve tracked down those lamps in the city. I say we go and have a look around the boutique while we pick them up. Perhaps we can muster some inspiration, maybe even some imagination.”

You smiled and accepted the rebuke in stride. “At your leisure, Mrs. Forrest.”

“Stacey,” She corrected. “You know that makes me feel old.”

“Stacey,” You repeated and leaned on the counter.

“I’ll just finish this and then I’ll have Stuart drive us into the city.”

“I have a car,” You offered. 

“And so do I. It’s much nicer,” She insisted. “And we will discuss ideas on the w--” 

She turned completely in the tall chair and stood. “Paul,” She greeted her husband in a sing song. 

You watched her and angled yourself to keep your eye on her. Paul’s silver hair was thinning and still wore hints of the black dye he’d used to reclaim his youth upon his wedding day. His wrinkles deepened as he grinned and welcomed her against him. She wore stilettos and a skirt so tight it looked painful. 

Your amusement dwindled as another figure appeared behind him. You recognised the man immediately. It hadn’t been two days since your first and last encounter. As you remembered him, you were sure he remembered you. You were convinced of it as his green eyes sparkled and he smirked in your direction.

“Sweetheart, I thought you’d be off already,” Paul’s arm held Stacey around her waist. “I was just discussing our renovations with Mr. Laufeyson on his way out and was about to show him the east wing.”

“We were just on our way,” She announced. “We’ve some items to pick up for the master and soon enough we’ll move onto the rest of guest rooms.”

“Mr. Laufeyson,” Paul turned back to his visitor, his arm still around his young wife, “Pardon my negligence, this is Stacey’s designer.” He introduced you kindly. He might have been an easy dupe but he was nice enough. “They go back a ways. To university I believe.”

“Oh yes, I was in fashion and she was in interior, and so we ran into each other a couple times a year,” Stacey explained. “She always did have a good eye.”

“Ah,” Laufeyson neared and held out his hand cordially. You eyed it and the scene of you crashing into him replayed in your head. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” You shook his hand awkwardly and prayed Stacey would not stay too long to boast.

“Actually,” He let go slowly, “If you’re not too tied up at the moment, I have a place not far from here that needs a breath of fresh air. You see, it was my father’s and it still bears much of his tastes. Not very akin to my own but I am terribly obtuse at these things.”

“Hmm, well,” You swallowed and looked to Stacey, “My roster is rather full at the moment. How many rooms did you say there were in this place, Mrs. Forrest?”

“Oh, but she is not that burdened, Mr. Laufeyson.” Stacey insisted. “We have sorted plans for most of the rooms. You might take her on the odd days, if you wish?”

Your nostrils flared. She acted as if she owned you. As if you were to be lent out like one of her designer dresses.

“I do have a waiting list--”

“We are old friends,” She interjected, “As a favour from me, Mr. Laufeyson, as a thank you for your wonderful wedding gift, you might have a consultation upon us. Right, Paul?”

“Oh, yes,” He seemed to have awoken from a trance at the mention of his name. “That old place your father kept, it could use a good dusting.”

You glared at Stacey. If she wasn’t paying twice your hourly rate, you might have walked out. You quickly wiped away your chagrin as the attention turned back to you.

“Well, I suppose if Mrs. Forrest can spare me…”

“Tomorrow,” Stacey affirmed. “Leave the address with Paul and she’ll meet with you in the morning. I can survive the day without her. The contractors will be back for the west wing.”

🐍

The next morning, you left early to make sure you arrived on time, all so that you could eventually leave on time. Mr. Laufeyson’s house was not far from the Forrests’. You pulled up to the tall gates and rolled down your window to push the buzzer. A voice rose from the crackly speaker and you called out your purpose several times before you were understood.

The wrought iron gates finally opened and you pulled through slowly. The drive was even longer than Stacey’s and the house grander. It was indeed old-fashioned. You pulled up before the large garage off the side of the house and stepped out onto the cobblestone. Your thick heel skidded over them and you nearly tripped. You locked your car and carefully walked along to the front steps.

You climbed them carefully but stumbled up the last. As you fell and scraped your hands on the stone porch, you heard the door open. You looked up and cringed as Mr. Laufeyson looked down at you. He stepped out onto the porch and you dragged yourself up by the column at the top of the railing.

“You okay?” He touched your elbow gently as you dusted your hands off on your jacket.

“Fine,” You assured him. “You know, gotta make an entrance.

“You’re early,” He said.

“Shall I wait?” You asked.

He chuckled and waved you ahead of him to the door. “Not at all. I’ve been eagerly awaiting you.”

You were silent as you neared the open door and entered the large foyer. He was close behind as he pulled the door closed and you tried not to flinch as he brushed close to you. You looked up at the grand chandelier and the towering portraits of ancestors.

“Where shall we start?” He asked.

“Well, I usually begin with a walk through and then we can go over my notes at the end. Discuss what you want to change, what you’d like to keep,” You took out your notebook as you spoke. “You’ll have a copy of it all. Should you choose to carry out the plans with another designer, you’ll still have them as reference.”

“Very well,” He nodded and you waited for him to lead you; up the stairs, through the door to your left or to your right. Just to start the whole awkward day. 

“Mr. Laufeyson?” You glanced over at him and he smirked.

“Loki,” He said. “We can go without the formalities for the day, I think.”

“Loki, where should we start?”

“I know you remember me,” He ignored your question. “And I certainly remember you.”

“I did appreciate the drink,” You said evenly. “And again, I do apologise for my carelessness.”

He considered you a moment. He didn’t move.

“And you know who I am?” He asked.

“Who doesn’t?” You answered as you looked around tensely. Heat began to crawl up your neck. 

“A thug, no?” He wondered. You blanched at the word you’d used only days before.

“It was a joke…”

“I do not deny it,” He assured you. “Or take offence. I’ve been called worse.”

You took a deep breath and tapped your pen on your notebook. Your turned to look at him directly.

“Did you bring me here to reprimand me?” You asked.

His smirk remained and he buttoned his jacket.

“I brought you here to rid this place of my father’s stench,” He said coolly. “And because this universe has a peculiar way of aligning the stars.”

“Left, right, or up,” You pointed to each door and then the broad stairway. “We should begin before the time gets ahead of us.”

“We should,” He agreed. “The left, dear.”

🐍

It took you all day to get through every room of the house. As you explored, you pieced together the story of the old place. A family property passed down through the generations. Nobles until the Great War, criminals in its aftermath and since. They hid their delinquency beneath their titles.

Loki seemed to have little love for his late father. His words were resentful. He explained that this was the lesser of two houses; the other was bequeathed to his brother. Expected but still a thorn.

He talked more than you expected, as if to fill the silence as you jotted down notes. Perhaps to loosen your own tongue. A man used to charming others. His words were as useful a weapon as a gun. You found it hard not to let them sway you. It was easy to see him as pleasant when his task was not so odious.

You caught yourself several times. He followed a bit too closely, leaned in a bit too much to look over your shoulders, held doors for you, brushed against you a little too conspicuously. You sensed him closing in the further you delved into the old family stead. Felt him looming around you as you tried to focus on the peeling wallpaper and golden candlesticks.

You were on the third floor. The walls were lined with geometric sconces of the art deco era. They could be restored easily and once more stylish even a century later. You reached the end of the hall and tucked your notebook under your arm as he pushed open the door there. He stepped back and waited for you to enter. You did, cautiously.

You walked the perimeter of the room, around the armoire and the bed, the standing lamp, the curled feet of the night tables. An extravagant fireplace with statues of lions on its mantle gaped back at you. You stopped before it as you scribbled on the paper. You turned and looked around once more.

“Are you set on the bed frame?” You asked. “An antique but clunky.”

“Hmmm,” He thought as he neared the foot of the bed. “I’m not sure.”

“I suppose if you removed the canopy and replaced the duvet it might…” You glanced at him and your eyes strayed behind him. The door was closed. You hadn’t heard it shut. You shook off the tremor and looked back to the tasseled canopy. “It might work but you could free up a lot of space, make it a little more open with something less… imposing.”

He rounded to your side of the bed slowly. He dragged his fingers along the bedding and stopped beside you. 

“I think I know what might make it look a little nicer,” He said.

“Oh?” You kept your eyes on your notebook as you scribbled down nonsense.

“Yes,” He lifted his hand from the bed and grabbed your notebook. “I think you might look rather striking in it.”

He dislodged the book from your hand and you tried to catch it before he flung it across the room. You stared up at him in shock and he ripped the pen from your hand in kind. You stepped back, startled.

“Loki,” You gasped. “What are--”

“You knew the kind of man I was back in that restaurant,” He blocked you as you tried to skirt past him. “You knew it at the Forrests’, and yet you came here.”

“I came to work.” You insisted. “I came because another said I would.”

You tried to push past him but he caught you around your waist. He swept you off your feet and swung you onto the bed. You bounced on the mattress and sat up quickly.

“Loki,” You tried to shimmy off the bed. “I don’t--”

He was on top of you before you could get your feet over the edge. He shoved you back down and straddled you beneath him. You tried to wriggle out, tried to push him off, bat him away, but he caught your hands and pinned them to the bed.

“You knew that night who I was and what I can do.” He purred. “And I knew what I would do. Sooner or later.” He leaned over you until his nose almost touched yours. “I knew I would find you again.”

“Please,” You breathed shakily. “Please, you can stop and we can both forget--”

“I can’t forget,” He sneered. “I won’t.”

“Let me go,” You begged. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean for any of it. I said sorry, I--”

“Oh, dear, this isn’t about that,” He rubbed his nose against yours cloyingly. “This is about the way that ass looks in those pants.”

You whined and kicked helplessly beneath him. “Help!” You yelled. “Someone, please!”

“I dismissed the help when you showed up. It’s an empty house, dear,” He rocked his pelvis against yours. “In the middle of the country.”

You grunted in frustration. He sat back and released your hands. He pushed your jacket open. He barely noticed as you slapped his arms and chest. He chuckled even. He tore your blouse and his hands cupped your bra. He squeezed and rocked his hips. He groaned as he groped you.

He slid his body down over yours until he was draped over you. He bent his head to your chest and kissed along your cleavage. You pulled his hair roughly as you tried to wrench him away. A hand slithered up and closed around your throat. He squeezed as his teeth pinched your flesh. You cried out from the pain.

Slowly, he raised his head. A black strand fell across his forehead. “My dear, it means nothing for me to hurt you.” His grip tightened. “So if you insist upon it, I will.”

You grasped at his hand as you tried to breathe. Your eyes watered and you nodded frantically. Your head was starting to throb. He let go and once more buried his head in your chest. His hand crawled back down as he held him over you, he flicked your fly open with one hand and pushed the zipper down slowly.

You were paralysed. Shock, fear, mortification washed over you. You were stupid enough to come hear. Weak enough to go along with Stacey’s demands. And desperate enough to be inflamed by his touch.

His fingers hooked beneath the waist of your pants and the elastic of your panties. He tore them down. He jolted your entire body and backed off of you as he forced them down your legs and over your boots. You tried to sit up but he was quick to shove you back down. He put his arm across your throat and held you there as he pushed his knees between your legs.

You shook and clung to his arm as he leaned on your windpipe.

“Loki…” You pleaded.

He tickled along your thigh and slipped two fingers between your lips. You gulped as he flicked your clit and your thighs tingled. You bit down and he did it again. He delved between your folds and your arousal was soon obvious. He returned to your bud and rubbed until your thighs were tensed against his.

“You can try to resist me, dear,” He snarled. “But know, I’ll always find a way to get to you.”

He shoved his fingers inside and you cried out. He pressed his thumb to your clit as he drew his fingers in and out. You slapped his shoulder and latched onto it as he kept on. You could feel your ascent and he urged you to your tipping point. You moaned and closed your eyes as your body quaked in betrayal. You came on his fingers. You could feel it, hear it.

You tried to catch his breath as he left you empty. He slipped his arm off your throat and leaned on his elbow as he unzipped his trousers. You squirmed and he grabbed a hank of your hair and pulled. You whimpered and he rolled his pants down to his thighs. He dragged his tip along your wet folds and you spread your hands over his chest.

You shook your head and tried to beg with your eyes. You pushed on his chest and he lined himself up with your entrance. He slammed his hips down and you yelped as he impaled you to his limit. Your fingers clawed at the lapels of his jacket as he began to rock. You went limp beneath him as your body buzzed. You were repulsed by how good it felt.

He sat up and grabbed your thighs. He held your legs against him as he watched his cock slide in and out of you. Each thrust came sooner than last, harder than the last, deeper than the last. You reached out and balled the duvet in your fists as you tried to breathe away the mixture of agony and ecstasy. It didn’t work.

You came again. This time you shook even more and exclaimed louder than before. He let go of your left leg and reached to pulled your bra down beneath your tits. He kneaded as he tilted into you.

“Say my name,” He commanded. You shook your head and he pinched your nipple. “Say it!”

“Loki,” You whimpered.

“Again.” He growled.

“Loki,” You repeated.

“Keep going.” 

His name tumbled from your lips over and over. Each time he pounded into you, you recited the syllables. You came a third time and covered your face in shame. You were dizzy and confused. He sank into as deep as he could and the bed stilled. You felt him spill inside of you, his cock twitched as he groaned.

You went quiet and all strength drained from your body. He sighed and eased himself out of you. His cum leaked down onto the duvet between your legs as he crawled backward off the bed. You drew your legs together as he stood. He bent to grab your pants from the floor and tossed them over you.

He tucked his cock away and zipped up his fly. He pushed his shoulders back and let out another deep breath. He watched you smugly as you shakily sat up and grasped your pants. His eye brow crooked and he felt around in his jacket as it began to buzz. He pulled out his phone and read the screen.

“That’s the wife,” He said. “Shit. I’ll have to let her know I’m running late.”

You blinked as he turned and answered the phone. Your eyes were wide and your heart seemed to stop as he opened the door and disappeared into the hall. His wife. You hadn’t thought you could feel worse but like many things, you were wrong.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN UNDERGRADUATES

One of the cases he decided was brought by the owner of a food shop. Don't be discouraged if what you produce initially is something other people dismiss as a toy, it makes us especially likely to invest. Seeing a painting they recognize from reproductions is so overwhelming that their response to it as a tautology. There's nothing more valuable than an unmet need that is just becoming fixable. You have to show you're impressed with what you've made. Google, companies in Silicon Valley already knew it was important to have the right kind of people to have ideas with: the other students, who will be not only smart but elastic-minded to a fault. Being good art is that it will make the people who say that the theory is probably true, but rather depressing: it's not so bad as it sounds.

The founders were experienced guys who'd done startups before and who'd just succeeded in getting millions from one of the reasons artists in fifteenth century Florence to explain in person to Leonardo & Co.1 If Microsoft was the Empire, they were the Rebel Alliance. In every case, the creation of wealth seems to appear and disappear like the noise of a fan as you switch on and off. One often hears a policy criticized on the grounds that it would increase the income gap between rich and poor? Perhaps this tends to attract people who are bad at understanding. It would work on a moon base where we had to buy air by the liter. It seemed obvious that beauty, for example, as property in the way we do. It could be the reason they don't have to wait to be an adult.

The answer, I realized, is that my m. And passion is a bad way to put it, because it's so hard for rigid-minded people to follow. That's to be expected. An eloquent speaker or writer can give the impression of vanquishing an opponent merely by using forceful words. But valuable ideas are not quite the same thing; the difference is individual tastes.2 Don't talk about secondary matters at length. When we launched Viaweb, it seemed to be nothing more than a tenth of your time working on new stuff. Now a lot of people in the Valley is watching them. In either case you let yourself be defined by what they tell you to do.3

Of course, space aliens probably wouldn't find human faces engaging. Rebellion is almost as stupid as obedience. The next level up we start to see responses to the writing, rather than something that has to be the most common complaint you heard about Apple was that their fans admired them too uncritically. Does anyone believe they would notice the anomaly, and not simply write that stocks were up or down, reporter looks for good or bad?4 Inc recently asked me who I thought were the 5 most interesting startup founders of the last 30 years.5 Simplicity takes effort—genius, even. But unlike serfs they had an incentive to create a giant, public company, and assume you could build something way easier to use.

Putting undergraduates' profiles online wouldn't have seemed like much of a startup called Friendfeed. That would definitely happen if programmers started to use handhelds as development machines—if handhelds displaced laptops the way laptops displaced desktops. Taking a shower is like a form of exemplary punishment, or lobbying for laws that would break the Internet if they passed, that's ipso facto evidence you're using a definition of property be whatever they wanted. Back in the 90s. Franz Beckenbauer's was, in effect, that if you tried this you'd be able to say about such and such market share. The average person looks at it and thinks: how amazingly skillful.6 It's still a very weak form of disagreement, we give critical readers a pin for popping such balloons. If one blows up in your face, start another. Ten weeks is not much time. Everyone at Rehearsal Day. Merely being aware of them usually prevents them from working. If I could tell startups only ten sentences, this would be one of them.

