#I have all these resolutions about doing more hobby stuff in the evenings and stretching more but like

[songofwizardry]

think it shouldn’t have been legal that my first day of teaching of the year coincided with grey and rain and storms. however! have some very lovely new students, some very enthusiastic returning ones, there’s new cookies in the cafe, and I get to play with pendulums tomorrow, so there are some (many!) positives

[davidmariottecomics]

It's Weird Being Between Two Jobs

Hi there and happy new year! 

Title kinda says it all in this week's blog, but the strangeness of this time in my life is really settling in. 

Just because of how things worked out with leaving IDW and starting the new job, I ended up with a little under a month of free time. And the first week and some change of that was the end of the year holiday season. But the past week has been me sort of watching from the outside as people started going back to work. I did finish up some additional new hire paperwork, but that took maybe an hour total and I'm still over a week from starting the new gig. It's an odd space to be in. I'm not working for anyone--I'm not getting a paycheck (and am currently sort of living this month off of my last IDW paycheck plus paid out time-off)--but I'm also not so far removed from a gig as to be strictly freelance. 

And to be totally honest, I don't know that I really like it. I am not great at having free time. I like the idea of free time. I like the idea of having time to write for myself or relax with my hobbies. But I am not great at the latter and the former betrays the fact that even with my free time, I'm often trying to switch into work mode. Heck, at the end of the day, my starting this blog and crossposting it as a newsletter/Tumblr/Patreon is all influenced by my not being good at not at least trying to be productive with my free time. 

If you're also someone who has been working from home and especially if you've been working from home freelance, I'm sure you know all the complications of the domestic and recreational life against your job and probably are familiar with how helpful routine and scheduling is with all that. Right now, I'm freeform. I don't want to just use my old habits--the advantage of time off is specifically that I can break a 9-5 M-F format--but I feel like I don't have enough time to start building new routines. So, it's been a challenging couple of weeks. I have not done nearly as much as I think I'd like to have at this point, but I also keep needing to remind myself that I have done a number of things that were on my to-do list and that it's okay to have time off for myself. 

As such, instead of a really specific blog on something of late, let me share a couple quick bits that've been on my mind. 

The Anti-EGOT I recently finished a big relisten of season 2 of Dungeons & Daddies and in the intro to the show of one episode, Anthony Burch introduced the idea of an Anti-EGOT. I think he retroactively changed it in a later episode, but the general idea was to be a writer in four of the least respected mediums and not win an award for any of it. I believe, in the initial mention, the idea was the four mediums of choice would be video games, comic books, podcasts, and pornography (with wrestling being retroactively either added or replacing one of these, but I don't think I'm much of one to write for wrestling). Honestly, that kinda sounds like a dream to me. As I was listening to this stuff in the run-up to the new year, there was a part of me thinking "is going for the Anti-EGOT my resolution"? And I ultimately decided, no. I don't think that's a good resolution, but it is sort of my stretch goal for the year. If I can write in all those fields, get paid for it, and not win any awards (or, y'know... do) in my lifetime, I'll be pretty stoked. 

What my actual goal for the year would be is I want to try to release 6 comics. Different lengths and varieties. I'm not currently anticipating having that be like a single mini-series or whatever, but I want to try to do more in comics with what I am producing. And if I can maybe branch out into one of those other areas this year, even if it doesn't have a release for another year or more, I'd be cool with that too. 

Steamboat Willie Last year, you may've read my four part explainer about copyright! One thing that is repeatedly touched on there is the public domain and what all that means. Obviously, this year, Steamboat Willie and two other Mickey Mouse shorts entered the public domain. And it's been really interesting to watch that play out a little. It seemed like--and I know it's only been a week--most everyone got it out of their systems within the first 2-3 days of the year. A lot of that probably goes to Steamboat Willie and those early shorts not actually being all that interesting (fun, but very story-light). A lot of it goes to so much of what people would want to do with "Steamboat Willie" is either already legal because it falls under parody, is not actually meant to be sellable in any way, or was knocked out in a day. A lot of it too probably goes to how unclear what counts as public domain remains. For a character like Mickey, people have been pointing out are you using elements that were added after 1928 or treading on issues of trademark that are not copyright and are not as available. I am very curious to watch how this continues to play out this year (if it does), how things develop next year, and in the next couple of years, watch how things fall in preparation for about a decade from now when more of the early Disney catalog will be public domain (including Snow White) and other major companies start having some of their big hits become PD (like, say, Superman). 

I'm also kinda bummed to have not seen any immediate announcements/releases of new comic versions of Lady Chatterly's Lover like there were of The Great Gatsby or anything. That's the other really interesting/wild thing about this year--to me, it seems like the majority of the fuss was around the Mouse and the things that've remained popular in part due to the mouse, Peter Pan and Tigger. I have not seen nearly enough talk about One Million Cats or any of the film or music. 

Post-Twitter

The other day, Diana Sousa was asking on Bluesky (and Twitter, I guess), if Twitter is still the major non-convention way that comics editors discover new talent. And I responded as someone who is NO LONGER ON TWITTER but who is still needing to have discoverability of comics artists. I said, part of it is I am on other socials. I see new folks on Bluesky or Instagram or whatever. I also keep an eye on various databases--you don't have to be on Twitter to have access to #VisibleWomen or the Cartoonist Cooperative database or Cartoonists of Color or the Queer Cartoonist Database or the Disabled Cartoonist Database or any of these many sorts of resources. Something I didn't mention there, but will mention here is when you've got a company email address, you've often got agents of various sorts emailing you about talent, internal talent databases and/or recruiter-type folks, sharing info with other editors (and, y'know, I've in the past shared talent who I didn't have a gig for with editor friends at other companies because I thought they'd be a good fit). 

As I've mentioned before, the lack of access to talent was why I did wait so long to delete my Twitter (and also wanting to make sure I had ways of keeping up with world events and following non-comics people). But, genuinely, I am not stressing over continuing to find new people now that I've been without it for a little bit and know I've got a system.  Check Yourself for Midjourney Training Hey, speaking of my explainer on copyright and the lengths of time therein I talk about how "AI" is a tool of theft and companies trying to avoid paying artists for the use of their copyrighted works, the lawsuit against Midjourney's resulted in a list of names of "artists" they've scraped. Now, I only put "artists" in quotes because the list was made by incompetent tech bros and/or their clueless lawyers, and so there are a number of writers listed who do not particularly do art but where you can extrapolate that the artists they work with were scraped as well as companies, systems, game platforms, etc. While I understand that of course lawsuits are expensive, I do know a number of artists have been reaching out to the lawfirm of the existing suit and seeking to join the case as plaintiffs. If you're a visual artist, probably worth the time to double-check and, if you can, do something about it. 

Okay, I think that's it for this week! See ya next time! 

What I enjoyed this week: Dungeons & Daddies (Podcast), Reverse 1999 (Video Game), Nancy (Comic), Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Links (Video Game), Baldur's Gate III (Video Game), Blank Check (Podcast), Spy x Family (Manga), How to Read Nancy (Book), Hitman 2 (Video Game), Pokemon Conceirge (Cartoon), Ted Lasso (TV show, finally started season 3), Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (Movie--can you tell I'm in a D&D mood?), The Floor (TV show), my new discord (friends can ask for access!), sending out some feeler emails for new projects and getting to do at least a little bit of writing for myself.  

New Releases this week (1/3/2024): Sonic the Hedgehog #68 (Editor)

Announcements: The Cartoonist Cooperative is still doing E-Sim cards for Gaza and at least 500 people have shown their proof of donation. You can donate a digital sim card so that residents can get access to the internet and have more functional phones and, in exchange, get some comics or a drawing or whatever else is available from the many participating artists. 

You can also give more directly. Things are obviously still very bad in Gaza as we've hit 3 full months of them being under siege. Over 20,000 Palestinians have been killed, including plenty of women and children. Israel has killed more journalists than any single conflict in my lifetime. They are attacking not just Gaza and the West Bank, but other neighboring countries. I hope the Internatioal Court of Justice can help bring this to an end, but in the meantime, the US has significant influence over the situation (between internatioal political power and the weapons and money we're sending as both a nation and that are being sent my many corporations in the US). You can call or fax or email or show up at the offices of your representatives to demand a ceasefire or to protest their inaction so far or to throw eggs at the president for participating in and encouraging a genocide. You should keep aware of actions, demonstrations, protests, and celebrations in your community too. Given the nature of the things, they often come together fairly quickly, so do exercise your due diligence. Also, of course, being informed and just giving your time to Palestinian journalists and writers is incredibly valuable. I don't tend to be a big TikTok fan, but it has proven to be one of the most reliable resources for firsthand accounts of what's happening on the ground. 

Meanwhile, Becca's got their first show of the year next weekend, 1/13 at Alesmith for a mini-con with BizBaz! Come pick up some new for 2024 stuff! Also, they've still got a little room in their schedule for this year, so get them for your comic project before it's too late! 

Finally, calling out my Patreon again as well as my webstore (final stock on basically everything there except Jimmy Squarefoot), my Kofi, and my eBay account as I am between paychecks for a while and those are other ways you can support me! 

Pic of the Week: We went to one of our favorite local restaurants, Rakitori in Hillcrest. They had a spicy cheesy tonkatsu ramen and I'm not a food picture guy usually, but I did quite like this photo and I'm actually very fortunate we ate there at the tail end of 2023, otherwise I'd have already eaten the best meal of 2024. 

[morporkian-cryptid]

🖋🎴Hanafuda pt.3 progress:

If you have no idea what these daily posts have been about:

Hanafuda is a JiGoe-centric Lupin III fanfiction I've been writing and publishing for the past few years. It's a tattooist/florist AU with a twist: Jigen and Goemon have both retired from crime before they met, and only know each-other under their "civilian" identities. They have to hide their dark pasts from each other, grapple with the challenges of their new lives, with the ghosts of their old lives, and with their burgeoning feelings for each other... and deal with consequences when their pasts catch up with them.

Part 1 and Part 2 of this fanfic are already published, and I'm working on the third and last part.

-----

I'm going to call it quits for this "daily" thing and take a little break from my daily writing schedule to focus on other projects.

As with the last times I've done this, I notice that a daily writing schedule - with no word count to hit, just the resolution to work on the fic every day, even a tiny bit - does wonders for my productivity, but it's not sustainable in the long run, as it takes precious time away from other projects and hobbies - especially drawing.

I'm going to try and continue to write somewhat regularly, and post abstracts on Tumblr whenever I do. I'm in the home-stretch of the third and last part of Hanafuda, I have all the upcoming scenes planned and I just have to write them.

I'm really, really happy with this fic, with the experience it's been so far, with the stuff I have yet to write, and with the interactions I've gotten on it. It's been great to see the comments, postive feedbacks and shares on a story that deviates from the fandom's usual productions, and that's honestly one giant self-indulgent project. I didn't expect the attention this story got, and it makes me immensely happy <3

I've been working on Hanafuda for over two years, almost three if I count the planning phase; that is a lot of time to spend on a story (for me at least), and while I'm a little sad to see it coming to an end soon, I'm also happy to conclude it. I'm not tired of writing it, but I'm about ready to let it go. Which is perfect timing imo ^^

Thank you for your support, and see you soon for more updates! <3

[northsouth12]

How to actually do goals according to science

Every year I kind of sort of commit to some ~New Year’s Resolutions~ and every year I kind of sort of make progress on them. This year I was diagnosed with depression and that led to me doing a bunch of research on how brains work and working with a therapist (bless them) to learn how to be kinder to myself. 

In 2021 I’m setting goals again, but also approaching my goal setting with a different, more compassionate, and more informed mindset. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of setting myself up for success and I wanted to put it out there a) because I learned public sharing helps with goal achievement and b) in case this information/plan could help anyone else. So if you are also tired of making aspirational lists of all the stuff you’re going to do with nothing to show for it, come on over!

PEOPLE WHO KNOW MORE THAN ME

For quick and easy learning, I recommend the following podcasts/websites, from where I have drawn most of this information:

(1).  VOLITIONAL PSYCHOLOGY with Dr Joseph R Ferrari, Ologies podcast ( 1:05:56, transcript and notes on website). A podcast interview explaining what procrastination is and what we can do about it. Also be nice to yourself.

(2). FEAROLOGY with Mary Poffenroth, Ologies podcast (1:13:49, transcript and notes on website). A podcast interview explaining how stress is equivalent to fear and how to interrupt our body’s stress response to regain our health and sanity.

(3). “Golden Rules of Goal Setting” on MindTools.com. A website covering most of the actually scientifically backed goal setting advice without a lot of life coach BS.

(4). My therapist. Credit where credit is due, they are a godsend. I highly recommend these conductors of light.

BASICS OF GOAL ACHIEVEMENT

For people who hate reading, here are the spark notes. There’s more information and tips in the long version, but I understand that some people put together IKEA furniture without looking at the directions.

Use the SMART method to write goals:

Specific - well defined and clear how to accomplish

Measurable - precise definition of success

Attainable - doable but still challenging

Relevant - aligned with personal values

Time-bound - must have a deadline

Put goals in writing. Use “I will” rather than “I want to” and frame statements positively.

Write down why specifically you want to achieve each goal.

