#// This was the last page before my burnout kicked in //

[metrobound]

Reconciliation - Chapter 3: Disposition || Prev. < Page 78 > Next

Cameo of @ann-chovi's Prof. Yew! Pkmn Redirect

Join my Patreon to get early access to pages and wips.

[ohmystaxk]

For there is beauty | Chapter Two: Progress takes time

[MASTERLIST] | [CHAPTER 1] | [NEXT]

Tags/Warnings: No Viktor in this chapter, Academy burnout, Jayce taking care of Reader, Jayce is so touchy, Cait and Reader being girls (I love my babies, your honor!!), Accidental fake dating, Accidental flashing, Not Beta Read.

Summary: After meeting Viktor at the library, it was time to head back to Jayce and Cait. Another day in your routine, just like any other, except you started feeling the effects of burnout after months of working hard.

Suddenly, Cait asks a question that makes you answer in a very shocking way. Why did the girl have to be so curious?

I have created playlists that I encourage you to listen to while reading (spotify, yt music and apple music) this fic!

spotify yt music apple music

Tracklist:

1. Vienna by Billy Joel 2. Matilda by Harry Styles 3. Birds of a feather by Billie Eilish

You knocked on the door three times. The books were still in your hands as you heard footsteps approaching from the other side. The door slowly opened, and in front of you stood Jayce as he looked behind him. His cologne was the first thing you noticed, perhaps it had been the sudden start to your day, but you did not remembered him wearing that cologne. He finally turned his head your way.

“There should be a pencil there somewhere.” He spoke to who you could only assumed to be Cait. His eyes met yours, and his teeth flashed as he smiled. You always liked the tooth gap on his front teeth, and you especially liked how sharp his canines looked. “Hey, you’re back!”

“Told you I wouldn’t take long.” You shrugged, tilting your head to the side waiting for him to let you in.

Jayce nodded, he leaned over and took your books from your hands. “Come in, eat your food before it gets cold.”

He smelled like bergamot, with a hint of rosemary and cedarwood.

“Are you wearing the cologne I gifted you?” you asked with a grin. To that, the man nodded with a frown.

“Yeah. I ran out of mine.” Jayce opened the door wider, giving you space to walk in. “You have good taste.” He kicked the door closed behind him.

“When do I not?”Jayce laughed as he trailed right behind you.

You reached your workbench and sat down on the stool. He put down the stack of books on the table.

When you placed down your bag, you started fishing for your notebook. The man turned around and headed towards Cait, the girl had sat down on a stool next to Jayce’s workbench, taking a bite from her food as she seemed to write things down on a piece of paper.

“So, Cait.” You started, placing down your notebook and a pile of your research notes on the table; your pencil had been the last thing. “No strange women today?” You could not help the grin that appeared on your lips.

“Nothing to report.” She said once she finished her bite.

“Good.” You nodded with a smile when Jayce narrowed his eyes at you.

“Well, except that he didn’t get a discount this time.” Cait leaned over the bench, writing some more.

“Oh, really?” You opened your notebook, flipping through the pages.

“The lady at the counter was not there today.” Cait then took another bite.

“She was sick,” Jayce explained and grabbed his food, as well as yours, and walked to you. “So, the older lady was in today.”

“What a shame, could’ve tried charming her pants off to save yourself a pretty coin.” You reached for the book on top of the stack, but Jayce placed the food in front of you and pushed the stack away from your reach.

“A bit more decorum, please.” Jayce tilted his head towards Cait. You raised your hands and smiled at him with tight lips, guilt on your features.

“My bad.” You said, crossing your leg on top of your thigh, and putting your hands down to fix the wrinkles on your skirt.

Jayce’s eyes followed your movements and then quickly shifted back to your food.

“Please eat before it gets colder.”

With full stomaches, the three of you began working. You and Jayce talked, and he would write on the chalkboard as you looked at the notes you wrote the day before. During that time, Cait would work on her homework, sometimes speaking up to ask for some help here and there. It was a routine, one that worked so well between the three of you. Jayce would sit down once in a while, his back to the bench as he leaned back, his elbows on the surface. You would stand up and pace around the room with your notebook in hand and your pencil tapping your forehead. Then the words began to look foreign as you tried to read them again, and again. You sighed heavily, turning around too quickly and tossing your notebook and pencil harshly on your workbench.

You walked to the glass door of the balcony, opening the doors, and going to lean over the railing. At this point, sunset was beginning to set. Time always went by faster when working on Jayce’s project. The complexity caused your brain to shut off the outside world. You decided it was best to simply take a break out there, the fresh air hugging your lungs so well.

Then you glanced to the horizon, from where you stood you could see parts of Zaun. A chill went up your spine, you could hear your father’s voice in the back of your mind. ‘ We have to work five times harder than they do. We have to show them who we are.’

A hand came to your lower back, you felt another shiver as you felt fingers trailing up to rest between your shoulder blades.

“You doing okay?” Jayce leaned his arm against the railing, leaning close to you.

You let out a sigh.  Closing your eyes tightly.

“It still feels surreal.” You let your head hang low.

“What does?” Jayce’s hand went down to your lower back, staying there as he leaned over even more.

“Making it out.” You said, the words tasted wrong in your mouth. “I know how much my parents have worked to give me a good life, one better than the one they had in Zaun.”

Your mind brought you back to when you were only eight, hiding behind the door of your bedroom as you heard your father talk with someone.

“Do you think this is easy? Do you think I am not scared ?” Your father spoke, hand slamming against the old dining table . “I have a wife and daughter to take care of, my priority is them. I care about this place! But I will not put them at stake here, I was given an opportunity, so I will take it.”

There was silence, a deafening one as you heard your father’s heavy breathing. Followed by a heavy sigh.

“I know.” The voice came from another man, you don’t remember his name anymore.

“I am tired of working in the mines, V. I am tired of coming home and barely being able to make ends meet with the poor fucking excuse of a payment I receive. Zoila is growing sick, I need to get them out of here.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?”

“I don’t want to disappoint them.” You whisper, holding the rail tightly with your hands.

“You don’t,” Jayce says back softly, his hand traveling to your right shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “They know how hard you work, just how much you put into your studies.”

“I have worked on this for months, Jayce.” You turn to meet his eyes, and you want to look away. He looks deep into yours, he shows a softness and worry in them. “The words are all meshing together, they don’t even make sense.”

“You have to remember why you are doing this. Progress takes time.” He smiles gently at you, giving you a small shove.

You notice the sun starting to set, the golden glow making his skin vibrant. His eyes are even lighter, they shine like honey as they stare back at you. You can’t help when your eyes fall on his lips, a nice plumpness to them. You force yourself to glance back at him, but his eyes seem a bit darker now.

“I’m heading home!” Cait’s voice breaks you out of Jayce’s hold. You turn to look at the girl as she looks up from her spot, her eyes widening a bit. “It’s getting late.” She points out.

“I’ll walk you home.” You say, turning around and heading back inside. “I will work on this tomorrow.”

“I will take her home. Is closer to my place.” Jayce spoke from behind you.

“I want her to take me.” Cait put her bag across her chest, and her bright blue eyes stared at you. “If that is okay?”

Jayce stopped next to you. He looked at the girl before looking at you, he placed both hands on his hips.

“Sure can, Cait.” You said with a smile. You started grabbing your bag and putting everything you needed back inside. “I will probably stop by my parents’ on the way back.”

When you finally had everything ready, you turned around, bumping into Jayce.

“Don’t get home too late, alright?” You said, and took a step to the side, but he was just looking at you, his head tilted to the side. You frowned, narrowing your eyes as his eyes softened a bit. Oh, of course . “You are impossible, Talis.” 

You rolled your eyes before you stepped on your toes and leaned forward, placing a hand on his chest for support. You could see a smile forming on his lips as you placed a quick kiss on his cheek.

“That’s better, doll.” He placed a kiss on your cheek. “Say hi to your mom for me.”

You slapped his chest and stepped back. It had become a habit of his since he was fourteen, to kiss your cheek goodbye. ‘ My mom told me it’s polite .’ He had told you that it was something older people did when greeting or when leaving where his mother was from. And it is something he always did from then on.

“Tomorrow around the same time?” You walked past him.

“Yeah, I will pick you up. Will you stay over at your parents?”

“Yeah.”

Cait and you were not far from her home, the two of you talked the whole way there. You asked her about school and how that was going. She asked you about your research and noticed how stressed you looked back in the workshop. You joked with her, and you even stopped on the way to grab pastries for the two of you. Caitlyn liked being around Jayce, and so did you, but even you were aware of how nice it was to just be around her. Just two girls talking about everything and nothing at all. She was smart, witty, and always so curious. And for her, it was nice to just be able to ask you about things only you understood.

“Oh! And you should have seen her face when I shot right in the center.” She smiled big, her eyes widening as she spoke. “The target was so far, and I still hit it .”

“That’s great!” You shoved her playfully, smiling wide as you could not help but laugh at her enthusiasm. “I told you, no one will be able to mess with you.”

“Thanks,” She took a bite from her pastry.

“So, when do you have your next lesson?” You took the last bite from yours.

“Next week.” She cleaned her lips with a napkin.

“Well, you have to tell me how that goes.” When you said that, she nodded, but not before she went quiet.

Cait looked at you, then looked away. She held her pastry closer to herself.

“Is something wrong?” Your voice softened, frowning as you leaned down a bit to catch her face. “You can tell me, you know?”

“How come-.” She paused, looking your way this time. “How come you and Jayce are not together?” Her question made your brain go blank.

You stopped in your tracks.

“What?” You laughed in confusion.

“I mean, you two are always together. As friends . But, you like him, don’t you?” The question finally settled, and your heart started beating fast as you felt heat rush to your face.

“A-are you pulling my leg?” Another laugh escaped you. “Real funny, Cait.”

“No, I mean…Jayce always talks about you, all the time . And when it’s just you and me, you also talk a lot about him.” She explained.

“That’s because we care about each other. Friends talk about one another.” You walked to the trash can near you, and dumped your napkin.

“Do you talk about me?” You suddenly choked on your spit.

“W-we do…” She narrowed her eyes at you. “Okay, you got me there. But Jayce and I are just friends , we have known each other for years now. And yes, we are always around the other, but it’s because we are lab partners, we work together.”

“He is always a little too close to you.” She grimaced at the words.

“That’s how Jayce is, he is just a big…physical-touch type of person. Me, on the other hand, not so much. But he is always so…touchy?”

“Three ‘buts’ so far,” She took another bite and placed a hand on her hip. “I saw you two at the balcony, that seemed pretty close.”

“He was trying to comfort me. Listen, Cait. You have not seen Jayce when he actually likes someone. He is all smiles and compliments, he uses every charm in the book. He gives them this…stupid smile that shows his teeth, and he laughs as he tilts his head while he gives them the eyes -.”

“The eyes?” She frowned with confusion.

“Don’t worry about that.” You quickly realized where you were heading. “I don’t like Jayce. And he doesn’t like me, we are friends.”

“Well, it sounds to me like you do.” She shrugged with a sly smile.

You rolled your eyes, more heat on your face this time.

“Let’s get you home before your mom gets someone to come looking for you.” You looked away as you started walking again. Then you heard a gasp, you turned to look at Cait.

“You do like him!” She said a little too loud for your liking, pointing a finger at you. You quickly signaled her to keep quiet.

“No, I do not.” You shook your head.

“Yes, you do! For how long?” She ran to the trash can and threw her pastry away.

“Okay, I am going to keep walking.” You heard Cait quickly sprint your way.

“Why are you trying to avoid my question?” She frowned. “He likes you, I can tell.”

You sighed heavily and brought a hand to your face.

“I don’t like Jayce.” You felt your heart throb painfully as you said that.

“Why not?” She walked in front of you, turning to face you as she walked backward. “It’s not like you are not always jeal-.”

“Because I already have a partner!” You blurted out, both of you stopping in your tracks. The two of you stared at each other in shock.

“What!?” She frowned as she stared at you in utter confusion.

“Huh?”

“D-does Jayce know?” Her voice lowered, leaning forward as if the conversation was now a secret.

“N-no, he doesn’t and you can’t tell him, alright?” You pointed at her.

Why does she have to be so curious?

“Why not?” She crossed her arms at you.

“B-because…” Fuck, why would Jayce not know? You wanted to hit your head against a wall. “Because you know how he is.” Great work, genius.

“Which is?” She narrowed her eyes, arms still crossed.

“He is protective, he will want to know them, maybe even test them or something.” You wanted to keep walking, to get back to your parents’ house and fall face-first on the couch.

“Who is it?” Cait asked, and you should have known she would. “I won’t tell him. I promise.”

You knew people, you had a couple of friends from the Academy. But you were sure Cait knew most of them from when she would tag along with you and Jayce at the Academy, it had to be someone she didn’t know. You tried to think, of someone, just anyone. Then there it was, your mind flashed you those amber eyes you would see during lectures, of that pretty shade of brown hair, and of the two moles adorning his face.

“Viktor.” You said, feeling proud of yourself for quickly coming up with a name.

“Counselor Heimendinger’s assistant?” As soon as she said that, you felt your heart drop to your stomach.

“You know him?” You felt the heat from your face completely leave. “H-how?”

“I have seen him whenever I go with my mother to some meetings.” She scratched the back of her head, head tilted to the side as she raised an eyebrow. “Is he not…a bit too quiet?”

“Just a little, but he is nice.” You shrugged, a guilty smile on your face. Please forgive me, Viktor. “But, you can’t tell Jayce! O-or mention me to Viktor.”

“Well, I don’t talk to Viktor. But, why should I not mention you?” This time you started walking, and Cait followed you immediately.

“I will tell you later, let’s just get you home.”

When you woke up the next morning, you almost forgot you were not in your apartment. The old bed creaked as you stretched out your limbs, the springs digging into your ribs. You sat down on the bed, your old room was still how you left it when you moved out. Old posters of science fairs, drawings, and paintings you and your mother made together. On your nightstand sat two picture frames, one of you and your parents when you were about fifteen. The other was of Jayce with an arm wrapped around your shoulders, both of you with big smiles as you held a science fair award; you were sixteen, and was Jayce seventeen. You kept forgetting to take them with you.

You stood from your bed, your mother’s night dress falling down your thighs. You walked out of your room, the smell of food overtaking your lungs, making your stomach growl. You turned the corner to the kitchen and immediately paused. Seated at your kitchen table was Jayce, a cup of what you knew to be coffee in his hand. Your mother was at the stove, she laughed as Jayce said something to her. You normally did not care about what you looked like in the morning, Jayce was used to seeing you in your nightwear, but your mother was a different story. The nightgown was long, but not too much, it was loose, but the color was off-white, and it was too thin for your liking. It was the first thing your mom had pulled out of the drawer, you were just supposed to sleep with it. You took a step back; you still had time to go and change.