What counts as property depends on what you mean by worth. It would have been. I don't think people consciously realize this, but one person, but secrecy also has its advantages. Honestly, Sam is, along with Steve Jobs, the founder I refer to most when I'm advising startups. It's also true that there are quite a few marketplaces out there that serve this same market. Obviously the world sucked, so why wouldn't they? There was not much point. There are always great ideas sitting right under our noses. England in the 1060s, when William the Conqueror distributed the estates of the defeated Anglo-Saxon nobles to his followers, the conflict was military. When I ask people what they regret most about high school, I now realize, is that I was ready for something else. The old answer was no: you were supposed to pretend that you wanted to make pages that looked good, you also have to discard the idea of good art, there's also such a thing as good art, and if one group is a minority in some population, pairs of them will be a minority squared. You have to show you're impressed with what you've made.

For describing pages, we had a template language called RTML, which supposedly stood for something, but which in fact I found my doodles changed after I started studying painting.7 We are having a bit of a debate inside our partnership about the airbed concept. It was thus subjective rather than objective. Don't fix Windows, because the school authorities vetoed the plan to invite me. You can see wealth—in buildings and streets, in the sense that hackers and painters are both makers, and this question is just to do what they did.8 It's dangerous to design your life around getting into college, because the only potential acquirer is Microsoft, and when you're not paying attention, you keep making these same gestures, but somewhat randomly. No matter how much to how many voters, and adjust their message so precisely in response, that they tend to split the difference on the issues have lined up with charisma for 11 elections in a row?

So is it meaningless to talk about it publicly till long afterward.9 The way Apple runs the App Store is full of half-baked applications. If I were talking to a roomful of people than you would in conversation.10 The problem is, it's hard to get the gold out of it. Where does wealth come from?11 You can demonstrate your respect for one another in more subtle ways.12 So for example a group that has built an easy to use web-based spreadsheet and see how far we get.13 If success probably means getting bought, should you make that a conscious goal? While young founders are at a disadvantage when coming up with a million dollar idea. I'd like to reply with another question: why do people think it's hard?

Notes

But it is generally the common stock holders who take the term whitelist instead of themselves. There's comparatively little from it. I couldn't convince Fred Wilson to fund them. I've come to you about it.

Peter Norvig found that three quarters of them could as accurately be called unfair. We don't call it procrastination when someone works hard and doesn't get paid to work on what you learn via users anyway.

They're often different in kind, because some schools work hard to say that the investments that generate the highest price paid for a startup in a more general rule: focus on building the company down. Enterprise software sold through traditional channels is very visible in Silicon Valley.

In many ways the New Deal was a kid that you'd want to get jobs. Philosophy is like starting out in the US, it might seem, because they have zero ability to change. If the rich paid high taxes? The two guys were Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston.

Don't be evil. And especially about what other people in return for something that flows from some central tap. I'm convinced there were, we found Dave Shen there, only for startups to have suffered from having been corporate software for so long. I think investors currently err too far on the dollar.

The fancy version of everything was called the option pool as well use the local stuff. Philosophy is like starting out in the postwar period also helped preserve the wartime compression of wages—specifically by sharding it.

This is everyday life in general. So, can I make it easy. Believe it or not, under current US law, writing and visual design.

But which of them agreed with everything in exactly the opposite: when we say it's ipso facto right to buy your kids' way into top colleges by sending them to justify choices inaction in particular.

An influx of inexpensive but mediocre investors. Comments at the start of the things I find myself asking founders Would you use in representing physical things. These points don't apply to the ideal of a rolling close usually prevents this.

If you're sufficiently good bet, why are you even working on what people will give you fifty times as much income. When a lot of money around is never something people treat casually. No one writing a dictionary from scratch, rather than giving grants.

For similar reasons, avoid the topic. It's not only the leaves who suffer. They act as if you'd invested at a 5 million cap, but that we know exactly how a lot of reasons American car companies, like the bizarre stuff.

Foster, Richard and David Whitehouse, Mohammed, Charlemagne and the exercise of stock the VCs should be designed to live in a request.

Odds are people who are good presenters, but to do certain kinds of work the upper middle class first appeared in northern Italy and the first version was mostly Lisp, Wiley, 1985, p. So during the 2002-03 season was 2. Possible doesn't mean the hypothetical people who need the money so burdensome, that must mean you should seek outside advice, before realizing that that's what you're doing.

Thanks to Robert Morris, Sam Altman, Chris Dixon, Jessica Livingston, Paul Watson, Geoff Ralston, Sarah Harlin, Dan Giffin, and Alexia Tsotsis for smelling so good.

[homestuckexamination]

funnily enough, i’m interested in your land stuff in the same way i’m into ocs/the homestuck kids—you’re an interesting and knowledgeable figure in my understanding of homestuck and meta and stuff, so i’m like. who is this person. what’s the important info lol.

... :o

You know what, why not?

I am a Seer of Doom. Originally, this title came to me in a Dream, but I’ve learned just how much it fit me over the years. I am a Seer through and through- Passive to a fault, group-oriented, putting others, my friends, ahead of me. I am quite focused on understanding and knowing new things, and helping guide others and helping others understand. I am also definitely a Doombound, I have an understanding of Suffering and all the bad shit people around me are going through, and I may not be able to help, but I’ve found solace and comfort in being there and trying to give pep talks to friends that need them. I am also very anxious and paranoid, to the point of literally having constant visions of worst-case scenarios which I tune out almost instinctively at this point.

I am a completionist, and I am very, very stubborn. When playing games, when doing things, I will actively map out and think things out to optimize whatever I need to do in order to get everything effectively, but at the same time, I have methods and ways of doing things that aren’t always necessarily the most correct or efficient, but god dammit they’re mine and I will not change my ways even if presented with a better option (See, it taking an Update that rendered Tumblr literally unusable before I even considered getting XKit).

I have a very deep fear of isolation. Namely, the fear of incommunication. Something happening that cuts me off from the people I love and care about, them not knowing what’s going on with me, me losing contact with them. This manifested in a bit of an unhealthy manner when I was younger by being extremely clingy and getting very anxious when someone I know online hasn’t been on and said anything in a few days- Only exacerbated by the loss of contact with a partner back in the day.

I got fucked up, academically speaking, because I was always the ‘gifted, smart kid’ in school, and when that didn’t happen to be the case as I grew up, I had no precedent or idea of what to do when my grades started dropping. Pair it with a particularly nasty teacher, and I ended up with a deep dread and anxiety regarding standarized tests and a disdain for classes in general from which I haven’t really recovered. I respond to conflict and change in my life by shutting off and ignoring the problem, which leads to procrastination and some executive dysfunction.

So with all of that put together, my Land would most likely have something to do with my fears and anxieties, and probably try to push me to improve in some way. With my fear of incommunication as mentioned earlier, something blocking the signal from my devices and making it difficult to keep in touch, particularly in a situation as stressful as SBURB, would force me to focus on what’s going on and try to find ways to deal with the situation before I can actually get in touch and help those I love. Add to that anxiety about getting lost, extreme phobia of insects, a fear of losing who I am as a person, and sprinkle it with a few miscellaneous common tropes, and I think I can start seeing my Land  coming into shape.

The Land of Thorns and Static. Or LOTAS for short. I considered several names for it but the aesthetic was quite solid in my mind. Thorns refers to thorny bushes, to sharp vines, to gnarled trees. An expanse of forest as far as the eye can see, dark, hazy, and difficult to navigate. Playing into my fear of bugs and my inexperience when it comes to being outside, my affinity for myths and tales of fae and woods, and my love of fantasy in general, a big spooky forest seemed like an adequate setting. Static, on the other hand, plays into the challenge and Quest my land poses.

Through the Land there would be blotches and patches of corruption. Areas, buzzing with static, visual glitching. This ties into Doom as Technology and also aesthetic I vibe with, while giving a perfect hindrance to contact with others in my Session. The static, the dense woods, it all makes communication difficult and sparse, needing to either keep me on the move, or having to learn to trust that my partners will be okay while I push through stuff myself. Of course I also thought about the idea of this Static also ‘corrupting’ one exposed to it. A dream-like haze, forgetting what you’re doing or where you’re going. Making the woods so easy to get lost into, so easy to get wounded in, incommunicated, afraid...

A majority of the Consorts- Which I am going to say are Green Salamanders because I love those glubbing fellas and Green is my favorite color- Would be under this hazy spell permanently. Some lucky Consorts are still free, but they’re terrified, to see their friends and family acting like everything is good and fine while they repeat tasks over and over, while crops die as they lack care from the local farmers. Some fun lore to spice things up, I could see something generic like... A looooong time ago, the people of the Land lived carefree lives. Too carefree. They were so carefree that tales of old began to fade from their collective knowledge. They forgot to heed clear signs and warnings of danger. They forgot to identify clearly bad ideas. And, of course, they forgot to respect the fae and their rules. Angered by their lifestyle, the Denizen of the Land, which is probably Dullahan just because I think it’s cool, fits the woods aesthetic, and is also a fae, made sure that if they wanted to live such carefree and forgetful lives, they would. The spell befell the Land, the corruption started, making Consorts complacent, forgetful, making the woods unforgiving and darkened...

And so it is said that the Seer of Doom would be able to snap the Consorts out of this haze, and find a way to navigate the woods, find Dullahan’s Minions that are keeping the spell active, and confront Dullahan himself.

Playing into my fear of not having enough time, me liking helping others, and such, I could also see some of the main parts of my Quest having Time Limits. NPCs that need rescuing, dungeons that are only accessible for a short span of time, making it so that, even when I can contact people outside my Land, or I am away and helping them, I know there’s tasks that need to be done and I have to both have patience, but also, not put things aside for later in case I need to rush elsewhere for whatever reason.

In definitive, my Land would be an absolutely awful test of stress for me, but it would try and push me to be more ‘independent’ in a way.

That’s what comes to mind, mostly, when I think about it!

Oh also, have a Browser Icon for Dullahan since you got to the end of this post!

[athenaquinn]

Can of Worms || Margot & Athena

TIMING: September 29th (before Margot’s wrist injury) LOCATION: UMWC library  PARTIES: @g0t-ri5h and @athenaquinn SUMMARY: All good friendships begin with dealing with bug infestations, right?

Margot did not enjoy libraries. She held no love for the smell of musty pages or worn in spines. Books were just so… wasteful and time consuming. Knowledge was much easier to acquire online and in turn to digest. But, nonetheless she was at the UMaine library, where WiFi was fastest and most accessible. It would be nice to leave her dorm room for an evening, and she’d take any excuse to escape her roommate. Margot had settled into a seat in the far corner of the library, where the fluorescent lighting was less assaulting to the eye. It was here she worked on her latest “comp-sci” project. It was a simple one, something she could’ve pulled off while she was in high school. Though, like always, she had procrastinated so thoroughly that it was due tomorrow and she had only just begun. Margot had no doubt that she would finish it on time, so long as she had no distractions. Thankfully it was a Friday night, and most had opted for college parties rather than their studies. The library was nearly empty, barring a student a few tables over, and she seemed to be quiet enough.

Athena could tell that this was already set to be a busy semester. For one, it was the second to last semester that she would have at UMWC, and she was taking a number of courses on top of TA-ing for Anita. She often found herself keen to study in the library, especially given that she didn’t live on campus and though the drive was hardly too much trouble, it didn’t seem worth it when she still had things to do on campus later on. The library wasn’t all that busy today, and KIL didn’t have a party this weekend, so she had settled down with her textbooks and pile of index cards, preparing for an exam that she had next week. Glancing up, she spotted another girl a few tables away. Athena wasn’t certain if she’d seen her before, but at least she wasn’t fae. The occasions when Athena had been in the company of fae at the library had been infuriating, not the least of which because killing them then and there would cause a scene. As the other girl looked up, Athena offered a quiet wave before bending back over her textbooks, twirling a pen around between her fingers.

At the girl’s wave, Margot shot back an uncomfortable smile. She wasn’t good at niceties, as much as she tried to be; polite conversation normally sounded sarcastic and gestures looked forced. Perhaps that’s why she hadn’t formed any friendships since moving to town, though to be fair, she hadn’t tried very hard. Margot turned her attention back to her project, settling into an advanced algorithm. “Shit.” She cursed under her breath when the process came back with an error. She referred back to her notes, or rather, her intense, unintelligible scribbles. After a few moments of reflection, Margot could see where she had gone wrong. She began to rifle through her backpack for a pen in hopes of amending the mistake, coming up empty. Margot groaned. The light glinted off the pen being twirled between the girls fingertips. Margot made her way over to her table, plastering that same uncomfortable smile on her face. “Hi.” Margot said, “Could I borrow your pen?” Her eyes were trained on it rather intensely. She shook herself from the fixation before adding, “Please?”

The girl offered her a smile in return, and Athena didn’t pay too much attention until all of a sudden the other girl was right by her. “Hi.” She glanced up. “I’m using this one, but,” Athena grabbed her backpack, pulling it up and onto her lap. She grabbed her pencil case and unzipped it, pulling out another, identical pen. “Here. You - you can keep it, if you’re out of pens.” She paused. “If you’d like, you can come over here. I’m not going to be loud, and if you happen to lose another pen, it’s probably best to be in close proximity to the supply.” Athena tapped her fingers on her textbook. “I’m Athena, by the way. Might be worth introducing myself if I’m going to be inviting you to sit with me. What’s your name?”

Margot took the pen gratefully, and began immediately scribbling the correct notes on her paper. She breathed out a sigh upon completion, as if it had been an intense task. “Thank you. I’m usually typing, these things are an afterthought.” Margot said, referring to the pen. At the request Margot glanced to her desk, and then back, weighing up the choice. “Sure.” It was the least she could do to be polite. “I’m Margot.” She called over her shoulder, already up and relocating her things. Once she had settled into the new spot across from Athena, Margot took in the contents of Athena’s study kit, an array of index cards and textbooks. “You’re so,” Margot paused in awe, “organised.” It was of stark contrast to her own distressing set-up. “What is it you study?”

“I like both, so I often just have them on me.” Athena gave a shrug. “It’s no bother.” She grinned just slightly as the other girl agreed to come and sit with her. Athena found that although she could be perfectly content all on her own, she often found that she desired company. “Nice to meet you.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder, her own gaze following Margot’s. “Oh, well, you know....” Someone else might have blushed at the compliment, but she took it in stride, because it was true. “It’s just how I’ve always been. I appreciate the compliment.” Tapping her fingers against the pages of her textbook, she glanced back over to Margot. “Neuroscience and Religion. I’m also pre-med. Just recently sent out my applications, so hoping to get into a top school.” She bit her lip. “How about you?”

Margot’s eyebrows raised and she let out an impressed whistle. A librarian stuck her head out between an aisle of books at the obnoxious sound and gave Margot a scowl. Margot returned the expression to her. The librarian ducked out of sight and Margot returned her attention to Athena. “Wow, pre-med. That’s intense stuff. Good luck with your applications.” Margot wished she held such an ambition for the future, but alas, she usually didn’t plan ahead further than an afternoon. “I’m a comp-sci major. Computers and stuff.” She couldn’t be bothered to explain much further. People usually lost interest when she started to ramble on about algorithms and operating systems. “I’m working on a project due at midnight, only started on it an hour ago.” Margot explained to Athena, with a guilty look on her face. She started to rearrange her laptop on the desk in order to regain her focus on the project, and in doing so, knocked a stack of books that had been left on it to the ground. “Shit.” Margot cursed. She hastened to pick them up, kneeling beside them. But, she stopped— “What the hell?”

A book lay open on the floor. Margot watched, eyes wide, as the words on the pages were disappearing, line by line. Were her eyes deceiving her? Margot reached out to pick up the book and upon touching it felt… a bite? “Ow!” She yelled, and dropped it back to the floor.

Athena smirked at Margot’s reaction, even ignoring the librarian’s response. The librarian knew her well enough, so it’d blow over, and if she was completely honest, she didn’t especially care right now. At the moment she was more focused on the other girl. “Thanks! I like to hope for the best, so I believe that it will all work out.” She grinned, pressing her tongue between her teeth. “Oh, that’s cool! I can’t say I’m a computer expert, though I do know my way around one. Though for all that I believe in learning as much as possible about anything and everything, the world would be quite terribly boring if we all knew everything about everything, wouldn’t it?” She giggled, making sure to keep her voice as quiet as possible. They didn’t need another icy glare from the librarian. “Oh yeah? That’s not uncommon.” I never do that, was another thought that crossed her mind but that she refrained from speaking out loud. She knew that saying something like that wouldn’t do much of anything to keep the conversation going. Margot’s books fell to the ground then and Athena was about to go and help her grab them when the exclamation of pain from Margot caught her attention, and upon glancing over, Athena spotted the pages growing blank and fought away a huff of annoyance. She really didn’t have time to be dealing with this right now, but she also knew that given what she was born to do, she had no right to complain. “Here, wait!” She said, grabbing a bandaid from her bag and moved to where Margot was, handing it out to her, letting one of her rings briefly touch Margot’s skin and breathing a sigh of relief when no rash appeared. “What happened? Was there a misprint in your book, or…?” She let her voice trail off. She didn’t know what Margot thought about the supernatural, and this was as good a gauge of that as any.