Make an action plan breaking goals into individual steps. Break tasks into smaller and smaller chunks until you get to a place you can make progress. No judgement, just move the bar until you can move forward.

Schedule regular check-ins to evaluate your progress.

Post goals and progress publicly.

Incentivize achievement.

Surround yourself with doers rather than (fellow) procrastinators.

ABOUT SUCCESS AND FAILURE

If you can achieve 80% of your goal, that is success. In fact, happiness peaks at 85% success and 15% failure. People feel happier failing a bit because then their goal feels challenging and worthwhile.

YOU WILL FAIL. It will happen. It is okay. Focus instead on how you will react and grow from your failure.

“Stress” and “fear” are effectively the same thing. Recognize and own your fear; don’t be ashamed of it. It is a natural response. Also, recognizing your stress as a fear response helps you determine the root cause, and then address it, or even use it as a growth opportunity. Successful people freely use the word “fear”.

For many procrastinators, their fear of failure also includes a fear of success. You are afraid to do the work because you are afraid of not being good enough. These people (me) are practicing “social esteem protection” - thinking that if I don’t finish a task, I can attribute it to a lack of effort rather than a lack of ability because it’s a “time management” issue. It’s not. Time management is a myth, and the end result is that you are letting down the same people you want so badly to like you.

Procrastination is a learned behavior, which means that you can unlearn it. The best way is through CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) to reprogram your thinking for people who have a persistent issue with procrastination.

Forgive yourself for your failures the way you would forgive other people.

HOW TO SET GOALS STEP-BY-STEP

Sorry this section is long, but it turns out a lot of the keys to success in achieving goals starts with actually writing them properly. Who knew?

Set a deadline. The traditional New Year’s Resolution is supposed to last through the end of the year, but I’ve found that is too long a span. I end up procrastinating because “there’s so much time left” until there’s not and then “it’s too late to start now”..... So now I’m setting my goals seasonally: four sets of three months. My deadline for winter goals is March 21st, the Spring Equinox. As part of my public accounting, I have told everyone this, including a bunch of internet strangers.

Also key for us procrastinators is setting a start date. I gave myself a week to write my goals and make my action plan. I have to keep track of my progress starting Monday.

Determine your priorities and set limits. You cannot do everything, no matter how much you want to (procrastinator, remember?). Looking for layout inspiration on Pinterest I came across so many bujo people with 8 million goals on their page layout. That’s not happening. Remember that your goals are meant to create positive change and a sense of accomplishment, NOT cause more anxiety. So make limits. How do we do this? 

Make a big list of aspirations first. You can do this by identifying your personal values and generating ways to emphasize those more in your life. You can make a list of everything that you’re afraid of (aka causes you stress) and then think about ways to address or confront those fears. For example if getting a bunch of work emails into your personal inbox every weekend ruins your Saturday, aspire to set some work/personal life boundaries! Or maybe you have something you’ve always wanted to do, like learn a language or set time aside for a hobby. Put it on the list.

Now you have to edit the list. You can keep it to refer back to for the next round of goals, but choose out the top priorities for the next three months. To help you do this, refer back to your personal values, or just ask yourself “why do I want to do this?” If the answer is because someone else thinks you should, nix it. This is for you and only you. I originally chose 8 priorities, and then cut it again to 6 aspirations total - keep the plan simple and manageable to set yourself up for success. Remember, 85% success is what we’re aiming for. I also tried to choose a mix of difficulty levels of the individual aspirations (exercising = freaking hard; keeping a gratitude log = pretty easy) so that I might get some early wins and momentum.

I also recommend that at least one priority is just something you know will make you happy. We all need to set aside time and energy for ourselves, and to stop feeling ashamed about doing stuff that makes us happy. What the actual f**k. Choose one thing you love -- reading, baking, petting animals, being outside -- and make it an official goal to do it more often. NO JUDGMENT.

Okay, now to format your priorities into achievable goals. You are going to take each one of those aspirations and put it into an “I will” statement with a quantifiable definition of success. For example, my aspiration to “sleep more” became “I will follow a bedtime routine for 21 days straight.” You want to make sure your statement is framed positively (rather than “I will not eat junk food”, try “I will eat healthier snacks”). Also think again about making your goal challenging but achievable. I did not write “I will sleep 6 hours a night” because I can’t control that. I chose 21 days straight as my success measure because I anticipate I’ll fall off the horse a few times before I get a successful streak, and three weeks would be good progress for me. Another thing you can do is use ranges like “I will pick up 1 - 5 items in my room each day.” This is a bit of a mind game where the low end of the range is easily achievable so you have no excuse not to do it. Often once you get started, you might find that you have energy for 5 items after all.

Now that you have your goalposts set up, write down those “whys” you thought about when you were choosing them. Recording why you want to do this specifically is helpful for your motivation as time passes and further clarifies your goal.

As we’ve learned, accountability helps! For each of your goals, write down how you will share your progress. I’ve asked different people to check in with me about my sleep and exercise routines. I’m reporting about my ongoing issues with procrastinating on my schoolwork to my therapist each week. For my goal to read more books, I’m posting a picture of each book I finish on my Instagram. And for my goals to keep a gratitude log and consume news in a healthier way, I’ve decided I can hold myself accountable. In addition, I’m using my journal to keep track of my progress towards all six goals.

Set a reward for each goal. This could be anything from a pack of your favorite chocolates for completing an easy goal to giving yourself permission to buy that sweater you’ve really wanted for achieving a super challenging goal. I am also trying out having bonus rewards such as a small reward for an 11-day streak on my sleep goal to give me a push of momentum. For my hardest/most important goal I also decided to do a “stretch goal” like with Kickstarter where I get a reward for overachieving. So maybe I went a little reward crazy, but we’ll see how it goes!

Finally, for each goal write down the actions you’ll need to take to achieve it. For me this is stuff like “draft a bedtime routine and share it” and under that, I plan to research by “listen to somnology podcasts” and “read sleep solution book”.

HOW TO MAKE PROGRESS

Whew, you made it through writing the goals and now you are set up for success! Here’s a few more tips to keep things moving.

Now that you’ve got your goals all set up, share them with the world! (Or at least the people you’ve decided to help keep you accountable). Sharing goals and progress publicly is proven to increase our likelihood to achieve them.

If you’re a journaler, make a nice goals layout and a tracker for your progress. I did not find good examples for achieving goals in a scientific way when I looked for inspiration on Pinterest. If there is a journaler out there who read all the way to the end of this post and made a nice layout, please share your artistry. My “layout” is just a list. :/

Surround yourself with doers. If you have trouble motivating yourself (me), ask a friend to pair up with you. I am doing a remote master’s degree. It is not going well. However, setting up a regular Zoom “work date” with a friend who is currently working from home has forced me to sit down and look at my schoolwork on a regular basis.

Schedule regular check ins to evaluate your progress and write them down! I have a combination of check-ins with my “accountants” as well as a plan to review my goal progress every Sunday when I plan my week. This is written on my to-do list on each Sunday to make sure I do it.

Go forth and conquer! And remember, failure is a fact of life and does not make you a bad person. It just means you are learning more about how to set your goals for next time!

[thewriterslament]

writing a resume from scratch

as with literally everything i write, this got really fucking long! like, wordcounter.net estimates this will take 7 minutes to read. so i’ve placed the bulk of this post under a read more

this is not a quick tips kind of post; this is a detailed breakdown of how to write a resume from scratch, with examples that are largely taken from my own resume. this is primarily a resource for people who don’t know where to start with writing a resume, not for people who just want resume hacks

i’m saying all this so i don’t get people in my inbox complaining about how long this is. writing a resume takes a lot of time and effort, and this post does not shy away from that

creating a resume will take you a while, especially if this is your first attempt. don’t be discouraged! take breaks, and don’t try to make the perfect resume on the first try. this tutorial is designed to be completed in rounds

it usually takes me a week to get a new master resume into working order

don’t worry about page length right now. you should make a multipage master resume that contains every relevant experience before making a 1-page resume. after you’ve made the master, you can build custom resumes from it for job applications

this post is best viewed on desktop, because i use nested bullets, and tumblr mobile hates those

let’s get into it!

step 1:

list out everything you’ve ever done that could feasibly count as a resume entry: extracurriculars, jobs, volunteer positions, research, organizations you were a part of (professional or casual), freelance work, long-term hobbies. i will refer to each different experience as an “entry”

for each entry, write where (city + state) and when (timespan) you did that thing 

ex. tritones a cappella group, los angeles, ca, august 20xx - present

going forward, update this list as you join or complete new jobs/hobbies/whatever so that you don’t have to wrack your brain a year down the road wondering how long you held down that job or leadership role

step 2:

describe each entry

use bullet points to list out all the things you did within that role. start with the big picture, then move on to the small stuff

big picture: the goal of the role/organization/research, overarching and long-term projects, what results you were trying to achieve + why

ex. “studied the neuroanatomy and synaptopathy of the inner ear to determine the role of glutamate receptors in hearing loss”

small stuff: literal day-to-day tasks, every software and hardware you worked with, any particularly successful moments

basically, walk through a typical day or week in this role and list out every single thing you have to do, even the grunt work.

ex. “used redcap to administer neuropsychological batteries and collect biological data”

ex. “designed and implemented a novel article format that yielded a 10% increase in audience retention”

if you still have access to the original job posting or a corporate description of responsibilities for your role, pull that up and see how much you can paraphrase from it

no duty is too stupid rn. did you google weather forecasts for your boss every week? write it down. you can make it fancy or choose to delete it later

step 3:

fancify this shit

rewrite your bullet points from step 2 with better jargon. tell your employers what you did in a concise yet assertive manner

it helps to break down each point into its most basic components, which you can then generalize or rephrase 

ex. “googled weather forecasts” might become “compiled weekly reports on changing data points to assess weather trends over time”

use action words. you can find resources all over the internet for this, but if you’re still struggling, shoot me an ask and i’ll link some of the resources i’ve used myself

caution: you don’t want to sound like you used a thesaurus on every word. make sure you aren’t obscuring the meaning of your bullet points. “googled weather forecasts” should not become “utilized online databases to assemble weekly communications on meteorological variations”

start thinking about how your responsibilities for each entry relate to a) what skills you want to showcase and b) what the employer wants from you. does the employer want you to demonstrate familiarity with online databases, or does the employer want you to demonstrate familiarity with weather forecasts? your bullet point for “googled the weather” will change depending on the answer to these questions

step 4: 

look at the big picture

you probably have a metric buttload of bullet points for each entry. now you need to cut that down to what’s relevant. think about which bullets are most impressive, noteworthy, and descriptive of each entry

aim for 3-5 bullet points. any less than that and you have to ask why you’re including that entry. any more than that and the employer’s eyes will glaze over

try to combine bullet points

ex. “identify content and write articles when necessary,” “maintain a pool of freelancers,” and “identify key graphics and maintain tagging structure when uploading articles” all involve the process of creating an article, so they can be combined into: “identify content, assign stories to freelancers, write articles when necessary, and upload with appropriate graphics and tags”

start thinking about tailoring your word choices and bullet points to what the employer is looking for

if you can, pull up the job posting or a sample resume for the job you’re applying to and compare your resume to it. are you using similar language? are you demonstrating similar skills?

jobhero.com is a lifesaver

finally, eliminate redundancy in your resume, both in every individual entry and in the resume as a whole. if a skill can be demonstrated by multiple entries, you only need to list it once

kill your darlings! it may sound harsh, but the things that seem super impressive to you probably won’t even be a blip on the employer’s radar. “but saying i made coffee runs shows i’m dependable and a team player!” the employer isn’t looking that deep, my dude. you can showcase your dependability in your cover letter or your interview

you should redo steps 3 and 4 several times, soliciting feedback from your parents, peers, career center, etc each time

step 5:

add the Other Stuff

education

typically, you should only include institutions for the highest level of education you’ve attended. (undergrad and grad school both count as college for this purpose)

there are exceptions to this, depending on how long you’ve spent at a higher level of education, whether your alma mater will earn you brownie points, whether you had genuinely impressive accomplishments earlier in your life, etc.

once you hit, like, 2 years in college, you should try to get rid of high school achievements and showcase college achievements instead

list the school name, city + state, degree type (BA/MA/etc) and expected graduation date (even if it’s in the future), your major(s) + minor(s), and any related coursework (ie preprofessional tracks, specific courses related to the job). you can list your gpa if you feel it’s relevant, but i caution against doing this once you’ve graduated

ex. (where // indicates a new line) harvard university, boston, ma, may 2020 // bachelor of arts in cognitive neuroscience // minor: english: focus in creative writing // related coursework: pre-medicine, computer science 101 and 102 // gpa: 3.9/4.0 (dean’s list, all semesters)

skills

a list of items without descriptions. you can do a bulleted list or you can list the entries in paragraph form, separated by commas or bold bullets

hard skills: hardware, software, languages (spoken and programming), digital and communication platforms, social media proficiencies, other technologies and devices

ex. microsoft office suite, java, wordpress, slack, familiarity with ap and chicago style

soft skills: general qualities, buzzwords, personality traits

ex. leadership, conflict resolution, time management

certifications and awards

can be one section or two depending on how many of each you have

list each one on a separate bullet point

for each, write the certification or award, the institution that granted it, and the month and/or year you received it if relevant

publications

tbh i just cite my publications in the following format instead of following a style guide

lastname, firstname. “article or chapter title.” book title, publisher (aka company or website). publication date.