Then the wood floor creaked under the weight. And Jayce turned to look your way, a smile on his face.

“Hey, you are finally awake.” He looked back towards your mom, but not for long. His eyes flicked a little too quickly towards you.

Don’t say anything. You mouthed at him, widening your eyes while you pointed at him.

Jayce cleared his throat, his eyes falling on the nightgown. You knew he would not shut up about it, and would probably tease you later. It was your mom’s fault for not simply giving you a shirt and pants, or at least something of your dad. Well, no, you should have just dressed up before coming out here.

“Good morning, baby. You woke up right on time.” Your mom was still facing the stove. “Jayce here was telling me about the progress on the Jet Tech.” She waved the wooden spoon around, and some liquid flew in the air.

“Hextech, mom.” You sighed. “Good morning.” You looked back at Jayce and to your surprise, he was still looking at you, but when he realized you saw him. He cleared his throat again, focusing his attention on his coffee.

“How about you take a seat and I can-.” Your mom cut herself off, you looked at her and watched as her eyes were wide, quickly making her way to you. “Actually! Help me with something.”

You frowned as your mom grabbed you by your shoulders, turning you around and making the two of you walk back toward your room.

“What do you need-.”

“Baby, the dress is a bit too see-through.” She whispered to you, and you immediately felt your face grow hot.

“What!?” You choked out, trying to look behind you, but Jayce was downing his coffee.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t notice which one I gave you.” You hurried to your room, swinging the door open and going straight to the mirror.

“Is this even meant for sleeping?” You spoke with horror as you noticed how sheer the dress was.

“Well…” Your mom leaned over the door frame, also looking at your reflection.

“I don’t want to know.” You hid your face in the palms of your hands.

“I will go and serve you both some breakfast.” She closed the door behind her.

It was no wonder Jayce was staring, even with the loose fabric, you were able to see underneath it. With dark lighting, it looked normal and modest. Just, not with the sunlight coming from the kitchen. You had practically flashed Jayce on a random morning, at your parents' house. You groaned into your hands.

What a way to start the day.

Taglist: @mommymilkers0526 @crvcified-kinx @night-fall-moon

Want to be tagged when a new chapter drops? Tag yourself!

[oleander-comic]

Something Something Burnout

DON'T LET THE TITLE OF THIS POST ALARM YOU lmao. I'm not quitting or taking a hiatus (a super long one, anyways) or anything like that. I do really really want to see the this to the end.

As most of you know, earlier this year my pacing was absolutely mental. I mean, updating every 2-4 weeks. I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep that up forever and this post was probably a long time in the making.

Recently, working on this comic has felt more like a chore than a hobby/side project, and I don't want that to get worse! The last update, which was 7 pages total, was the update that took me the longest. Now, it's been more weeks since the last update than pages I have sketched. SO as you can see, my pace has slowed.

The slowed pace is for a multitude of reasons. School is kind of kicking my ass right now, I have other free-time activities I've been doing (I started reading for fun again!!), and, most of all, I can feel burnout on my heels. And I kind of have burnt out a little?

This next chapter, Chapter 12, will be the last update of 2023. It won't be particularly long, but I'm taking my time. It'll be November or maybe even December before I'm finished because of my slowed pace. In 2024 I'm going to focus more on myself and my (rapidly declining -_- oopsies) mental health, so there definitely won't be another 13 chapters in one year lol.

In this past year, the response to this comic has been overwhelming in a positive way. This account recently reached 200 followers!!! That's such a big number to me and I want to give each and every one of you a hug.

So yeah. Sorry for the longer post (hence why I added the readmore). I just had a lot to say and wanted to make a pretty big serious post about the state of myself and the comic.

:)

-Xebec

[2manyfandoms2count]

The Spirit of Competition

Me? Back for a second chapter almost a year later? Looks like it! Sorry for the wait, this year has been kicking my ass on a certain number of levels, but I'm finally getting into a decent rythm that fits a bit of writing here and there - hopefully this story will get its end before the end of the month!

Hope you like the new chapter <3

Previous | AO3

---

Chapter 2

“Maman, I’ve got it!” Marinette jumped up and down excitedly with her notebook in her hands, sending a couple of loose pages flying in the process.

Sabine smiled at her daughter’s enthusiasm; she’d spent months brainstorming ideas for this year’s Halloween contest. Her daughter was nothing if not dedicated. 

“I can do this,” Marinette said quietly, as if to convince herself, frowning as she revealed her sketch. 

“I know you can,” Sabine replied, pressing a kiss to Marinette’s forehead. “Did you make a list of what you need to make it?” 

Marinette ripped out a page of her notebook and handed it to her, as if it would answer her question — and it did.

Polka-dotted fabric. Lots and lots of polka-dotted fabric.

—

Marinette strode through the Exposition hall with a proud smile, a few gasps sounding in her wake. Her polka-dotted Victorian dress was definitely a success with the audience; her tachycardic heart hoped it would be with the jury, too. 

She slowed down when she reached the competition stages. She kept an eye out for the 8-12 year old age bracket line, which was far shorter than that for the younger demographic, and suddenly regretted leaving Sabine behind at the welcome desk to deal with signing up. 

She sighed in relief when she finally caught sight of the sign, picking up her pace in its direction… and skidding to a halt when she saw the last person standing in line.

To someone looking quickly, the blond boy’s outfit was a classic Victorian suit, the black jacket cut in a thick, velvet-y fabric, which contrasted nicely with his silk almond-green waistcoat. 

Marinette’s trained eye picked up on the jacket’s silky background below the discrete burnout cat-paw print of the coat, matching the waistcoat’s pattern.

Could it be?...

A disbelieving chuckle escaped her lips as she approached, making the boy turn around, and she got her answer. Him .

She hadn't seen him since her first costume contest, despite her yearly participation in the previous six years' editions of the contest; his face and name had already faded by the following year, although she'd held onto the idea that she had a friend potentially waiting for her at the Halloween exhibition for a couple of years. The boy had soon become a distant memory, and yet she continued to make ladybug-themed costumes so he’d recognise her, in case he'd show up again, hopefully in a cat-themed costume.

And he had. 

His eyebrows furrowed slightly as he scanned her, his features finally brightening when his eyes reached her face.

"You!" He beamed. 

His face had obviously changed with time, but the boy’s kind, green eyes definitely rang a bell. As did the literal bell he wore in lieu of a tie. 

"You're back!" She grinned excitedly.

“Yes, finally!” He mirrored her. “My parents kept planning trips for the Toussaint holidays, but this year I convinced them to stay. I’m so glad you’re here too!”

“I’ve come here every year since the last time, and I’ve won every time,” Marinette announced proudly.

“I’m sure you’ll win again this year, your costume is beautiful.”

The boy solemnly inspected Marinette’s dress, walking around her to look at it from all angles. 

“Thanks, I made it myself,” she replied, bashfully playing with the fabric of her skirt. 

“Seriously?” His eyes met hers, full of wonder. “That’s so cool! You should definitely mention it to the jury!”

“You think?” 

“Yeah! It’s a lot more impressive than having someone else make it for you.” He tugged on his bell. “Even though my dad did work hard on this costume.”

“It shows! Did you work with him?” Marinette asked curiously.

“My mum and I went to pick up the fabric, he worked from that and the theme.”

“I had to look up Victorian in the dictionary,” Marinette admitted conspiratorially. “And then I spent some time at the library to find inspiration.”

“My dad made me study everything related to that era when he received the theme.” He rolled his eyes. “Some of it was cool, but I wish we’d at least done a Victorian seaside retreat to be thematic, it would’ve been more fun than sitting in a dark room to watch slides all summer.”

“That sounds intense.” Marinette grimaced. 

The boy was about to answer when Sabine came to join them in the queue.

“You’re all set, my love,” she said as she pinned her daughter’s number sign  on her. 

“Thanks, Maman!” Marinette stood on her tiptoes to kiss her cheek. “Look who’s here!” 

“Hi, Ma’am.” Adrien shuffled shyly as Sabine turned towards him. “I don’t know if you remember me…”

“Adrien, right?” Sabine smiled warmly. Adrien nodded excitedly, and Marinette silently thanked her mother’s great memory with names. “Look at you, you’ve grown up so much! And that costume looks great, I think you two will be each other’s main competition this year once again.”

“Oh, I don’t know, a contestant-made costume is a lot more impressive.” He blushed.

“It’s true that my Marinette worked very hard on her costume.” Sabine stroked her daughter’s hair affectionately. “Is your mother here this year as well?”

“Yes, she went to sit down already, she was feeling a little tired.” Adrien smiled.

“Well then, I’ll see if I can find her. See you two later! Try and stick together if you can.”

“As if I’d stray away from my only friend here,” Adrien whispered as they watched Sabine walk away.

“No way I’m letting you go, I can’t remember much from last time, but I know it was a lot more fun than the other years!” Marinette laughed.

“Really?” Adrien looked at her with eyes that reminded her of a kitten. 

She nodded, about to expand on the thought, when one of the organisers started calling the contestants to the stage.

“May the best of us win!” they both said at the same time.

—

“In second place, please welcome Adrien Agreste!” the jury’s president called out. 

Marinette turned towards her friend, clapping excitedly. He smiled at her as he got up, and winked, but she didn't notice, too focused on the roaring of her pulse.

Her heart felt like it was about to burst out of her chest. If Adrien's costume had only gotten second place, then maybe…

"And the first place goes to… Marinette Dupain-Cheng!" 

The laureate squealed and squeezed Sabine's hand, making her mother wince through her congratulations. 

On stage, Adrien hooted. 

Marinette sprung out of her seat and all but skipped towards the stage.

“I told you you’d win!” Adrien beamed at her from the second step of the podium.

“Thanks for giving me the tip,” Marinette answered. “About telling them I’d made my costume,” she clarified for his confused frown.

“I’m sure you would’ve been fine without it.” He waved her thanks away, before posing for the customary podium picture. 

They didn’t get a chance to talk about it again, as Sabine and Emilie swooped in after they were done receiving their prizes, and they visited the other stalls, like they had six years prior.

“So…” Marinette looked shyly at her feet later, as the four of them stood in front of the exhibition hall, the Agrestes waiting for their car. “That’s one victory for you, and one for me.”

“You said you’d won all those other times, though?” Adrien interrupted her.

“It didn’t really count. You weren’t there.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, we’re tied now, so you better show up again so get a clear winner!” She looked at him with a slight frown. 

“Okay, I promise we’ll meet again.” He held out his little finger, and she held it wit hers.

“I’ll hold you to it!”

[vega-and-the-pleiades]

Fueled by an alcohol and a content warning for some particularly impressive trauma, and bringing out the classic read more (while recognizing nerds are not gonna read this). TW for probably some dead kids, Palestinian genocide, and god fucking knows what else.

I'm starting to feel like younger generations have a problem fetishizing trauma and violence. Hear me out.

I'm fully capable of recognizing that this is arguably my debut into judging the younger generation and this might very well read like a gen xer saying "man all those violent video games must be messing the kids up" but have you looked at the state of social media right now? Have you taken even a cursory glance at the doom cult that is guestimating how many of us won't survive 2024 and making a habit out of showing pictures of dead children on the regular? I'm recognizing the incredible signs of burnout amongst my pro-Palestinian friends. Discussions regarding how "I can't even bring myself to go to work when this is happening" and, more importantly, ungodly guilt trippy posts about how it's one's duty to push through that. How the only voice for the Palestinians rests upon us and if you're tired, too fucking bad. You're not going through half of what they are so you can deal and keep doing what you're doing. And you're a bad person if you don't.

I've already talked about how I work in public safety and I've seen that attitude kill my friends (or mess them up beyond reason). You know who copes well with the job? People who maintain balance in their life. People who take their weekends to go fishing or skiing or whatever the case is to get themselves ready to dive back into the mess. The ones who can't handle it don't break because they lack fortitude. They break because they work 60+ hour weeks and fail to divorce themselves from the job on their off time. They have a devastating call and don't take the sup's offer to go home early that day. That's not a sustainable model for anyone and I really feel like these youngins don't have the life experience to understand that they are irreparably damaging their brains and their bodies with this.

As a complete aside, I would be remiss if I didn't talk about my personal toll these last weeks with all this. My socials at this point are cute cats, goth fashion, and my friends. Lighthearted and low key. I don't mind activism on my feeds to any extent, and you bet I've gotten some good reminders to kick a few dollars to orgs doing relief work in Palestine and Jewish orgs doing decolonial work here and abroad. But you know what the last thing I needed to see a week before Christmas when I got off a dead kid shift was? More dead kids. We're talking active CPR, ECMO cannulation, whole nine yards on a literal child in literal person, I got home not okay, went for some cute cats on insta and the FIRST THING on my page was dead kids under rubble.

I appreciate the fact that to some of y'all, the shock value of all this is motivating. But I desperately need you to leave your approximation of the grief of seeing a dead child, or a dead pregnant person somewhere out of reach of those of us who have fucking been there, okay? And I SURE AS FUCK don't need you guilt tripping me for logging out of instagram over that, okay? I swear to god it's like some of you are so fucking desperate to live these experiences and if that's the case, public safety, healthcare, and international disaster orgs can use you. But this shit has to stop. Unmoderated doomscrolling trauma porn doesn't help you and it pushes some of us so close to the event horizon that we risk losing our literal livelihoods.

Say what you want for 2013 Tumblr. At least we had content warnings and read mores. Inb4 someone tells me I should quit my job or that I'm weak or whatever.

[lotus-btas]

BTaS Update: May-July 2023 - Pages of Lotus

Back again after a VERY long while without an update. Sorry for that, I'm forgetful.

Let me catch you up to speed on how the progress for Beyond Time and Space has been going these past few months, where we are now, and how we'll do things moving into the future.

Starting with the past, I'm gonna be fully honest: I haven't made a lot of progress with episode 2. Towards the end of May and the entire month of June, I've been suffering some serious burnout, to the point where interacting with my work would make my physically ill and exhausted. For a while I thought about skipping episode 2 entirely and moving on to 3, but then remembered that I stopped working on ep 3 because of my dissatisfaction/change of ideas with ep 2 that mentally stopped me from moving into the next arc. I'm still semi trying to get over it, but every day I can feel my creative drive starting to kick back in. I just need to sit down, focus, and get to work, which is a lot harder these days than ever before.

I also mentioned in the past how I was gonna host a beta reading for the first episode of Beyond Time and Space on the 20th of May. That also didn't happen. Not only was I sick with a headache on the 19th of that month, but I was rushed to the hospital for treatment, and spend the 20th, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd recovering. Plus, that post got little to no interest or attraction, so making a sign up that no one would bother to mess with seemed kind of pointless.