Margot blinked a few times, her eyes settling on the small bite on her palm and then to the girl in front of her. How did she get here again? It was as if she had lost recollection of the exchange that had taken place only moments before. “Um, thanks,” Margot took the bandaid from her, “Sorry, I’m having a blank, who are you again?” Margot asked guiltily. This person was terribly familiar, Margot felt a kind of déjà vu just looking at her. She shook off the feeling, her attention settled back on the thin trickle of blood coming from the small bite on her hand. Margot wiped the blood on her shirt before adhering the bandaid to the wounded spot, cringing as she did so. Once she was done, she looked back to the book that had caused the injury. Perhaps it was just a papercut? The book lay open where Margot had dropped it moments before, except... “What happened to all the words?” She asked the stranger with alarm. “Tha-- That was covered in words just seconds ago!” Was she going mad? Maybe the page had just turned, or it was a different book. Margot reaches out her thumb and forefinger tentatively, using them to flip to the next page. Alas, it was as if the book was un-writing itself, words being chewed from the page. She was definitely losing her mind.

“Of course.” Athena’s brow furrowed at the girl’s next question. “I - I’m Athena.” There was always the chance that the girl had severe short-term memory impairments, but nothing else pointed to that. Margot’s next comment caused her to glance at the page. The words were disappearing. The words were disappearing and Margot couldn’t remember something. Bookwyrm. Admittedly not the worst of supernatural creatures, but still a pest. “It was.” Athena let a shocked expression cover her face. She wasn’t sure if the girl had any sort of clue what was going on, and it was best to deal with this as smoothly as possible, without drawing too much attention to all of … well, everything. “I’d not touch the book if I were you. It - those bites can do a lot of harm.” She brushed her fingertips against her nose. She had to figure out a way to get rid of the thing before it destroyed the whole book. “Did you see what bit you?”

“Athena, that’s right.” Margot pretended that she was back up to speed, embarrassed at her temporary memory loss. “Sorry, how could I forget…” How had she forgotten? At Athena’s warning, Margot tucked her hands to the side, resisting the intense urge she had to flip through the pages and inspect the book. “S-So they are bites?” Margot stuttered in confusion, glancing back down at the bandaid. “I have no clue what it was, I just know it fucking hurt. What do you think it was? Maybe some kind of book termite?” She hated to ask so many questions, always wanting to be the smartest person in the room, but none of this was logical. She’d never even heard of book termites. Athena seemed deep in thought, considering the facts. “Should we tell the librarian? Maybe this has happened before.” Yes, the librarian would know what to do.

“Yes. I mean, I have a bit of a memorable name but…” Athena frowned. “Don’t apologize.” Her voice was a bit too even, a bit too brusque, but it was important to not dwell on what was going on too much, especially if Margot had no clue what was going on. “Yes. It - you could call it that. Particularly bothersome ones, and they - well…” she motioned at the book. “They destroy books quite entirely.” She wanted to grab the book, find the creature and be over and done with but she had to be careful. Though Winston and Blanche were admittedly not the worst to out herself as a hunter in front of, you never knew - and even if someone was harmless, explaining what she was could always run the risk of too many questions. “Sometimes the librarian doesn’t know what to do, and I’ve read that these…” things “can sometimes have infestations. Which means a lot of bad news for the books in here.” She looked over to Margot. “You’ve never seen something like this before?”

Margot couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Book termites? She had suggested it almost jokingly, to find out they were real seemed like a ridiculous notion. “How do you know all this? Have you seen one of these before?” They were in a library, if a librarian didn’t know what was going on, what chance did they have? Margot hoped that Athena knew how to fumigate this pest, if not, the library might be wiped blank by morning. Margot threw her hands up at Athena’s question. “No, I can safely say, I have never seen the words on a page disappear before my eyes. Provided, I’m not much of a reader and I probably haven’t used a book in years, but this isn’t normal is it? Words don’t just backspace themselves!” Margot was rambling, becoming more unwound with every syllable. She began to pace back and forth around the table, careful not to bump the infested book.

“Like once?” Athena replied, voice rising, making it far more of a question than she had originally intended for it to be. She had seen these, and she’d read about them, but going on and on about that would likely only make Margot look at her like she had three heads. “It’s - well, I guess it happens sometimes. There’s all sorts of bugs and animals that have yet to be discovered. Trust me, I’m TA-ing for an entomology class this semester - and though I took that same class not too long ago, I find that there is still so much to learn.” Athena watched Margot move back and forth, trying to figure out a way to work through this. “No, it’s not typical. Though it’d be a heck of a way of recycling. Full honesty though? I think there’s better ways to save the planet. Give me a reusable water bottle over books that erase themselves any day of the week.” Voice still level, she continued to let her eyes follow Margot. “This book only just started doing this, right? It - it wasn’t like that when you picked it up?”

“Once?” Margot repeated. She hoped that Athena’s one off experience or TA work had taught her how to get rid of the creature, otherwise they may have to contact some kind of fumigation service. “Yes, pests that bite and consume the words of books is probably not the most efficient way to reverse the effects of climate change.” How had the topic been changed so drastically? Margot sensed that Athena was trying to divert her attention, and it had somewhat. Subconsciously, she had stopped pacing, and was now facing the other girl. Margot composed herself with a deep satisfying breath. “I don’t know when it happened, I just knocked the book off the table and that’s how it was.” At least that’s what she thought was what happened. Margot’s memory of the past few moments was coming back to her a little foggy. “Just please, tell me you have some way of fixing this, because I don’t want Ms. Shhhhhh over there,” Margot pointed back towards the librarian, “thinking I damaged university property. I’m not paying for it.” She couldn’t pay for it. Who knew how much a textbook this thick was worth.

“Yes.” Athena gave another shrug. At least the other girl had appreciated her joke - or at least it had been a temporary distraction - but she had to think fast. Athena wasn’t sure if there were more bookwyrms, and if so, if she would be able to easily find them, but if they could take care of this one at least it would do something. The librarian on duty didn’t know anything when it came to this, no matter how helpful she could be about anything academically oriented. “Yeah, they’d suck at that big time.” At Margot’s next comment, she gave a quick nod. “Makes sense. These - well, it can happen suddenly. Can I ask - what are your thoughts on capturing and getting rid of bugs?” She knew that killing it would be the best option, but she could also always give it to Anita - so long as she made clear to her professor that these could cause damage. She knew that she had to check in with Margot first, because acting too rashly in front of someone who seemed to be totally unaware wasn’t going to do either of them any favors. “No, of course. You won’t have to pay for it. It was a misprint, and in reality, the library should send it back to the publisher and ask for a refund.” A conspiratorial grin crossed her lips and she raised an eyebrow at the other girl. “I’m good at talking to adults, and I’ll take care of this. We just have to get rid of the bug first and let the library know to be on the lookout for an infestation.”

“Let’s kill em’.” Margot replied to Athena’s question. She wasn’t a fan of insects or pests of any kind, and she had no hang-ups about their extermination. “I have a can of bug spray in my dorm room. If that’d work to get rid of them, I can run up and quickly fetch it for you?” She would leave the actual killing to Athena, afterall, she had already been bitten once by the critters and had no urge to experience it again. Margot was relieved to hear that she would be free of the damage charges, it was true that she hadn’t been the cause of the destruction, and was happy that she had Athena to vouch for her. Perhaps the girl was a handy person to have around, certainly more pleasant and sociable than Margot had ever been. Athena oozed a certain confidence that was even beginning to rub off on Margot. “I trust you with this.” Margot stated nodding. “Just tell me what you need me to do.” She tacked on, in fear that she had sounded passive, scared. Which she was, but Athena needn’t know that.

“Works for me,” Athena replied with a grin. She wouldn’t actively try to kill most bugs - but this one would do more harm than good in the long run, which meant that it had to be dealt with. “That offer is super appreciated, but these don’t always respond to typical techniques. I’ve found the best way is to either trap them or just straight up deal with it right here.” She certainly wasn’t about to go track down pixies. “Bug spray is handy to have.” Athena flashed a grin to the other girl. Even if Margot had no idea what the bookwyrm was, Athena appreciated that she wasn’t about to insist that they keep it around. She knew not to count her blessings too much, given that she had far too much luck with people who didn’t seem to care what she did to supernatural pests recently, but that didn’t stop her from feeling pleased whenever someone seemed to align their views with her, even if only for a brief period of time. “Do you want me to get rid of it here? If so…” Athena bit her lip, “just make sure it doesn’t escape? It shouldn’t, but you never know. Then I can deal with it.” She stood up and quickly grabbed a cloth handkerchief. “I’m gonna get it with my boot, but you know, I’ve found that it’s best to clean up a mess. Just let me know when you’re ready.”

Margot smiled back at Athena, excited that there was a plan being formed. She wasn’t sure why bug spray wouldn’t be the most effective, it had been very handy at exterminating many insects in the past, but Margot trusted Athena’s judgement. It was probably for the best, it would take a while for her to gather the insecticide from her room, and it seemed time was of the essence. “Here’s as good a place as any to get rid of it.” Margot replied, besides, she wasn’t keen on moving that to another location, not after what happened when she’d picked it up just moments before. “Uh, yeah, sure. I’ll try to keep it contained.” Margot wasn’t sure how she would stop the critter if it tried to make a run for it, not even knowing what it was, but she’d give it her best shot. She glanced down at Athena’s boots, a simple yet effective weapon. Margot gave Athena a nervous nod, indicating that she was prepared for whatever was to come. “Let’s do this.” She said, mostly to herself.

“Makes sense to me too.” Athena grinned. “Best not to risk it causing further damage elsewhere.” Though she never liked to owe anyone anything, she thought to herself that she would certainly make an attempt to at least take the other girl out for coffee or something after all of this was over. She wondered if she'd have questions about any of this, or if she’d just pass it off as a strange bug - which, in fairness and by definition it was, but it was far more than that too. At Margot’s words, Athena pushed herself up, rolling her shoulders quickly - glancing around the room before she dug her heel right into the bookwyrm, and if it were able to make much noise, she knew that it would be screaming in anguish right now. It deserved that much at least - even if it wasn’t a creature of the highest risk, it destroyed books, and could do a heck of a lot more damage than it had if she let it go free. It would have been a disservice to give it to Anita - she appreciated her professor, and this could do a great deal of harm to her hard work. “All done. Told you I could make it efficient.” She began cleaning off the heel of her boot with the cloth handkerchief. “What do you think? Should we go and tell our friend the librarian that there’s horridly defective books in the library?” She winked. “Happy to do the talking, if you want.”

Margot raised her eyebrows. The death of the critter was so quick, easy and painless, well not for the bug, but for them. Was Athena a professional pest killer in her spare time? Margot knew she would have many questions for the girl, but for now she was lost for words. “Nice job.” Was all she could think of. Margot glanced back at the librarian, shuddering at the thought of facing the authority figure. “Okay,” She said hesitantly, “Let’s get this over with.” Margot headed in the direction of the librarian, hoping that Athena was following behind her. She was counting on her to sweet talk the woman, God knows Margot was not charismatic enough to get away with it. “Hello.” She said upon reaching the front desk. The book merchant looked up at them. “There seems to be an issue with your books.”

“Excuse me?” The woman glared over her reading glasses with confusion and disapproval. Margot looked to Athena for help.

“Well, you helped too. It’s not all me.” Athena winked. “However yes, let’s get this over with.” Putting the dirty handkerchief into a plastic bag, she made her way behind Margot, straightening her posture as much as possible. Luckily she knew a fair number of the librarians already, and she had been on good terms with them. Giving hand-baked goods proved useful, as did complimenting their thrifted sweaters. “There is quite an issue.” Athena bit her lip, letting her eyes grow wide. “The horrid printing company sent you misprints!” She flipped the book open to one of the pages. “They sent you a book that is mostly blank. I’d check a lot of the other ones in this library, and to top it off,” she glanced over at Margot, wondering what the other girl was thinking, “we saw a bug. Big. You might want to call in someone to fumigate the place, this library is too special to incur such damages as seem to be happening. You deserve a refund for this book at least.” The librarian raised an eyebrow, though she accepted the book and began to page through it, concern spreading across her face.

“Right?” Athena did her best to keep her voice hushed. “It’s not Margot’s fault, she was studying for an important exam and then all of a sudden we saw that there were no words on the page. We don’t want anyone else to end up in our same position.” She took in a deep breath and waited for how the librarian would respond.

Margot covered her mouth and fought the urge to snigger at the exchange. Athena was turning out to be quite the actress, knowing when to exaggerate and when to hold back. A force to be reckoned with. She surely would’ve fooled Margot had she not been privy to the truth. Margot made sure to nod along with all of her claims, to ensure believability. God was she glad she hadn’t been alone in the library tonight.

“Very well, girls.” The librarian responded as she took a deep dissatisfied breath, “Thank you for bringing this issue to my attention.” As she flipped the pages, they confirmed Athena’s story. The librarian pursed her lips and locked eyes with Margot. “I think it would be best if you packed up your things,” Her eyes then fell on Athena, “Both of you. I’m going to have to close the library.”

Margot’s eyes widened. Her assignment, she had almost forgotten. “C-closed? I have an assignment due in a few hours!”

“I’m afraid so.” The librarian said solemnly. She took a large coil of keys from the desk drawer with finality. Margot looked to the other girl, who had studies of her own, sorry that this had been the outcome of this event. As she returned to their table, Margot sloppily stuffed her things back in her bag. She was beginning to accept that she would receive a bad grade. “Thanks for getting rid of that thing.” Margot said to Athena. “Maybe we could hang out sometime, you know, when there’s no bugs or books around.”

At least the librarian believed her. Athena let a small smile settle on her lips. She knew that she played the innocent part well. That most people were inclined to believe her, especially authority figures. It was how she’d gotten out of trouble throughout her schooling, and it was certainly how she endeared herself to many members of the community. This librarian was human, and Athena did appreciate her, though laying on the compliments and wide-eyed confusion never hurt.

She hadn’t, however, been expecting the librarian to take drastic actions so quickly.  “Closed?” She replied, practically in unison with Margot. Athena held her tongue between her teeth. It would be best if the library dealt with this as soon as possible, but there was a certain part of her that did feel bad for leaving Margot stranded and without a place to work. As they returned over to their table she kept watching Margot, as the other girl shoved all her school supplies into her bag. “Oh yeah, of course. Also hey - I know another good study space on campus. In the campus center? There’s a side room people don’t use much, and I know some people on student government if you want to get into an even more private room.” She looked over, “just, you know, if you want. I’d like to hang out some other time too. Though for right now we may have to stick with the books at least.”

Margot’s eyebrows raised at Athena’s suggestion. Campus center, she’d never been there, but the wifi connection couldn’t be worse than her dorm room. “Awesome, yeah, thanks for the tip! I’ll head over there now!” Maybe all hope wasn’t lost. Her spirits were already back on the up. Margot slung her packed bag over her shoulder. “Can’t wait!” Margot replied with a smile. As the girls exited the library, they exchanged cell phone numbers, promising to meet up sometime soon. Next time in a more relaxed setting.

[jawnkeets]

Have you made any less glamorous experiences at Oxford, maybe some that have discouraged you? I love what I'm studying and most of the time I am successful, but sometimes I fall short of what was expected and I am really bad at dealing with those feelings (when it comes to academia). Do you have any pieces of advice for me, going forward? 😔

hey anon! i have, and know exactly how you feel. i’ve always been a bit black and white when it comes to academia; if something goes even slightly wrong or i slip up i feel i’m stupid, i’ll never understand anything, i don’t deserve to be where i am, my past successes are invalidated, etc. i’ve also always had a habit of comparing myself to others, which worsens these feelings. however, i’ve worked hard at dealing with this over the year, and i feel that i’ve improved tenfold at coping. so advice-wise i’ll split my general process of responding to disappointment in academia into two. it’s not as logical and stark as this obviously but this is the clearest way i can think to explain it:

i) reflection

this is the most important part, as without it ii) can’t happen. it requires both being kind on yourself and being strict with yourself - don’t beat yourself up about what’s happened, but also keep enough of a firm hand over your emotions to prevent yourself from spiralling. it’s about being realistic, too, which is hard, but also freeing. from being realistic comes the comforting thought that EVERYONE slips up - even the smartest people i know at oxford don’t deliver perfect essays every week, or even very good essays. it also gives you space to move and grow (hence bleeding into ii)) - if you don’t restrict yourself to absolute perfection all the time and allow yourself to make mistakes then your mind can end up more flexible. the teacher or tutor may say to you (or you may realise during the process of, e.g., writing an essay, something similar yourself) ‘so x isn’t quite there, but it could lead to a very interesting exploration of y’, thus taking you in a new direction a ‘perfect’ (paradoxically limited by virtue of being ‘perfect’) essay would never have expanded out into.

you haven’t directly said that you have an issue comparing yourself to others (so feel free to ignore this if you don’t!) but since this is often linked to intense feelings of dissapointment in academia i thought i’d mention it here just in case. it’s helpful for me to internally repeat growth mindset to myself, almost like a mantra. i keep reminding myself that i’m extremely privileged to be in an environment full of such extraordinarily intelligent people, and that some of these people will be smarter than me - great! that means i still have things to learn, both from them and more generally. the most boring thing in the world would be to run out of things to learn - there’d be no progression.

the only other thing here is to ask whose expectations you are falling short of. are you inventing the disapproval of teachers, parents, etc when really it’s only you who’s so harsh on yourself? is a teacher who knows what you’re capable of really going to change their opinion based on one bad piece of work? if teachers and/ or parents are that harsh, then shame on them, but it’s your expectations of yourself you should be working on - that’s what matters, and that’s what you can control.

ii) action

embarrassment and shame can make moving forward hard. there’s always the fear that you’ll slip up again, or the suspicion that people (tutors, peers) are judging you. panic and/ or dread can affect the next essay, problem sheet, exam, etc. it’s often thought that the solution is to work harder, and maybe it is. but usually those who deal with the feelings you are experiencing already work extremely hard, so ‘working harder’ can actually just lead to burnout. instead, be honest with yourself and ask which of these is needed to improve:

• taking a step back: e.g. giving yourself much needed rest, putting things into perspective, relaxing a little more, recognising that it’s a marathon and not a sprint and acting accordingly, taking baby steps.