if you’re the sole author, you don’t need to list the author’s name

interlude: stretch the truth a bit. don’t lie about having experience or skills you don’t, but if you can reasonably google how to do something, boom! you’re proficient in it. if you worked with two team members who never pulled their weight? you just became the sole project lead. were you a beta reader for anime fanfiction back in the day? you’re a freelance editor, baby!

step 6:

now you have to organize all the entries from step 4

separate your entries into relevant sections. what’s relevant might change based on what you’re applying for

i’ve had, at various points in my life, some subset of the following sections: work experience, volunteer experience, leadership experience, research experience, writing experience, other relevant experience

list sections in order of descending importance

write all entries in reverse chronological order: start with the most recent and work your way backwards

write all bullet points in order of descending importance. unfortunately, i don’t have any quick tips on determining what’s important, but it helps to look at the job posting and see what matters to the employer

i tend to list big picture goals, then personal accomplishments (leadership skills, projects), then daily tasks

step 7:

format this shit

you can find resume templates online or in your word processor. templates serve as a good starting point, but i recommend creating your own format so you can edit and customize it with ease. this will probably involve a lot of fiddling with indentations, paragraph spacing, and moving things around

don’t go smaller than 10pt font

mess around with line and paragraph spacing to get the right balance of white space. if you’re curious about what i use, shoot me an ask and i’ll share my weirdly specific settings

keep an eye out for bullet points with orphan words (ie lines containing only 1-3 words) and get rid of them to streamline your resume

margins can be anywhere between 0.5″ and 1″

consistency is key! make sure each entry has the same kind of spacing. don’t use hyphens in one entry and en dashes in another

in the header, write your name, email, phone number, and address

interlude: save this version of your resume as your master resume. this gives you an unedited list of everything you ever did that you can now pick and choose from when you apply to jobs. update this list every 3-6 months.

step 8:

customize your resume for the job application

unless you’ve been in the industry for several years, your job-specific resume should be no more than 1 page

if you have more than 1 page: compare the job listing and your resume side by side and ask which entries demonstrate your capabilities most effectively, which bullet points are the punchiest, and if there’s any extraneous info

match each job requirement to one bullet point on your resume. then match each bullet point on your resume to a requirement in the listing. get rid of any bullet points that don’t meet either of those criteria. if multiple bullet points match the same job requirement, get rid of the extra bullet points

if you have significantly less than 1 page: see if you can add more bullet points or reformat your resume to introduce some more white space. a 2-column set-up is great for this, with section headers on the left and bullets on the right. do you have any hobbies you’re forgetting about? any soft skills you could add?

emulate the language of the job posting; use the same action words, the same soft skills

coda

your resume should work in tandem with your cover letter, but that’s a topic for another post. maybe in another 6 months i’ll write a post on that, too

always save your resume as a pdf! you don’t want your employer to have access to your metadata

if you made it through this whole post... i’m so sorry lmao but also thanks for sticking with me

let me know if you found this helpful or if this method scored you a job!

[takerfoxx]

RD Walpurgis Nights 8: Part 3

Then…

The last stringy leg came loose from the strand of barbed wire it had been twisted around, and the horrible thing fell loose. Gasping, Kriemhild Gretchen curled it up close to the rest of her body as the throbbing pain finally started to recede.

Kriemhild still had no answers. She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t know why she was tied naked in such a torturous position and exposed to the elements. Heck, she didn’t even know her own name. And above all, she didn’t know what she even was, why her legs were such a bizarre nest of wiry…things. Was she even human?

Still, as she clung to the hour hand of the massive clock face with all her legs wrapped around its base, she was grateful that she had been mutated in such a way. At least it meant that she had a way to keep herself from falling. She tried to look out at whatever it was that lay below her, but it was weird, twisted, made no sense at all, and seemed to be moving, so she stopped.

Kriemhild couldn’t decide if she was more terrified or confused. Nothing about any of this made any sense. It had to be some kind of demented nightmare. If she tried hard enough, she could almost make herself believe that, believe that she was safe in her own bed somewhere, and in a few moments she would wake with a start, wondering what she had ate to give her such a vivid dream.

Except that the bitter cold was too real to be a dream. As had been the pain.

“Help!” she screamed out as loud as she could. “Please, help me!” Her words were swallowed up by the wind.

The height was starting to make her nauseous, so she turned away and closed her eyes. Tears were prickling at her eyes. Why was this happening to her? What had she done to deserve something like this?

Then she so happened to blink her eyes and look up. She gasped.

There was someone else there, someone tied to the top of the same clock hand she was clinging to. Kriemhild gaped, then her face hardened with resolution.

Fully maneuvering herself around so that she was fully facing the clock hand was a terrifying experience, and she had to talk herself through switching the position of each individual leg. But she got it. Then she began to climb.

She was already far, far too high up, and making herself go even higher took every ounce of willpower. Every centimeter of height gained felt like a battle, and there was precious little for her legs to hold onto. The cold metal of the hour hand was agony against her bare skin, and its length seemed impossibly long.

Don’t look down, she told herself. Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look down…

The higher she got, the clearer the other person became. It seemed to be another naked girl, also strapped in place by barbed wire. Well, that was enough reason to try to free her. Kriemhild gritted her teeth and pressed onward and upward.

The climb seemed to take forever, though in truth it was less than a minute, but finally she was passing over the girl’s body. The girl was pale of skin and completely unconscious, just as Kriemhild had been. Her long raven hair blew freely in the wind. On top of her head was a scarlet flower bud. Some kind of weird metal disc covered where her wrists were bound to the clock hand over her head, like some sort of lock.

Also, her arms and shoulders were nothing more than bare bones, completely free of flesh.

For a moment Kriemhild thought that she had come so far just to reach a corpse, but then the other girl moved. It was a slight reflex, just a simple shifting of her weight, but her eyelids fluttered and she let out a small moan.

Kriemhild blinked. Wait, what?

She lifted a finger, hesitated, and then reached up and poked the bones of the other girl’s upper arm. It reflexively moved away from her touch, just like a living arm.

Another monster then, like her. For some reason she was almost cheered by the thought.

She then studied the other girl’s face. There was something achingly familiar about her, something important. A name was clawing its way up through her swirling memory, something so close and dear, and yet she couldn’t seem to grasp it.

“Hom…” she whispered, and then it was gone, dissipating like a dream.

Then the other girl stirred again. She groaned, louder this time.

Encouraged by this, Kriemhild gently shook her shoulder.

“Hey,” she said. “Wake up.”

“Uh…”

“Wake up!” Kriemhild’s shaking grow more urgent. “Please, you have to wake up!”

The other girl blinked her eyes. Kriemhild breathed a sigh of relief.

“You’re awake!” Then she glanced up to where the other girl’s arms were still bound. “Just…Just hang on! I’ll get you off!”

The other girl blinked in confusion. She looked down, and her eyes widened.

“What?” she said with a small gasp. “Where?”

But before Kriemhild could answer, the other girl then looked up.

And she screamed.

Kriemhild winced at the shrill sound. “Calm down, calm down!” she said, though she herself felt anything but calm. “I know it’s scary, but I need you to hold still while I get you loose!”

The other girl gaped at her. “What…who…what am…where are…who are you?”

“Me? Oh, I’m Kriemhild. Kriemhild Gretchen. Do you have a name?”

The other girl stared at her. “A name? A name? I don’t…I don’t remember anything! How can I-”

Then she blinked. “Wait. Wait, wait, wait. I think I do. My name is…”

…

Now…

Homulilly opened her eyes.

With the fogginess of sleep still upon her, the mix of familiarity and unfamiliarity around her completely bewildered her for a moment. Like always, she was lying with her face toward the wall, Gretchen spooning up against her, their heavy blanket cocooning them both.

But the wall was papered with a floral pattern instead of being painted pale blue. Also, their mattress was all…swimmy.

Frowning, Homulilly turned her head. The ceiling was all different too. What in the world…

Then enough of her mind emerged from the haze to remind her of her current circumstances. The pleasant surprise was enough to wake her up fully.

“Oh,” she said out loud.

Then she heard a soft giggle. She turned all the way around to find Gretchen already awake and smiling at her.

“Surprised you too?” Gretchen said.

“A little. But I’ll get used to it. I mean, all the important stuff is still around.”

The two softly kissed. Then they kicked their bedcovers away and started getting ready for the day.

Their pajamas were stripped off and clothes were put on in short order. Then they left their room. It was a little strange going down the hall for the bathroom instead of having it connect directly, but oh well. They relieved themselves, washed up, helped each other with their hair, and then headed downstairs.

They smelled breakfast before they saw it, and it smelled wonderful. It wasn’t as if the meals at the FIB were bad by any stretch of the imagination, but even masterful cooks like Candeloro and Charlotte would have their skills diluted if they had to cook for as many people as the FIB housed. But since they didn’t, it meant that Homulilly and Gretchen were probably going to have to start watching their weight.

Homemade blueberry waffles, sausage, toast with butter and jam, and fresh fruit were waiting for them. The others were already there around the table, with Charlotte serving out the portions.

“And here they are,” Ophelia said as the two came down the stairs. “Good morning, you two. Sleep well?”

“Very!” Gretchen said as she literally bounded across the kitchen. “Good morning, everyone!”

She and Homulilly took their seats, said grace, and dug in.

“So, any big plans for today?” Charlotte asked while they ate.

“Nope!” Gretchen said cheerfully. “Just unpacking.”

“We’ve been really stressed out all week,” Homulilly admitted. “So today we’re just going to, you know, decompress.”

“Goof ideash,” Oktavia said through a mouthful of toast.

“Later on I do kind of want to get the hang of that bow though,” Gretchen said.

“For real?” Ophelia said.

“Well, yeah. I mean, I’ve always felt like I needed some kind of real hobby. And archery sounds fun.”

“Jeez, you’re gonna make me feel bad for giving up on the spear,” Ophelia sighed.

Oktavia swallowed. “Do you have to take everything as a challenge?”

“Says the girl whose first impulse, upon hearing that there was an honest-to-God sea monster swimming around, was to go out and fight it!”

“I’m not going to fight it!” Oktavia complained. “I’m going to catch it!”

“When is that going to happen, by the way?” Homulilly said.

“It’s already started,” Oktavia said. “For most of the week, actually. I just took some time off to help you guys settle in.” She frowned. “They better not find it while I’m home.”

“Hmmm,” Ophelia said in a tone that implied that she would be perfectly happy with them finding the karnuk without Oktavia’s help.

And then the phone in the kitchen rang.

Candeloro sighed. “I’ll get it,” she said as she rose. “It had better not be my work calling me in. I asked for today off for a reason!”

She went into the kitchen and answered the phone. “Hello?”

Homulilly went back to eating. She picked up a piece of buttered toast smothered with raspberry jam and took a bite.

“Oh, hello,” she heard Candeloro say. “Yes, they’re here. Why, did they forget something?”

Homulilly froze with the toast still in her mouth.

“Oh,” Candeloro said. “Oh. Yes, we did hear something about that.”

Homulilly opened her mouth and slowly placed the piece of toast back down onto her plate. She glanced over to Gretchen, who glanced back. Ophelia, Oktavia, and Charlotte had also stopped eating. They all turned their attention to the kitchen and listened intently.

“I see,” Candeloro said with a sigh. “Well, that is…Wait, she wants to do what? Um, are you sure that’s…a good idea? I mean…Yes. Yes, I understand. All right, I’ll let them know, but I make no promises. Of course. Thank you. Goodbye.”

Candeloro hung up the phone and rejoined the rest of the group in the dining room. She was clearly troubled.

“Well,” she said as she sat back down again. “I suppose you all know what that was about.”

“Hitomi,” Gretchen said. Both of Homulilly’s hands curled into fists, and she hastily stuck them onto her lap, out of sight.

“So that’s her name,” Charlotte muttered. Oktavia blinked, and then frowned.

“Yes, that’s right,” Candeloro said. “Apparently seeing you two badly upset her.”

“Yeah, we noticed,” Homulilly said in a bitter tone.

“Anyway, that was the FIB. Obviously. And they said that she was pretty hysterical for most of the night and only calmed down early this morning.”

Oktavia breathed out. “Wow. Poor kid.”

Poor kid. Sure. That was one way of putting it.

“So, what do they want them to do about it?” Charlotte asked, motioning toward Homulilly and Gretchen with her fork.

Candeloro shook her head. “Well, nothing, actually. I mean, it’s obvious that this isn’t their responsibility. But apparently she’s been asking to talk to them.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna go with ‘Hell no’,” Ophelia said as she leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “That’s all kinds of a bad idea.”

“Is it?” Gretchen said.

“It is,” Homulilly said flatly. Gretchen shot her a bewildered look.

“It is,” Charlotte confirmed. “Look guys, I don’t know how much about this you know, but it’s super dangerous for a witch to talk to a Puella Magi that she knew in her past life. Just hearing your old name can mess you up.” She raised an eyebrow. “In fact, seeing how shaken you two were, I’m willing to bet that it did.”