As of the present, right now I'm working on trying to balance my energy between BTaS and my other projects and interest, to make sure that my burnout doesn't get as dangerously bad as it did in May and June. It seems to be working. None of them are making much sound progress, as I keep getting distracted by my own thoughts, but it's keeping my energy in check, which is all I need.

I also decided to start working on a pilot for Beyond Time and Space! Yeah! The one thing that I should've started with, especially because this is an animated series, I'm doing now, a full year after I wrote the first episode! Kinda ironic! I find a huge benefit of this being that I know my characters super well now, but the big disadvantage is finding something for them to do; how they can interact with this new environment that I'm putting them in for a single short episode. That's also been a little draining. Might need to brainstorm some more.

And, last but not least, going forward. My plans from this point on is to hopefully have a more consistent update schedule (every or every other Saturday, if I can remember), maybe create and show off some art made specifically for the updates, like a visual summary. I'm also working on a twitter account for Beyond Time and Space that is currently up, but probably won't have anything on it for quite a while. I'm a full believer that it's never too early to share your work, but I'm an anxious gun that needs some sort of visual content to back it up, if that makes sense.

Anyways this is really long. Apologies for that. I would add a TL;DR, but I'm kinda in a rush now because I gotta cook dinner. Just getting this out of the way beforehand (and because the time it took to write this was the same amount of time I had left before the time to cook dinner struck, so it kind of just fell in my lap). Maybe I'll include one once I reblog with the tag list.

Thanks for spending your time reading this update! Your eyes are a blessing :D

- Yors Truly

[yanderedbh-moved]

⚠IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT/NEW CONTENT⚠

Hey all!

Sooooo, long time no see, huh? First of all, sorry for taking off without warning, but after a long time away from the “Tumblr yandere scene,” I’ve decided I want back in! However, I’ve opted to avoid the dreaded months-long burnout lapses in posting; I’m writing for more than just Detroit Become Human.

You can find the new content at @5eraphim

As a writer and content creator, I’ve felt insanely guilty for constantly teasing half-baked ideas and unfinished works. So I decided not to post this until I had seven new posts to link to. (Yes, for the record, I am working on other ideas/requests at the moment, but I know myself well enough as a person not to say any more than that; otherwise, the final product will never see the light of day.)

I’ve wanted a fresh start for ages now, and now that I have it, I don’t want to let this fizzle out like last time. And if I want to improve as a writer, I need to be harder on myself to finish my projects before starting new ones.

So far, this is what I have finished and published.

1. Yandere Alphabet for the Medic from Team Fortress 2

2. NSFW Alphabet for Yandere!the Spy from Team Fortress 2

3. Oneshot for a home-invasion/noncon story featuring Junkrat from Overwatch

4. The Huntress, The Mastermind, and The Oni from Dead by Daylight developing feelings for a painfully altruistic survivor who can’t catch a damn break.

5. Oneshot for noncon gunplay with the Scout from TF2

This is where you can read the rules for requests, and this is the list of what I will write for (Though in case you couldn’t tell I’m on a MASSIVE Team Fortress 2 kick right now and those are low-key the requests I’m most inspired for.)

(Where to send requests, this is obvious, but since I’m throwing up about 50 links anyhow)

Given my track record, I understand if you decide I’ve been too inconsistent to want to keep up with me and my work. That is your call, and I completely get it. But if you are willing to give me a chance and check out the new page, it would mean a lot to me, and by extension, thank you for allowing me the grace to expand my horizons and try something new to motivate me as a writer.

[azulirawrites]

Favors of A. Blight Ch. 1

Rating: High T/Low M Word Count: 2,821 Contains: Mentions of Drug Use and Abuse, Mentions of Child Neglect, Domestic Abuse, Heavily Implied Character Death by Suffocation (You don’t see the death, but you do see the actions leading up to it) Nobody went outside when it rained on the Boiling Isles. To do so was extremely dangerous, even if one had the proper protections. Needless to say, the residents of the Owl House were surprised when Hooty swung open, announcing, “Luz, that mean friend of yours is here! And she brought friends for me!” On the other side of the threshold, only barely inside the barrier Lilith had managed to conjure that afternoon, were the Blight siblings, huddled together, underneath a massive Abomination.

“Amity!” Luz shouted, vaulting off the couch to latch onto her friend, “Are you ok? It’s raining!” She quickly pulled Amity inside, with Amity’s grip on her elder siblings dragging them in after her.

“Baby Blights?” Eda questioned, “What's going on? Did Odalia see sending your kids out to get mauled by the weather becoming the latest fashion in that busted crystal ball of hers?" When there was no response, beyond Luz shooting her a glare, Eda prodded more, "Seriously kids. What possessed you to come here in this weather? This place isn't exactly 'Blight Appropriate'." As Eda made air quotes, Amity practically collapsed into Luz on the sofa, and so did her Abomination, loosing three bags just inside the doorway as it collapsed into a puddle of goop and boiling water. "Ah, crap. Bug out bags."

"Bug out bags?" Luz questioned, worry creasing her brow as she laid Amity safely on the couch. 

"I guess," Edric mumbles, his eyes focused on Amity as he and Emira huddled together tightly. 

"How long have you had them?" Eda asks, watching the twins. 

"Father packed them," it was Emira who answered, perhaps slightly too loudly, as she quieted her next words, "he gave them to us today. Before he sent us out in the rain."

"Hooty, wake Lily," Eda commanded.

"One Lulu, coming up!" Hooty agreed, almost gleeful as he shut himself.

"Luz, go pour three glasses of apple blood." 

"But-" Luz tried to argue

"Now," Eda didn't leave room for argument, and Luz reluctantly got up, casting a look at the gently displaced form of Amity, and then the twins, before making her way to the kitchen.

"We don't drink apple blood," Emira said, before quietly adding, "Mother doesn't allow it."

"Hypocrite," Eda muttered, before saying, "it's not for you. It's gonna keep me up, wake up Lily, and hopefully keep the kid from the worst of the burnout." Neither of them argued against her, though Emira cast a worried look at Amity. "What's going on?"

"I don't know," Edric mumbled, reaching into his pocket, “but father gave me a letter, for you.” He pulled out a plain white envelope with ‘Edalyn’ written on it, in handwriting that almost rivalled chicken scratch in decipherability, extending it to the Owl Lady.

“And I have one for Lilith,” Emira said, producing a similar envelope, with Lilith’s name on it, as Eda unceremoniously ripped open hers with her nail. The room went silent for several moments, as Eda quickly scanned her letter.

The silence was only interrupted by Luz’s entry, carrying three mugs, “I got the apple blood,” she announced, placing the mugs on the coffee table. Eda’s hand quickly shot down, grasping the “30 and flirty” mug and bringing it to her mouth, taking a long, slow drink. Then, she pulled a straw out of her hair, placing it in one of the mugs, a plain black one.

“Give this one to the kid,” Eda told Luz, adding “It’s just to give her bile sac a little boost,” when she saw Luz’s hesitant look. 

Luz grabbed the mug,moving to sit beside Amity, who hadn’t moved since Luz had left. “Amity,” Luz said, gently shaking the witch with her free hand, “You need to drink this.” 

“I don’t wanna.” Amity mumbled, barely audible, “it smells bad.” She almost burrowed deeper into the couch, as much as she could in her exhausted state.

“Eda said it would help,” Luz promised. 

“Medicine?” Amity questioned, her eyes squinting open to look at Luz before shutting quickly

“Yeah, medicine,” Luz agreed, pushing it yet closer to Amity. Amity, seemingly reluctantly, took the straw. 

“Disgusting,” Amity commented as her face seemed to pale from the taste, before drinking again as Luz held the mug.

“I paid for that,” Eda grumbled, before gesturing to Edric and Emira. “You two, take a seat. We need to have a serious talk when Lily gets down here.”

“A serious talk about what?” Lilith asked from the hall door as the twins sat down beside their sister. “Why are the Blight children here?” She yawned, leaning against the doorway. 

“I have a letter for you,” Emira answered, extending the letter over the coffee table, though careful as to not extend so far as to lose contact with her twin.

“A letter is hardly a good reason to be out at this hour, in this weather,” Lilith said, taking the letter. She looked at the letter, adding, “And I doubt Alador would send all three of his children if it were just to send me a letter.”

“Read the letter Lily,” Eda said, notably somber. Lilith gently opened her letter, pulling out the pages within. The next few moments were silent, broken only when Lilith shifted the papers in her hands. Then again, she shifted the papers, almost frantically seeming to double check something.

“What’s going on?” Luz asked, watching Lilith flip between the pages.

Eda looked at her own letter, then back up to Luz. "I'm not gonna say it twice," she nodded towards Amity, who seemed only present enough to slowly sip the apple blood Luz held for her, "and I think everyone would prefer to be rested to hear it. The baby Blights are gonna be rooming with you tonight."

"Like a sleep over," Luz tried to be cheerful, smiling at the twins, both of whom returned the smile. 

"Right, one of those," Eda agreed, "now take them up there." Luz nodded, putting Amity's mug of apple blood in Edric's hands before scooping the exhausted girl into her arms.

"Come on," Luz said, "you can help me make an Amity burrito."

"I don't know what a burrito is," Edric said, following Luz and dragging Emira with him, "but it sounds like it will inconvenience Mittens." 

"Shit," Eda said, once the coast was clear.

"That is putting it lightly," Lilith agreed, taking a seat on the now free couch. A moment later, after grabbing her mug of apple blood "What are we going to tell them?"

"Hey kids, we got some good news and some bad news. Good news is Odalia's getting the stick up her ass removed, bad news is Alador's the surgeon?"

"Edalyn!" Lilith nearly spat out her drink as she quietly yelled her admonishment.

"What? We're going to have to rip the bandage off somehow!” “No! Not like that! This needs a delicate touch!”

“That was delicate,” Eda answered, to a shocked look from Lilith, “I’m not telling you the not delicate option because you’ll get judgy.” There was a brief pause, before Eda amended, “Judgier.”

“Take this seriously!”

“Take what seriously?” King asked as he made his way into the living room from the hallway, “Also I’m sleeping in your nest tonight. Luz invited over the cupcake smasher and two new minions and the room is small as is.”

“Crap. That’s right. We’re gonna need a lot more room,” Eda realized, with some frustration.

“For what?” King asked, before noting the three bags just inside the doorway, “Ooh, bug out bags. Did one of your exes figure out how easy Hooty is to bribe again and we’re gonna leave Lilith to deal with them?”

“He can be bribed?” Lilith questioned.

“No, I fixed that when I told him he could take the bribe and still have his fun,” Eda answered, “The bags are-”

“Wait, no, I got it,” King interrupted, “tax collectors found us and we’re gonna leave Lilith to deal with them?”

“Why am I the one getting left behind”

“No, King,” Eda said, “These aren’t our bags.”

“Then whose,” King began to question, before looking at the bags, and then to the hallway, and finally back to Eda, “No. No? You can’t be serious.”

“Afraid so King,” Eda confirmed

“But I don’t want the cupcake smasher here! The two big minions we can put in a shed, but the little one needs to go. I mean, think about how Hooty feels, she beats him up every chance she gets!”

“Yeah, think about how I feel,” Hooty agreed.

“Shut up Hooty,” Eda and King said in unison, causing the tube to grumble. Eda added, “And while you’re here, grab those bags and take them upstairs.” She signalled the bags on the ground, which Hooty began to devour, causing everyone to look away. “Besides, we can’t send them away. Lily’s their legal guardian now.”

“Well then kick out Lilith,” King suggested.

“Hey! I’m right here!” Eda reminded the demon

“I’m not kicking out my sister,” Eda said, “and I’m not kicking out the kids either. Or putting them in the shed.”

“Why not?” King demanded

“Because I said so,” Eda responded, making King grumble and stare at her. Eda returned the stare, and eventually King looked away, making his way back to the hallway.

“As much as I hate to admit it,” Lilith sighed, “the little demon does have a point. There’s not very much room as is.”

“I’m not gonna make you move out Lily,” Eda said, before looking up at the ceiling.

“Alador left more than enough money for a modest home,” Lilith protested.

“Which is more than enough to get the Construction Coven to do some off-the-books work for a lot more space.” Eda suggested, “And I’m sure Hooty wouldn’t mind the expansion.”

“So you want to keep them here so you get a bigger house?” 

“Of course not Lily! It’s just… I know what it’s like to have your whole world shaken apart,” Lilith looked down and away from her sister at the comment, “and the last thing you need at a time like that is to have your world shaken more.”

“Edalyn, I-” Lilith tried to apologize. 

“Not what we’re talking about right now,” Eda said, finishing off her apple blood and setting her mug on the coffee table, “I’m too sober for more than one serious conversation tonight.” Eda paused for a moment, eyeing the empty mug. “I would have done anything for the kind of stability they can have here. I’m not gonna rip it away from them.”

“Thank you,” Lilith said, adding, after a moment, “I’m sorry for snapping at you. All of this happening at once is… Overwhelming. I would never imagine Alador to do what he says he’s going to. He’s always been more gentle.”

“Withdrawal can do a lot,” Eda commented, “Add in the guilt and all the other emotions he’s got to be feeling. It’s not so unimaginable.”

“Withdrawal? Withdrawal from what?” Lilith questioned, turning to her sister.

“Did your letter,” Eda asked slowly, “not mention anything about it?”

“Obviously not,” Lilith focused on her sister.

“Distraction spell!” Eda yelled, pulling a bag of Hex Mix out of her hair to throw at her sister, and jumped up, only to  be caught at the last moment by Lilith. 

“Edalyn, that hasn’t worked since I was eight,” Lilith complained, “Now what do you mean by withdrawal?”

“You know how Oracle magic can really start to screw with your head if you’re good at it?” Eda asked

“Yes?”

“And you know how memory wiping potions can help?”

“Edalyn!” Lilith was scandalized, “Those are highly illegal!”

“So is everything else I do!” Eda answered, “and he’s hardly the only person who bought them. I thought he was doing it because Odalia was too uptight to get it herself. I didn’t think he was taking it! Let alone mixing it with alcohol.”

“He was mixing an illegal memory potion with alcohol?” Lilith looked like she was ready to feint from shock.

“Should we just trade letters and see what he didn’t tell both of us?” Eda suggested

“No!” Lilith snapped, “He obviously intended us to keep the letters private. Otherwise he'd have sent only one, addressed to both of us."

"Who cares what he intended? It's your letter now," Edalyn reasoned, "Besides shouldn't we both know everything we can about what we're getting into? I thought you'd agree with the smart thing to do."

"I don't think it is the smart thing to do," Lilith answered simply. 

"Why not?" Eda demanded, watching her sister.

"I just don't," Lilith stood her ground.

"You're hiding something," Eda stated.

"That's ridiculous."

"Oh yeah? Then why won't you tell me why sharing our letters is a bad idea?" 

"Because it's personal, Edalyn!" Lilith snapped. 