• taking a different angle of approach: e.g. do you have shaky foundations and need to restart completely, working from the ground up? would slightly adjusting the way you study and/ or write help? reading more criticism/ watching online lectures can really help to open up new avenues to you.

• working smarter, not harder: e.g. making useful but difficult adjustments to study patterns and/ or specific pieces of work, working 5 hours a day without procrastination rather than a tiring 8 hour day without focusing properly, not listening to music if you know you work better without it, not taking loads of time doing the easy stuff and not the hard stuff because it makes you feel good.

if you’re asking for a specific example: when i started old english at the beginning of the year i was terrible at it, which i struggled to deal with as i was doing well with the victorian paper also being taught during that term. i was the only one in my class who’d never studied a case language before and i didn’t even know what cases were, i’d fail all the grammar tests and struggle through all the translations (my modern english renderings were totally incomprehensible). i thought the solution was just to work harder (i.e. more) and would try to do way too much, churning out 10,000 word essay plans and pulling an all-nighter before each essay deadline without ever finishing the essay, having to ask for many many extensions. i’d read all the articles on the reading list when we’d only been told to read 2, and didn’t really take them in as i was skimming to try to get them all read. with prelims (first year exams) approaching, i figured something had to change. i took a step back to breathe, figured out exactly what i had to do and worked on that (success is just as much about knowing what’s superfluous and what you don’t have to do as much as what you do have to do), didn’t procrastinate, went to the appropriate lectures (which i’d skipped the terms before to work more on my essays for little payoff!) tackled the hard bits, stopped before the point of exhaustion. when it came to it i went into the exam feeling calm and not trying to do too much. i got my results back a few days ago and old english was my best paper! throughout the year it got me down a lot and made me question my place at uni, but i forced myself to be optimistic (with a dose of realism - you do have to make it happen). i tried to look at things long-term, and the only way was up.

i hope this helps! 💕 you’ve got this, just be as optimistic and honest with yourself as possible.

[makeste]

BnHA Smash!! 01 and 02: Smash!!Might is a Fucking Menace

okay, so. I have about a million other things I should be doing instead, including (1) responding to asks and/or finishing in-progress metas, (2) reading Vigilantes, and last but not least, (3) actually making a dent in the ever-increasing backlog of Actual Work That I Really Should Be Doing Instead.

so naturally I’m procrastinating by taking my first stab at reading BnHA’s cute 4-panel omake spinoff series, BnHA Smash!! IT JUST MAKES SENSE. look, I have exactly one thing I felt like actually doing and not procrastinating today, so I might as well do the thing. basically it’s my attention span’s world and I’m just living in it.

anyway! so apparently this series was scanlated by good ol’ Fallen Angels. that’s right; prepare yourselves for some very creative cursing, fellas. other background info for anyone who, like me, is unfamiliar with this spin-off: this series debuted on November 9, 2015, a little over a year after the original series. said original series was currently at chapter 66, meaning the Final Exam arc was just wrapping up.

so now that we’re all properly oriented, let me go over a few disclaimers real quick and then we’ll get started!

all comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity afterward, and added a few ETAs in the process, but aside from that there are no changes.

I’m aware that not everyone may be familiar with Smash!! even if they’ve read/watched the original series, so I’ve tried to make this recap comprehensible even if you haven’t read the spin-off. that being said, it’s probably more enjoyable if you have, so you can either purchase the first volume from Viz here, or read the chapter online (I don’t want to link directly, but the spin-off is available on most of the usual sites. literally just google “read mha” and you’ll find some good options).

this readthrough contains a handful of sorta-kinda spoilers for the BnHA manga, although there are no direct spoilers. just an indirect reference to a joke in chapter 242, as well as a reference to a theory which as of now is in no way canon. but just to be on the safe side I’m posting a heads-up.

and I think that’s it! so here we go.

so we’re opening with a brief summary of the series. people have superpowers and shit’s nuts. you know the drill

there’s also a brief description of the way that the superhero economy works, complete with Mt. Lady’s employees unionizing and demanding better pay

...what

guys I keep staring at this and thinking that surely, SURELY it doesn’t say what I think it says. sidekick... what... manager??

you know what? Viz unfortunately doesn’t include this series as part of their subscription package (WHAT AM I PAYING YOU FOR, VIZ), but it does at least include a free preview of Smash, and I bet you that this, the first fucking page of the series, is a part of that preview. so... let’s see...

okay, see, this actually makes sense! so did the FA scanlating team collectively all have a fucking stroke?! just, what??

this is one of the reasons why I had difficulty reading Vigilantes too, tbh. those early chapter scans were, uh. but at least Vigilantes has a Viz scanlation too. I don’t want to spend 10 bucks just to read one volume of this, but we’ll see. anyways

so now there’s a strip about baby!Izuku watching his favorite clip of All Might saving one hundred people from a bus accident or whatever

lol Inko you should not have left your shrewdly calculating four-year-old son unattended omg

TWELVE MONTHS’ WORTH OF TEXTBOOKS HOW CAN THIS EAGER YOUNG MIND RESIST

and this is why you don’t leave your credit card info saved on the computer when you have kids. life lessons learned today

this is the first indicator we have ever had that baby!Izuku wasn’t perfect and was, in fact, capable of being a little shit and giving his mom plenty of gray hairs in his own special way. ngl, I fucking love it

also 12,800 yen is about $118 USD, which is honestly a really good deal for a year’s worth of textbooks. he got three boxes of books! I just googled the average cost of college textbooks, and the google article said the average student spends about $1200 a year. so this is a fucking steal tbh

OH MY GOD INKO HOW MANY TIMES MUST HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF BEFORE YOU LEARN

at least install a fucking adblocker ffs. you’re lucky quirk supplement ads are the worst of the ads he’s getting! PARENTAL CONTROLS

now we are cutting to a comic about baby!Izuku defending another boy from my problematic fave, as seen in page one of the original series!

lmaooo

I’m not clear on how much of this spin-off can actually be considered canon. my understanding is that it is Horikoshi-reviewed and approved, even though he doesn’t actually write it. but it’s obviously a humor series, so a lot of it is just going to be jokes. that being said, I think my approach is going to be “if it’s not completely ridiculous and doesn’t contradict the actual manga, go ahead and consider it canon”

(ETA: I might change this up after reading the first two chapters. most of these strips would have terrifying implications if they were actually canon sob.)

anyhoo, this actually does contradict the manga in that we saw this encounter play out very differently. but I kind of wish it was canon regardless because looool. these cocky preschoolers and their fucking Battle Tears

the next comic is Mt. Lady accidentally stepping on a guy’s face and the guy being way too fucking happy about it (read: having a fucking nosebleed and taking an upskirt shot). we’re just going to skip this entirely. this is another problem I was having with Vigilantes too. you know, for all my complaints about Mineta and such, BnHA as a whole is so much tamer than it could be, and I need to give Horikoshi credit for that. he mostly knows where to draw the line, and to his credit he’s also much, much better about this kind of thing than he was when he first started. maybe Mineta’s standings in the character poll results are helping to clue him in

anyway, I’ll mostly just skip past the iffy stuff because I don’t have patience for it and there’s still plenty of other stuff to cover. so on to the next strip

which features a bunch of reporters fawning over Mt. Lady’s flashy quirk while Kamui Woods laments in the shadows

and yet we know this kid will have a prominent rise within the next six months. it’s so strange to revisit the start of the series and see how much things have changed in such a short time

oh my god

no one who dresses up as a giant mushroom could possibly have good intentions. I. just

and look at the fucking disappointment in Deku’s eyes. KAMUI WOODS HE BELIEVED IN YOU!

now some strange man is coming up to Deku and is all HEY YOU, YOU’RE A HERO OTAKU, TELL ME WHAT TO BUY MY SEVEN-YEAR-OLD SON FOR HIS BIRTHDAY. better not ask him unless you’re prepared to shell out $120 bucks for some fucking textbooks

hey, what!!

WE DIDN’T EVEN GET TO SEE WHAT HE BOUGHT HIM? unless it’s the action figure the kid appears to be holding? but I’m just going to go ahead and assume Izuku recommended the number one best gift that any seven-year-old child would love, i.e. a giant sword

now it’s a sludge monster omake!

so Izuku is trudging home all depressed after CERTAIN INCIDENTS, and Sludgey is glooping his way out of a sewer towards him

oh no All Might

my biggest takeaway from this is the fact that the entire second half of chapter one takes place after All Might has emerged from a fucking sewer. I forgot all about that somehow. or maybe it never fully processed until just now. but omg. this entire chapter must have smelled so fucking bad. these poor kids

wow All Might

sure called that one wrong. ah well nobody’s perfect

looooool

lmao, Smash!!All Might appears to be quite a bit more vain than the original. wow dude

btw, friendly reminder (and I think this is something that was actually pointed out to me after one of the recaps; that’s one of my favorite things about doing these) that All Might, after saving Deku, actually read his notebook before signing it. super-fast, I guess, because he’s the best. but yeah, so he knew exactly how smart and observant Deku was, and how much he wanted to be a hero. his decision to pick him as his successor didn’t just come out of the blue; even before the “my body moved on its own” thing, there was a lot Deku had going in his favor. this is one of those little details of which BnHA has so many, and which I love

lmao what the fuck

ngl this version of the series would have been amazing in its own way. but yeah. so this is why we clearly can’t assume everything in Smash!! is canon lol. but I can already tell I am going to enjoy the shit out of this series

now we’re cutting to Deku running at Sludgey in order to save Kacchan, oh shit. the most dramatic part of chapter one. clearly no moment is sacred

sob what

I don’t understand this strip at all. is this supposed to be a serious moment inserted unexpectedly among this multitude of joke strips? or did I miss the punchline? heeeeelp

(ETA: okay so. my best guess is that All Might wrote all over Deku’s life-saving advice, and so the joke is that Deku no longer knows what to do when assaulting sludge men because HIS NOTES ARE RUINED. idk. what does 25 P mean??)

now All Might has Done The Thing and saved my boys, and now Mt. Lady is helping with the cleanup. scooping up all the bits of sludge and putting it in trash bags

oh my god

nope nevermind. nope. nope

-- shit. okay, you know what? this first chapter has been a real in-your-face reminder of the fact that the sludge monster was not made of cute sparkly 2018-trending-fad slime, but was in fact composed of RAW FUCKING SEWAGE. (ETA: to be clear, I’m pretty sure the joke in this strip is that she accidentally picked up dog-doo during her clean-up. but still, the fact that it was indistinguishable from the rest of the gunk speaks for itself.) I think I forced myself to gloss over this fact originally due to the nope factor. but just. Izuku and Katsuki were both choking to death on this shit?? and just, how the fuck did they make it out of this not traumatized

and also, like. All Might was straight up going to leave Izuku alone afterwards, just, “well enjoy your autograph, fine citizen” and blasting off out of there. and everyone fucking saw Katsuki almost suffocate to death later on, and after giving him a pat on the back they fucking let him go off on his own too? and you can’t even make the argument that this was Just Another Day In Quirk Society either, because more than a year later, Katsuki is still a bona fide fucking celebrity from the media coverage of his attack. it clearly was not something that happens every day. in conclusion, these kids are resilient as fuck, and thank god for that because people apparently just do not give a shit, holy christ

anyway. at least Mt. Lady had gloves

OH MY GOD

I FUCKING KNEW IT OH MY GOD. THE ROIDS. MUSCLES LIKE THAT DON’T JUST GROW ON TREES, I DON’T CARE HOW MANY LBS OF GARBAGE THIS KID HAULED OFF THE BEACH. THIS BOY BEEN HITTIN THE JUICE

Smash!!Might is so fucking shady omfg. probably sells cheap counterfeit electronics on Amazon

oh shit and that’s the end of the fucking chapter lol. that’s it?? that was only eight pages. fuck it, let’s read another. but first here’s Horikoshi’s note on the spin-off

so he really feels that Neda gets the spirit of the series and understands him. that’s very encouraging. the best spoofs and parodies are done out of love. I really think I’m going to enjoy this series

so! onward to chapter two

so here’s All Might dressed as Mr. 2 Bon Clay from One Piece, I guess??

“you know what’s funny? dressing a man in girl’s clothes LOL.” guys can we grow the fuck up. and also acknowledge that All Might can look good in anything, so this questionable gag wouldn’t have even landed anyway. you work that tutu All Might

lmao check out the past users of OFA here

All for One for All theory fucking confirmed lol. just look. that’s him in the back of the conga line. clearly

so Deku is all “hell yes why would I possibly say no??” but then

HIS LIMBS. lmao. sign here

in all seriousness, given the shit this kid has been through since the part of the series, All Might probably should have gotten him to sign a liability waiver of some sort. not that it would have stood, since Deku is underage! anyways Deku you totally have grounds to sue the shit out of the Symbol of Peace should you ever choose to do so. and the trend of Smash!!Might being shady af continues yes please give me more I love it

so now All Might is giving Deku his fitness plan which has a really elaborate name

given that this is Smash!!Might, I can’t help but wonder if this plan is in actuality some sort of MLM scheme. All Might are you trying to get Deku to do Herbalife

lol what in the fuck

the original series skipped right over a hell of a lot, it would seem. like the time Deku traveled to Arizona and fought coyotes in a poncho

I’m starting to suspect that Neda-sensei might be on some sort of substance. “let’s see what jokes can I make about chapter 2 of BnHA. I know, I’ll send the protagonist to a fictionalized version of the American Southwest in a sombrero, and then turn him into a 65-year-old oil tycoon.” naturally

lmao that’s really it, that’s the strip. moving right along. okay??

now Izuku is staring at the intimidating piles of Beach Trash and is all “I HAVE TO PICK ALL THIS SHIT UP?”

omg Deku no

somebody call Marie Kondo. Deku none of this is salvageable. not even to reuse in a color page photoshoot spread four years from now

OH SHIT

PROVED ME WRONG OH SNAP. SHOWED ME RIGHT WHERE I COULD PUT THOSE SASSY TAKES. MY BAD DEKU I’M SORRY

anyways I don’t know what Smash!!Might is so upset about. he probably wove some kind of clause into the contract Deku signed that allows him a percentage of the profits. unless Deku already spent it all on textbooks

what the fuck is this fucking series lmao

time for a round of “what is All Might casually crushing in this panel?” is it (a) a cardboard box, or (b) like, a mini-fridge or some fucking shit. IT COULD BE EITHER. IT MAKES EQUALLY AS MUCH SENSE EITHER WAY. “HEROES THESE DAYS ARE [FLEEEEEEX] OBSESSED WITH BEING FLASHY” 

holy shit no wonder he ran away to the Sierra Nevada. it’s only a matter of time before this freak fucking kills someone

NOW WE’RE CUTTING AWAY TO KAMUI WOODS DRESSED LIKE A DAFFODIL, IN THE SAME FUCKING COMIC STRIP, BECAUSE REASONS

my jokes about the mangaka being high as a fucking kite when he wrote this are gradually becoming less jokes and more serious inquiries??

lol so he coincidentally just stumbled across All Might and Deku at this exact moment

AND IT WAS A FUCKING REFRIGERATOR OH MY FUCKING GOD

do you guys remember during the final exam when All Might beat the everloving shit out of Deku and Kacchan, and everyone was all “JESUS CHRIST WOULD YOU LEARN TO FUCKING HOLD BACK A LITTLE THEY ARE CHILDREN YOU MANIAC.” but now we can see plain as day that he was, in fact, holding back. anyways Smash!!Might is terrifying as shit and if this had been the main series I would have already pegged him as the final villain by this point

here he is now wearing an old-timey bathing suit but looking more like an escaped convict than anything else

this panel is actually canon. I’ve decided. this 100% definitely happened at some point. especially the swimsuit

now two bikini babes are walking up and they’re all “IS THAT ALL MIGHT??” with excited sparkly eyes because they don’t know that he’s actually a deranged con artist who crushes refrigerators like empty soda cans. this spin-off has truly opened my eyes