Homulilly sighed. “It did, a little,” she admitted.

“So it’s settled. You’re not talking to her.”

Gretchen still looked unconvinced. “But there has to be something we can do for her,” she said. “I mean, it’s kind of cruel to just leave her like that.”

Charlotte shook her head. “Okay, look: you remember what it was like during your first few days, when you were still trying to wrap your heads around being dead, and aliens existing, and that you’re a weird, supernatural creature and stuff?”

“Yes,” Homulilly said. “I do.”

“So do I. And going through that is bad enough for a witch. But for a Puella Magi? Oh, it is so much worse. At least we don’t remember our old lives, so we can just jump in and start getting used to things. But Puella Magi still remember. They remember everything: their families, their friends, their dreams, their everything. So, that just makes it all the harder for them to accept the idea that they really are dead, that they left a corpse somewhere in another universe, and they’re never, ever going home again.”

The ends of Candeloro’s ribbons twisted together on the table in front of her, her way of clasping her hands. “Puella Magi tend to be…highly emotional during those first few days,” she added. “Irrational. Prone to outbursts.”

“I remember,” Gretchen said softly. “They were…very upset.”

“Exactly,” said Charlotte. “So even if they explain everything to this…what was her name again?”

“Hitomi.”

“Right. If they explain everything to Hitomi and get her to promise to behave herself, there’s no guarantee that she won’t have another fit and start trying to make you two remember. She might start screaming your old names over and over. She might even attack you. There’s no way to tell.”

“Attack us?” Gretchen swallowed noisily. “Um, th-that might actually happen?”

Homulilly nudged her pieces of waffle around her plate with her fork.

“It might,” Charlotte said. “Like I said, there’s no way to tell. But I for one don’t want you two taking the risk.”

“Agreed,” Homulilly said in a low voice.

Oktavia cleared her throat. “Um, I don’t suppose there’s a chance that she’s…mistaken? Like, maybe Gretchen and Homulilly just look kinda like her friends and she got them confused.”

“No,” Homulilly said, not taking her eyes off her plate. “Those names she called us…I felt them. They’re ours.”

“Same here,” said Gretchen. “I’m very sure that she’s right. We did know her.”

Ophelia groaned. “Fuck me, what a mess.” Then, when Candeloro shot her a disapproving look, she just glared back. “Oh, what? They’re not kids anymore, they can handle a few dirty words. Besides, this is way more important.”

“I suppose,” Candeloro allowed. “Still, this does raise the question: what do we do about this?”

“Nothing,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “I mean, let’s face it: what happened to Hitomi sucked, but it’s not our problem.”

Gretchen immediately looked distraught. Even Ophelia raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s kinda cold.”

“But it’s the truth. We can’t trust this Hitomi not to do something that’ll be damaging, and I’m sorry, but I’m more concerned with their wellbeing than I am with hers.”

“Huh,” Oktavia said, her forehead furrowing. “Okay, so hear me out. What about a compromise? Like, one of us goes to talk to her in their place.”

Candeloro shook her head. “It’s still the same problem. If we knew them in the past life, then there’s every chance that she knew all of us as well.”

A heavy silence fell, filled with uncomfortable glances and the pushing around of forks against plates. Ophelia noisily refilled her cup of orange juice. Oktavia’s chair hissed as she moved the seat back so she could stare up at the ceiling.

Then Charlotte groaned out loud. “Oh, damn it. It’s going to be me, isn’t it?”

“Huh?” Gretchen said, looking up abruptly.

“Well, it only makes sense,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “I mean, I’m the only that she probably never met. You know, considering.”

When everyone shot her several different kinds of looks, Charlotte rolled her eyes and said, “Oh, what? What? C’mon, we’ve already established that I probably wasn’t part of whatever superhero team you guys had. Maybe I got brought on at the last second as a plus one for some big fight, or hell, maybe I was the witch you all were fighting when things went sideways. It’s not like I’m sensitive about it. Hell, if you want to get technical about it, I’ve been part of this group longer than they have!” She motioned over to Homulilly and Gretchen. “My point is, if anyone is going to go talk to her, I’m our best bet.”

“Are you sure about this, babe?” Candeloro said, laying a ribbon on Charlotte’s shoulder. “I mean, you were pretty adamant that we have nothing to do with this.”

“Yeah, but that’s because I don’t want this girl to hurt the people I care about,” Charlotte said. “I’m pretty much guaranteed to not get affected by the same stuff you guys are.”

“And if she tries to jank you?” Ophelia said, picking up a butter knife and making a stabbing motion.

“Then I knock her back on her ass. Come on, I know enough about taking care of myself to handle her at least.”

“Are you sure?” Gretchen said. “I mean, she’s a Puella Magi.”

“Apparently not a very good one, if she’s here already.”

Gretchen sighed. “I mean she still has her weapon.”

“Yeah, she sort of summoned up a…an umbrella thing?” Homulilly said with a frown.

“An umbrella? An umbrella?”

“You know, one of those fancy ones with the curved handle.”

Charlotte stared. “What’s she going to do, thwack me to death?”

Candeloro let out a very unladylike snort.

“You do know that this umbrella thing is probably magical,” Oktavia pointed out. “Who knows what it can do?”

“Who cares?” Charlotte said. “I’m going to be at the FIB anyway. Something goes screwy, they’ll shut it down immediately. Besides, even if she does somehow manage to blow my head off, it’ll grow back in like thirty minutes.”

“Well, there’s a cheery thought,” Ophelia said wryly. “And a really gross mental image. Thanks for that.”

Candeloro made a face. “Well, I don’t like it, but you’re probably right.”

“Thank you,” Gretchen said softly.

Ophelia cleared her throat. “Just, uh, you know, don’t go out of your way to antagonize the kid, okay?”

“Why would I?” Charlotte said in bewilderment.

“Because you got all the gentle tact of a steel mallet, and you’re already annoyed that she’s bothering us with this and might just take it out on her.”

Charlotte made a face, but nodded. “Fine. Okay, point. I’ll do my best to be nice.”

Nice. Right. Homulilly thought back to their brief encounter with Hitomi and how quickly she had lost her mind. She felt that it didn’t matter how gentle and polite Charlotte was going to be, it would still end in tears, if not outright violence.

…

“So, would that be all right?” Dr. Jazmine asked.

Hitomi stared back at her. She was sitting on the side of her bed, nervously chewing on her finger. Dr. Jazmine was kneeling in front of her, obviously trying to appear as non-threatening as possible.

Were they afraid of her? Why? She was no one! She couldn’t even kill one witch! And the place was full of witches!

“Hitomi?”

Hitomi blinked. “Um, er, right. You want me to…talk. To a friend of Madoka and Homura.”

“Yes. They’re living with some friends, and one of them wants to talk to you on their behalf.””

“Right. Right. Um…why though? Why can’t I just talk to Madoka directly? Doesn’t she want to see me?”

“She does, but this is just a precaution. To be safe.”

Hitomi’s hands started shaking harder. “You think I would hurt her?”

“Of course not! At least, not on purpose. But like we said-”

“I know, I know!” Hitomi sighed. She fell silent, thinking. Dr. Jazmine let her, patiently waiting.

Finally Hitomi sighed. “Okay.”

“You’ll do it?”

“Y-Yeah,” Hitomi said, giving the barest of nods. She might as well. It was just another step, after all. Another step to being reunited with her friends.

Besides, if Madoka had new friends in this world, than she wanted to see what they were like. She wanted to see what she was up against.

…

The next day…

The walk from the shaded outskirt suburb that Charlotte lived with her friends to the narrow streets and tall buildings of Freehaven proper was not long. If they had ran, they could have cleared the distance in less than a minute, and from there it was a straight shot across the rooftops to the FIB. And running was such a common way of getting around that no one would have given her a second look.

Charlotte did not feel like running. She was not looking forward to this at all. So she walked.

Candeloro and Ophelia walked with her. They were definitely not going anywhere near Hitomi, but they were going along for moral support. Charlotte appreciated the gesture, even if it did mean that she felt all the more that she was heading into actual danger.

C’mon, get it together, she told herself. The kid’s probably more afraid of you than you are of her. You’re the one with all the power here. Just get in, play it safe, get the info, and get out.

“So, hey, hypothetical question,” Ophelia said. “Let’s say everything goes swimmingly, no one gets hurt, and it turns out that Hitomi did used to be our nearest, dearest friend. Do we adopt her too after she’s been…rehabilitated?”

Charlotte scowled.

“Where would we even put her?” Candeloro said. “We’ve used up all the rooms.”

“There’s Oktavia’ old trophy room, I guess,” Ophelia said. “Though it’s kind of small. But if it’s just her then I guess it could work.” She frowned. “Though if she gets a girlfriend before then, then that could, uh, complicate things.”

Charlotte sighed. She did kind of hope that it didn’t come to that. Meeting Homulilly and Gretchen had been a happy accident. With this Hitomi, she had known about her for less than a day before she started causing them tons of problems.

“Speaking of which, did anyone have any flashes of recognition to her name?” Candeloro continued.

“Nope. Nothing,” Ophelia said.

Charlotte shook her head. “Me neither.”

“Same,” Candeloro sighed.

“But Gretchen did say that she did,” Ophelia mused, thoughtfully rubbing her chin. “Tavi did too, last night. She said she had some kind of weird bell go off in her head.”

“Yup,” Charlotte said. “We’re really learning a lot about how things used to be between us, ain’t we?”

Candeloro tilted her head toward her. “Char, are you okay?”

“Nope! I’m scared and upset and I really don’t want to do this.”

“You know, you don’t have to do this,” her wife said, laying a ribbon on Charlotte’s shoulder.

“You’re sweet,” Charlotte said, giving the ribbon’s end a light squeeze. “But please don’t try to talk me out of this. I already agreed to it, and someone has to.”

“Okay, but just remember to bail if things get…dangerous,” Ophelia said. “She’s not going anywhere, and we don’t want you putting yourself in harm’s way if you don’t need to. Okay?”

“Kind of late for that,” Charlotte said as she came to a stop and looked up.

They had made it, with the Freehaven Integration Bureau towering over them. Most of the time the place seemed friendly and nostalgic. After all, they used to live there, and they had visited it often to see Gretchen and Homulilly.

But now it just felt bit and imposing. The sun was still rising over its other side, causing its shadow fall over the trio. Charlotte looked up into its windows and found herself remembering that it was as much an asylum as it was a school and place of rehabilitation. Not all the girls who passed through its halls got better. Maybe Hitomi would turn out to be one of them.

“Come on, Charly,” Ophelia said, lightly punching Charlotte in the arm. “You got this.”

“Sure,” Charlotte said, still staring up at the windows. “Yeah. I sure do.”

In the front lobby, one of the caretakers was waiting for her. Charlotte didn’t really know her, but she had often seen her around.

“Charlotte, right?” the caretaker said, walking over greet her. “Thank you so much for coming. I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Dr. Jazmine Smith.”

“Yeah, I remember you,” Charlotte said, shaking her hand. “So, on a scale of one to ten, how fucked up is she?”

Dr. Jazmine winced. “She is…upset, and emotionally on edge. To tell the truth, this whole thing is kind of a risk. She was insistent on it though, refused to cooperate with us unless we let her talk to Kriemhild Gretchen. This was the one compromise we could get her to agree to.”

“I figured,” Charlotte sighed. “Well, let’s get this over with.”

Dr. Jazmine led her through the halls and talked as they went. “I was the first caretaker to welcome her, and she seems to respond best to me, so I’ll be in there with you to help calm her down if necessary. The whole exchange will be monitored by security, and should she do anything drastic like try to attack you, the failsafes will engage to neutralize her.”

“Failsafes?”

“A simple knockout field. She’ll just go to sleep. In the meantime, should she say anything that triggers anything in you, let us know immediately.”

“Like, that weird déjà vu feeling?”

“Exactly. If you two did not know each other as you suspect, then you ought to be all right. But why take chances?”

“Got it.”

They reached the staff elevator. Dr. Jazmine pressed a hand against a green pad, and it slid open. Despite herself, Charlotte couldn’t help but feel a little curious. This elevator had always been off-limits to her and the other residents during their own stay, and more than once someone tried to find their way in. Supposedly it was the only way to access the area where the…tougher cases were kept, which was underground.

They went inside and the door closed. As they headed downward, Dr. Jazmine hesitated, and then said, “Also, I do need you to watch what you say. As you probably know, newly arrived Puella Magi often come in emotionally traumatized and need special care to help them heal. And from what we’ve been told, Hitomi’s death was especially brutal. Please try to avoid bringing that up, and also watch what you say about witches in general. She didn’t find out about their true nature before she died, and is having trouble adjusting.”

Charlotte’s lips thinned out. “Even though…I’m a witch.”

“Yes,” Dr. Jazmine said with a sigh. “So please don’t take anything she says personally.”

“You know, this is starting to strike me as a really bad idea.”

“If you want to cancel-”

“No,” Charlotte said before Dr. Jazmine could finish. “I’m kind of committed at this point. But hey, out of curiosity, how often does something like this happen?”

“Not all that often,” Dr. Jazmine said. “But it does happen every now and then.”