"Who cares? Do you think I'm gonna judge you for whatever Alador told you about looking after his kids?"

"Yes!" Lilith said, to which Eda responded with a curious, almost scheming, look. "Edalyn, no!" It was too late. Eda pounced, grabbing at the letter with one hand and using her other to hold Lilith down by her face. Holding the letter out of Lilith's flailing reach, Eda began to read. 

(Line break)

"Alador," Odalia called into her husband's workshop, "where are the children?" When no answer came, she proceeded down the stairs, into the workshop proper. "Alador, answer me," Odalia commanded, approaching her husband, hunched over the work bench against the far wall, placing her hand on it's shoulder

"I'm tired, Odalia," Alador's voice called from beside the stairs. Odalia turned to look, seeing Alador step forward from behind one of the workshop's numerous tarps. Odalia took a step towards Alador, but was stopped when her hand refused to move, beginning to sink into the form slumped over the workbench. 

"What is the meaning of this?" Odalia asked, struggling to remove her hand from the Abomination as Alador's features melted away from it. 

"I told you, Odalia," Alador's voice was steady, "I'm tired." He grabbed her free hand, pulling it away from her trapped appendage. "I'm tired of this life," he told her, forcing the hand deep into the Abomination. 

"Where's your coven mark?" Odalia whispered, her eyes fixed on her husband's bare forearm. 

"I left the coven, Odalia," he answered simply, "Didn't you already know?"

"What are you talking about?" Odalia's voice grew more frightened, as she failed to recall any such memory.

"We were going to discuss it, this morning," he crouched down, beginning to move Odalia's legs into the Abomination, "And then I gave you your coffee, and you seemed to just… forget."

"Alador, what did you do?'

"What I had to, Odalia!" He shouted, breaking his calm facade, angry tears beginning to well up as he knelt before his wife. "I've spent the last ten years of our marriage forgetting every moment we spent in the same room. I can't stand you, Odalia."

"Alador!"

"SHUT UP!" he roared, "I'm so tired of hearing your Titan damned voice!" He stood up and turned away from her, "I used almost the last bit of my memory potion in your coffee. To get you to shut up and just leave!"

He took a deep, shuddering breath, before he continued, more steadily, "And you left. And I was alone with my thoughts. About you. About us. Our children."

"Alador," Odalia said meekly, "where are the children?"

"Don't pretend to care now," Alador's voice rumbled.

"I'm not pretending!"

"YES YOU ARE! NEITHER OF US CARE FOR OUR CHILDREN!" Before Odalia could respond to the accusation, Alador started a barrage of questions, "What kind of glasses does Edric need? Who's Emira's favorite bard? What is Amity's favorite book series?" When Odalia failed to answer after one second, Alador shouted, "I didn't know either! I spent hours learning about our children by snooping around their rooms to get them what they need! What kind of father does that make me? And what kind of mother, that you've never even wanted to learn."

"I am not a terrible parent," Odalia defended.

"Do you remember our children ever smiling in front of us? At us? I don't, but I can blame that on the memory potion. You can't."

"A Blight doesn't-" 

"WHY DO YOU CARE SO MUCH FOR A DAMN NAME THAT DOESN'T EVEN BELONG TO YOU?" The tears of anger rained freely as he shouted at her, "OUR CHILDREN SHOULD MEAN MORE TO US THAN THEM BEING SOME STUPID LEGACY!" It was a moment before he added, "That's why I sent them to the Owl House. I trust Edalyn Clawthorne to look after our children better than us. And Lily."

"I thought you agreed to stop calling her that."

"I lied. She's the only bright spot I have in these last ten years. I'm not giving that up. Not for you."

"Alador!"

"I'm done," he began to walk away, before adding, "Abomination, suffocate."

[summonerscenarios]

Hiya, I love your stories! Could I get some Headcanons for Moritaka, Ryota, Shiro, Kengo and Furufumi about the MC getting ready to finally confess that they love them after flirting, giving gifts and such only to see that someone else got to them first? Assuming the worst, the MC takes off running just before they refuse the rival and MC doesn’t want to see them because it hurts too much until they confront them about their avoidance? Bonus points if they brought something to confess with?

Heyya hun! unfortunately had to leave Ryota and Mori out of this cause of burnout but I do hope that these are still okay~! I’m super psyched that you like my stories~!

------------

Shiro

Making the gift that you were planning to confess with had taken a lot of time and ink, but the paper cuts and red marks on your fingers were well worth it by the time you’d finished it. It was a scrapbook, full to the brim with pictures you’d taken together, passages from some of his favorite books, as well as little notes that all lead up to the page where you’d written that you loved him - you planned to tell him all this yourself, but it made for an excellent back up if you chickened out and your words decided to fail you on the day. Having the book with you solidified that you were actually doing this, this was actually happening. Sure, you’d thought about this a lot, and got lost daydreaming about confessing more often than you’d ever admit aloud, but having the book with you made everything feel more real. You were going to do this, you were going to confess, and you were a ball of nerves for the entire day leading up to it. The book was kept safely tucked away inside of your bag but you kept messing with it whenever you had the chance, running your hands along the spine and checking to make sure that all of the pages were still in tact even when you knew they were. It helped keep your mind focused, so that your thoughts of ‘what if he says no?’ didn’t get the better of you when you were so close to saying it. All you had to do was find him....and you do, right in time to watch someone sidle up to his side, slip his hand into both of theirs and hold it close to their chest as they look him right in the eyes. Their lips move and you hear every syllable as though they were screaming it for the world to head.

‘I love you’

You want to cry; what a cruel twist of fate that this happens at the exact time that you were planning to spill your heart out to him. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this, this wasn’t how you thought your day was going to go - you’d hoped for a yes, expected a no, but now you didn’t even get the chance to find out what that answer would be, and just barging him and telling him now would be cruel to both him and the person who confessed first. Even though they can’t see you a strained smile stretches across your face; it’s shaky, and a terrible means to hide how absolutely shattered your heart feels, but you whisper a wish for them to have all the best, moreso to yourself as you step away from the scene and begin to walk away, the book in your bag feeling heavier and heavier with every step that you take. You wind up back at your room, and by the time the door closes behind you it’s like every emotion forces its way out of your throat and you try to pull the book out of your bag, to look at those memories in the hopes that they’ll remind you that you aren’t going to lose him as a friend just because he’s in a relationship now. But it gets stuck on something, and you’re so frustrated that you just yank it out and your heart drops at the tearing sound that rips through the air; you look down just to watch one of the pages flutter down to the floor, torn away from the rest of the book when you’d pulled and you drop to your knees to pick it up. It’s the confession page - the irony is palpable, and you feel the frustration about the whole thing creeping up the longer that you look at it. So without another word you shove it back into the book, force the damn gift back into the bag, and toss the whole thing under your bed, hoping that by the morning you’ll have forgotten all about the painful feeling that’s welling up your chest like it’s trying to tear you apart.

You don’t so much as avoid him as you do just not showing up to school - you’d been well enough behaved that the teachers were sympathetic when you said you felt sick and needed some time to yourself. And so you’d spent the past three days in your room, ordering take-out and sticking indoors; it wasn’t a permanent solution, as you don’t think you could stay away from Shiro when literally all of your time before was spent together, but you do your best to delay that day for as long as you can by distracting yourself in the safety of your room. Though perhaps you should have stayed somewhere else, considering Shiro comes by the check on your wellbeing with a handmade meal and a small line of worried D-evils in tow. 

The moment you hear him knock on the door and call out your name you know you couldn’t turn him away, and you were mentally kicking yourself even as you walk across the room and open it for him to come inside. He’s worried but completely oblivious, asking you how you’re feeling and if you’ve been eating and drinking enough as he places the food container on your desk for you to eat later; you normally loved seeing him get all fussy and motherly like this, but it feels bittersweet thinking about him being like this with his new partner. God, you sound jealous already, and you’d be lying if you said you weren’t. The D-evils make themselves at home the whole time that he’s asking about your health and how you’re doing, scrambling around your legs vying for your attention and climbing all over your bed to bundle up in your covers. They’re an excellent distraction, and you lean down to give them all headpats as you try to hum and nod your way through the conversation, hoping that he doesn’t notice how nervous you look about having him in your room. You weren’t paying attention to all of the D-evils however, because if you were you would have noticed two of them diving under your bed, and you and Shiro both perk us at the noise of something scuffing against your floor. Two heads pop out from under your bed, and along with them comes a familiar bag, and your heart leaps into your throat when you see them trip and send its contents flying across the floor. You don’t even get the chance to grab for the book, frozen to the spot when Shiro looks down and spots the scrapbook that you’d made, leaning down to pick it up. 

He goes to ask what it is, spotting his name written at the corner of the book, but he stops speaking as soon as he opens the page. You feel like the room is going to cave in on you, watching him flip through the pages and look at all of the things you’d carefully taken the time to weave in between them; and right as he gets to the last page you see that familiar piece of paper full of writing come fluttering out, descending to the floor until Shiro’s able to snag it and pull it up to read. He’s quiet as he reads it, and even the D-evils aren’t shrieking as they usually do as they watch Shiro read with heads tilted in curiosity; eventually though he looks up at you, and you can’t make out what he’s thinking when he asks you if the things in this book were really meant for him. You hands fly up in defense, already halfway through apologizing and that you had this all before he’d gotten a partner and you didn’t mean for it to get in the way of their relationship - you’re totally okay with it if he just wants to forget about the whole book and to just go back to normal. 

But Shiro cuts you off, and suddenly he’s holding your hand and bringing it close to his chest just like that person had done before. He looks confused, and when you clarify what you’d said about his partner he looks even more perplexed, shaking his head and telling you that while he’s been confessed to he most certainly doesn’t have a partner, why would you think that he does? You don’t know what’s more awkward, the fact that he had to find out your feelings through a piece of paper, or the fact that you have to explain that you’d seen that whole confession that took place the other day, but he doesn’t let go of your hand the whole time that you talk, and you feel like your heart is going to beat right out of your chest. You don’t know what to expect - a rejection, maybe him letting you down gently after your speech - but it certainly isn’t seeing him smile, looking bashful as he offers starting your confession over. He wants to hear you say it out loud, and the two of you can go from there. In response you’re flabbergasted, but your heart leaps when you realize that he isn’t turning you down - he wouldn’t be asking you to say it again just to say no - and you all but scramble for the book and your words, finally ready to confess the feelings you’d been holding for so long.

Kengo

The two of you are like a match and oil - together you’re fiery, but in a way that brings out the best in each other. Having you around makes Kengo want to be a better man, to learn when to cool off about things and speak with words before with fists; and having him around drives you forward, constantly striving from your goals knowing that you’ve got each other’s back through it all. You guys have been through thick and thin, seeing each other at your worst and still sticking together despite it all, so maybe that’s why you shouldn’t be so surprised that you start catch yourself looking at him more longingly. You don’t know exactly when you realized your feelings for him broached something deeper than just friendship - maybe it was when you found yourself missing him when you weren’t together, or perhaps it was those countless nights ditching the school grounds to wander around the streets together. And let’s not even get started on the daydreaming - you’ve had to literally slap those kinds of thoughts out of your head enough times to make you blush. Needless to say you’ve got it bad, and you’re not just going to let these thoughts simmer; no, you’re going to confront these feelings head on. You’re gonna tell Kengo Takabushi that you love him.

You’d honestly gotten so worked up thinking about the whole confession that you started to put some serious thought into it, you even had a gift in mind to give him that you were going to bring along with you on the day. You knew delicate jewelry wasn’t going to last a day on Kengo, so you’d splurged on something a bit more heavy duty, getting a set of matching rings on chains with ‘partners’ engraved on the inside along with some other markings to match his style. His was cool to the touch, even as you clutched it in your hand and toyed with the chain as you approached the place that you’d asked him to meet you at; it wasn’t anywhere far, wanting to pick a place that was close to the shopping district in case the two of you wanted to go out and grab something to eat after the confession. Thinking about your confession now you’re a mixture of anticipation and nervousness - of course you’d be, you’d been practically dreaming about this day and the fact that you’re planning to finally do it today has your nerves fried thinking about what could happen. You think he’ll say yes - you really hope he does, but worse comes to worst you don’t think the two of you would stop being friends if it didn’t work out, so that thought comforts you as you approach the meeting spot and find Kengo leaning against one of the nearby building’s waiting for you.

Except, he’s not the only one who's there, there’s another person standing in front of him. You’ve seen them before, run into them a couple of times while you were hanging out with Kengo, but this is the first time that you’ve seen the two of them actually talking together like this. From where you’re standing you can make out how flushed they look, cheeks dusted pink with a smile that’s all too familiar. What really seals the deal is when you see them thrust something out to him, and you’re ready to jump in just in case this is some kind of fight until you recognize the little package with decorative hearts on the cover that they’re holding in their hands, and that makes the very blood in your veins turn to ice. You’d stumbled right into a confession, a confession for the one person you had been planning on confessing to. There’s no mistaking it, you don’t even have to hear them confess to know what’s going on, and almost immediately you back away from the scene, taking a few steps back before you turn away and book it back down the way you’d come. You can worry about sending an apology text for cancelling the meetup later, but that’s the last thing that’s on your mind as you run away from the confession before you can hear Kengo say yes - because of course he’d say yes wouldn’t he? But he doesn’t, and you don’t get to see Kengo as he hands back the gift to that person and tells them that while there’s no hard feelings he’s not interested; you also don’t get to hear him say that he’s interested in someone else anyways, as he looks around hoping to see if you’ve arrived yet with increasing concern when you don’t show.

It’s a pain to avoid Kengo so actively, but you can’t bring yourself to be around him just yet in fear of just digging up more emotions than you can handle. You took every chance you could get to stay out of the dorms, only coming back to your room when you know that he’s either out or in his own room so that you minimize the risk of running into him. Damn it, you’d even gone so far as getting to class early just so you can grab a seat as far away from his as possible, always saying that you just like the window seats as an excuse whenever the sudden change is brought up. It was glaringly obvious that you were avoiding him though, you couldn’t be subtle about all those times you’ve practically gone out of your way to duck around every chance to hang out with him, and it was beginning to show in the the looks he gave you, the eyes that you could feel in the back of your head as though trying to burn into your brain and look for an answer. Both of you are frustrated, but you’re too stubborn to confront this issue on your own; if either of you wanted this whole thing sorted, it was on him.