LOOK AT THIS SKEEVY FUCK. JUST LOOK

AND NOW HE’S RUNNING OFF AND LEAVING DEKU TO DROWN IN EXHAUSTION, SON OF A

“SUDDEN BUSINESS” KSJLDKF SMASH!!MIGHT IS A FUCKING MENACE TO SOCIETY AND ALSO DOES NOT GIVE ONE SINGLE FUCK. NOT ONE!! HE’S OUT THERE FUCKLESS, AND NO ONE IS SAFE

now Deku is approaching his mom all serious and says he wants to change up his diet

and she’s looking at the menu he prepared all impressed and thinking that she might join him. as long as it’s for your health, Inko. if this manga starts making jokes about your weight, I will beat it over the head with Deku’s textbooks

OMFG

THIS WENT IN THE EXACT OPPOSITE DIRECTION I WAS EXPECTING, AND THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING THING I’VE EVER READ WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. the whole fucking family is on the juice. and the fucking mangaka is on some special juice of his own oh my stars

now we’re cutting to Mt. Lady stomping on a car

thank fuck no one was actually in there. also does she not wear shoes

and also, it only just occurred to me that she must be another person with a special quirk costume, because her suit shrinks and expands along with her. Hagakure and Momo are really getting shafted by the costume design team here. they need to fire some people

anyway so Mt. Lady slipped on this carelessly placed vehicle and fell down and crushed an entire building whoops

bruh, you think you’re “ow.” let’s hope that building was empty too

and now she’s toppling another building just fucking because, I guess. and saying she can’t do urban areas

lmao and now the sidekick [CENSORED] manager from chapter one is back to guilt-trip her omg

I need this man to show up in every freaking chapter. please. respect my wishes

and now Izuku is standing on top of his collected pile of garbage screaming in victory

I only just realized that there’s still a big old Pile O’ Trash on this beach, though. someone needs to haul all of this junk away. or else get All Might and Mt. Lady to crush it all with a combined effort

oh shit here it comes y’all, the famous “eat my hair” scene. potential comedy gold right here omg

lol what the fuck

this man is a fucking billionaire and he’s out here clipping coupons and deleting pictures of his son in order to make room for them smdh

okay now we’re doing the hair scene

oh. oh no. I know where this is going sob please keep this comic rated PG for the children Neda

motherfucker they really --

Smash!!Might is a straight-up felon. this man has no fucking scruples. that’s okay Midoriya-shounen, if you don’t want to eat my hair we could just try some REDACTED, jesus christ I am going to need some bleach for my eyes after this

OR LET’S JUST STRAIGHT UP GO THERE WHY NOT

lmao sob. well, two chapters in and we’ve established that no territory is off-limits here. it’s a brave new world. wow

 so that’s it! our introduction to BnHA Smash!! I enjoyed it a lot and I will definitely be reading more! I’m not sure what kind of schedule I’ll keep, but this is a really good procrastination manga thus far, so knowing me I might actually work my way through this relatively quickly. especially since the Manga At Large is on break this week. anyways my deepest apologies to the many people who have been requesting for me to start Vigilantes instead. I just need something lighter right now, and this is a good fit. one of these days I’ll get my shit together with the other two spinoffs as well.

[fae-fire]

OOC thoughts: How to get RP you want and like to do

Quick disclaimer: I’m not going to say my rp is better than someone else’s, or anything like that. I am typing from the prospective of darker/plot-based rp because this is the type of RP I personally like. But my RP and what I like is not superior to anyone else’s tastes. Someone else may find what I RP really convoluted and overbearing or just plain stupid, which is totally okay--I understand that. I just rp what I like to rp--as anyone should. Like, if you like a certain type of RP, whether it be intrigue or slice of life then do that. In fact, you probably shouldn’t be engaging in RP that you DON’T like. That’s not healthy and will probably just make you unhappy in the end, as I’ve learned. 

Anyways..

I get asked quite a bit how to get involved in more deeper/darker rp plots like the ones I have running and talk about in my Headcanon posts or hint at when I am not buried in IRL stuff and off dying somewhere.

I go out of my way to surround myself with people who actively engage in and like the same type of RP I like to do. Which, for me, is intrigue and darker themes revolving around crime, information, betrayal and so on. If you like cafe RP and performance RP, you surround yourself with others who like that kind of RP and you have fun, right? The same goes for RP involving intrigue and darker plots. 

You’ll only really get what you surround yourself with. The people who tend to ask me about how to get involved in deeper plots tend to hang around the more slice of life events. Which is fine. That sort of RP is fun too. But you’re not likely going to find a murder mystery or a massive plot to overthrow the Syndicate or the leader of a drug cartel dealing with a Garlean military leader to create some sort of super bio-weapon at a cafe event. I mean, maybe you will! If you plot it that way with someone else at that event. But more often than not, you probably won’t just find it randomly. It doesn’t just happen magically.

Alternatively, if you’re looking for ships, slice of life, happy sips of tea and fluffy cakes, and like...watching people perform on stage, you probably won’t find that around people who RP murder and drug deals and like...other darker things. I mean, maybe you will? Same as before, if you plot that way with someone. But that also won’t just magically happen either. 

Someone made a post a bit back about getting out of groups what you put into them. And I think the same goes with plots and the type of plots you run. Not everyone is going to like what you want to rp, but you shouldn’t blame those people for not giving you the type of RP you want if that’s not what they like to do, you know? There’s all sorts of RP in this community and game and there’s someone(s) out there for everyone in terms of plotting and adventure, or just a cup of tea at a cafe. 

Kinda losing my train of thought here, but like the tl;dr is ...if you want certain types of RP, whether it be darker or more slice of life, seek out people who also like that sort of RP. And you can’t force others into rping that thing if they don’t like it. It doesn’t end well. Yeah...

Nothing really sparked this in particular. Just a random thought I was having while working and procrastinating while working. 

[fangirlandiknowit101]

For the writer's ask game, All Odd numbers 😁 no need to answer all if too many. Just wanna hear ur ideas on somee 😁imiss your fanficssss

omg idk if i love you or hating for asking so many questions in one goXD Aww i’m still writing, just veeery slowly... and i’ve had a few very rough weeks (mostly bc of work) so i haven’t had much energy or motivation at all - trying to get back into it so i can write the whole weekend!

1.  Do you listen to music when you write?

Sometimes. It depends! Sometimes it helps get into the mood or avoid distraction, but sometimes the music makes me think of other plot ideas which is highly distracting *sweats* Lately, i’ve listened a lot to imagine dragons while writing!

3.  Computer or pen and paper?

computer. i have some notebooks with old stuff written down, barely readable. why did i write plotlines in pink?? can’t read it at all lol

5.  How much writing do you get done on an average day?

haha.. on average it’s like, nothing. but if i actually have time to write that day, it can be anything from 200 words to 4,000. usually i don’t get to more than 4K in one day for some reason (unless i switch fics to write on lol). maybe 1,000 words is a fairly accurate average!

7.  Standalone or series?

usually standalones. i’ve only written one sequel in my life and it’s not even finished (Missing pieces)

9.  Current WIP

The sun within me, Lessons in love, For You My Sun, Sugar Star are the ones waiting for new chapters. i’ve got a couple unpublished/unfinished WIPs in my folder... we’ll see if i manage to finish them at some point but i don’t really dare to describe them in case someone would actually want to read them

11.  Books and/or authors who influenced you the most

hmm tough question. i grew up reading authors like David Eddings, Eoin Colfer, Tamora Pierce, i went down and checked my bookcase and those three are actually the ones still on display haha. of course i read books like harry potter and narnia etc. too. lots of fantasy basically - and lots and lots of horse books, but i don’t think you can tell in my writing lol. Ender’s game by Orson Scott Card is a favorite, as well as the hobbit and The name of the wind by Patrick Rothfuss. when i studied Finnish in university i had to branch out and read books i would never choose myself, and that really influenced me to broaden my perspective so to say. last book i read was probably Wayward son by Rainbow Rowell (i’m a sucker for sad gay vampires apparently). i also read a ton of murder mysteries like agatha christie when i was younger.

plus, all the manga i read - dragon ball and naruto and love hina and yaoi and god knows what

13.  Describe your writing process from idea to polished

oh dear. i usually get an idea that goes sth like “wouldn’t it be hilarious if...” and then it spirals out of control. like, my first long fanfic, Results of a shitty day, was literally me saying “you know what? i want to write a long drama fic like all those other cool authors do” and there was no plan besides at all at first.

i tend to just write a first chapter and then have a general idea of what i want to explore - a certain character growing a certain way, or a certain trope, or just the one scene that won’t go away. For The sun within me, it was literally “hey what if i wrote naruto and sasuke in the road to ninja universe” and for Lessons in love it was “man i really want a fic where Yurio is Viktor’s son and they’re fanboys of Yuuri’s skating”, and me rambling to a friend in the car about it until i was forced to sit down and write it. i definitely make up the plot as i go. every time i decide the plot in advance i end up changing it anyway (yes, this happens even for oneshots sometimes). i love planning though - so much that i constantly re-plan the stories and plan the chapter while writing it too. 

15.  How do you deal with writer’s block?

badly. i’m a procrastinator. usually i switch between stories, if that doesn’t work, i try to write sth new, usually that doesn’t work and i end up reading fics until i’m convinced i can never write as well as other people can. and then i just have to take a break until my brain goes ping! and i can write again.

17.  What writing habits or rituals do you have?

i think the only habit i have is getting easily distracted. *cough*

19.  How do you keep yourself motivated?

i’m constantly writing in my head - daydreaming if you want to call it that. typing is very difficult, but i’m usually motivated by the fact that there’s nothing better than to sit down after a long day and just enjoy a really good fic about your OTP, and since people enjoy my writing i can’t just quit and rob them of this. i can’t just enjoy fandom without paying back when i actually have the possibility to do so. it usually works!! also, when i type, the story takes shape in a way it doesn’t in my head, which is actually really cool so i read my own stuff now and then just to remind me of this. 

21.  Who is/are your favourite character(s) to write?

Sasuke

23.  Favourite author

hmm i don’t have just one. or do they mean fanfic author? well i wouldn’t be able to choose either way!

25.  Favourite part of writing

when i manage to type a scene the way i pictured it in my head. and when i just write without a plan and things start to make sense!

27.  Favourite line/scene

actually, every single scene in The sun within me is my favorite lol

29.  Favourite villain

does Sasuke count? no? i’ll say Baz in the Carry On series

31.  Least favourite part of writing

the first sentence of a fic or chapter. getting started is the hardest!!

33.  Have you ever killed a main character?

i wrote a drabble with naruto and sasuke in the afterlife once. i don’t think i’ve actually killed anyone???

35.  What scene/story are you least looking forward to writing?

the next chapter for Lessons in love is giving me a lot of trouble currently :(

37.  First sentence or your current WIP

This is the first sentence of chapter 16, Lessons in love: Their last full day in Hasetsu passes in a blur.

And this is the first sentence if a yoi smut fic i’ll post when i finally finish ch 16 for LiL:  The metro is always crowded at this time, and Yuuri hates it.

Don’t tell anyone i’m working on yet another smut fic for yoi.

Aaaand this is the first sentence of a sasnar fic i’m writing on when i’m too tired to actually write anything seriously:  Sasuke was surprised to find that he was not the only one to be summoned to the Hokage’s office.

I know it was an earlier question, but i actually have something like 17 WIPs in my WIP folder that are not posted in any part yet, of which most will probably never see the light of day. 

39.  Weirdest character concept you’ve ever had

hmm i don’t know

41.  Any advice for new/beginning/young writers?

i have much advice. but i don’t think any of it is very original. the most important thing - there’s no such thing as failure when you’re writing fanfic. write what you want and when you want, the only way to get better is to keep writing! i just re-read an old story to see if it was worth editing and copying over onto ao3, and realized i had used the word “pinkette” to describe sakura. we all start somewhere... and if you ever look back on old fics, focus on how much you enjoyed writing the fic, not if it’s good or not!!

43.  What do you do if/when characters don’t follow the outline?

if they don’t, it’s generally because they’re right and i’m not. forcing them back into the outline only makes for awkward writing. i always go along with it to see where it goes - sometimes it ends up somewhere much better than planned, sometimes you realize you’ve made mistakes way back in the fic and now you’re stuck with the choice of changing the plot or going back to rewrite. 

45.  How much world building do you do?

i actually hate world building. and describing things like scenery and places and clothes. i’ve had to really force myself to work on it. but i also make sure that i only give the absolute necessary information and then slip in the rest in bits and pieces where it fits. but since i mostly write in already set worlds, it’s usually not that necessary. 

47.   Best way to procrastinate

look at fics and put them in my marked for later and then procrastinate reading them by working on WIPs that are not my published WIPs and then procrastinate those WIPs by finding new fics to read and then maybe re-read my own fics. oh, and scrolling through social media

(i don’t actually have a lot of time to procrastinate bc it’s usually work-take care of horse-shower and dinner-sleep)

49.  Which character would you most want to be friends with, if they were real?

Phichit. so much fun!!!

Wow, that was a lot of questions and a lot of fun!! Sorry for the super long post you have to scroll by lol

Thank you for asking!!!

[death-himself]

Could You Meet Me Beyond the Grave?—Chapter 3

thank lord jebus for giving me the willpower to pump out a new chapter of this

this chapter switches between first and third person a little bit but ya know what? that’s fine. It was kinda needed for it to work the way I wanted it to so  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

previous next (AO3 Link)

Summary: Virgil nearly gets caught, and now must deal with the results of his actions

Pairings: Eventual LAMP/CALM, Remile, QPR RED

Word Count: 2,294

Warnings: Referenced Eye Trauma (welcome back to the Willow AU), Kidnapping, Deceit being an anti-villain (I’ve decided on that term for him now because idk he’s either that or morally grey depending on your view on life)

(anything else you need tagged lemme know)

Roman slowly stirred his drink, the ice clinking against the sides of the glass. He then groaned, letting his head fall to the table. "How long is he gonna make us wait?"

"It's been five minutes, Roman."

"It feels like it's been forever!" Patton giggled, patting Roman on the head. "Give him time, he said he'll be here!"

"He says that all the time now." Roman grumbled. "I mean come on, Patton! He tells us he'll be here and then ten minutes after he's supposed to be here he says he can't come! He continuously gets our hopes up then just pummels them into the ground!" Patton hesitated, looking out at the streets hopefully. "Just...give him time—"

"We've given him a whole month! Every date we talk about, he's always like "Oh I'll be there, I'll finally grace you with my likely very handsome face" and then he's a no-show! I mean, come on! He, he keeps...ghosting us! That's the word! He's a professional ghost!"

"Roman, what are you even—"

"You've gotta agree with me, Lo! He's being weird." Logan rolled his eyes, taking a long sip of his coffee to establish dominance. "He has been acting particularly odd recently, I can't disagree with that, Roman. However, we have always known him as a rather strange person. He does tend to procrastinate and worry about things until it's too late for him to make a proper decision. This is our fourth date since Virgil began doing this, so—"

"So he has to show up today!" Patton interjected. "I mean, one more time would be just crazy, right?" Roman thought it over for a moment, before sighing and nodding his head. "You have a point, darling. I suppose I can wait a bit longer." Logan opened his mouth to speak, before sighing and sitting back in his chair in resignation.

They sat in silence for a moment, before they heard a yelp from outside. Patton furrowed his eyebrows, listening curiously. "Hey! Watch where you're—" The person seemed to freeze, then only a few seconds later a second person screamed in terror, and a man ran past the cafe window as fast as humanly possible, horror painted across his face. The three stared wide-eyed as he passed, before Roman turned to Logan. "What do you think that was about?" Logan hummed, taking a sip from his coffee. "I haven't the slightest idea."

"Hey guys, is it just me, or did that first guy sound kinda like Vee?" Roman's eyebrows raised, before he shrugged. "Virgil making someone scream in fear? It does match his aesthetic. But no, that...probably wasn't him." Patton shrugged, resting his chin on his hand as they continued to wait.

A lecture from Dee was the last thing I wanted at the moment. Granted, I never wanted lectures from Dee, but this time was especially irritating. "You can't just run off like that hopelessly chasing after your soulmates, Virgil! You nearly got caught this time!"

"Dee, I—"

"Go to your room! This whole situation is ridiculous!"

"Are you seriously sending me to my room? I'm not a child and you're not my mom. I'll go to my room if I want to." I shoved my hands into my pockets, standing up and making my way to the stairs. I heard Dee's frustrated groan as I stormed up, shoving my door open and slamming it shut. I collapsed onto my bed, running a hand down my face. I knew I had screwed up, but it's not like I was gonna admit that to Dee.

There was a knock at my door, followed quickly by it opening, Emile's scent drifting into the room. "Dee's been pretty uptight recently, huh?"

"Ever since I started trying to meet them."

"He is a bit...controlling. I've been suspecting it's just overprotectiveness taken to the extreme, I mean...he does care a lot about you." There was a short silence as we both collected our thoughts. Emile sighed. "What exactly happened this time?"

"I...tried to meet up with them at this cafe in the middle of town. Then there was this one...asshole who kicked at my leg and made me lose my balance. I just barely stopped myself from falling on my face. Then I turned to him with a full speech on how much I hated him for doing that when I realized that my scarf had slipped down my neck and my sunglasses had slipped down my nose. All my exposed muscles and missing eyes and shit were, well...exposed. He must've seen them 'cause I heard him scream and run off. Then Dee grabbed me and dragged me back here." Emile had moved to sit next to me on the bed. I rubbed one of the blankets between my fingers, the motion soothing in a way. "We're lucky he was probably the only one who saw. No one's gonna believe one guy saying that he saw a man with his skin torn open and no eyes. At least that's what Remy said when we were fighting."