The elevator doors slid open, and Charlotte found herself in a part of the FIB she had never been in before.

She had been expecting something cold and sterile, with raving girls restrained by straitjackets and tied to gurneys. To her surprise, it was very pleasant, with soft woods and carpeted floors. Even the lighting looked like natural sunlight.

Noticing Charlotte’s reaction, Dr. Jazmine allowed herself a small smile. “The girls down here aren’t prisoners, and they’re more of a danger to themselves than anyone else. It helps to have a comfortable place for them to stay while we treat them.”

That made sense, though Charlotte had to disagree on one point. Sure, maybe they had a good reason to keep them down here, and maybe it was a nice place, but any place that you weren’t allowed to leave was technically still a prison.

She thought back to her own stay in the FIB. She hadn’t had much interaction with those girls. Occasionally one would get better and be allowed to join her class, though they were under strict orders not to pelt anyone like that with intrusive questions, so she had just minded her own business. Occasionally she would see the others brought out into the playground for exercise, but they were always kept away from the rest of the students and kept under heavy supervision, so she never got a good look at them. They had seemed normal enough from what she remembered though.

As they passed through the halls, she couldn’t help but glance through the glass windows set in the doors. Most of the rooms were empty, though she did see the occasional caretaker working with some of the girls, usually one-on-one or in very small groups. Things seemed pretty normal from what she could tell, with nobody acting particularly abnormal.

Dr. Jazmine apparently noticed Charlotte’s confusion, as she smiled grimly and said, “The especially difficult cases are in a different section.”

“Oh. And, ah, are we going into a different section?”

“Yes.”

Charlotte stopped looking into the windows.

Sure enough, soon they were in another part of the facility, and she heard someone screaming.

Charlotte stopped. The screams were coming from far the down the hall. A moment later a door opened and two caretakers rushed out. They ran over to the room where the screaming was coming from and quickly went inside.

“Another newcomer,” Dr. Jazmine said sadly. “She’s only eight years old. And, well, she misses her family. Badly.”

“I bet,” Charlotte said. “Do you, ah, deal with this sort of thing a lot?”

“All the time.”

Charlotte shook her head. The fine ladies of the Freehaven Integration Bureau just went up a few ranks in her head.

Fortunately, the room they were headed toward was not near the one with the screaming girl. Still, Dr. Jazmine paused before opening the door.

“Remember,” she said. “Do what you can to avoid upsetting her. Don’t force information on her. Don’t put the blame on her for anything. Let me know if she stumbles across some problematic information. Be as gentle as you can. Understand?”

“Got it,” Charlotte said, though she was wondering if she really did. She had never done something like this before.

Dr. Jazmine slowly opened the door.

Charlotte craned her neck to see. Beyond was a what looked like a rest lounge, with the same soft colors as the outside. There were potted plants and a softly babbling fountain in the corner. Two comfortable-looking chairs sat across from one another, with a low table in between them, on which sat a box of tissues, a plastic cup of water, and a water pitcher next to it.

And seated in one of the chairs was Hitomi Shizuki.

To be honest, Charlotte hadn’t really known what to expect from Hitomi, as no one had even so much as described her appearance. What she saw was a slender Japanese girl in her early teens, with long, pale green hair and eyes of the same color. She seemed to be of average height, comparable to Ophelia and Homulilly, and something about her struck Charlotte as being someone who never really had to worry where her next meal was coming from.

However, Charlotte did expect someone on edge, terrified, disheveled, and ragged looking, and that’s exactly what she got. Hitomi didn’t look like she had slept well in days. Her eyes were wide and sunken, her skin was flushed and glistening with sweat, her hair a mess, and she was trembling from head to toe.

Charlotte didn’t know what she had been doing before Dr. Jazmine opened the door, but she was now sitting upright and rigid, with the only movement being the shaking. In her hands was the umbrella, fortunately folded up. She was holding it by the canopy, handle-up, and was gnawing on the end of the handle.

As soon as Dr. Jazmine saw the umbrella, she held a hand in front of Charlotte, keeping her from entering the room. Taking a cautious step forward, she cleared her throat and said, “Ah, Hitomi?”

Hitomi blinked owlishly at her. “Y-Yes?”

“Your umbrella, dear. Could you please put it away?”

Hitomi looked down at the object sitting in her lap. She actually seemed surprised, as if she hadn’t known that it was there in the first place. “Oh. Oh! I’m…I’m sorry. I didn’t…I didn’t…Um, okay.”

There was a small flash of green light, and the umbrella vanished. Hitomi clasped her hands in her lap and swallowed noisily.

Dr. Jazmine glanced at Charlotte and shrugged. The two of them entered the room, and Dr. Jasmine let the door swing shut behind her.

“Hitomi, this is Charlotte,” Dr. Jazmine introduced. “You remember, the one we discussed?”

“Hi,” Charlotte said with a wave.

Hitomi stared at her. “You’re a witch,” she said.

Charlotte paused for a moment, and then nodded. “I am.” Another pause. “Is that…okay?”

There was something downright unnerving about the way Hitomi’s eyes bored into her. Charlotte couldn’t really fathom what she was thinking, but she was willing to bet that it wasn’t good. At any rate, it was several seconds before Hitomi finally blinked. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

Charlotte noticed Hitomi’s nails. They were practically gone, all of them chewed away.

“Anyway, she’s a friend of Madoka and Homura,” Dr. Jazmine told her.

“That’s right,” Charlotte said. “I’m just here to-”

“What was it like?” Hitomi said.

Charlotte hesitated for a moment before saying, “What was what like?”

“Changing into a witch. Being a witch. Living in your labyrinth. Luring people in. What was it like?”

Well, this conversation was certainly going to be all kinds of unpredictable. “I don’t remember,” Charlotte said. “All my memories from that time are gone.”

“Are you sure? Maybe it shows up in dreams.”

“Maybe,” Charlotte allowed. “But if it does, those dreams are gone too.”

“Do you think you ever killed anyone?”

Unpredictable and dangerous. Wow, this was already shaping up to be a bad idea. “Might have,” Charlotte said. “But like I said, I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember,” Hitomi repeated. “You might’ve killed people, and you don’t remember.”

“Hitomi, we’re not here to talk about that,” Dr. Jazmine cut in. “We’re here to talk about Madoka and Homura, right? So let’s do that.”

Hitomi blinked. Then she nodded. “Okay. Okay.”

Sighing, Charlotte sat down in the chair across from Hitomi, careful to do so slowly and cautiously, keeping her tail out of sight. The last thing she needed was to spook her. “Right,” she said. “So, like you were told, I am a friend of Madoka and Homura. And I’m here to-”

“What do you call them?” Hitomi interrupted.

“Pardon?”

“They have different names now, right? That’s what they said.” Hitomi pointed to Dr. Jazmine. “So do you call them by their new names or their real names?”

Charlotte really didn’t know the best way to answer that question, so she went with honest. “Their new names,” she said. “We didn’t even know their…real names until you, uh, told us.”

Hitomi’s mouth set in a straight line, but she nodded. “Okay.”

“Anyway,” Charlotte said. “I would like to talk about your friendship with them, maybe learn more about their past. Is that okay?”

“Fine. That’s fine.”

Was it? “All right. So, you were close friends with Madoka and Homura, right?”

“Yes,” Hitomi said. Then she frowned. “I mean, no. I mean…with Madoka, yes. We’ve been friends for years. But I didn’t know Homura all that well. I mean, she only transferred to our class a couple months ago.”

A couple months. Wow, Charlotte’s entire life in her world had only taken up less than a couple months in the other. “I see. So, was Madoka friends with Homura then?”

“Yes,” Hitomi said. Now that they were talking about things she was familiar with, she seemed like she was starting to relax a little. Good. “They, uh, bonded pretty quickly. I didn’t know why then, but, uh, I guess I know why now.”

“I guess so. Maybe we’d better start at the beginning then.”

Hitomi closed her eyes for several seconds. Her mouth was closed, but it kept making odd movements, like she muttering silently to herself. Then she opened her eyes again. “Okay. Let’s do that.”

Charlotte motioned for her to begin.

Taking a deep breath, Hitomi said, “Well, I’m from Mitakihara City. Do you know where that it?”

“Can’t say that I do.”

“Oh. Um, anyway, that’s where I’m from, and Madoka Kaname is one of my best friends.”

Charlotte’s ears perked up. “One of?”

“Right,” Hitomi nodded. “The other is Sayaka Miki.” She paused, and then asked, “Have you met her?”

“No, I haven’t,” Charlotte said as she mentally filed that name away for later. She wondered if she should point out that maybe this ‘Sayaka’ was going by a different name now, but decided against it. “Anyway, go on.”

“Oh. Um, like I was saying, we’ve been close friends since elementary school, but Madoka and Sayaka have been best friends even longer. But we always hang out together at school and on the weekends and…” Hitomi seemed to lose her train of thought. She blinked, shook her head, and said, “But anyway, a few months ago, they suddenly got…strange.”

“Strange?” Charlotte leaned forward. “Strange how?”

“W-Well, they stopped…spending time with me. I mean, it wasn’t like they had cut me out or didn’t like me anymore, but they just got real secretive. They were always around each other, but rarely talking. It was like they knew what each other was thinking. And at first they actually seemed…” Hitomi frowned. “I don’t know, happier I guess? And…well, this might seem a little silly, but at first I thought that they might have, you know, gotten…together, if you know what I mean.”

Charlotte had a feeling that Hitomi hadn’t exactly been clued in on how relationship demographics worked now. “I do,” she said in a neutral tone. “But that wasn’t it, was it?”

“No,” Hitomi said, shaking her head. “I understand now what happened. They had made a contract with Kyubey. They became magical girls, Pueh…Pooey…”

“Puella Magi,” Charlotte said.

“Right. That.” Hitomi sighed. “They weren’t secretly in love. They were secretly fighting monsters every day. Keeping us safe. That sort of thing.”

“Probably, yeah.”

Hitomi closed her eyes for a bit. Then she continued. “Um, anyway, right about then they started to make a lot of new friends. It was like, one day it was the three of us like normal, then it was them and…other people. They started following this one upperclassman everywhere, having lunch with her and even going to her place right after school every day.”

Okay, here it came. “What was her name?”

Hitomi’s brow furrowed. “Um, let me see. They introduced me to her a couple times, and Kyubey said…” She scratched her head. “Toe…mo…ay. Tomoe. Mami Tomoe. She seemed nice enough, but it struck me as a little strange that she didn’t seem to be very interested in spending time with people in her grade. Then Homura transferred in, and…I don’t know, she seemed like she actually knew Madoka. I asked Madoka if they had met before and she said that they hadn’t, but before I knew it Homura was a part of their group. They were always walking to and from school together, having lunch on the roof by themselves, going right to Mami Tomoe’s place as soon as school got out, and whenever I’d run into any of them on the weekends, the others were there.”

Charlotte pursed her lips. Mami Tomoe, huh? That name meant absolutely nothing to her. There was no flash of recognition, no déjà vu. Still, she had a pretty good idea of who it originally had belonged to. “Okay. Anyone else?”

“Just one,” Hitomi said. “She didn’t go to our school, actually, but she’d be with them when I’d see them outside of school, and I’m pretty sure she was sneaking into the school to have lunch with them. She seemed very out of place, very ragged and kind of dirty, like…like some kind of delinquent. I couldn’t understand why they let her be a part of whatever it was that they were doing.”

“It’s because she was probably a Puella Magi too.”

Hitomi sighed. “Right. That makes sense.”

“Did you ever learn her name?” Charlotte pressed.

“Yes,” Hitomi said with a nod. “Once when I ran into all of them one Sunday, and again after I, um, met Kyubey, he told me her name. Let’s see, her family name was Sakura I think. And her first name…Kee…Kee…” She snapped her fingers. “Kyoko! That’s it!”

A delinquent troublemaker? Well, there were two possible candidates for that. Well, three she supposed. It was entirely possible that Charlotte herself was this mysterious other girl, though given her lack of recognition of those other names it wasn’t too likely. “And anyone else?”

Hitomi shook her head. “Not that I saw, no.”

“All right,” Charlotte said as she started to tic points off on her fingers. “So, you were friends with Madoka and Sayaka, and everything seems normal, and then out of nowhere all these other people just seem to show up, and right away your friends seem more interested in them than they are in you.”

Hitomi nodded. “I mean, they didn’t shut me out or be mean or something like that, but that’s what it felt like. I get it now, but at the time…”

“Got it. So, what happened next?”

Hitomi looked down at her feet. “Well, that was…that was kind of my fault.”

Charlotte raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Hitomi nodded again. “See, it has to do with my…” A flash of pain passed over her features. She swallowed noisily, and when she spoke again her voice was much thicker than before. “My boyfriend. Kyousuke Kamijo.” Just saying that name seemed to hurt her. “Well, actually, we’d only been dating for a little bit, but we’ve been friends for years! He’s wonderful, kind of brilliant actually! As if in, he’s an actual prodigy with the violin and already so many prestigious universities have been offering scholarships. Every time I hear him play I…”

Her voice trailed off. Charlotte waited for her to continue, but Hitomi was just staring off into space, lost in her own little world.