It’s right after the school bell rings one day that Kengo finally manages to corner you. You’d left a couple things in your homeroom desk that you’d been planning on picking up before you left the school building, but by the time you’d actually got there the rest of the students had already filtered out. Well, most of them, that is. Because when you walk into what you expect to be an empty classroom you instead find Kengo sitting right on top of your desk, clearly waiting for you to show as the sound of the door sliding open has him turning to look over at you. There’s a beat of silence, and then you’re immediately on your heel and trying to backtrack again, completely forgetting about your stuff in favor of getting the hell out of there. You don’t even make it a few steps before his hand is on your arm and you’re being tugged right back into the classroom, and Kengo moves to stand right in front of the door for good measure as he folds his arms and sticks you with a frustrated glower. Kengo demands to know why you’re avoiding him - did he do something to piss you off? Was that it? Surely if he’s fucked up in some way you’d tell him so that he could sort it out, right? Right?! Did you seriously think you could just try and drop off of the face of the earth and he wouldn’t notice?! Too bad for you, you’re too important not to miss having around, so he wants to know why you’re staying away from him - you’re still partners right? You’re supposed to talk these things out! 

At the word partner you feel guilty; you guys have handled some tough shit before, and now you were so busy avoiding the inevitable conversation that you didn’t actually think about how he was feeling about his partner not talking or even hanging out with him anymore. You knew this confrontation was coming, but the words that you want to say feel like sludge in the back of your throat, muddling up everything that you’re trying to say until the only thing that comes out is telling him that you saw that confession scene from a few days ago, back when you were supposed to meet up. At that the annoyance drops from Kengo’s face, his brows furrowing as he confirms what you just said, and when you nod he huffs and shrugs, saying that it wasn’t that big of a deal, he said no and they took it just fine, so what was the big deal? He addresses it so nonchalantly that you only register the last few words and practically shout that of course it’s a big deal! It was a big deal that one of the best people in your life, the one person that you actually, genuinely loved, got confessed to first before you even had the chance to tell him how you felt and that absolutely crushed you! That’s a hell of a big deal, Kengo!

...Wait, he said no? 

The two of you seem to register those words simultaneously, as you both exclaim “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!” at the same time and you suddenly feel your face burning up as you realize you’ve both severely misunderstood a situation and confessed to Kengo all in one go. Kengo’s face isn’t doing much better, his cheeks are turning ruddy and he’s looking at you as though that was the last thing that he was expecting you to say and now you’re really wishing that the earth would just open up and swallow you whole right about now - it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that’s happened to you. And yet before you can think to blow off those words and act like you didn’t just confess you’re being lifted right off of your feet and into Kengo’s arms as he spins you around. Even though his face is still red he’s grinning - is he happy about something? By the time he lets you down you’re frazzled and dizzy but his hands are squeezing your shoulders as he says that it looks like he’s not the only one who’s gone and caught feelings then. It takes you a moment for those words to sink in, but a new wave of blushing washes over your face along with such a wave of relief that you’re about five seconds away from knocking him back, hugging him and never letting go. Instead you flash him a dazzling grin of your own, and tell him to just wait until he sees what you were going to confess with, you’ve got a pretty good hunch that he’ll like it - you just need to head back home and get it.

Furufumi

When you had first started visiting the old school library Furufumi just didn’t know what to make of you. This place rarely gets visitors, much less ones that visit nearly every day after school, and yet here you are, going out of your way to come here and browse the (safe) books and traverse the library’s shelves; and to top it all off you always go out of your way to find him, to talk to him or just to have him around as you wander. He doesn’t understand you - he’s always seen you wondering around talking to everyone and anyone, surrounding yourself with people as though your very presence is enough to attract them to you; and yet you always come here the moment the bell rings, sometimes early, sometimes later than usual, but he’s started to expect the little knock on the door before you step inside, he even starts to look forward to it. 

Even with all these moments the thought that you might have feelings for him doesn’t even cross his mind, having not even considered exactly how you feel about him, after all why would he? It’s easier to just not get your hopes up. But you do like him, in fact you’ve been smitten for long enough that you’ve been tossing the idea of confessing around in your head for a little while - you were just waiting for the right moment. And finally you think that the time’s finally right one day after school, when you’d finally brought the final piece to your little ‘confession gift’. Well, little probably isn’t the right word for it, as the little basket you’ve got is perfectly packed with all of the things you’ve noticed that he likes - sweets, treats, and two books about poetry and constellations all masked with a green cloth over the top to hide the contents. You’d gotten more than a few questions from your classmates seeing the basket tucked under your desk, but you just smile and wave them off, telling them that it’s a gift as you look anxiously at the clock, eagerly waiting for the final bell to ring. And when it does you’re up out of your chair and out the door so fast that you barely even register the teacher calling out for you as you bolt down the hallway and jump down as many stairs as you can without falling flat on your face. It isn’t long before you can see the old school building, and your heart is hammering in your chest from both nervousness and excitement, and you’re pushing away any thoughts other than getting there when you round the corner and-

Someone else is there.

You skid to a stop, still holding the basket as you look at the scene before you hidden from sight under the shadow of the neighboring building. There’s another student stood by the entrance, and Furufumi’s there with them but from here you can barely make out what the two of them are talking about. Something about wanting to know, getting something off of their chest, wanting their feelings to be returned - and then you hear it. They’re declaring their love, loud enough that the words ring out clear as day even from where you’re standing. Someone got there first - you’re watching the boy you’ve come to love being snatched up before your very eyes. You step back even further away from the scene, suddenly aware of your surroundings as you duck completely out of their sight. Your whole body feels like it’s burning, and your stomach twists in a way that makes you feel nauseous - you can’t stand here a moment longer, you don’t want to or you feel as though you’re gonna break, to trip up and say something that’s going to ruin the seemingly sweet confession that’s playing out right in front of you. You just hope they’ll be happy together, you feel stupid for being so bitter about someone else seeing who’s recognized what a sweet lovable person he is, but the negative thoughts swirl in so quickly that all you can do is hope he’ll be happy...that’s the only thing you can do before you turn on your heel and leave, heading directly back to your dorm room before you can see anything else happen. Oh, if only you’d stayed a little longer.

Time passes, and since then you just haven’t been able to bring yourself to return back to the library, every time you think about going back there and trying to pretend that nothing was wrong you catch sight of the basket. You should probably get rid of it, hand out the snacks and treats to your friends and put the books away on your bookshelf to read when they aren’t such an uncomfortable memory. But you can't bring yourself to do either of those things, so it just stands on your windowsill, the silly little tag with his name written on it still hanging off of the handle like a symbol of missed chances that stops any thoughts of going back before you can entertain the idea further. You assumed he wouldn’t have noticed your absence, more so hoped, but to go from being around each other every day to not visiting at all would raise anyone’s suspicions. After turning down that confession he hadn’t even seen you around the school, never mind at the library, and without you there the place feels...odd now; it’s as though you’re a missing volume in the library’s anthology, plucked off the shelves and whisked away somewhere leaving the rest of it feeling incomplete without your presence. Sometimes Furufumi swears that he’s heard you knocking on the door, only to get there and find neither hide nor hair of you; he’s frustrated feeling like this, and, if he’s being honest with himself, it makes him realize how much he misses your company. He doesn’t know why you’ve stopped coming around, but there’s only one way that he’s getting those answers. And so he decides to go and find you.

When there’s a knock on your dorm door you assume that it’s Ryota, since you’d promised to help him with his homework sometime this week. It’s only until you swing open the door and open your mouth to greet him that you realize, oh, okay it’s definitely not Ryota - it’s Furufumi. His hands still raised mid-knock, and he seems surprised to see you actually open the door, likely matching your own surprise on your face at finding him standing at your door. Sure, you’ve seen him outside of the library, you’ve gone out with him to places a couple of times when you’ve found some great locations to get some fresh air; but having him right outside of your room is different - it means that he went out of his way to come find you, and the thought makes you conflicted. There’s a moment that neither of you say anything, but when the two of you share a glance you shuffle out of his way and gesture for him to come inside - he’s come all this way just to talk to you, so you don’t feel right leaving him out there. Things are even more quiet once you sit down on your bed and motion for him to take a seat beside you - it’s awkward because you don’t even know where to start, what to say to him. Fortunately Furufumi speaks first, and his voice is low as he asks you why you stopped visiting the library, nothing bad happened, did it? The question makes you blank, and you blink at him for a moment. You couldn’t just say you stopped coming around to avoid him, especially because without confessing your feelings it would sound like you hated him, which was anything but what you felt towards him. You mull over the question for a while, apparently for too long as Furufumi continues to speak - he tells you that the library feels different without you around, as though the old building misses your presence too, just like...just like he misses you. He just wants to know what happened that made you stop coming over - and, if he can, how to make it up to you so that you want to come back. 

Oh. Oh this is too good to be true, and you’re so close to saying yes when you look over his shoulder, catching sight of that basket hanging on the windowsill and having memories of that day come flooding back. He must have followed your gaze, as Furufumi turns and sees the basket too, as well as the little tag that’s attached to it. When he reads it out loud, turning to you and asking if that was meant for him with genuine surprise, you just know that the jig is up. Where do you even start? Maybe just play it off as a regular gift? Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, so you do exactly that, reaching up to bring it down to your lap and handing it to him. Trying to explain yourself you talk about how you’d meant to give it to him sooner, and that you had been planning to when you’d seen that whole confession thing and ended up deciding against-

...You just put your foot in it, didn’t you.

There’s no denying what you saw now, and at the mention of the confession Furufumi goes quiet, the pieces clicking into place in his head as he realizes that you’d been there that day. So, you must have seen him refuse their confession, didn’t you? Was that why you had stopped coming around? Were you friends with that person? That isn’t what you thought you’d hear, especially coming from Furufumi, but you’re quick to tell him that of course that wasn’t the reason! And you’re honestly surprised to hear him say that he’d refused the confession - you definitely feel stupid getting so worked up about it now, and yet you also feel kind of hopefully. You could tell him the truth, so that’s exactly what you do - you just really, really hope that he takes it well.

[anakinthetrashking]

yo! you just read the queen's thief series? :0 i am a long-time fan and would LOVE to hear any of your feelings about it (also, have you seen the discord server bc its pretty active and fans always love more fans if discord servers are your thing :)

So, you'll have to forgive how LATE this reply is, it's been a mixture of busy-school-semester-quarantine-social-burnout and tumblr deleting my replies when I tried to save them to continue writing later!! But it's now 3am and my brain won't stop thinking about Queen's Thief, so it's the best time to reply, really! (But I really do appreciate you sending in this ask to let me rant about TQT!!!!! AHFKSISJ replying is just hard sometimes lol)

So because I'm terribly long winded and because spoilers!!! For a few people who follow me who haven't read it/or haven't finished reading it, the rest is under the readmore!

Where to begin. So my blog says I just read it but I realized that's a little bit of a lie now? I read the first five books for the first time at the end of Dec 2019, and the beginning of January 2020! I had seen the name of the series around before, around Tumblr bc of a few people I'm following, in regards to a Batfam fic by lurkinglurkerwholurks, ( this one: Breathing )who is ALSO a longtime TQT fan! I reread her Batfam fic after reading the Queen's Thief series and it hit SOOOOOOOOO much harder. Really brilliant. But that last straw was getting an email saying that one of my other all time fav fic writers was writing a fic for TQT. I saw that email and basically immediately downloaded The Thief on my library app 😂 (i needed to be able to read the fic!!! And I'm soooooo glad I: a) read the series before reading the fic, therefore not spoiling anything and b) was able to read the fic because holy cow does it live rent free in my brain. It's Ere by audreycritter btw)

Anyhow, I absolutely DEVOURED the books. I read one after another and then ended up rereading the first three again more slowly over the course of that spring semester. I started drawing again, listened to a good amount the Attolian Archives podcast, reblogged and MADE!! ART!! and m e m es, died when MWT REBLOGGED ONE OF MY MEMES AND SAID IT MADE HER LAUGH, recommended the series to a bunch of people and got several to at least *start* reading the series! I haven't gotten seratonin from books like this since early high school ten years ago! 🤣

Plus the fandom is SO SWEET!!!! And MWT is so engaging!!!! I love that she lets us play in her sandbox! It's like she made a fully furnished dollhouse complete with dolls but she lets us continue to decorate it and build on it and move the dolls around, and then she comes up and gives us compliments on the little things we've done!!! 🥺😭💞

Oh but the books themselves!!! They dig their spots in my heart deeper everytime I read them!!! I don't think Ive ever read a series that I enjoy more every time I reread it. I'm looking forward to rereading this last book, bc I know that the only one that I was obsessed with the first read through was QoA. All the others I liked the first time I read it, but I wasn't in LOVE with them, you know? But when I went back to read them a second time I LOVED THEM. Its like a riptide that you kick around in the shallows the first time around, and then the next time suddenly you're sucked out to sea???

It feels like the pages hold secrets that need to be teased out. The dialogue is SO FUN. It has suspense but not so much that you're stressed. It's so balanced. It has lines that make you put the book down and have to just, do a lap.around the block because they really said that. THEY REALLY SAID THAT. "Diplomacy, in my own name." SHE REALLY SAID THAT. The symbolism, the foreshadowing, I'm OBSESSED! THE CHARACTERS!!!! THE LOYALTY!!!!! What i wouldn't do to have that sort of loyalty written into some of the other fandoms that I'm in. And the TEnderNESS. The way Gen interacts with others??? The way he loves so.wholly? With his entire self??? The way that it's sorta slowburn found family before tumbling into found family all at once in a way that isn't slowburn at all?? I'm pulled in by Gens tricks every time. The storytwists surprised me but made sense. The writing was enjoyable to get lost in. I think of the way that Gen sits at Irene's feet and looks up at her with eyes full of love, how he sits like a printers apprentice in a chair but sits like a king while sick/hurt in his bed, I think about the way he pushed Relius's hair back and kissed him on the forehead, how Relius said he would still crawl back to his Queen and Gen said me too, the difference between my Queen and my King and your Majesty 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 the way Helen says that Sophos basically has Gens heart in his hands, the way that all four of them are entwined together. I think about these books and I'm filled with YEARNING

Uh, No thoughts, head empty except for squeeing about TQT. This isn't even like,,,,,, idk a quarter of it??? There's so much more but it's all so hard to put into words, a lot of it is just me yelling incoherently because I'm overwhelmed! And when I string words together it's, well. All over the place! 😂

As for the discord thing, I've seen the link around! I'm uh, Not Great(tm) at being social, and so the discord is a leeeeetle daunting, haha. But I have considered it, especially because I have an... Interesting fic idea that I wanted to drop into the pool of other TQT fans to see their reactions. It's... a little bit evil...

Thanks again for the ask!

[rann109]

What the hell happened to Wereworld by Rann?

Hello folks. I know it’s been a long time. The little webcomic I did over on comicgenesis was last updated by me on 1-13-13 and frankly I’m surprised it is still up. I’m surprised comicgenesis is still up.  

I don’t know if the folks in charge there are doing anything now, but last I checked there seemed to be only the barest minimum of maintenance going on. A quick perusal of the forum indicates that not much is working and creators are just kind of on their own. The glory days of the site seem to be long over. 