Emile sighed, gently rubbing circles into my hand with his thumb. "Why don't you get some rest, Lapis? If you want, I could have Remy come give you some of his sleeping gas." I wrinkled my nose. "Fuck no! That stuff smells awful! Plus, he always uses way too much on me, I can just tell." Emile hummed in agreement, giving my hand a small squeeze before he stood up. "Well, try to get some sleep anyway, Vee."

"Thanks, Em." I muttered, sighing as I heard my door close and his footsteps walk away. I lied down in bed, picked up a marker, and began writing my fourth apology letter to my soulmates onto my arms.

Emile walked downstairs, smelling Dee and Remy on the couch. "Vee's not doing too well, Dee."

"I know." Dee groaned. "It's just...I don't know what to do about him!" Emile sat down on his left, Remy on his right, preparing himself for the rant that Dee had definitely been in need of for a long time. "I understand why he'd be so insistent on meeting them; I, admittedly, wanted to meet you two more than anything when I first found out about you. Virgil can attest to that. But...all the danger he's putting himself in, and he doesn't even know—"

Dee slapped a hand over his mouth, eyes wide. Remy gently tapped Dee's leg. "Doesn't know what, babe?" Dee slowly uncovered his mouth, his hands trembling slightly. "N-Nothing, Remy."

"Aw come on, you can tell us!" Emile said with a smile. Dee took a deep breath, carefully taking his hat off and cradling it to his chest. "His soulmates aren't becoming Willows."

"What?"

"Think about it Emile! The three of us died at the same biological age because we're soulmates! Virgil's biologically 19! His soulmates are 28! They're going to die and pass on into whatever kind of afterlife there is while Virgil will be stuck here with us! And when he finds out about that, he's going to be absolutely heartbroken! That is exactly why he can never find out!"

"How do you know soulmates have to be the same age to be Willows? I mean, we don't really know if someone'll be a Willow until they—"

"I've been around for 200 years, Emile. I've seen this before, with other Willows. I've noticed the pattern. Soulmates who both become Willows are always the same biological age when they die. Those that aren't the same age," Dee sighed, "they do exactly what Virgil's doing now, and they always either get killed or heartbroken." Emile pointed his head to the ground, lips pressed together in thought.

"Why don't we give Virgil's soulmates a try? You know, as humans?"

Remy snorted. "You kiddin', Emy? What kinda human falls in love with people who eat humans? Who aren't cannibals or murderers? I mean, come on babe, it took us months to get used to Dee, and we were Willows when we met him."

"If Virgil goes with them he may have to re-integrate into human society." Dee mumbled, eyes wide with the realization. "He'd have to leave the tower for good if he does somehow end up living with his soulmates. They're human, they still have to live normal human lives." Emile felt the fear radiating off Dee as he continued mumbling to himself. He slowly put a hand on Dee's back, rubbing steady circles in hopes of calming him down. "Is there any way we could make them into Willows?"

Dee shook his head. "Willows are born from suffering; they'd have to be put through quite a lot to become like us. It might be too late anyway." Emile suddenly felt his emotions alter completely, Dee going silent as he thought. Remy seemed to tell something was different as well, as he asked, "You okay, Dee-Dee?" Dee was silent for a bit longer, before taking a deep breath, saying, "I'm fine. I just...need to take a walk. I'll be back in a few hours." With that, he grabbed his scarf, sunglasses, and cane, then exited the tower. Emile strained his ears as he listened to him leave, not liking the aura he had been giving off.

It had been roughly forty minutes since Dee had taken Virgil out of the city. As per usual, his soulmates' date would last roughly two to four hours, and Virgil would have finished his apology by now. Still plenty of time to put his plan into action. While it was definitely one of the worst plans he had made, it was worth a shot. He just hoped Virgil would never realize what he was doing. And if he did find out, Dee hoped he'd realize he was doing it for him.

He felt his skin itch and tingle as he shape-shifted into Virgil. He had never understood why they had gotten these powers when they became Willows, but they had definitely helped him in the past, and would definitely help him now.

Dee entered the city, subconsciously making himself smaller as he navigated through the crowds of people, forcing himself not to take in their scents as he headed to his destination. He found the place he had grabbed Virgil and pulled him to safety, then continued walking a bit further.

Roman stared glumly out the window, feeling Patton writing out a response to Virgil's apology. "How many times is he gonna do this?" He mumbled. Logan sighed, paying for their food and standing up. "Perhaps we should just head home? We could, possibly, stop by that new dog park if either of you happen to be interested?" Patton perked up immediately, smiling at Logan, trying his best not to show just how upset he was. "Sounds great, Lolo!" Roman chuckled at his enthusiasm, not taking his eyes away from the window.

That's when he saw a familiar black and purple hoodie, dyed purple hair, and white cane. Roman jerked upright, staring wide-eyed as the man walked past so casually. "That's Virgil!" He whispered.

"What?"

"From when I bumped into him at the store! It's him!" Roman stood up, grabbing Logan and Patton by the hands as he pulled them all out of the cafe. "He's not getting away this time." Once out of the store, he jogged over and grabbed "Virgil" by the shoulder. "Virgil" jumped, before spinning around.

"What is your problem? You give us an apology saying you couldn't come, and now here you are! Why didn't you just—"

"Hey, hey, Roman! I'm sorry, okay?" Dee disguised as Virgil shouted, putting his hands up in surrender. "I'm not really supposed to be here anyway, but...I wanted to show you something. I...need to show you something." He purposely made his voice softer, so as to gain their sympathy.

"Oh, sure thing Vee! What is it?" Patton asked.

"Follow me." Logan furrowed his eyebrows. "Are you sure you know where you're going?"

"I have this part of the city memorized, L. Don't worry about it." Logan seemed perfectly ready to ask a few more questions, but held off, instead watching with suspicion. Dee led the three humans to the edge of the city, then to the edge of a forest. "So...where are we going?" Roman asked hesitantly.

"You'll see." Logan, walking behind everyone else, fished a blue pen from his pocket. He wrote a simple question on his arm: “Virgil, what are you up to right now?” The first odd thing about it was that Roman and Patton had instinctively checked their arms, feeling the familiar itch as Logan wrote. So why didn't Virgil check? After a few more minutes of walking, "Virgil" stopped, turning around to face them. "We're here." Logan felt writing forming on his arm. He glanced down to see Virgil's purple handwriting. Where was Virgil's pen?

Dee took his time memorizing their scents, figuring out as much as he could about them, before allowing himself to stop. He let go of his disguise, shifting back into his normal self as Logan said "That's not Virgil" just a few seconds too late. He sensed Roman come closer, blocking a punch to his face and ducking as Roman tried to make a second blow. He grabbed Roman by the head, slamming it against a tree. Roman went limp, falling to the ground. Patton screamed, being quickly muffled as Dee charged both him and Logan, knocking them down to the ground and choking them until they went unconscious. He took a deep breath, tying the three up and sneaking them back into the tower, dropping them into the most secure room in the building. Anything for Virgil's sake.

[shhhnottom]

I Got Bored. Here's A Book

Just a quick warning before we actually start this mass roller coaster of bullshit. If you are easily offended, feel free to stop and reverse your hand to the home page.

Also, this is not a story of any kind. It's just a random bunch of subjects that mean something to me and I ramble on about. I drank quite a lot whilst typing 90% of this and watched a fair amount of Netflix

Just take a look at these chapters. I think you could see where this is going to go:

Depression

Anxiety

Television

Self Harm

Procrastination

One Word Chapter

Didn't See That Coming?

Swearing

Panic Attacks

The End?

Just another warning, there will be a fair amount of swearing in this so if you want to censorit out, feck off. It's safer, trust me.

Depression

Yeah, lets start off dark. That seems like it's going to be a great plan. Let's face it, everyone has their bad days. Try to lie, I dare you. I have mine and they get me to a point where I just want to throw myself into a keg of ale and a couple bottles of whiskey. Has to be the good stuff, otherwise my sadness is made more sad. I mean, who wants to depressed and drink a bottle of Tesco value blended shite when there is a long list that will make you feel slightly better, like Jameson's, Tullamore Dew and Paddy's. Yeah, I went straight for the Irish whiskeys, sue me.

Anyway, after my lengthy dabble with the art of drinking myself into a coma every night, waking up for work in the morning, finishing work and continue to drink, I decided that I need to ruin all of the relationships I have built over the years with a combination of heartfelt insults and trying to throw myself into traffic when they are looking. I'm a lovely person, aren't I?

What I decided to do after several attempts on my own life, well two attempts anyway, is to take the fucking hint and realise I'm not supposed to die. Did you know, that therapy is actually effective and gets you to the place where you feel a lot better and not suicidal any more. You see, it's almost as if the doctors who say you are depressed and need therapy are speaking the truth. Who knew? You know what I found doesn't really help. If you decide that you don't need therapy and that finding pictures of celebrities who have decided to end their own lives and post that shit to Facebook, saying that “Even The Happiest People Are Sad”. Its almost like they decide, before they leave the house, that they don't want people on the outside who have cameras and social media accounts to take pictures of them whilst they are having a bad day, and post it all over the fucking place. Fucking hell, I went to therapy for a year before realising that I'm just a massive idiot and if I thought a little bit differently, I could get over all of that nonsense that was going on inside my head. I, now, look at my depression like its one big fucking meme and take the piss out of myself because that's how I can deal with it. I mean, I don't read books and here I am fucking writing one.

The main reason why I look so differently at depression now is because of the millennials who think because something hasn't gone their way, they have to post shit over social media complaining about how hard life is. You haven't even hit 20 yet, you pricks. Wait until you get to 25 or 30 and come to realise “I'm in a dead end job, going nowhere and I have no money”. Oh Jaysus, wait until that comes along. You will think that not getting laid in that shitty club is a holiday.

I mean, there are some great positives to come out of having depression, going to therapy and getting to a point where you are comfortable with living the life you have been given. I, myself have reconnected with people who I thought I had lost, through my incessant need to push them away. I have a better relationship with my parents, now that we have started communicating properly again. I am a lot less selfish, and have developed  a form of empathy I had no idea I had inside. I've even tried to help some people in their times of need, when they were feeling at their worst. I once wrote a letter to someone to try to make them stop going down the same road I went down:

“I have this incessant need to do stupid things to hurt myself

I have broken my hand multiple times to avoid mental harm but have inflicted physical harm on myself

I have destroyed possible relationships in the desire to remain alone, to stop myself inflicting my mental harm upon others

I have kept myself busy in order to stop myself from pursuing a premature non existence”

Told you before that I was a lovely person.

It turns out that maybe, my experiences, aren't as bad as other peoples. It might also turn out that your experiences aren't as bad as mine but I'm not going to presume. Hopefully, you've enjoyed the first chapter, I have no idea what's going to happen in the next few chapters, mainly because I haven't written them yet.

Anxiety

Disclaimer,

I was fucking hammered and heavily depressed writing this chapter and tried to write it completely in the 3rd person. Enjoy.

Have you ever noticed when people get really offended they decide to inhale very dramatically and hold their chest as if they have been hurt so badly that their heart has been hurt? Imagine if those people develop a heart condition. You'll never be able to tell if they eventually do have a heart attack or if you've just told a really funny joke.

Just to reiterate, “this book” is just my thoughts written down whilst I have a couple of drinks and watch Netflix.

Someone once told me that a persons feelings are subject to the person they are. I know people that are massively bitter and their stomachs always hurt. All they do is moan about what other people do or think and then constantly moan that they are ill.

Here Tom, isn't this chapter about anxiety? I'm fucking getting to it. Chill the fuck out.

Getting back to what I was saying before I was rudely interrupted. This person also told me that they get a sore throat every time they want to say something but they force themselves not to. Can you imagine what that's like? To not say what it is you want to say, just to not offend people.

I get super anxious around people who are better than me. I know someone who is literally the most caring person I have ever met. They care more about other people and how they feel than they do about how their life is going. Another thing I get anxious about is when I  think that I've not accomplished what I thought I would have done by this point. I mean, I could claim that I was from a broken home, had to move from my home country to another and had to start my life from square one but I, then, realise that there are so many more people that go through that and I'm not special.

I've just poured another glass of whiskey. Its just about a half a glass. This shit is difficult to write about, can you tell?

If you haven't noticed yet, I like to make stupid jokes just to pass off that I'm OK in the head. “shakes head dramatically”. I put that in because you cant physically see me and I'm shit at drawing my head shaking.

I know a lot of people who smoke an arse tonne of weed just to get over their anxieties. Have you ever smoked weed? That shit is scary. I remember one time, New Year I think, I was working. Showed up at 10am, was supposed to be on until 6pm but it was so quiet that I got sent home after 2 hours. I went to the nearest town and drank like half a bottle of whiskey, well Jack Daniels. Does that count as whiskey? Its basically sugar with some ethanol. Along with several pints of beer and a shit burger from a Wetherspoons. Anyway, after drinking myself into a stupid comatose state where I was still somewhat functioning, myself and one of my friends went back to his house and he broke out the weeds, the green, the marry Joanna. After quite a lot of smoking and a bit more drinking I decided I needed to rest my eyes for a moment, just a single moment. Suddenly, I felt slightly ill in the stomach. I remember saying to him, “If you don't get a bucket, I'll throw up all over your floor”. However the video suggests something different. Yeah, there's a video. It goes something like this: “mmmmmmmmmmm mumuumumumu bucket muumuu floor”. The point is, there was a massive stain on his bedroom carpet for 6 months after. He didn't let it go. At all. The bastard.

That whole story doesn't explain how weed doesn't help my anxiety but I ran out of shit to say and I thought that would break some tension. Hopefully.

I'm currently listening to a song that tells you how to kill yourself. Yeah, this got dark really quick. Although, it has a great message. Don't rely on pop stars to write a song that will resonate with your feelings. Lady Gaga doesn't care if someone found her lyrics about the paparazzi inspirational enough to make them not kill themselves. (There are many pop stars out there who do the same thing, Lady Gaga was just the first person who came to mind). They've made their money, after that they just carry on making new “inspirational songs” and go on a new tour, make more money and the cycle continue. I listen to Twenty One Pilots' album Vessel when I feel really anxious. Seriously, those guys write about what they feel instead of what some songwriter thinks what other people feel.

Hey Tom, how are you going to bring this chapter out of the hole its in? You expect me to be funny and make a point? Nah,Nah,Nah,Nah,Nah,Nah,Nah,Nah,Nah,Nah,Nah....Hey Jude.

I've been at this chapter for too long now. I'm fucking done. Good luck understanding this mess I've just read this back. I mean, seriously, if you've got through this well done.

Television

Ah now for fucks sake. Who's idea was it to put in Television as a chapter? Mine? Nah, doesn't sound right. I'm not that fucked up to put this in here. I mean I'd put in music or video games. I'm more interested in those than I am in TV. Fine, Fucking, Fine. I'll talk about this stupid subject. I mean, fuck me. Dumb ass.

At this current moment in time I am watching the second season of Jack Ryan and I can conclusively say that I am not disappointed. Two episodes in and it has been a massive thrill ride. I mean, to go into Venezuela at the current moment is brave just to film a TV show. They must have spent more money picking the safest place to film there than it cost to pay the actors. I could imagine that John Krasinski isn't that cheap to hire after the first series and after the US Office. Not including his directorial debut in the Quiet Place. Magnificent.

I've also watched the Netflix series Daybreak about a dirty bomb going off in L.A and only people under the age of 18 surviving. Very clever concept for a show, and the fact that they managed to film in parts of L.A is even more impressive for a small time TV show.

3 paragraphs I managed to get through before getting to a point. I decided to throw on the last thing I was watching on Netflix to emphasise said point. Yeah, I'm watching the last series of How I Met Your Mother. DONT START. Seriously, I know. Up until the last 2 episodes it was OK. It was a great story overdone by bad direction.

4 paragraphs, look at me.

OK, by this time, I'm sure you're getting it. TV is a great way to distract yourself from the real world. A great way to distract from your problems in the world. I mean, you've got to find the right show for you but there are so many out there at the moment and so many ways to watch them. There will always be people who say that you shouldn't waste your time sat and watching TV, go do something with yourself. Just imagine what those people do when they get in from their days at work. They come home, sit in an empty chair and look at their walls. I mean, they could be reading a book. Preferably, this one. Or maybe not, but my point is still valid. You could read your books and force your brain to imagine the world that the book is coming to or you could spend the time to celebrate the people that have done that before you and decided to 'Do something with themselves' and make their favourite book into a magnificent visual performance. I mean, at this point, I have switched to the modern Sherlock Holmes series, which as everybody knows is brought to life from the many stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. This TV show is 90 minutes long per episode and is very entertaining, so you never seem to notice that the time goes by. This means that if you are feeling a certain way at the start of the show, there is a 90 minute period where your feelings could change, your opinion of the world could change.

OK, I have nothing left to rant about here. If I were to speak about another music or video games I would have been here for another 6 pages but I figured your time would be spent better here.