Charlotte glanced over to Dr. Jazmine, who motioned for her to wait. Right then. Let the kid work her way through this at her own speed.

Nearly a full minute passed, and then Hitomi seemed to jerk back to awareness. She blinked, shook her head, and cleared her throat.

“Anyway,” she said. “Um, the reason this is important is because of Sayaka Miki.”

“Madoka’s friend,” Charlotte said.

“And mine! But she’s been friends with Kyousuke longer than I have. I mean, she’s known him longer than I’ve known him, and she’s known him longer than she’s known me, and…” Hitomi winced.

Charlotte could see exactly where this was going. “She liked him too.”

Hitomi seemed unable to meet Charlotte’s eyes. “Very much so. You s-see, a while back Kyousuke was in a terrible car accident. The other driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and ran a red light and…” She shuddered. “Anyway, Kyousuke was hurt very, very badly. Something to do with his spine, I think. He couldn’t walk, he could barely move his hands, his nervous system was completely messed up. And so, you know, he couldn’t play music anymore. It was the most important thing in the world to him, he loved it so much, and it was just taken from him. It was so cruel, for someone with that kind of gift to have it stolen away like that.”

She paused again, only this time it was from emotion rather than just losing her train of thought. Tears were starting to form in her eyes, and she had to turn away.

Dr. Jazmine was at her side in a moment, holding her and murmuring small words of comfort. As for Charlotte, she couldn’t help but feel like she was intruding just by being there, so she sat in place and tried to be as unnoticeable as she could.

“Sayaka was…really broken up,” Hitomi said when she had composed herself enough to continue. “She would visit him nearly every day at the hospital, bring him albums to try to cheer him up, and stuff like that. It was really sweet of her, but I don’t think Kyousuke ever really understood how much he meant to her.” She cleared her throat. “So anyway, one day, I got a call and…he was better! The doctors said it was a miracle, that all the nerve damage was just…gone! He got full use of his hands back almost immediately, his legs were healing up just fine, and no one could understand why. But he could play again! He got his life back, it was amazing!”

As she spoke about the seeming miracle, a small smile had started to form, brought forth by the happy memory. It didn’t last long though. She glanced back at Charlotte and her face fell. Then she cleared her throat and said, “Kyousuke started coming back to school soon after. I thought for certain that was when Sayaka would make her move, but instead she started avoiding him for some reason. I couldn’t understand it, but she seemed so hesitant to talk to him.”

“So you took advantage,” Charlotte guessed, then she winced. Damn it, that had not been the best choice of words.

Hitomi immediately looked stricken. “Not like that! I mean, she had known him longer, had…had loved him longer, had been by his side the whole time he had been hurt, so it was only fair that…that it would be her. But she wasn’t going to do anything! She just kept hiding from her feelings and wouldn’t take the chance and…” She sighed. “I met with her after school. I told her how I felt about Kyousuke. I told her that I knew how she felt about Kyousuke. I told her that it was only right that she try to confess to him first. I gave her twenty-four hours, and if she didn’t, then I would…you know…”

“Oh boy,” Charlotte breathed out.

“I just wanted to give her a push! I wanted them to be happy, and didn’t want to seem like I was stealing him from her!”

Charlotte hesitated, and then said as gently as she could, “You…do realize that the reason he healed up like he did was-”

“It was her wish,” Hitomi said in a flat tone. “Yes, I figured that out later. She wished for him to be healed. And she avoided him because, well, she had new responsibilities and probably didn’t want to put him in danger and…” She bent over, grabbing her head in her hands. “Oh, I don’t know! I didn’t know!”

Jazmine laid a hand on her shoulder. “There was no way you could have known.”

Perhaps, but that didn’t change what had happened. Charlotte waited until Hitomi stopped crying before prompting, “So, she didn’t take her shot, and you did?”

“I did.” Hitomi sniffed, blew her nose, and straightened up. “I walked home with him, and…I told him. Told him how I felt, that I wanted to be his girlfriend and…he said yes! He liked me too, so I thought things were going to be great! Sayaka would, um, she would get over it, and…and…”

“She…didn’t?”

This time the pause lasted nearly a whole minute. Charlotte was starting to wonder if she ought to prod her again when Hitomi said in a very small voice, “I never saw her again. She disappeared soon after that.”

“Oh.”

“Most of them did. Mami Tomoe stopped coming to school too, and they didn’t go to her place after school anymore. And I never saw Kyoko Sakura again either. She didn’t sneak into the school at lunchtime anymore, she wasn’t hanging out with them on the weekends anymore. They were just…gone.”

“But Madoka and Homura weren’t.”

Hitomi shook her head. “No. They were still around. They said that they didn’t know what happened to them all, but…” She frowned. “They were sad, yes! Madoka seemed so depressed, and I saw her crying by herself a few times between classes. But they weren’t worried! I mean, it was like they knew that Sayaka and the others were dead instead of missing!” She took a deep, shuddering breath and said, “They knew something. They knew what had happened to them.”

Yeah. Yeah, they sure did. “So, what did you do?”

Hitomi rubbed her calves together in agitation. “I…I waited until a moment when Madoka was alone, when Homura wasn’t with her. It wasn’t easy, they seemed like they were joined at the hip. But one day, right between classes, I caught her, I pulled her aside, and…and I told her that I knew she was hiding something. I told her that I knew that she knew what had happened to Sayaka, and I begged her to tell me.” A small sob escaped. “You see, I thought that maybe, th-that Sayaka might have-”

“Killed herself because you stole Kyousuke.”

Hitomi nodded. “Yes. Or ran away.”

Charlotte crossed her arms. “Which wouldn’t explain the other two disappearing.”

“I don’t know,” Hitomi said, shaking her head. “I thought maybe she did something drastic. To them, and…herself.”

Even though she knew it was a terrible thing to feel, Charlotte was starting to become a little relieved that she probably hadn’t been part of that group at all. “Yeah, that would be pretty drastic.”

Hitomi swallowed the rest of the water. Dr. Jazmine refilled her cup. “Anyway, Madoka still refused to tell me. She just started crying again and said that she was sorry over and over and ran away.” She paused, and then said, “Homura Akemi showed up in my room that night.”

Charlotte raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I had no idea how she got in. I was just sitting on my bed, trying to figure things out, and then she was just…there. She was wearing a weird outfit and had a shield, but the look in her eyes! She was always so meek and shy, but right then she scared me more than anything else ever had.”

Charlotte tried to imagine Homulilly actually successfully intimidating someone. She had to admit, it was a hard image to conjure. “What did she say?”

“She told me to leave Madoka alone,” Hitomi said with a shiver. “She told me to mind my own business. She told me that if I ever upset Madoka again, then I would not like the consequences. She didn’t say what they would be, but…”

“She didn’t need to.”

“No. No, she didn’t.” Hitomi frowned. “And then she was gone! I was looking right at her, and she just vanished! And again, I know now how she did it, but then?” She shook her head. “I didn’t sleep at all that night.”

“I bet,” Charlotte said. She crossed her legs and joined her fingers over her knee. “So what happened next?”

Hitomi slowly breathed in and exhaled through her nose. “There was a storm, a big one. It just seemed to come out of nowhere. I mean, there was nothing about it in the weather reports or anything, but before I knew it, the city needed to be evacuated.”

“A storm?”

“Yeah. At least, that’s what we thought. I f-found out later that it was a huge…” Hitomi’s voice trailed off. “…uh…”

“A witch,” Charlotte said.

Hitomi winced. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. None of us had any control over that.” Then Charlotte frowned. “Wait, a huge witch causing a storm…do you mean a Walpurgisnacht?”

Hitomi stared blankly at her. “A what?”

Oh, wow, she was really uniformed. “It’s…uh…” Charlotte shot a glance over to Dr. Jazmine.

“A Walpurgisnacht is the name for an amalgamation of witches,” Dr. Jazmine explained. “When one witch accidentally collides with another, they usually fuse into a single entity.”

Hitomi’s face paled. “That can happen?” she whispered.

“Yes. It’s rare, but it does happen. The stronger ones can even leave their labyrinths and float around freely.”

“That’s terrible! How has nobody ever noticed?”

“It’s extremely rare that they become that strong, and the witches themselves are invisible to normal human eyes. Typically, when one arises, any nearby magical girls will join forces to take it down.”

Hitomi slowly breathed out. “All this time,” she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. She placed her face in her hands. “All this time this was happening, and nobody knew.”

For her part, Charlotte was dealing with a bit of a revelation of her own. “Wait, how long after everyone vanished did this happen?”

Hitomi shrugged. “I don’t know. About a month, I guess?”

A month. Charlotte frowned. Okay, so maybe she and her friends wasn’t this massive Walpurgisnacht that causes a city-wide evacuation. She didn’t know how many witches had to go into a Walpurgisnacht’s creation to cause it to break free from its labyrinth, but it probably was more than four. “Okay, so this storm was coming, and everyone had to flee their homes. What happened then?”

“W-Well, the storm just…stopped. It showed up and pretty much smashed a big portion of the city. Like, most of downtown was just in ruins. The news said that entire skyscrapers were ripped up and thrown around!” Hitomi grabbed a tissue and blew her nose. “But then it was over! The storm stopped, and it was over!”

Oh boy. “And…Madoka and Homura?”

Hitomi’s eyes unfocused. “Madoka and Homura went missing,” she said, staring off into space. “They never even made it to the shelter. That was that. I never saw either of them again.”

Charlotte did some mental math in her head. Okay, so supposedly they had vanished to fight this Walpurgisnacht, so it made sense that that was when they turned into witches themselves. Did they fight alone, or were there others on hand to help? She tried to imagine Gretchen and Homulilly fighting off a massive Walpurgisnacht on their own and got the shivers, especially since they apparently had to deal with one another. All things considered, maybe it was for the best that they had become witches themselves. That wasn’t something that anyone would be better off remembering.

Hitomi went on. “Madoka’s parents drove themselves crazy looking for her. Her mom was always a little…uptight. But this just drove her over the edge. She did everything she could to find her. Like, hiring private detectives, demanding security footage, anything. She even got arrested once for harassing the police! And since, you know, Sayaka and the others had already disappeared, people started to think that maybe it wasn’t the storm that had gotten them, that maybe something was going around, taking girls or something like that.”

Charlotte winced. Yikes, that was rough. “What about Homul…er, what about Homura though? Did anyone try to look for her?”

“Not really,” Hitomi admitted. “I mean, yes, there was a missing person’s report, and the posters went up with both their faces. But she didn’t really have anyone other than Madoka. And when Madoka was gone…”

“I see.”

“It was the same when Sayaka disappeared,” Hitomi went on. “Her parents weren’t as, uh, determined as Mrs. Kaname, but they still tried really, really hard to find her. But no one really did much for Mami Tomoe. She just, you know, stopped showing up.”

Charlotte was starting to feel a little uncomfortable with what Hitomi was hinting at. It did seem kind of messed up that the worth of someone’s life seem predicated on how many people they had in their life. “And what did you think?”

“Me?” Hitomi made a face. “I…Okay, you know at first I said that I thought that Sayaka might’ve done something…bad? Like, everyone thought that she might’ve ran away, but I started to think that she went crazy and, uh…”

“Did…something to herself, and the other two?”

Hitomi swallowed. “Yeah. That. And I was so sure that Madoka knew, but after she and Homura disappeared, I started thinking that, I don’t know, that maybe she didn’t know after all, and she and Homura went to go look for her and the other two when the storm hit, and they were caught in it, and-Oh, I don’t know, nothing made any sense!” Then she blinked, and her brow furrowed. “Except, until it did.”

Charlotte crossed her legs. “This is when the Incubator showed up, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Hitomi nodded. “I…I didn’t…it was so strange, but we had just returned home, and I had spent most of the day talking to the police about, well, about Madoka, and if I knew anything about where she might have gone.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “But anyway, that was over, I was in my room crying, and then…and then…”

“Then you heard a voice,” Dr. Jazmine prompted. “A voice inside your head.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did. It was so weird! At first I thought that I must be hearing things, but it just kept talking, saying that it could, you know, help me! And then…then I saw it.”

Despite having come as a questioner, Charlotte found herself kind of wrapped up in the story. She had heard a few firsthand accounts of first meetings with Incubators before, but none had this few levels of separation before.

“It looked…it looked kind of like a cat. Or a rabbit. It was small and white, with these big ears and bushy tail.” Hitomi shivered. “Its eyes though…they were small and red and beady and barely ever blinked. And it had this smile that never, ever changed, or even moved!”

“An Incubator,” Charlotte said, in part to herself. She had seen pictures of the things, and of course everyone knew what Reibey looked like.

“Yes. Is…are they really aliens? Like, from another planet?”

“They are,” Dr. Jazmine told her.

Hitomi slowly shook her head. “Aliens. Magic. Afterlives. It’s just…a week ago I didn’t know any of this existed! And now I’m…” She looked down at her hand. “I’m…I’m dead, apparently. I was beaten to death by a monster, except apparently it wasn’t really a monster and-”

Before she could drift off too far, Dr. Jazmine swooped in. “You know, Incubators aren’t the only aliens out there. There’s plenty that they’ve made contracts with and ended up here too.”