I am starting this blog to answer questions a lot of my comic’s long-suffering fans might have been asking for years now. 

This is my very first Tumblr post. I chose them because (so far) it’s easy to use, they’re popular, and most importantly, free! I also like the old-school blog feel. I don’t know how many of you will actually FIND it. I’ve planned on doing this for years now and I was going to make the announcement via the Yahoo group but, alas, Yahoo has ended their groups service just as I resolved to do this. Probably because nobody uses them anymore. I can’t really blame them, but as a result I lost contact with all of you.

This is going to take awhile to unpack. It’s been almost nine years, after all. Damn. 

Before going into details, I’ll just say Life happened. It has been a chaotic time for me, as well as, I’m sure, for you. But I’ll get to the first and biggest reason I stopped the comic:

#1- BURNOUT

Yes, the artist’s arch-nemesis, burnout. I got to a point where the thought of picking up a pencil to draw was the last thing I wanted to do. It came as a shock, really. As passionate as I was in the early days I thought it would never end. I loved drawing and creating characters and stories as much as anything I ever got into. As my ability improved through dedicated practice I was proud of the work and loved the feedback. But over time I grew less and less interested in updating Wereworld. I guess about ten years of dedicated work on a project that doesn’t seem to have an end anytime soon and receiving no pay for that work can do it to a person. I really got tired of trying to compose a page, draw it, ink it, update my page using html, and post the finished comic all in the same day. Other days of the week were out of the question as I had little enough free time as it was and I had to, and wanted to, do other things during that time.

#2- FAMILY 

And everyday life seemed to begrudge me even the little time I ended up spending on Wereworld. Like, everything would be going smoothly, but as soon as I sat down, put on some music to get “in the zone”, that’s when life would come kicking down my door to demand my undivided attention. Every Sunday I could count on my phone ringing, family wanting my attention and loading me with worries and problems before going merrily on their way, leaving me in a bad mood. No comic THIS week. AGAIN! My “Why bother?” kicked in and I began to plan on just waiting around, doing nothing, waiting for crisis #2076 to come banging on my door. Nobody except my wife understood how important that little bit of time was to me and how important it was for me to be in the right STATE OF MIND to work on Wereworld. All it took was a comment or a five minute call to screw me up. They are the kind of people who measure a thing’s worth by how much money you’re making because of it. And since I wasn’t making anything on it, they saw no reason not to bother me during my drawing time. The “emergency only” stipulation I made about calls tended to be loosely interpreted. (My sibs are all married with children now, with all the problems that come with it and it has been pretty damn quiet for me here on my end in the past few years, LOL!) 

#3- DEPRESSION

No, not clinical depression. Not the kind that pushes people to the brink and start thinking of ending ending it all, but the combination of little to no time to spend on creating and my growing burnout pretty much marked the end. The situation made me feel depressed. But I have many other activities and a happy life with my wife (who was always very supportive of my various obsessions, including WW) and it was easier to refocus on other things instead of mourning my waning motivation to create new comics.

#4- WORK

Yep, work. Gotta pay the bills and eat. I lost my career job when the place I worked finally shut its doors after a long decline after 9-11. I did a little bit of everything after that and pretty much all of it sucked. But you gotta do what you gotta do.

I’ll end this post for now, as the day is getting on and there’s other things I have to do (yep, still!), but there’s a lot more to this and I’ll be back VERY soon to update this blog. And you CAN believe me this time! 

11-24-20, AAnnd I’m back. On to number five. 

#5- DISCONNECTION

The longer I went without updating the comic, the less connected to it I felt. I had in mind to finish the thing someday but not on the Comicgenesis platform. And time just sort of slipped away. I’d still think about the story now and then, but it wasn’t an all consuming thing like it was before, not even close. And I started working on other stories which I’ll get into later.

#6- GUILT

I still receive a fan email once in awhile, hard to believe. At first I answered everybody, but over time as it became more apparent I wasn’t going to get back to it anytime soon, I stopped replying. I felt guilty about leaving everyone hanging, and the longer it went, the more guilty I felt until I’d wince whenever I got an email concerning the old comic. I was going to send a letter out via my Yahoo group, but like I mentioned before, they stopped the service just as I was about to do it. That added to my guilt even more!

#7- OTHER INTERESTS

I have always had a variety of hobbies and interests and I was good and ready to get back into some of them or start new things altogether. My first passion is knife making and I have been into that in the past years since. Not full time, I don’t want to burn myself out on that too, but I have made and sold a good little amount in the past few years. I took a leather armor maker’s master class and had a lot of fun at that, I rebuild vintage road and mountain bikes, and scour the countryside for resalable items at yard and estate sales. To name a few. I also wrote and published a book on Amazon, so that’s out there. It’s called “Abagail Reese and the Supersonic Witch” if anyone cares to check it out. I had a lot of fun writing that but it hasn’t made me much change so I kinda redirected my creative focus on my knives, which actually does pay. I have a few other stories kicking around in my mind but I don’t know when I’ll ever get to writing them down. I’m sure as hell not going to try to illustrate them myself. As slow as I work and as rusty as I am, forget it. They’d be novels. Unless I found a great, fast artist who worked for almost free, lol! 

[pinkykitten]

I was tagged by @writing-with-melon I hope my answers aren’t complete waste or if time and if so I’m sorry and I love you

Rules: Answer ten 10 questions, ask 10, and tag 10 people

1. What song automatically plays in your head when you look out the window on a long drive? 

i dont really have an answer for this. i think i just automatically think about any song ive been listening to recently or any song that has been stuck in my head. 

2.  Do you have some snacks nearby when you write?

well i live in a two story house so the kitchen is downstairs and im usually lazy busy so since i have a mini fridge upstairs i just usually get water to drink while im writing. its kinda hard to eat and write cuz i loose focus really easily so when i am writing i am writing! i am in the zone! but if i am a little hungry ill usually snack on candy like chocolate kinder joys i love them but they r so expensive or snack on chips but i get like salt on my fingers or i like cheetos so cheetos dust and that just gets everywhere and later my hands and keyboard kinda smell like fart. 3. What do you do to combat creative burnout?

so burnout happens to me a lot so to get inspiration i either read other stories or fanfics which gets my head gears turning or i admire a piece of art or photography or a song. whats so unique and satisfying with writing you can explore and go anywhere with it, hehehe erotic if you know what i mean lol jk there are no barriers with writing just your imagination. there is inspiration any where you go and id advise to never stop writing. even if its a few short sentences or paragraphs about anything even bird poop its still progression and your mind is working and your searching for words like its all good for you bby.  4. Do you use (or like to use) prompts? 

i do ill put the link here. im thinking of changing it though to do something different. 

5. What is your favorite place to write?

lol boring, i know but my room. my room is really bright in the mornings and comfortable and chill and i have a candle of the pandora ride in disney that smells like the ride so its all good and relaxing and super peaceful plus i have a picture of myself the age of like 9 on my desk idk why but it encourages me and makes me focus to make sure i never get that cringy again. 

6. What is a hobby or yous that you usually don’t talk about?

well i like working out HAHAHAHAHA jk that was a joke...get it...cuz i much rather be eatingokillstop. but i really like to draw which i have a art page you can see it if you click here pls look at my failed attempts to be hip and cool with the cool kids and being artsy fartsy. another hobby is i really like to do makeup and nail art, nail art is really tough guys no joke if you do it like you got wizard powers are something. maybe its bc my nails are shorter than pete davidson and ariana grande’s relationship, alright im trying to stop i swear!

7. Do you play an instrument? Which one?

no i wish though. i always wanted to learn to either play the piano or electric guitar cuz H.E.R looks so cool doing it. 

8. How do you feel about your handwriting?

it sucks dont even try me. my sister can barely read it like no wonder nobody wants to steal my signature heck they can’t even read it!

9. Can you tell us of a story that marked your development as a person? As a writer?

ok sit back guys, sniff a nice amount of crack and get ready for the most cringy moment of my life but also a time when i knew i was meant to be *inhale* a fanfic writer. 

so it was elementary school, i think 3rd grade and for my writing assignment we were given a prompt of idk what the heck tbh i think it was like be outside the box and im like ok imma nail this cuz im a weird child and yeah so i got my papers and pencil and i went TO TOWN on this paper. so i wrote two stories. one short story with a picture to go with it and one long story that yeah i buried years ago. so my first story was about a farmer was about that farming life. he had chickens and dairy. so i cant remember if the cheese was spoiled but doesnt matter. anywho these cheese and a chicken were alive like they could talk in the story and i gave them faces, yikes. but the whole story was the farmer was a b*tch and he was trying to eat the chicken and cheese so they hatched a plan to get away from the farmer. they did it successfully and they ran away. yay happy ending my teacher actually liked that one me too and my school mates were thinking what they heck is this girl on i made a story about how me and justin bieber made cookies for Christmas you know. so then my other story i was more proud of this one cuz it was a tone of paper, sorry trees, and this story was about how a female hippo (girl i was all about plus size and thicker girls and no body shaming) and an male ostrich were kidnapped from their own habitats and taken to become circus animals. failed version of Madagascar hey mine was before the circus movie OK THEY STOLE IT FROM MEEEEE. so they get taken and are treated to harsh punishment and the animals can talk and i think its in the point of view of the male ostrich guy thing. they are in the circus and they start to have this relationship happening. love starts blossoming its all good. im happy with this cuz i believed in love at age of 8. they find a way thru a kick butt scene of the animals escaping and the hippo and ostrich are so in love that they run away together and they have half hippo half ostrich babies and i think i named the species  hipstrich or like ostppo idk but i was so proud of this story and when my teacher read it she was worried about me lol i think she thought i might like mate these two animals like secretly idk but she was like it was ok and i was like what this is frickin William Shakespeare writing or like F. Scott Fitzgerald writing. nevertheless it taught me a lesson that nobody else needs to like what im writing the main point and only thing that matters is if your proud of it and you like it and i really did. i will remember that story forever and thats what made me want to be a writer. lol sorry that was a lot. 

10. @emdop I’m going to use this great question: Explain one of your WIPs in the most ridiculous way possible. 

wellllll im working on my peaky blinders oc story its a lot of drugs money killing weapons jewelry rich profanities like its the show but written from my stubby hands so my oc and whatever its great and so excited to show it to you guys. 

MY QUESTIONS:

1. WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO START TUMBLR?

2. IF YOU COULD CHANGE ANYTHING OF THIS WORLD, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

3. WHAT QUALITY IS IMPORTANT TO YOU?

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE OUTFIT?

5. WHAT MAKES YOU SMILE?

6. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SONG IN THE WHOLE WORLD?

7. IF YOU COULD VISIT A PLACE, WHERE WOULD IT BE?

8. WHAT SHOW OR MOVIE UNIVERSE WOULD YOU WANT TO BE IN?

9. WHAT IS THE SCARIEST MOMENT OF YOUR LIFE?

10. WHAT DO YOU WANT MORE IN THIS WORLD THAN ANYTHING ELSE?

im tagging: @thatlittlered, @ardentmuse, @acciosnapes, @lotsoffandomimagines, @collecting-stories, @blog-of-a-multitude-of-fandoms, @naughtyneganjdm, @lenahellgizibe and two random followers @spiritsent, @sucker-for-my-fandoms

i was tagged by @writing-with-melon again ty btw, ps i felt so much pressure lol jk 😊

Rules: Answer 5 questions, Ask 5 questions, Tag 5 people.

1. What is your favorite book?

fifty shades of grey hahaha naw my favorite book is obv you all know this is series of unfortunate events but i never usually cry period and i never cry for books ever so when i read mrs. tom thumb by melanie benjamin, its the part when her sister minnie dies i cried so hard idk it was just emotional the wording the way she described her pain it was so beautiful written yet so sad and that was just amazing to me cuz im like this book made me feel things and im like wow i would love to write a book one day and make someone feel something whether it be sadness anger happiness annoyance anything they are having an emotion and that is super powerful to do that with just words. pls go check out that book its a good read. also im a fan of the greatest showman so i really enjoyed it. there are many other books tho that i thoroughly enjoy so much. 

2. What piece that you’ve written are you most proud of?

oh my god ive always wanted to be asked this question hands down i am always proud of my platonic gender neutral tony stark fic called in·con·sol·a·ble window to me i wrote it so sad and i was feeling like depressed lol when i saw peter die in infinity war like i didnt know what to do with my life tbh but im so glad that @impetrichorny requested it tysm i just like how its not based on romance or fluff or happiness it is based on when you lose someone the nightmares and sadness you go through and that there is nothing nobody can do about it except just be there for that person so i really like writing angst and something that was out of the box. ive been thinking tho of doing a part two since the fate of all the characters has changed after endgame. who knows tho. 

3. What is the last song that inspired you? 

well for art it would have to good news by mac miller when i did that kobe bryant memorial on my art page. i dont want to give it away though but ill just say some very powerful womens music inspired my oc writing and making. 

4. How do you feel about letting people read what you write?

at first i was scared cuz i thought i wrote like trash which that feeling kinda doesnt go away like some days i feel that way others i feel confident or it depends on the request it just depends but anyways i was always insecure about my writing so when i started writing it was more like lets see how this goes if not ill delete the whole page. im glad to say it went great but in the begging it was hard cuz i kept putting myself down but i learned to accept or just understand that you keep learning with writing you always learn knew things with writing how you can explain something better or you words get more intricate and people see the improvement and you do too thats why i applaud those who dont speak english that english isnt their first language. you are doing a tremendous job and keep practicing cuz you’re gonna make it to the top. ive also learned that some days are not my days and you can take time off when youre not feeling it when you have writers block. just recollect your juices sip some tea go to the beach relax your mind a little and take as long as you need to come back and give it your all. also comments and reblogs and likes a follows those meant so much to me and encouraged me. thats why i cant express it enough how much all those mean to writers, artist, photographers, anybody who is truly trying their hard in this area of social media. its makes a person happy smile and confident in their writing but first train your mind into loving what you make not what others thing. you have to be happy with the outcome that is what truly matters and what makes your writing the best. look at me getting philosophical. 

5. Do you get distracted easily? If yes with what?

yes and with porn haha i get distracted easily like very easily homeschooling was really tough for me. music distracts me, netflix, the urge to watch david dobrik or unus annus or buzzfeed unsolved on youtube, heck my farts distract me. i gotta be like troy bolton i gotta get my HEAD IN THE GAME!