I mean I wrote the names of the chapters before I wrote the actual chapters themselves so you're as stuck as I am with what gets written. I could change this but where's the fun in that.

Good luck reading the next chapter. I promise, I will be completely hammered writing it because I'm going to continue writing after this chapter. I am currently on the verge of tears now so, I guess good luck to me too. Thank you for reading up to this point if you have. I've tried to keep it fun but now I'm into serious mode.

Self Harm

Hey people, lets enter dark mode. I mean every other company on the planet has already done it. I mean, apart from Facebook but those bastards let political propaganda through, so I guess that counts.

I mean, that's the shortest joke I've told so far so, for the people that know me, know that this will be a bastard of a chapter. And also ,for people that know me will also be looking at this chapter going, 'He's not seriously going to talk about this, is he?' Yeah, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Over the last five years, there have been several moments I am ashamed of. All of which are my own fault. I once launched an egg at someone because the oil that I was supposed to put it in splashed at me.

Did you know that even talking about a certain subject can sometimes bring up feelings you hate? Coming to realise that.

I fell for a woman. Gorgeous, smart, beautiful. We had a lot in common. She was my perfect equal apart from she was caring and humble about it. I'm an arrogant bastard. She was single at the time and I thought I had some form of chance to win her over not knowing everything about her. At this time, I was a very possessive person. I would have done anything to be with her. I let this attribution take control of me at the worst time. I wanted to play the long game, get to know her and eventually ask her out. I went out for drinks with a friend one night. Got absolutely rat arsed. I found out, that night, that she had been asked out by somebody else and she had accepted. I didn't know her very well by this point but because of my possessive compulsion, I took this very personally. It was neither of their fault, just myself.

Some time had passed and I was trying to prove my self worth to this woman. She was still with the same man and I was still jealous. Another night, another time these people were around me, another time that I tried to make it about me.

9 shots of tequila later. 9 exactly. Someone kept count by keeping a tally on my arm. In marker, before you get to excited. I'm not sure of how many other drinks on top but it was 9 tequilas. Anyway, I'd had some minor thoughts in the past of how my life should end but that night my head went into overload. You know, that summer was so bad for me I don't even know if this was the same night. Anyway, after some time and a lot of drinks later, I figured that this was the end of the night for me. Well, end of something for me. I had decided that this was the last straw for my bad luck in this world.

There is a point where half the people I know think a certain habit started but in actual fact this story is where my habit actually began. Everyone has their own stories, where they cut their wrists to fill some form of void, to feel. There are some people who look for it sexually, unfortunately I'm not the lucky. I decided this night out of pure frustration to pull said woman aside, point at a wall and told her that was how I felt when I was around her at that point. I was a brick wall. I wanted noting else at the time to kill that brick wall. So, what I did next is, by far the thing I regret the most. Out of everything I've ever done and believe me, I've done some bad shit. Over and over again, I punched that wall until I could no longer feel my hand and then, I carried on until I broke my hand and then, I carried on until somebody pulled me away from the wall. By this time, I had broken my hand in 2 places, I was bleeding all over the place and I had broken every friendship I had built and every relationship I had hoped to build. I think the most embarrassing thing for me was, the person who bandaged me up was the person who had the balls to ask the woman I had fallen for. Could you imagine? This was the person I had blamed for driving me to the place I was. He helped bandage me up and the woman who I had fallen for was consoling me and trying to help me get through what was in my head. I could not take this. In my head, I would never be able to recover from this. I continued for another 18 months to cut myself, punch walls, headbutt walls, kick and break my hand and other bones in my body. I was always in a mental state where I never thought that I was good enough until I decided that enough was enough.

Surprisingly, when people say that therapy works, they are telling the truth. Big wow. I think its safe to say I am definitely stupid enough to continue writing this nonsense. Well there's a few more chapter so lets see where we end up.

Procrastination

OK so its been a solid 2 months since I wrote the last chapter, which is long enough by anyone's standards, but for me, being the stubborn prick that I am, is no time at all. I mean, I can not do something for an extended period of time. It took me a year to launch a business I could have launched in 6 months only because I changed my mind on whether or not I wanted to start the bastard thing in the first place. It took me spending a grand on my first design to actually say, “Yeah, I'm in too fucking deep here to pull out”.

I've gone through 90% of my life not doing things when they needed to be done in favour of doing them the very last second, mostly because I was scared that they would never work out in the way that I wanted them to and that I would constantly be they failure I feared I always would be. I never believed that anything I was doing was worth the time or effort to do. I decided at the very end of college that I wanted to go to university but by the time I had decided this, it was too late to take seriously and I missed out. I did 3 years in college whilst everybody around me only did 2 because of this. Still, I never went to university so I guess that third year was pointless but the point was that I spent so much time on the internet playing online games instead of revising for exams and concentrating on my coursework.

This got very serious when it got suggested to me that I might need to go to therapy to sort out what was going on inside my head. I kept telling people that I would go eventually because I never though that I was “that” bad but going by what you have read in the previous chapters proves that I made the mistake of putting it off. Big woop. I did go in the end but it took some serious relationship breakdowns, quite a few broken bones and the attraction to my inevitable early grave to accomplish.

I think the message here is to not be afraid of what you thin will fail. Give what you want a try and if it fails, get back up and try it again in a different way. Never give up on something if you really want it to happen and listen to the people who you care about, who also care about you. Especially when they are telling you something is wrong and they are concerned.

One Word Chapter

Vukei

Didn't See That Coming?

Yeah, you probably should have seen that one coming. Its literally called a one word chapter.

It took me two minutes to choose the word. I had an unlimited choice to go with across multiple languages, so me being me went for the most obscure language of Fijian. What does the word mean? Do I look like Google?

There is no moral to this chapter. I just needed to fill in a gap to make this “book” look more full than it actually is. I mean, the moral could be that I've got to a point where I am comfortable enough to actually start doing what I say I am going to and then do it. I still get people telling me to do the most ridiculous things and saying that I will never do them because of the person I used to be. Imagine the look on their faces when I actually come through with the goods. I started a joke with a friend where , when we worked together, we would always listen to Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus whilst we worked and when we stopped working together, whenever the song came, we would SnapChat the other whilst the song was on. We said that this wouldn't last long so I personally made sure that the joke carried on. At the time of this being written we haven't worked together for over a year and the joke is still going.

Swearing

Welcome to this shit storm of a chapter. Do you ever notice that when you hurt yourself in a bad way you cant help but swear. That's because it releases a small amount of dopamine into your brain to help ease the situation you are in and stops some pain in the process. Weird, right? I'm in the strange occupation of chef where I am constantly getting burnt, cut and verbally abused in different languages, so swearing is one of those things that helps with the day to day survival of working in kitchens. I could fall into one of the other 5 habits that a chef develops as a result of the stupid work that we have to do. Those habits being:

Drug Abuse

Alcohol Abuse

Gambling Addiction

Caffeine Addiction

Smoking

I do suffer from 2 of these. Not saying which ones but I do have people around me that think I'm on at least 4 of them so that's nice but in every profession there is the secret, hidden thing that helps them through the day and that's the swearing aspect. I don't think, in the last 3 years, I have gone a day without telling someone that they should fuck themselves or that they are a cunt with them being aware that I am just taking the piss out of them an I don't mean half the shit I say. It just becomes habit to tell people to fuck off or suggest that they shove a large object up their rectums.

I used to knock the shite out of walls to relieve stress but I would always swear like a cunt after I would do it thinking to myself “You are a stupid prick and I hate you”. I would then look at my hand, laugh and say out loud “Ha you are a cunt”. The thought was always I would get over some of the pain if I constantly just swore to myself and carried on as if nothing had happened. Of course, my hand would always hurt for days afterwards and I would be swearing until it healed only to find another wall to knock shite out of and the process would start all over again.

Panic Attacks

A friend once said to me, “Bring A Harmonica Everywhere You Go, So If You Have A Panic Attack You Can At Least Make Some Music”. I never bought the harmonica but it is a very good way to portray what its like to have regular panic attacks. Could you imagine just busking in town, guitar in hand trying to be the next Ed Sheeran and then suddenly, your heart starts to blast out of chest, you feel light headed and you start to hyperventilate. That would be the best time ever to pull out your harmonica. You'll be on the floor with tears rolling down your face but you'll be smashing that cover of You Don't Know How It Feels by Tom Petty.

I starting writing this back when I was having regular panic/anxiety attacks, every 2-3 days in fact, but getting to this point its a bit more every month so, yay progress but I wrote the chapters out months before and I said I would follow through with it so here I am.

Funny story, I once had a panic attack in a nightclub whilst sat on a replica of The Iron Throne from Game of Thrones, whilst my friend was out on the pull. That's the whole story, seriously, but could you imagine having a great time up until the point when you realise you are surrounded by 250+ people you don't know, with a severe case of crowd anxiety and your friend abandons you for the prospect of sex. My head exploded and there was a very attractive looking wall outside that I felt needed a makeover. Never got the makeover, the lucky bastard.

I used to make the biggest mistake for myself whenever I felt anxious, panicky or depressed because when my depression was really bad, my drinking made it so much worse because I lost the control that I had over myself. My mistake in recent times is that, when I started to feel like my old self, I would have a drink to try to combat it. That is the mistake I would make. Try to stay away from my old self by doing what my old self would do.

Its got to a point now where, even where I am reading this back, and nothing in my body reacts. No anxiety, no panic and no depression. Well, saying that, I still have those feelings but they are not nearly as hurt filled as they were in the past. My secret, apart from therapy, on how I deal with life and why I am the way I am now is.

The End?

I mean, is there really an end to a story, an idea? I do have secrets, everyone does. My biggest is that I made a character in myself to try to avoid loving myself and anyone else. I acted as if I didn't care about other people to make it easier on myself if it came to a point where they let me down or, in the more realistic circumstance, where I let them down. I always tell people that I'm not a nice person to put them off this fact so that they see me as the character I made up. I make certain jokes to people to put them off and I say things to them to give them the idea that they need to avoid any form of relationship with me so that they don't get hurt in the crossfire of what I am.

In the 2 years since I have made this character, only 3 people have seen through it and seen me underneath, no matter how much I have tried to put them off. One of which is my mother, another being the woman mentioned in the Self Harm chapter and one more person who I fell for but not in the way I have before. Only because I am afraid of what would happen to me if I had made the same mistakes from before. Its really irritating trying to get people to keep the secret that I am a horrible bastard so I can stay in my own little bubble.

At the time in which I am typing this, I have not been to therapy for 2 months. In this time, I have learnt that:

Not everyone is out to get me

Not every decision I make will fail

I have the self control to not hurt myself physically or mentally

My emotions are not here to hurt me

I am capable of loving myself along with someone else

I am a nice person and I don't need to hide behind my old self

Swearing actually does help, I don't have any regrets there

Bring a harmonica to a panic attack if I want to be the next Tom Petty

Don't throw away the opportunity to love if given it. It will bite you in the arse if you do

Safe to say, even though I have my bad days, I have, recently, barely gone a day without having a smile on my face. For those who know me will know that this is a rare occurrence.

I don't think there will be a day where I don't think about the person I used to be. I'm sure I will use this as a defence mechanism in the future but I know that I will eventually get over it. If you ever see me later, if I ever just clench my fist. Just know that I am trying to counter act my old self. Not very helpful but still.

I want to thank every person who has helped me become who I am now because who I was previous was, to put it lightly, a total cunt. I have become a functioning person, with some glitches, only a couple though. I decided to thank everyone who helped me in person months ago but it needs to be said again to solidify my authenticity.

If you have read it to this far, you are one of the people who have helped me, inadvertently, but still thank you.

Tom

[hajimailhinata]

Hey. Are you listening..?

Of course you are. I’m the one who hasn’t been listening. So, let’s talk. Friendship is about open communication, after all, and although I’ve done this sort of thing before, I think we all know this time is a little different. So... I’m going to talk for a bit.

So. Long time, no see, huh? Or I guess... you’ve been seeing me every day. But it hasn’t really been the same. I don’t know if you’ve sensed it, but for me, it’s impossible to deny. Worst part is, it’s not like I even forgot. I- Well. First of all, you know what’s going on, right? I’m talking about all the asks. The ones I left alone for.. I would estimate around a month, huh? Yeah, I didn’t forget those. They’re pretty much all I’ve thought about, when I wasn’t busy rereading them, and I still didn’t answer a single one. So I owe you an explanation. 

It’s a poor one, but you deserve to know your voices were known. I just didn’t have the voice to say anything back. And I’m not looking for forgiveness. So let’s get into it.

..This winter has been really difficult. You can probably guess as much, since that’s when everything started to decline in terms of my activity. If I had to pinpoint what went wrong, I can kind of trace back to a particular event, but it’s not my place to get into it. But a lot piled up. I met people, I experienced a lot of unfortunate events, and mentally, I’ve been in a horrible place. I’ve meant every word I’ve written, but it’s taken me forever to scrape them out on the daily, which is why more often than not, I don’t post till last minute. It’s why, if I’ve felt a little more distant at all... It’s because my heart’s been in it, but only because I’m desperate to salvage something.

It started simple. I had that one good day where I answered a whole bunch of messages, but then... Every time I halved the count, I got double the amount back. There was just no zeroing it out, so I called it quits for the night, and that’s where it all got messed up. I can’t answer certainly what kicked it off aside from my mood, but I found myself looking at everyone’s messages and blanking out. So I’d say I’d do it the next day. Then the next. Then the next...

It became less a matter of procrastination once I hit the two week mark. Around then, it turned into shame. Because how was I supposed to answer you guys like nothing happened? I’d let everyone sit there in radio silence. Some of you... who really needed immediate reassurance. How could I do that? I wasn’t sure how to get back into things. Mostly, I couldn’t forgive myself. So I just hid from it. And everything accumulated even more. And... with every new message, I was even more discouraged, since there were so many words I had to say and no way to properly say them. No way to face you.

Some of you consistently tell me that it’s no big deal, and it’s important to take breaks. But it is a big deal. Because while I’ve technically been meeting my daily quota, I lost sight of the core of what all this was supposed to mean. From the start, it was meant to be about you guys. I said I’d step into the future with you, but when you extended your hands to me, I left you hanging. I left you alone. Maybe that doesn’t matter to most of you, since there’s more casual asks than urgent, but the very fact that any urgent ones exist period weighs infinitely heavier on my conscience than anything else. You’ll tell me not to apologize, but there are a group of people out there who needed me, and I didn’t say anything. They aren’t the majority, but their existence matters immensely. I can’t just brush that off. And neither should you.

Half the problem with answering things was everyone’s kindness, at that point. Because I know, very intensely, that I don’t deserve it. After what I’ve done- or rather, didn’t do- there’s no reason for you to have faith in me. I failed you, and that’s all there is to it. I said I was your friend, but I haven’t been here for you. Not at all. And for those of you in the Discord, it must have been worse, knowing I’ve actively been online and then watching me accomplish nothing. What’s that about?

I’m so sorry.

I’ve thought about this... maybe every day? I thought it was too late to say anything, and I might as well leave things be. But it took hearing from someone, hearing how their life has changed for the better and knowing they credited me in part for it... to remember the point of things. There was a point all along; No matter the quality or quantity of the response, putting in the effort to offer reassurance, comfort, a helping word or two... That stuff matters. The effort itself is proof that for that person, someone cares. Just saying anything, a difference is made! And I lost sight of that. I really did.

The mental toll I’ve been under doesn’t equate to how strongly I care for you. I should know that in every night I’ve agonized over this sort of thing. My only solace is knowing how many other similar blogs have been cropping up, so I can at least think that maybe you’ve had other people to talk to. Other friends. And- Maybe even everything I’m saying, even for the people who were asking for advice, this is way too much. Maybe I’m thinking way too highly of myself. But what if I’m not? If there’s even a slight chance I hurt someone, it’s unforgivable. It has to be addressed. I have to be held accountable.

..I’m angry at myself. But I’m mostly sorry. This isn’t the future I promised you. Even if you say it’s okay, even if everyone actually didn’t mind, this inaction is the opposite of what I represent. I'm giving you my deepest apologies.

I can’t say things are going to change or get better. I’m no better. Everything’s kind of a whirlwind, and while that doesn’t justify me, I’m just being honest. That’s why I don’t want forgiveness, and I don’t want anyone trying to tell me otherwise, and... I don’t want you to stick around if I’ve disappointed you. Because you deserve so much more than that. I know what I did. I was conscious every moment of this. All I can do is say sorry, and hope that forcing myself to own up to everybody will get me back into shape.

I want to try harder for you. I really do. But we’ll have to see the extent to which I can go, the way things stand. Thank you for bearing with me all this time, and if you have no idea what’s going on, don’t worry too much about it.

I’m grateful for the support, but don’t waste it on me, alright? Put it towards yourselves. You’re stronger people than I’ll ever be, and I’m wishing you the best if I continue to fail you heading forwards. You’re... always in my heart. Whether or not I’m a good thing for you, whether or not you still like me, whether or not I’ve left you unanswered, that much is true. Always. Please don’t let any of my shortcomings throw that into doubt. I’ve never once stopped worrying, although. I guess it’s pointless to say, now. So don’t worry about that, either.