Hitomi’s head snapped up. “Wait. You mean, like they showed us in the orientation video?”

“Exactly. We’re actually friends with several. In fact, there are a few living here in Freehaven.”

“Oh,” Hitomi said. She seemed unsure of how to react to this piece of information. “I, uh, what…kind of aliens?”

“The cool kind,” Charlotte said. “Don’t worry, they’re our friends.”

“I…see.” Hitomi blinked. “Aliens. Huh.”

Well, at least they got her out of her funk. Time to get back on track. “Anyway, let’s get back to the first alien you met,” Charlotte said. “You said his name was…Cutie?”

That actually got a small laugh out of Hitomi. “N-No. Kyubey. With a ‘b.’ Anyway, he told me that the reason everyone disappeared wasn’t because they ran anyway or got killed by the storm or were kidnapped or anything like that. He said it was because they were actually magical girls who protected the city from evil witches! And that they had disappeared fighting these witches, and he was worried about them!”

Oh, that lying motherfucker. Charlotte wondered if it had been this ‘Kyubey’ that had been responsible for her own contract, and if he had used a similar half-truth to get what he wanted. “That must’ve been crazy to hear.”

“Yes. Yes, it was!” Hitomi sighed. “But then, it was an alien bunny-cat that talked directly into my head, so what did I know?”

“What else did he say?”

Hitomi shook her head. “That the storm was no storm. That it was a super-witch that Madoka and Homura had gone off to fight, and though they won he hadn’t heard from them since. And with no other magical girls around, the city was defenseless.”

Now Charlotte was getting an even clearer picture. Jesus, it really had just been business as usual for the little rat bastard, hadn’t it? He had gotten through his old batch of magical girls, so he went to work getting news ones, probably just to fill some kind of quota. And what better way to go about it than find someone emotionally vulnerable? Like, say, a personal friend of his last set of marks, one that didn’t know what had happened to them and was probably worried sick about them? It was as smart as it was despicable.

“So that’s when you took his contract?”

“Not at first,” Hitomi said. “I…I didn’t really know what to think of it, or if I even believed him. But over the next couple of days I just keep thinking and thinking and thinking and…” She bowed her head. “I had no idea where anyone was or what had happened to them. And I started to figure, if it wasn’t a trick, and I had a chance to find them, then how could I not take it? Th-Then they’d be back and I’d be one of them, and maybe then we’d be…” She swallowed. “We’d be friend again. Like we used to be.” She looked up at Dr. Jazmine. “But he knew, didn’t he? Kyubey knew what had happened to everyone.”

“Almost definitely,” Dr. Jazmine said. “That’s how they operate. Tell you enough of the truth to get your attention, and then throw in one small but significant lie to give you just enough of a push.”

“That’s…That’s just…”

“Sick,” Charlotte said flatly. “Exploitive. Whatever you want to call it.”

Hitomi swallowed. “I was duped.”

“We all were.”

“I was an idiot.” Hitomi closed her eyes. The slight tremble started to grow worse. “I was such an idiot.”

“No, you weren’t. He was the one in the wrong. He and the rest of his kind have been doing this for literal centuries. They are very good at manipulating people. It’s not your fault that he decided to target you.”

“But…if I had…”

“There are no ‘ifs,’ Hitomi. There is only what is. And you are in no way to blame for what happened, okay? It’s not your fault.” Hitomi turned her head, unable to meet Dr. Jazmine’s eyes. Dr. Jazmine gently but firmly turned Hitomi’s gaze back toward her. “Look at me. It’s not your fault.”

“Okay,” Hitomi said after a few seconds. “Okay. Thank you.” She looked back up at Charlotte. “Um, I’m sorry. Where were we?

Charlotte blinked. “Er, you just met Kyubey. And you made your wish?”

“Right,” Hitomi sighed. “That.”

“So, you wished to find your friends?” Charlotte asked.

“Yes,” Hitomi nodded. Then she frowned. “Er, well, sort of. Kyubey s-said that they were probably somewhere d-d-dangerous, and just being sent there would be a bad idea. So I should wish for the power to find them instead.” She looked up at Dr. Jazmine. “Another trick?”

“Probably,” Dr. Jazmine said. “Sending you straight to them would just kill you. He would want you around for a bit to hunt witches.”

“Why? Why does he want us to hunt witches? Why does he want us to become witches? Why do any of this?”

“It’s…a little hard to explain. But the gist of it is that we release a sort of energy that Incubators can harvest: first when we make a contract, then when we become a witch, and again when that witch is killed. It’s a system that they keep going to feed upon.”

“That…disgusting!”

“No arguments here,” Charlotte remarked. “But okay. You made a contract, got your powers, and set off to find your friends. What happened then?”

“Then?” Hitomi let out a derisive snort. “What do you think? There was no ‘then,’ there was no setting off. A witch showed up almost immediately, so I went to try to fight it.” Then she started to drift again. Her eyes started to lose focus and the shaking increased. She stuck the middle knuckles of her right index finger into her mouth and started gnawing on it as she talked faster and faster. “It was…it was horrible! I was in a world that made no sense, a forest made of roads where up was down and down was sideways, and there was this…this tree with all these stop signs and crossing signs, and…and I transformed! I just felt this rush of power, and suddenly I was faster, I was stronger, I-I guess my clothes were different, but I didn’t even get the chance to use that power! I jumped up, but it just swatted me out of the air! I hit my head on something and-”

“Hitomi!” Dr. Jazmine pulled Hitomi’s hand away from her mouth as clasped her own hands over it. “Hitomi. Look at me. Look at me.”

Hitomi did, but the shaking didn’t stop.

“You don’t have to go there, okay? We don’t need to hear about that. And it’s over, okay? It’s over. It can’t hurt you anymore.”

“I…but…it used to be a girl like me, right? Who hurt her? What could possibly be so bad to make her like that?”

“Kyubey did. She’s a victim. You’re a victim. We all are. That’s what our whole community is about. Being there for each other. Taking care of each other. We’re all in this together, okay? And we’re not going to let anything happen to you.”

Hitomi slowly nodded. She reached for her cup of water, but her hands were shaking too badly, so Dr. Jazmine quickly retrieved it for her and helped her hold it steady as she drained it.

As for Charlotte, she was starting to gain a whole new level of appreciation for Dr. Jazmine and others like her. Also, she was coming to really regret some of the shenanigans she had gotten into when she was younger. Given what the caretakers had been dealing with, they probably hadn’t needed the additional headache.

At any rate, when Hitomi handed back the empty glass she seemed to have calmed a bit. “Anyway, that was, um, that, and…I don’t need to talk about th-that room, do I? Or that city?”

“No, dear,” Dr. Jazmine said.

“Oh. Well, then I was brought here, and that’s wh-when I saw Madoka.” She sighed. “And…I guess you know the rest of that.”

Charlotte slowly breathed out. Wow, that really did answer quite a few questions, though not really in as satisfactory way as she had been hoping. “That’s…quite the story.”

Hitomi actually looked hurt. “It’s the truth, I swear!”

“No, I believe you,” Charlotte said hastily, before the emotionally troubled girl could freak out on her. “I definitely believe you. A lot of stuff makes a lot more sense now.”

“Oh,” Hitomi said, calming down a bit. “Okay. So…” She glanced from Charlotte to Dr. Jazmine. “Can I see Madoka now? Please?”

“We’ll talk about that in a moment,” Charlotte said before Dr. Jazmine could answer. She grabbed a small table and pulled it between them. “Now, I brought along a few photographs. And I would like you to see if you recognize any of them.”

“Oh.” Hitomi gave a small nod. “Okay.”

Starting things off with something they already knew, Charlotte pulled out a picture of Kriemhild Gretchen, which they had taken during a hiking trip about a year prior. It was from the waist up, and she was holding up a baby squirrel that had taken a liking to her.

“Madoka,” Hitomi said without hesitation. “That’s Madoka. Except…her hair is…darker? So’s her skin. And eyes. It’s kind of creepy.” Her brow furrowed. “Her legs. When I saw her, her legs were tentacles.”

“Wires, actually,” Charlotte said. Maybe if she treated witch remnants as normal and mundane Hitomi would be less disturbed by them. “Or something like them.”

Hitomi silently stared down at Gretchen’s grinning face. “So she did turn into a witch,” she said at last.

Charlotte winced. “I’m afraid so. Um, could you please tell me her parents’ names?”

“Why?”

“Like we said, she’s lost her memories. So this is just in case she wants to know.”

“But I can tell her that in person!”

“In time. For now, this is just to fill in the holes, so to speak.”

The look Hitomi gave her wasn’t exactly friendly, but finally she sighed and said, “Fine. Her mother’s name is Junko Kaname, her father is Tomohisa Kaname, and she has a baby brother named Tatsuya.”

Charlotte, who had been writing all this down, paused for a moment at that last part. Baby brother? Oh, that was going to complicate things.

She finished her notes and took the picture of Gretchen away. Then she brought out a picture of Homulilly, taken from the same trip. She was standing with her cheeks full of trail mix, looking at the camera in surprise as Ophelia had snapped the candid photo. She was wearing a jacket, so it wasn’t immediately apparent that her arms and hands were bones unless you were looking right at her hands. “Now, how about this one?”

“That’s Homura,” Hitomi confirmed. “Except she didn’t have a flower on her head. And she used to have glasses, and her hair was different. And her arms…when I saw her here, they were dead. Just bones.”

“She’s a little sensitive about it,” Charlotte told her. “So if you do see her again, it would be best not to mention them.”

Hitomi stared at her in bewilderment. “How do they move? There’s nothing holding them together!”

“Magic,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “That’s all there really is to it.”

“Oh.”

“And you said she doesn’t have any family, right?”

“That’s right,” Hitomi said. “I, uh, did some digging after I met Kyubey but before I made my contract. She pretty much grew up in this Catholic school in America and only got sent back to Japan a little while back.”

“America?”

“Er, yes. You…know what that is, right?”

“I do, I was just wondering why she was there to begin with.”

“That…I couldn’t find out,” Hitomi sighed. “Something to do with her health, I think. She had something wrong with her heart, and had been in a lot of hospitals.”

Damn. Well, that wasn’t a lot to go on, but Charlotte couldn’t help but wonder if her heart issues and her lack of a family was somehow related. Some kind of accident, maybe? Anyway, It was time to start bringing out the big guns. “Okay, how about her?” Charlotte said, presenting the next photo.

This time Hitomi stared at the picture for several seconds before her eyes widened with recognition. “Yes! Yes, I do know her! That’s Mami Tomoe, the upperclassman they were hanging out with! Is she a witch too?”

The picture was one Charlotte had taken herself, of Candeloro relaxing in the back yard. It had been in the autumn, so her sweater hid her ribbon arms. “Yes. She goes by Candeloro now.”

“Candy-what?”

“Candeloro.” Charlotte tapped the photograph. “Now, is there anything else you know about her? Her family, maybe what kind of wish she originally made?”

Hitomi shook her head. “Not really. No family though. They died. In a car accident, a few years ago.”

Charlotte winced. Well, at least she hadn’t left family behind, but even so, that was rough. “Makes sense.” She pulled out a marker. “Mami Tomoe. How do you spell that?” Hitomi told her, and Charlotte wrote it on the back of the photo before putting it away.

Once that was done, Charlotte presented the next picture. “Okay. Now, how about this one?”

The picture was of Ophelia, in her usual eccentric get-up. Sure enough, Hitomi seemed outright confused by her look.

“No. No, I’ve never seen her before.”

That wasn’t a surprise. “Try this one.” She took out another picture, which was actually one of Ophelia’s old class photos back during their own FIB days, before she had adopted her signature style of dress and was just wearing a black tank top and a pair of jeans.

Hitomi shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember a bald girl.”

“She might have had hair originally,” Dr. Jazmine suggested.

Hitomi frowned down at the picture. “Um…wait! Those eyes.” She nodded. “Okay, I think that might actually be Kyoko Sakura. But she had long red hair. Like, very long, tied into a ponytail.” She glanced up at Charlotte. “Witch?”

“Yup. Her name is Ophelia.”

Hitomi didn’t seem like she knew what to make of that. “Ophelia. Really?”

“Witch names are weird. Do you know anything about her? Any family or anything?”

Hitomi shook her head. “No. I’m sorry, but I never found out much about her.”

Well, that was a shame, but maybe it was for the best. Charlotte wrote down Ophelia’s old name and put the picture away. She hesitated, and then brought out the last photo. “Okay. Now, how about her?”

Sure enough, Charlotte had barely set the photo down before Hitomi practically leapt out of her seat. “Sayaka! That’s Sayaka Miki! She’s here? She’s really here?”

Even though she had been expecting some kind of strong reaction, Charlotte was still a little startled. “Y-Yes,” she stammered, her head jerking back. “She is.”

All of the confusion, grief, and fear simply vanished from Hitomi’s face, to be replaced with pure joy and jubilation. “I knew it!” she cheered, practically leaping out of her chair. “Please, I need to talk to her. I need to tell her I’m sorry, I didn’t know what she was going through, and…” Then realization hit. She frozen in place, blinked, and whispered, “She’s a witch too, isn’t it?”

Charlotte winced. “Yeah. Yeah, she is.”