MY QUESTIONS:

1. IF YOU COULD BE NAMED SOMETHING ELSE, WHAT WOULD YOU BE NAMED?

2. WHAT PERSON INSPIRES YOU THE MOST?

3. IF YOU KNEW THE WORLD WAS ENDING TOMORROW WHAT WOULD YOU DO TODAY?

4. WHAT DO YOU OFTEN THINK ABOUT IN THE SHOWER?

5. WHATS YOUR WEIRD COMBINATION FOOD?

im tagging: @thatlittlered​, @ardentmuse​, @acciosnapes​, @lotsoffandomimagines​, @collecting-stories​ AND WHOEVER WANTS TO DO THIS IF YOU FOLLOW ME OR LIKE MY STORIES TAG ME ILL READ YOUR ANSWERS. HOPE I DID THIS RIGHT SORRY FOR TAKING SO LONG YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING MWUAH 

[hegglespeggles]

How to write an essay you could not care less about in 10 steps

Hello. I have an essay to write.

I am also, (unfortunately) the kind of lazy, apathetic burnout who will only do my FUCKING work if I get really worked up. Usually that ends up meaning all of my papers are spite-fuelled tirades but my profs seem to like them so fine. I hope you find this particular raging tirade useful.

Today, I would like to educate the 4 of you that will actually see this on a fine art I have perfected over the years. Writing a paper, about which, you do not give a single, solitary, crumb of a fuck about. This is (you may have guessed) and excellent way for me to procrastinate doing a paper that *I* do not give a single solitary crumb of a fuck about. For best results, I recommend doing this NIGHT-BEFORE-PANIC like, a week in advance so you can fix all the NONSENSE that your more reasonable brain will undoubtedly find. But if it’s the night before and you are shit outta luck, this will get ‘er done. And with practice, you can even pull good grades outta these bitches.

 Dissociating? I gotchu. Woke up the day of the deadline to feel like absolute utter garbage? Search no more friends.  

  FAILING GRADES ARE BETTER THAN ZEROS JUST FUCKIN DOOOOOO ITTTT

1.    Go get the prompt.

I fucking mean it. Even if you are like 1000% sure you know what the prompt is asking, go to the FUCKING assignment, and copy that shit into your word document. Got the assignment on paper? TYPE THAT SHIT UP MOTHERFUCKER.

(Do you see what I fucking have to deal with)

Boom?

BOOM.

Congratulations, you now have a document, and whats more, there are WORDS in it!! You aren’t starting from scratch anymore kiddo. Fringe benefit, you always know EXACTLY what the assignment wants because its fucking Staring You Down. Not saying you have to do exactly as it says, mama didn’t raise no BITCH and I aint scared of fuckin CALLING PROFS OUT but if you wanna break the rules you gotta know what they are first

(Disclaimer: I have also been kicked out of class on numerous occasions for fighting with the prof and had full classes where the lecture WAS me arguing so maybe take my opinions of conformity with a grain of salt.)

2.    Math THE FIRST

I know, this is an essay and not a fucking calculus test. But some of this shit is USEFUL OKAY

Take the paper in question. How long does it have to be? Mine is 5 pages. A page is generally accepted to be 250 words (double spaced because we FUCKING LOVE OURSELVES) so 5 x 250 = 1250 wds. That’s the goal. That’s the pinnacle. That’s your new holy grail.

Time to split this bitch up

  3.    Yarrrrrr, CONTENT

And finally, we get to the part that is the reason why you are being an absolute bitch baby about this essay (maybe. I might be projecting. Your life is your life and im sure youre doing your best.) I Hate this part, but now with our magic number we don’t need to pull 5 pages out of the ether.

This part really requires you to know your vibe. Is this something that you have a lot of little opinions (read: evidence) about or like, only 2 or 3 big bois? Look deep into your soul and figure out which is the easiest for you to shit out, a rant or a list. a  great way to do this is to WRITE ANYTHING YOU GOT OUT

Here you can see I’ve put all of the thoughts I have about the question into a list, slapped some standard “opening” and “closing” shit around it so I can FUCKING FIND IT AGAIN and given it a good hard look. Whats the common thread in all of my opinions? That the prompt is fucking stupid and makes no sense is asking 2 different questions. Congratulations: you found your thesis. This essay, like many of my essays, bears the thesis “this is a weird question to be asking” (which falls under my broader category of “bitches aint shit” essays.)

Congratulations you have the bare bones of your skeleton.

  4.    MATH THE SECOND

 The magic number returns. All hail our glorious leader. 1250 right?

So heres how I break this down. Break off a small chunk at the beginning. For this essay im gonna split off the 250. Split that baby in half. Congratulations, now you have a word count on your opening and closing. Personally, I know I like a lil extra space at the end to get all ranty, so Imma split this puppy up 100 for my opening and 150 for the closing. WARNING: You will think that you will be able to write enough in your opening and closing to take up lots of space. You will feel the urge to give them both the same amount of words that you give your points. This is misguided and foolish. Not only will you 1) not be able to do it but 2) even if you did, that’s like getting a sandwich which is all bread. No one wants that. Don’t be that dude. Fight the urge.

 RIGHT SO. We’re still left on the other 1000 words.

If you have an idea that like, is bigger than the others, go ahead and give that puppy more of the word count than the others, fractions are your friend here and you wanna think about how much of your final product each of these babies will be. If you, like me, are an utter buffoon with no clue what youre doing, open your calculator up. Divide the remaining word count by the number of points you have. Congratulations. Youre doing the essaying.

If this is enough to get you started, GREAT! See you at step seven. BEFORE YOU GO I would like to give you this tip

5.    CITE YOUR INFORMATION AS YOU ADD IT IN.

It doesn’t need to be a full citation, just literally a footnote with something that will help you remember where its from and for the love of god WHAT PAGE IT IS ON. The you of 3 hours from now will thank you.

  6.    Filling in the skeleton

 I don’t know about you, but I cant exactly riff off of a single sentence. Like, I know what the VIBE of my point is, but like, I cant pull it out of a hat. The name of the game here is whittling down your arguments into thinner and thinner chunks that are easier and easier to bullshit. This is how you avoid that “burning building found in flames during Brooklyn fire” bullshit that memes. You don’t wanna meme. You wanna pass. So, figure out what the things you are gonna say and in each bit, keep track of how many words you are gonna write. EITHER

a)      You put how many words you think you can write on any point beside the point as you go and just keep developing points and shuffling word counts around until it matches the total for that section

or

b)     You evenly breakup the word count between all the points and keep breaking them down until you look at a subject and a word count and go “yeah that’s doable. I can do that.”

I prefer the second so LEGGO.

Ta-Da!

7.    Write ‘er up

Ahhh glad to see we’re all back together again. Try-hards who can ACTUALLY bullshit papers, glad to see you’ve rejoined us! This is the part where you take all that shit you’ve broken up into nice little chunks and you turn it into something worth reading. You can do it. I believe in you. Try and keep your citations in place.

I like to do this as a question answer thingy, like an exam, so halfway through writing mine is gonna look like this

 The handy part about the numbers is that it gives you a frame of reference for how your bullshit is going. Realized you had a lot more to say here than you thought? Dope! Less bullshit somewhere else, take it out of a weaker point. This point didn’t give as much as you thought it would? Split the difference elsewhere! This way you have checkpoints and you can see how your essay is going

And then you can go ahead and delete your skeleton work. Its time. Its served you well. For extra drama, whisper menacing nothings to it as you send it into the darkness. Personal favourites include “no one will mourn you,” “your fate belongs to me,” and “so this is what you have come to”

  8.    Citations

Theres like a million ways out there to find out how to do your citations and its gonna depend on what kind of a paper you are writing. I use Chicago most of the time, including here. My advice? Use a site like, bib.me or something to do your bibliography, and then plaster that in the bottom of your document. Use that as the building blocks to do your footnotes. Let Purdue Owl be your guide. Purdue Owl Style Guide Is A Mighty Friend Indeed.

 Also your welcome for that, “putting the page numbers in as you put the info in” shit. That took me alarmingly long to figure out. It’s a wonder theyre giving me a degree.

  9.    Proofread that shit, ya bougie bitch.

If you wanna be time effective, getting a friend to proofread while you do your citations is a great way to go. If you have a few days, put your paper away and come back to it. If you are out of friends and time then https://www.paperrater.com/ is your last hope.

  10.       Slap a title page on that shit and GET IT SUBMITTED

 No joke, I have been using the same template for a coverpage all through highschool and my undergrad. There is only one title page and every time I write an essay I take the title page from the last paper I wrote. There is no beginning. Only title page. Title? Topic of paper: point of paper. For example, If I had to title this screed I’d call it Essay Writing: An exploration of mediocrity. slap the date and your name and the course and instructor on there and BAM. YA DONE.

 Anyway submit that shit an go to bed youre done goodnight

EPILOGUE

I’ve gotten this essay back, and when I wrote it, I was barely a human being. Barely capable of human speech let alone a coherent argument. I would forget the end of the sentence by the time I typed out the beginning. But I still for a 70%! is it the best mark I’ve ever gotten? no! but it is a hell of a lot better than the 0% I would have gotten if i hadnt done this. I get it. And i hope this helps. 

[slothgiirl]

forever isn’t for everyone part 9

Even Alex looks more hungover than usual as we all pile into the bus after the concert, taking our very late night dinners on the go. We’ve got a extra day but there’s press to do there so we leave around three in the morning, on the road again.

Ben and I go over some last minute detail, Lucy having passed on food for sleep an hour ago. My eyesight blurs as I try to keep awake for a few more minutes and Ben rubs at his face. “Being thirty five sucks,” he groans, “can’t drink for bloody shite.”

“You could always cut back,” I tell him.

“And look like an old man? I don’t know how much longer I can do this job. It’s great but rough."

I roll my eyes, going to my bunk and ready for the sweet release of sleep, "get over yourself then. They’re not asking you to party hard with them every night."

I had only gotten up because I’m starving.

Lucy still looks like shit. And so does Ben. But the rest of the crew are already hooked up, watching the telly or some video on their phones. God bless wifi. There’s nothing but desert as far as the eye can tell and I’m struck again by how vast the states are compared to back home.

"Saved you some brekkie Ellie,” Tom says, passing a bag of Mcdonald’s gone cold. I don’t bother to microwave it. Washing it down with soda and not feeling the least bit guilty about it. I’d had a late night.

I change into jean shorts in an attempt to feel more like a living breathing person.

And Lucy shakes her head, face void of any makeup for once, “I’m leaning into feeling like a zombie.”

“Europe’s better,” Ben offers, “travels only a few hours instead of a whole day.”

“I think we’re all just feeling it today,” another techie observes, “but it’ll pass.”

“Burnout,” I utter, knowing it well from uni, “we’re burnt the fuck out.”

“I think this calls for margaritas,” Lucy grins, clearly ascribing to the idea of keeping it going.

I roll my eyes, propping open my laptop and going over the schedule for the thousandth time. There were always last minute additions. Emails I had to go through for time changes and the list of questions that would be asked. Then I had to go cross reference it with the list the boys had drawn up.

Someone draws down the shades, making the noon time sun almost bareable as we leave the city behind. Soon we'll be surrounded by nothing but greenery. Like something straight out of a painting; the colors more lush and vivid under the strong sun then in England.

I scroll through pages of emails. Some are just meaningless platitudes sent by companies, filling time. Others were actual confirmations. I jot down any changes in the calendar, trying to find time to explore Los Angeles. Then it's off to the next country before the festivals kick off.

I didn't even see the statue of liberty.

"Why are they stopping," Lucy asks outload, already pullin out her phone and calling Ben. It was straight a straight drive down to California. No room for stopping if we wanted to get any rest once we arrived.

"Dunno," the driver shrugs, flicking the arrow so that we can pull over as well. "Didn't say anything to me."

Lucy starts on Ben as soon as he picks up. I close my labtop, already factoring in this little stop. It'll put us and hour or two behind schedule depending on why they're stopping. We should still get there by tomorrow morning. And there was a three hour cushion before the first interview.

The boys would have to head straight there.

It was up to Miles and Nick, Lucy wanting to help develope each of the member as individual people and not justin have Miles be the face of all. A hard task when only Miles would answer questions half the time. And they were always taking the piss out of interviewers.

"Somethings wring with the bus," Lucy sighs, "can you call the company?"

"I really fucking hope it's just a quick fix," I grumble, we were only two hours out of salt lake. Enough to make it suck it we have to turn back to get the bus fixed.

"We have an extra day," Lucy notes, as she plops down next to me. "And phone interviews can work. Might even get a few words out of Nick."

"I think it'll only make it worse." I find the number and call.

The sun is setting by the time we make it back to Salt Lake City. A whole afternoon wasted. Some cable or sensor had fried on us.

"I just don't understand," I repeat for the hundredth bloody time, "why you can't just give us another tour bus! It doesn't have to be perfect but we're hours behind schedule."

The pencil pusher, hair long gone grey at the temples, doesn't even look up before replying, "for insurance purposes only this bus is covered. If you'd like to amend the policy you'll have to fill out form H-17 and attach the previous policy statement." Which sounded a lot like horse shit to get more money out of us. The whole point of insurance was to not worry about things like this.

I roll my eyes, backing off the counter. "Thank you," I smile, feeling my eye twitch.

"Any luck," Jaime asks, Ben trailing like a dog behind me.

"None." I run a hand through my hair. The crew, like ants, had finished moving the most vital equipment onto the working bus. Jamie and Nick had run to get everyone food. "I think our best bet is to just let them fix it. They'll have it done my the day after tomorrow and have them met us in LA before we head down to San Diego."

Ben nods. "Fuck it then. We've lost enough time as it is."

"Who goes and who stays," Lucy says, eyes flickering between all the people assembled. We were hardly a large group. Seventeen in total, including the band.

"Us , the band, and the stage tech," Ben answers, leaving no room for arguement. "Sound checks going to be a bitch for you," he tells Nick and Jamie.

"Not if they get to LA early," Jamie retorts.

Ben and I go back in to sign the paperwork.

By the time we're done and back out, Miles and Alex have finally deigned to grace us with their presence. Miles in black skinny jeans and an adidas jumper, glitter still clinging to his hair after the last concert. Alex right next to him, cigarette in hand, as he laughs at something Miles just said, in an old strokes shirt and jeans even as the cold of the desert settles in for the night.

I swallow, my heart lurching at the sight of him.  

There goes any pretense that I might be getting over him. I bite the inside of my cheek, following Ben onto the bus as Lucy tells Miles what's going on. Unlike all of us, Miles and Alex had remained holed up on the broken bus, content to smoke week and sleep until we figured things out.

Miles had only come out for some fries and more cigarettes.

Thankfully, I didn't have to move anything. Just have to share a bus with my ex. No biggie.

Lucy glances at me, eyes wide, while smiling thinly.

We pile into the bus, waving the rest of the crew goodbye, but happy to not be the ones that had to sit around and wait.

Taking a seat once more on the couch, I open up my lab-top and start sending emails to try and squeeze in all the interviews in an afternoon instead of over two-ish days. Anything to keep me from having to deal with the Alex situation. Alex who, I couldn't but notice, as I glanced over the rim of my computer, had dark shadows under his eyes despite having slept the majority of the day away.