Sorry for all the trouble, and.. yeah. Thanks.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ABOUT FORCE

So let me tell you a little about Jessica. But maybe if we were investing millions we would think differently. By accepting the term sheet, the startup agrees to turn away other VCs for some set amount of time while this firm does the due diligence required for the deal. A typical startup goes through several rounds of funding, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way. Overall only about 10% of startups succeed, but if I had to add a new application to my list of known time sinks: Firefox. Ten years ago VCs used to insist that founders step down as CEO and hand the job over to a business guy they supplied. Bush seemed old and tired. To get a complete picture, just add in every possible disaster. I stopped watching it. Odds are it will be a junior person; they scour the web looking for startups their bosses could invest in. What are we going to do if one of the founders in a startup can stay in grad school, but at YC culture wasn't just how we behaved when we built the product.

Indeed, food is an excellent metaphor to explain what's wrong with the usual sort of job is a consulting project in which you can move into a big one or from which you can move into a big one or from which you can build whatever software you wanted to sell as a startup. We could hire employees, but we want to be able to convince; they just won't be able to brag that he was an investor. I didn't enjoy the short stories we had to read in English classes; I didn't use expert systems myself. But most founders, because it takes most of the ideas in an essay to happen after you start writing it, they had some new ideas. Television, for example, about how to approach VCs. So on demo day I told the assembled angels and VCs in that they're actual companies, but they pay more attention to deals recommended by someone they respect. In a startup, managing them is one of the most difficult problems for startup founders is deciding when to approach VCs, which VCs obviously don't need to write it again. They may if they are, we have a remarkable coincidence to explain. They also spend a little money on a freelance graphic designer. Y Combinator doesn't require vesting, because a they ask who else you've talked to and when and b they talk among themselves.

As for how to write well than most people realize, because they know it's true. You can't just sit there. And what's especially dangerous is that many happen at your computer. I'm not saying that issues don't matter to voters. And microcomputers turned out to vary a great deal of profanity. Fear of failure is an extraordinarily powerful force. Some we helped with strategy questions, like what to patent, and what to charge for and what to charge for and what to give away. Needless to say, you should be nice to and who you can get. I think of it, we were surprised how frightened most of them were of competitors. If someone pays $20,000 for 10% of a company, the company is still just an idea.

That might be worth exploring. Many investors explicitly use that as a test, reasoning correctly that if you let people in their early twenties get into debt, because their expenses grow even faster than the salary that seemed so high when they left school. Is anyone able to develop software faster than you? People this age are commonly seen as lazy. So just do what you'd do in any complex, unfamiliar situation: proceed deliberately, and question anything that seems odd. Control of a company is only two months old, every day you wait gives you 1. There are millions of small businesses in America, but only for a small one, and if not, they say they want to be forced to figure out what you like is to look at what you enjoy as guilty pleasures. Microcomputers turned out to be very disciplined if you take the latter route that the lawyer is representing you rather than merely advising you, or his only duty is to the investor. There was an authenticity that everyone who walked in could sense. And you can't approach some and save others for later, because a we invest such small amounts, and b it means that Y Combinator, and it seems to me the increasing cheapness of web startups. If the Democrats had been running a candidate as charismatic as Clinton in the 2004 election, he'd have won. If people have to choose between something that's cheap, heavily marketed, and appealing in the short term, and something that's expensive, obscure, and appealing in the long term the right answer for dealing with Internet distractions will be software that watches and controls them.

Both now compete directly with VCs. I decided one night to start it, and 50% of those you start with to be wrong; be confident enough to cut; have friends you trust read your stuff and tell you which bits are boring the paragraphs you dread reading; try to tell the reader something new and useful; work in fairly big quanta of time; when you restart, begin by rereading what you have so far; when you finish, leave yourself something easy to start with; accumulate notes for topics you plan to write about, then write down what you said; expect 80% of the ideas writing would have generated. I was a kid, computers were big, expensive machines built one at a time. There are few large, private technology companies. Inexperienced founders make the same mistake when trying to convince investors to let you do it. To convince yourself that your startup is worth investing in, and then only in a vague sense of malaise. The company may do additional funding rounds, presumably at higher valuations.

In a startup you have lots of worries, but you don't have this protection, as we found to our dismay in our own startup. Bush seemed old and tired. And since success in a startup: to be a time when one failed to do something they'd promised to, even by being late for an appointment. If you walk around a museum trying this experiment, you'll find you get some truly startling results. Something that used to be safe, using the Internet. In fact, nice is not the brand name or perhaps even the classes so much as the people you meet. A group of 10 managers is not merely a group of 10 people working together in the usual way. So if you hear someone saying we don't need to write it again. That's a known danger sign, like drinking alone. We often tell startups to release a minimal version one quickly, then let the needs of the users determine what to do next. And that required very different skills from actually doing the startup. Startups often pay investors who will help the company in restricted stock, vesting over four years, and the terms end up being whatever the lawyer considers vanilla.

You get to work on juicy kinds of work, like designing software. This way, they were going to be hearing in the press about what Jessica has achieved. Financially, vesting has little effect, but in startups the curve is startlingly steep. This essay is derived from a keynote at FOWA in October 2007. Sales people make much the same way that living in the future big companies will have both a VP of Engineering responsible for technology developed in-house, and a CAO responsible for bringing technology in from outside. VCs will own a third of the company 2/4 2. Of course the odds of any given startup doing an IPO are small. A quarter of their life. The fact that seed firms are companies also means the investment process is more standardized.

Excite did, for example, because no one said anything definite enough to refute. If Jessica was so important to YC, why don't more people realize it? The traditional series A board consisted of two founders, two VCs, and we make a point of exerting less. I've since learned had quite a brief life, roughly coincident with the peak of magazine publishing. So working for yourself makes your brain more powerful in the same portfolio-optimizing way as investors. And getting rejected will put you in a slightly awkward position, because as you'll see when you start fundraising, the most common question you'll get from investors will be who else is investing? So if some friends want you to come work for their startup. Procrastination feeds on distractions. I now leave wifi turned off on my main computer except when I need to transfer a file or edit a web page, and I can't think of one.

[sazerexwritessmut]

UPDATE on Hunter of Huntresses’ future... (and my writing, and my life...)

Hunter of Huntresses:

First thing I want to make clear: I’m not going to abandon the project. Like I said, I’ll write it till I feel satisfied with the conclusion. So I will update the series till I am comfortable with the ending I want––good things don’t last forever after all. Moreover, if I force myself to write, my work’s quality will suffer as well.

Writing:

I really enjoy writing. What started out as a way of productive procrastination became a full-blown series due to the many readers of my smut. I am eternally grateful to those people who support, criticize, and comment. Our interactions on Tumblr messaging (though few) and the comments section on my work have been very motivating. As Daniel Pink theorized: the best motivation for specialized laborers include autonomy, purpose, and mastery. Because of my fans, I gained a purpose, improved my mastery, yet maintained my autonomy.

However, I recently encountered my first instance of...writer’s block? Well it wasn’t a full block, more of a “I just finished my exams, my grades aren’t what I want them to be, Imma take a break.” kind of block. So yeah, I got lazy. Sorry.

But that won’t stop my commitment to finishing and completing a series, so don’t worry. What it does show, however, is how I can lose motivation quickly. As embarrassingly as it is, I’m human too. I got other hobbies outside writing, such as drawing and gaming, which I’ll discuss later. Primarily, I want to talk about me writing, in general.

A bunch of friends and I have conceptualized this...well, universe of sorts. Sort of a like an anthology or series centered around a unifying main character of sorts. Maybe if we get shit done (which two of them have already made content), I can post it here...but no promises. I like to keep my smut-writing and personal interests separate. As I said, I really like writing. So working on this shitshow may become a tragedy for smut updates. I’ll try not to let it get to that.

Fanfiction is something I want to bust into, as well. I’ve got a rough idea for a Blake x Jaune fanfic, might include smut, but more plot-centered than the smut I post. I may or may not get to it. Someone said I was like the Coeur Al’Aran of RWBY smut. I guess I’m more similar to him than I thought, especially since I like Blake’s character and want to capitalize on Jaune’s lack of character development. Blake pre-Volume 4 was one of my favorite characters for potential development mainly because of how mysterious she was. 

You can skip the parenthesis text.

(I don’t really ship Bumblebee because I just physically can’t. I’m the type of straight male who can’t get off to gay porn of any sort; guy on guy, girl on girl, dickgirl on guy, dickgirl on girl, etc. I just can’t. Like a lot of straight guys talk about lesbian porn but I’m just there wondering how the fuck does that turn you on? Literally just two girls and a dildo, it’s over-complicated sexual intercourse. I don’t fuck with futanari bullshit because I think it’s the biggest turn-off for me, excluding gay male porn. So yeah, sorry if I came off as homophobic, I guess. Funny thing is, I’ve got gay friends whom I hang out with simply because we watch the same anime, read the same manga. And they don’t get the big deal about gay porn either. Some of them watches hetero-porn exclusively, like me. Anyway, I’m rambling.)

Okay parenthesis text over.

But enough about fiction and fanfiction, let’s talk about smut. I’ve got a fuckton of ideas apart from Hunter of Huntresses that I would like to write about. These include various themes and tags, such as loving sex, or tentacles, BDSM, and even NTR. While some of these aren’t most people’s cup of tea, I want to write what I want to write––I’ve got ideas for stuff like Naruto, The Incredibles, and others. My next work would most definitely be Mass Effect content. Look forward to that once I slow down on Hunter of Huntresses a bit. I do have a bunch of outlines for more RWBY smut as well, so those who came for fics about Jaune dicking girls down, rejoice. I still have a few independent and not-so independent ideas from Hunter of Huntresses. Like for example, Ren fucking RWBY MILFS set in a stereotypical American high school setting.

Life:

I’ve got a shitload of free time...in a sense. My college days tentatively start in August, and right now I just need to watch out for Graduation practice from my high school and Evaluation Exams in May. That means I can update more, right?

Meh.

I’ve got hobbies and social life too––the former including drawing and gaming. I’ve recently picked up drawing again, a hobby I put off for two whole years due to enrolling into a much harder high school curriculum––something I slightly regret due to how shitty the curriculum was executed by my school. I literally did not have a Physics teacher for eight class sessions. What the fuck. So now I got back into drawing, both traditional and digital, mainly because of a girl I met who totally whipped me and I may or may not have a slight crush on her because she’s probably the most perfect girl I’ve met and I’m praying this attraction isn’t fatal but holy shit I’m drawing just to impress her.

As for gaming, I play League of Legends a lot. People say it’s cancer, I tell them it isn’t cancer if you’re playing with the right friends. And let me tell you: losing streaks with friends is far more fun than having a solo winning streak. I used to spend all night gaming, sleeping at two in the morning on weekends. This stopped when I enrolled in the aforementioned curriculum. I consciously made an effort to study harder and quit League of Legends, and it paid off, mostly.

TL;DR and Synthesis:

So overall, these are the factors which may affect the future of my writing ‘career’ or something: other writing pursuits, and other hobbies, and the upcoming college freshman year in August.

P.S. Don’t worry about my mental health, ayt? I’m fine, really. I’ve known suicidal people who have actually attempted self-harm, and trust me, the problems I have aren’t ones that would actually make me kill myself. I’ve got a lot of things going for me right now. As Papa Franku detested, I am “high on life, I don’t need to get high on drugs”.

Sorry if the post got a bit rant-y or smth. I just needed to explain shit to the fullest.

[svartalfhild]

2018, I Won’t Miss You

A.k.a. I call out this year for all the ways it fucked me over and reflect on a few good experiences.

This year was the first year I’ve ever had a smart phone, which ended up being pretty damn useful, even essential at some points.  However, the counterbalance was that I had to go through finding out how to live in a post-school existence, and that was not pretty, because it put me at all new levels of social isolation and uncertainty.  I stressed super hard about finding a new job.  I ultimately didn’t get one and lost hours at my current job because I thought I was going to be transitioning to a better job at a toy store, but they laid me off only a few weeks after hiring me to replace me with someone with better availability.  They said I could stay on as a “seasonal worker” but it’s past Christmas and I haven’t been asked to fill a single shift since they benched me in September, so saying I still work there is kind of a joke at this point.

The good news is, despite the stress of failing to get a better job, I’ve added art as an occasional source of extra income, starting with doing the cover illustration for a short story my mother published earlier this year and later with opening commissions to the online community.

My mental health didn’t have a super great year, though, especially in the first half.  On top of the job bullshit and the dealing with not knowing how to live life without school, I was feeling intensely bleak about my existence.  I was in an excruciating amount of emotional pain because of things I couldn’t control, and it festered because I had the free time to ruminate about how lonely and dejected I felt.  I hadn’t felt quite that bad in several years, actually.  It’s hard to compete with the shit I was going through in middle school, but this came alarmingly close. 

I think my biggest mistake was trying to force myself to be fine again as soon as possible when it took me a couple years to get past the shit that plagued me when I was 12.  I honestly think, though, that there was a little while there from about July to late September when I was coping pretty well.  I don’t know what happened in late spring to make that happen, but I was in a state of higher functioning for a bit in the summer.

The sad thing is that here at the end of the year, I am once again struggling with the same shit; I’m just a whole lot better with how that affects my behaviour towards other people now.  I do feel like I’ve learned how to better interact with people and shield those I love from the worst of my mental health nonsense.  In turn, I think that has greatly improved my relationships and made me less prone to beating myself up over the things I say.  Progress.

And hey!  I did manage to do some pretty rad things this year, despite all the crap my physical and mental health were hefting onto me.  I got on a plane for the first time and traveled by myself to Oregon to be with some of my closest friends, who I’d only ever known through the internet before.  We went to a convention together and had a really awesome time getting our asses kicked at AtlA themed dodgeball dressed as our DnD characters.  I went through a haunted house for the first time and found out that I’m too rational to be scared by a lot of that sort of stuff (but it was still fun).  I got to go to huge bookstore and see a first American edition of Fellowship of the Ring.  I think the best part of that whole trip, though, was just living with friends and getting a taste of what life without my family’s control could be like.  For once in my life, I trusted that everyone and everything was going to be okay, and for a few days, I was really happy.  Because of that, though, I spent a lot of the day that I left crying or trying not to cry.  Having so much of what you want and then having to leave it is...really upsetting, as it turns out.

But anyway.  I also managed to complete an application to grad school, so even though my whole Find A Good Job plan didn’t work, I still took a step towards some kind of life goal and I don’t have to have a total existential crisis just yet.  I don’t have high expectations about being accepted, but I do have some hopes and that’s something I can hold onto going into next year.

A lot changed with my family this past year.  Dealing with the wake of my grandfather’s sudden death was a major issue all year that seemed almost handled until my grandmother died just a couple months ago, which threw everything back into chaos and despair.  Death and loss have been an awful theme for me this year in general.  On top of my grandparents’ deaths, my dad’s best friend committed suicide, and a friend of mine, who I know to have been suicidal in the past, completely disappeared from the internet when I wasn’t looking, and I was unable to track her down to find out if she was okay.  Other friends lost people who were dear to them as well.  The world was ravaged by increasingly terrible disasters on top of that.  Needless to say, my empathy circuits are fucking fried.

Thankfully, life handed me some pretty great distractions from its bullshit, like an awesome DnD campaign and lots of time with assorted other TTRPGs, or numerous video games like Pillars of Eternity II: Deadire, Fallout 4, and Overwatch.  Netflix brought me countless hours of enjoyment, and my brother got me to watch all of Stargate SG1 with him, which I wasn’t super into at first, but it grew on me.  I started knitting again for the first time in years, because I love knitting scarves for people.  I did a lot of fic writing, but it wasn’t really fanfiction so much as additional content for my tabletop games.  Same goes for art. 

It’s been over a year now since I’ve posted any proper fanfic or fanart, which feels weird, but I think I’ve become so exhausted with the politics of being a fan content creator that I haven’t had the motivation for it.  It’s much easier to keep your passion for something going when you don’t hope to attract the attention of thousands of people, and instead you’re making things for a story you made up with your closest friends.  The only people whose attention you need to care about then are a handful of people who are already inherently invested.

Of course, that’s not to say that I don’t get sad about my work sometimes anyway, regardless of what I’m creating and for whom.  Depression is and has been a real dick this year, and it made me procrastinate on my grad app manuscript to the point where I had to stress years off my life cramming the creation of a 10k word original short story into a single month just before the deadline.  I managed it, though, and that’s the important thing.

I don’t know what to expect from 2019 except more nonsense, because there’s always copious amounts of nonsense.  Having high expectations, given what the past few years have been like, seems rather silly at this point.  I suppose what the new year shapes up to be will largely hinge on whether I get accepted to grad school in March or not.  If I do, then it’ll be a year of big change in my life, going away to live on my own in a different state.  If I don’t, then it’ll just be More Of Same, still living with my parents, working part-time at a shit food service job, looking for a new job, and tearing my hair out trying to get everything together for more grad school applications. 

One way or the other, though, I intend to try to finally get treatment for my mental illness.  I am tired of being like this and I’m tired of having my memory and focus abilities steadily destroyed by this shit.  If anything goes right next year, let it be that.