Miles, like a shark smelling blood in the water, takes a seat next to me, smiling shamelessly. "Not surprised you couldn't bully them into giving us a new bus Ellie."

I raise a brow, "oh what? Was I supposed to fight the man?"

"Might've done the trick," Miles nods, "but they probably looked at you and decided they could get their way."

"Oh fuck you," I scowl, heart not really in it. Writing professional sounding emails was mind numbing work. "Not like crying would've softened up their cold dead hearts."

Miles smiles bitterly, "very true there."

"So we're not stoping until California," Jamie asks.

"No my lad," Miles calls back, "you mum'll have to do without the nice mug from Vegas."

"Amateur," Ben shakes his head.

"Should've just gotten it when we were there," Lucy joins in.

Nick grins. "Cut him some slack lads," he says as he claps Jamie on the back, "Cookie was too busy downing shots to worry about dear old mummy."

I laugh along with them, allowing myself to forget all the complicated feelings I have at the moment. Miles' easy way of worming his way into things, making people feel included as much as he was able to turn around and sink into his own private circle of him and Alex. It was no wonder Miles had brought Alex along.

If not for the fact that I'd spent countless nights watching Miles snog one girl only to go home with another, I'd have wondered. Alex, my gaze flickers to his sleepy eyes, most likely form the weed. Alex I wasn't so sure.

Though I'd spent hours with him, I now felt as though I hadn't known him at all. He'd been so warm and open in the beginning. Though, as I try to recall anything at all about him, I realize anything he'd shared had been surface level. I didn't know anything about his parents, or childhood, or even what his favorite food was. Only that his appetite for music was rivaled by his ability to devour books in a single sitting. That his wardrobe extended into random cupboards.

His dark romantic eyes catch mine. Catch me staring at him like a pathetic lovestruck girl.

I lose myself in all the work that has now piled up.

[gaiatheorist]

Atypical/Elliptical.

There was a tweet highlighted yesterday by one of the Neuro-Divergent accounts I follow, building pace on the back of a compare/contrast photo of an autistic female, and an autistic male. If you haven’t seen it, you can guess how it went, she’s all cute and ‘sailor suit’, he’s in a cluttered room, overweight, in food-stained clothing. Lazy stereotyping at best, offensive and dangerous in reality. The dangerous tweet I reported was one from a contentious incel, stating that females don’t have autism, further down the page of “Would you like to report any other tweets?”, we have that other old favourite “Autism isn’t real.” Yes, I’m shaking my head.

I’m not going to go into in-depth analysis of incel beliefs and values, I’ll just hover over the suggestion that this particular variant was whipping up his followers that ‘Women don’t have autism’, based on his interpretation that the female whose picture he was using was conventionally attractive, and neatly presented. If you tell someone the sun’s 93 million miles away, they accept it, but if they see a sign saying ‘wet paint’, they feel compelled to put their finger in it to check, then complain that they have paint on them. (I know, I don’t touch wet paint, I lick it, it keeps life interesting.) ‘Everybody knows’ that a common feature with autism is the special interest, that we will fixate obsessively on a certain topic, or subject, and woe betide any mere mortal who can’t escape before we get into full flow, what with us not always picking up on non-verbal cues, like snoring. It’s entirely possible that the ‘girl’ had a special interest of dressing and presenting herself in a certain way, even ‘normal’ people do that, hanging their entire identity on presenting a certain way, designer clothes, certain styles of dress, Angry Bird eyebrows. Step back, and absorb that, the girl wasn’t ‘properly’ autistic because she didn’t have food in her hair, wasn’t wearing a Star Trek uniform, looked ‘normal’. Specifically, she looked the kind of ‘normal’ that incels have experience of being rejected by, because they expect to have nice-things handed to them on a plate, and then blame everyone else when they’re denied. There’s a certain example of a petulant, pouty individual, who sulks when they don’t get their own way floating to mind.  

Using the newfangled terms neuro-divergent, and neuro-typical, and pausing just for a second to point out that no, we’re not ‘all a bit autistic’ any more than we’re a ‘bit vegetarian’ or a ‘bit left-handed’, neuro-typical people are assumed to be the norm, anything else is deviant. I’ll hold my hands up to that, I don’t iron my laundry, or peel my vegetables, you can stop clutching your pearls, I’m not going to steal them, what would I want pearls for? People with neurodevelopmental disorders are atypical, outsiders, outliers, ‘other’, and it’s more than a little annoying that ‘everyone knows’ that, specifically autistic people, have a tendency to see themselves as different from others. (You started it, telling us we were wrong and weird for our plethora of sensory aversions, and routines, just because they don’t make sense to you.) We’re atypical, whether that’s because we’re genuinely distressed if our ‘usual’ brand of socks, or cereal, or soap is discontinued, or because we won’t cross the road if the light isn’t green, even if there’s nothing coming. Other examples are available. 

I’ve spent vast chunks of my life being bounced between “Why are you doing it like that?” and “HOW do you do that?”, I don’t have any savant-skills, but I’m on an elliptical axis, I do some things differently. (The axis isn’t just elliptical, it’s occasionally highly irregular, I have multiple other medical issues, autistics are often blessed like that, to the untrained eye, it might appear I’m neurotic, or hypochondriac, or do my shopping on NHS direct. I’m an unfortunate combination of chromosomes and chronology.) You neuro-typical types bimble along happily enough on your spherical orbits. Yes, you have spikes, too, I know, but it seems that they’re the exception rather than the rule, your orbits appear far more regular than mine. I’m deviating from all-autistics, to ‘me’, there are common factors, but we’re not a one-size-fits-all contingent, I don’t get upset if different types of food touch on my plate, but I can’t use oven-gloves, and I’ll go all day without a drink of water rather than share a drinking vessel, we’re all different. 

I’m sometimes envious of the spherical orbit, the regularity of being able to remember to prepare and eat three meals a day, not being afraid of bridges, being able to choose a direction and travel in it without sensory overload, it might as well be necromancy or Olympic level athleticism, it just isn’t ‘there’ for me. When my orbit is within ‘yours’, I’m highly efficient, that’s the “HOW do you do that?” phase. I just do. There isn’t really much of an alternative, but it’s not very healthy, I have all of your weird scripts and rules tumbling around my head, like that stage where you’re learning a new language, everything has to be double-processed, and checked, it’s clunky, not fluent. I’m 43, and I still don’t dream in your language, I can concentrate for periods, but remembering all of the verb endings tends to kick the tenses out of the window, we’re no longer congruent, and I don’t make sense to you. 

When I’m within your orbit, I take short-cuts, as verbose as I am here, I omit the unnecessary, because I don’t have the cognitive or physical energy for all of it. I’m a flat-pack item of furniture, I don’t need ‘all’ those screws and fixings to be functional, do I? I unintentionally infuriate and antagonise, because I don’t want to stop for a cup of tea, or chat about TV programmes, I want to complete the task set, before I run out of energy. (I know, but the externally imposed sanctions for non-completion generally have a ripple-out impact on others. My intense bursts of activity alienate other people, because they want to slow down, and chat, but that’s not the task in hand, and I know that my brain and body are temperamental, I *need* to finish within time, and properly, in case I’m less-functional the next day, I always stacked/banked work to make sure I was ahead of myself, to avoid letting other people down if I was ill.) 

When our orbits converge, it’s phenomenal, on a ‘work’ level, a life-admin level, or, that holiest of Grail, an interpersonal level, those brief instances are stellar, apart from me freaking people out by my intensity sometimes, I’m an acquired taste. I’m really good at some things, a large proportion of which have yet to demonstrate a particularly useful potential, but there’s time yet. I’m steering very firmly away from the lazy stereotypes of ‘special talents’, I’m resilient and resourceful because I have to be, I often view things from an alternative perspective, and connect-the-dots that others don’t. I still can’t use oven-gloves. 

When my orbit swings outside yours, it’s difficult, sometimes impossible for aims to be reconciled, That’s the kick in the teeth on a regular basis, last week, or last month, or yesterday, or earlier today, I might have been functional, or even brilliant, then, all at once, I’m not. “You were fine yesterday!”, yes, I know, I was there. 

Chromosomal and chronological factors sometimes spin me out of orbit. I might have been able to walk to Tesco one day last week (Coincidentally, I wasn’t, but that’s not the point.), that doesn’t mean I can do it every day, it’s a cross-over complexity with my telephone directory of other ailments, as well as the autism. When I’m out of orbit, whether it’s sensory overload, burnout, or just my day-to-day ‘wrongness’, I process differently. A ‘normal’ action, like parking a car (I don’t know why I use driving analogies, I’ve never taken my test.) becomes a pantomime of a driving test, where the instructor speaks a foreign language, it’s an unfamiliar car, on unfamiliar roads, and the car’s on fire, and full of wasps, with an angry pig in the back seat. I don’t have muscle memory, or subconscious competence for a lot of functions people take for granted, not just oven gloves, sometimes events conspire to throw me out of spherical orbit, and everything becomes far more complicated than it needs to be. The elliptical orbit makes ‘just’ my ultimate four-letter word, and I know plenty of others. Some instances of being out-of-orbit are predictable, sensory overloads, other illnesses, compounded difficulties around other life-events, my toe having poked through my sock, and being strangled in my boot, it can feel like being an adult-sized toddler, and the temptation to throw down and scream on the supermarket floor because I’m tired is an unwelcome, but regular occurrence. 

“Oh, we all get like that sometimes! Can’t you just...?” If I could have ‘just’, I would already have ‘just’, wouldn’t I? 43 years of having been chastised for being difficult, or ruining everyone else’s picnic feed very firmly into the ‘masking’ phenomenon. Charlatans and snake-oil sellers, and Gwyneth Paltrow, as well as even more insidious practitioners are always trying to promote some thing or another that will make us fitter, healthier, more productive, then, to continue the Radiohead theme, many medical types throw back “You do it to yourself.”. 

Autism is a lifelong developmental disorder. I can’t consistently ‘try to be less like that’ any more than I can try to be less right-handed, or biologically female. (Yes, I *could* attempt to alter both of those, but to what end?) I’ve had a lot of medical interventions since the brain aneurysm ruptured, and 99% of them have tried to un-autistic me. That’s normal, because autism is abnormal. It’s also normal because autistic females broadly present differently to males. Broadly, I have observational experience from working in education, the ‘old’ perspective was that boys were more frequently autistic than girls, and, more-autistic. Slight tangent on the common misconception of the autistic spectrum, if I may? “We’re all a bit autistic, haha!”, no, no, we’re not, any more than we’re all a bit epileptic. The autistic spectrum isn’t a continuum-spectrum, from 0-100% autistic, while it is clear that some people are severely autistic, and others are not, it isn’t actually a point-scoring exercise, unless you’re UK benefits agencies.

Males and females are conditioned and socialised differently, after millennia of girls-do-this-boys-do-that, humanity is cautiously asking why. I’ll leave my wonky femininist soapbox under the desk, apart from the fact that females are ‘supposed to’ be quiet, and kind, and compliant, and all the gubbins that the incels say. I’m 43, I was raised pink-for-girls-blue-for-boys, there were a lot of things Girls Didn’t Do, it’s OK, I’ve done most of them now, don’t tell my Dad. Much like left-handed children in days gone by were forced to write with their right hand, there has been, and still is, to some extent, pressure on males and females to behave differently, as if keeping our reproductive paraphernalia in a more-or-difficult-to-kick location is an absolute-for-everything. I don’t think it is, but we’ve already established I’m atypical. Not all 40-something-year-old people, with, or without autism had the same childhood experiences I did. There’s no place for detail here, some of the embedded lessons weren’t kindly taught. That Pavlovian response system stuck, be quiet, be pleasant, be demure and train that flinch into a smile. (Various parties ought to apply for funding for having ‘tamed’ this particular shrew. I’m not tamed, I’m barely even domesticated, but I have a shed-load of coping mechanisms.) 

Females shouldn’t feel the need to be less-than, to defer to males, but, in a disturbing number of arenas, that’s the norm. I spent the largest part of my life being afraid of men, because of what some men had done, and hating myself for holding a belief that was anathema to the absolute core of my being. (Chapter whatever, fundamentally knowing that males were not ‘better’ than females, but feeling obliged to concede, to avoid disturbing the peace.) The #MeToo disclosures and discourse picked that metaphorical scab, I’ll never go back to that half-life.

I’m atypical because, after decades of excruciating path-of-least-resistance masking, I’ve managed to mask proficiently to a point where I can ‘act normal’ for short stretches. I shouldn’t have to. I’m not suggesting I should be allowed to climb on top of the curtain poles, and throw things, but I don’t see why not-acting-feminine should be seen as disturbing or threatening. It hurts, not just the bras, and the stupid shoes, and the sitting-all-cramped-up, but the emotional and physical toll of carrying oneself ‘female’. When I had the full spectrum cognitive functioning assessment after the brain injuries had settled, the neuro-psych pointed out that a consideration was always ‘At what cost?’. The popular analogy for physical or cognitive energy is a ‘battery’ (A cell, doofus, a ‘battery’ is a number of cells together- behold, I’m reaching my cranky-pedantic cut-off stage.) In order to do anything at all, you need enough ‘charge’ to complete the task. Yes, given, BUT, with autistic masking, there isn’t just the ‘charge’ for the task, there’s the additional charge involved in keeping everything else running, without breaking down, or burning out, the energy overdraft. I’m virtually constantly in my ‘overdraft’, and it’s a bitch to pay back. 

I’m elliptical because I frequently swing inside, or outside a typical orbit, I can be ‘miles ahead’ at some points, but ‘miles behind’, and struggling to keep up at others, it’s not a reliable pattern, I can’t predict all of it, and I am SICK of well-meaning “Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself!”. I’m rarely being ‘hard’, I’m usually being practical, if I do x and y on one day, I won’t be able to do z as well. (”Don’t call yourself disabled!” can be a blog for another day.) 

This has been an attempt for me to shake myself out of a fog of not-writing. Autism is opaque and oblique, it can be brilliant at times, when things ‘click’, but it’s almost-always difficult to articulate in a way that’s palatable, let alone digestible, I know, it sticks in my own throat enough. The ‘experts’ trot out their theories, sometimes without consultation, and the organisations that set out to ‘cure’ us are pedaling the myth that autism is a disease. It’s not, it’s a divergence. Take this as ‘A Portrait of This Autist’, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I do think it’s important to speak.                

[rainbowchibbit]

i feel like the space between your last two pages was quicker is it just me?

Lol no it was way quicker. The previous page was supposed to go up last weekend but I couldn’t finish in time so it posted several days later, and this one is for this weekend. I haven’t announced officially yet but now I am? LOL but I’m going to try and post once a week again but just one page at a time instead of trying to churn out 2+ and hopefully slowly get myself back on track to my old schedule before mental illness and burnout kicked my ass lmao