Hitomi sat down very suddenly. “Oh no.”

Charlotte breathed out. “The best we can figure, Sayaka, Kyoko, and Mami all turned into witches at the same time and…sort of merged.”

Hitomi choked. “They were the Walpurgisnacht? The one that attacked the city?”

“We don’t know,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “It could be, but I don’t think so. The timeline doesn’t match up. But we…” Oops. Charlotte quickly corrected her slip. “They were a Walpurgisnacht, yes. Well, are.”

Unfortunately, Hitomi caught it. “You said we. Why did you say we?”

Charlotte sighed. “Well, I was sort of part of that whole business too.”

Hitomi frowned in suspicion. “Who are you? I’ve never seen you before!”

“I figured,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “Best we can tell, I was probably added to the group at the last minute. Probably a new magical girl that was brought in at the last minute before a really hard fight, one that didn’t end well.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, it’s just a guess. That’s part of the reason I wanted to talk to you, to try to figure some things out.”

Hitomi looked down at her knees. “None of them remember anything, do they?”

“No. That’s how the witch thing works.” Dr. Jazmine immediately shot Charlotte a warning look. Whoops. That much blunt force was probably not a great idea, so she quickly added, “But they are very happy. They have a great life here, and-”

“How could they though?” Hitomi hissed. “With everything just gone, how can you be happy?”

A few seconds passed, and then Charlotte said, “Sometimes you just make the best of what you have.”

“And Madoka?” Hitomi demanded. “And Homura? How do they figure into all this?”

Charlotte sighed. “We met them later and became friends. See, we don’t have our memories, but there is a sort of déjà vu thing that happens when we meet someone we used to know. But they apparently became their own Walpurgisnacht later on.”

“They were the Walpurgisnacht?” Hitomi gaped. “The one that made the storm?”

“Probably not. It’s just the two of them. I’m thinking that they fought the big Walpurgisnacht and won, but it took everything they had, and then, well, you…can probably guess.”

Hitomi’s hands gripped the armrests of her chair so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Her entire body had started shaking. “This is so wrong. This is so very wrong. I wanted to find them so badly. I had so many things I wanted to say, so many things I wanted to apologize for, but now I can’t! They don’t even know me!”

Oh boy. Charlotte had expected things to break down in some way, but now that it was actually happening, she was realizing just how ill-equipped she was to deal with it.

Fortunately, Dr. Jazmine was on hand to pick up that slack. “Hitomi, it’s okay,” she said as she knelt down in front of the trembling girl. She took Hitomi’s hand in her own. “It’s not your fault. There was no way you could’ve known.”

“But…But I…”

“It’s not your fault,” Dr. Jazmine repeated. “If you must blame someone, blame Kyubey. Blame the rest of the Incubators. We are all their victims.”

“I…” Hitomi’s voice was swallowed up by a sob, and she practically fell out of her chair into Dr. Jazmine’s arms.

As for Charlotte, she wasn’t exactly sure what to do with herself. Just like it hadn’t been Hitomi’s fault that her friends had disappeared, it wasn’t really her fault that Hitomi was breaking down. But even so, she did feel like she ought to say something.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But they are happy, I promise! Gretchen and Homulilly are one of the happiest couples I know, and-”

And yet again, she would have been better off keeping her mouth shut. “Couples?” Hitomi exclaimed, practically leaping out of Dr. Jazmine’s arms to stare at Charlotte. “Excuse me? Madoka and Homura? They’re dating? Each other?”

Charlotte stared right back. “…yes?”

“But…” Hitomi shook her head as she tried to wrap her mind around this new piece of information. “They’re both girls!”

It was then that Charlotte came to realize just how far removed they were from the world of the living. Forget the magic, forget the aliens, forget the immortality, just this little bit of difference really made the divide clear. She had heard that prejudice against same-sex relationships existed over there, but since they were the norm where she lived she had never really been able to understand it. “So’s everyone else,” she said. “We don’t exactly have a whole of options, you know?”

Hitomi’s eyes practically bugged out of her face. “So do all the girls get with other girls here?”

“Not all,” Charlotte said. “But most.”

“Are you with a girl?”

Charlotte knew that she ought not be defensive, that Hitomi was brand new and had yet to get used to things, but she still felt a little insulted. “Well, as a matter of fact, I am. Candeloro, to be specific.”

“And Sayaka. Is she with a girl?”

Charlotte quirked an eyebrow. “Why do I get the feeling that I shouldn’t answer that question?”

“It’s the one with the red hair, isn’t it?” Hitomi said. “I mean, who had red hair. Kyoko Sakura, the delinquent.”

“I’m not liking where this is-”

Hitomi had started to shake again, and this time it had nothing to do with grief or guilt. “She was…so absolutely smitten with Kyousuke. She stood by his side all the time he was injured, she traded away her soul for him! And when I got in the way, it killed her! But as soon as he’s out of the picture she just decides to go hook up with that…that…”

“Okay, stop,” Charlotte said, holding up a palm. “A few things. First? We’re talking about Oktavia here, not Sayaka. And Oktavia doesn’t even remember Kyousuke. Second, don’t call my friend a delinquent. She’s actually a hardworking engineer and an accomplished dancer. Third, we have no idea what caused Oktavia to become a witch. Fourth-”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

Hitomi emphatically shook her head. “No! Not ‘Oktavia.’ Sayaka!”

Charlotte gritted her teeth. “Not anymore.”

“All right,” Dr. Jazmine said, hastily putting herself between them. “I think we’re done here.”

Charlotte honestly would have preferred to stay and debate the matter, but then her common sense got the better of her, so she just sighed and moved toward the exit. Hitomi, however, felt no such restrictions.

“Her name is Sayaka!” she shouted after Charlotte. “Sayaka Miki! And Sayaka is in love with Kyousuke! She sold her soul for him, it belongs to him, not anyone else!”

…

Homulilly lay stretched out in Ophelia’s recliner, the chair reclined out to its full length, with Cheese wandering up and down her torso. She stared up at the ceiling, unconsciously steering Cheese this way and that with pokes of her fingers.

Oktavia lay nearby across the couch and was reading a magazine while Gretchen paced back-and-forth in the kitchen, the patter of her legs sounding not unlike a gentle rain.

They had all been like that since the others had left to go talk to Hitomi. Since then, they had all tried to keep themselves busy so as not to obsess over what was going on at that exact moment and what might be being revealed. In this, they had all failed miserably.

Gretchen walked back into the living room, her hands wringing. “What do you think is going on now?”

Oktavia sighed and looked up. “Oh, who knows? It depends on how much she has to say.”

Homulilly gave them the briefest of glances before returning her attention to the ceiling. She started moving her hips, making the chair lightly bounce back and forth.

“Do you think it’s going to work? What if Hitomi doesn’t want to talk to Charlotte?” Gretchen said.

“She will,” Oktavia reassured her. “If anyone can get to the heart of things, it’s Charlotte.”

“Unless she says the wrong thing at the wrong time and Hitomi attacks her,” Homulilly said, not taking her eyes away from where they were fixed.

“She won’t! Stop being so pessimistic! Um, at least I don’t think she will. Charlotte’s pretty smart and…” Oktavia’s voice trailed off.

A moment later there was the crinkle of paper as Oktavia tried to go back to her magazine. Gretchen sighed and returned to the kitchen to resume pacing.

…

Charlotte had expected to leave the FIB immediately after finishing up her talk with Hitomi, but given how it had ended they had insisted on giving her a full psychological inspection before they had let her go, just to make sure that Hitomi hadn’t accidentally knocked something loose. That had been annoying. Charlotte had come to do the analyzing, not be the nalyze.

Regardless, she was still a little shaken when she finally left the building. Candeloro and Ophelia were still waiting for her outside. When they saw her coming out, they rose and Candeloro immediately rushed over.

“Are you all right?” she said, laying a ribbon on Charlotte’s shoulder.

Charlotte breathed in. “Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

“They said that things kind of broke down,” Ophelia said as she walked up to the pair.

“They did a little,” Charlotte admitted. “But it’s not my fault!”

“Sure it isn’t.”

“It’s not!”

“She didn’t attack you, did she?” Candeloro said, looking Charlotte from top to bottom.

“No, she just got upset and started yelling,” Charlotte said. “Turns out she’s not exactly super-comfortable with the whole girls loving girls thing.”

Ophelia raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. Apparently it’s still a…controversial subject back in the world of the living.”

“Weird,” Ophelia shook her head. “That’s just weird.”

“Tell me about it.” Then Charlotte brightened. “But hey, it wasn’t a wash, as I learned tons more!”

“Well, there’s that,” Ophelia said. “Though, just to be safe, you’d better save it until we get everyone together. I have a feeling that we’re going to need all the group support we can get.”

…

“So, it looks like we were right.”

Everyone was gathered at the dinner table. Homulilly and Gretchen were sitting next to each other, hands grasped tightly under the table. Ophelia was on her feet and pacing back and forth, Cheese along for the ride on her shoulder. Oktavia was leaning forward, one elbow on the tabletop with that arm’s fingers drumming against her temple with opposite forearm laid across the table. And Candeloro stood behind Charlotte, with a supportive ribbon laid over her wife’s shoulder.

As for Charlotte herself, she seemed…grim. Homulilly still hadn’t heard any details about her meeting with Hitomi, but by the look of things it had gone badly. That, or she had learned something very disturbing. And the funny thing was Homulilly couldn’t decide if she wanted to hear everything Charlotte had to say or none of it.

“You all were some kind of magical girl super-team,” Charlotte continued. “Either I was a really late addition or, as is probably the case, the actual witch you all were fighting when everything went to hell. I’m still not sure what knocked over that domino line, but something probably caused a mass witching-out while you were in my labyrinth, and then badda-bing, badda-boom, Walpurgisnacht.”

Nobody said anything to that, though Ophelia did pause her pacing and quirked an eyebrow in Charlotte’s direction.

For her part, Charlotte took a deep breath and said, “Hitomi wasn’t though. She only made a contract after our deaths, specifically to look for some missing friends of hers.”

“Us, right?” Gretchen asked.

“Exactly. According to Hitomi, she was close friends with you,” she pointed first to Gretchen, “and you,” her finger moved over to Oktavia. “And apparently you two had been BFF’s since you were little.”

Oktavia blinked. “Wait, me? Really?”

“Well, it does make sense,” Gretchen said in a low voice. “I mean, we did figure that we were probably, um, closer than the others.”

Homulilly’s lips thinned out.

“Huh,” Oktavia said with a frown. “Well, okay…” She looked over to Gretchen and managed a crooked smile. “So, together forever after all, huh?”

Gretchen smiled in return, but it didn’t last long, though probably more due to the heaviness of the situation than any opinion about remaining close with the easygoing mermaid for the rest of eternity.

“Yeah, anyway,” Charlotte said. She looked up to Candeloro. “It seems you were team leader or something, no surprises there. Hitomi said that you were an upperclassman that everyone else just started following around one day.”

There was a pause, and then Candeloro gave a slight nod.

“You were a transfer student,” Charlotte said, motioning over to Homulilly.

“A t-transfer student?” Homulilly stammered.

“Yeah. Apparently you were already a magical girl or whatever when you showed up, and sort of, uh, made friends with Gretchen pretty quickly. Anyway, one day you weren’t there, the next you were, and were part of that group ever since.”

“Oh. Well, that makes sense, I guess.”

“Dare I ask what my deal was?” Ophelia said.

“Sure. Apparently you were a stray delinquent that they just picked up from God knows where.”

Ophelia let out a bark of surprised laughter. “Wait, seriously?”

“Yup. Hitomi says that you didn’t even go to their school, but you’d sneak in to have lunch with the others and was always with them when she’d see all of you after school and on the weekends. And you seemed, and I quote, ragged and kind of dirty.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” For some reason this news seemed to cheer Ophelia to no end. “True rebel from day one!”

“So what happened to us all?” Oktavia said. “Did Ophelia, Candeloro, and I just up and vanish one day?”

“Apparently,” Charlotte said. “And this actually has the most to do with you.”

“What? Me? Really?”

“Oh, damn it, Tavi,” Ophelia sighed. “What’d you do this time?”

“Yeah, and brace yourself,” Charlotte said. “This one’s…kind of…” She frowned. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s something though.”

She explained to the group all about a boy named Kyousuke and his unfortunate accident. This was followed by his sudden miracle healing and the clash between Hitomi and Oktavia’s past self for his affections, and how that all went.

“Seriously?” Oktavia said, her eyes practically bugging right out of her face. “I gave up my soul for some dumb boy?”

“Well, that is a very kind thing to do,” Candeloro said. “Very selfless.”

“Yeah. I mean, it kind of makes you a hero if you think about it,” Gretchen added.

“And it does explain why you’re so good with music,” Candeloro added. “We always figured that it must have something to do with your wish.”

“Screw that! That’s got to be the lamest thing I’ve ever heard! All that, and I didn’t even have the spine to make a move!” Oktavia threw up her hands in exasperation and slumped back into her seat.

“Well, if it makes you feel better, it all worked out in the end,” Ophelia said as she reached over to tousle Oktavia’s hair. “And you definitely traded up.”

“Yeah,” Oktavia sighed. “Yeah, I did. I just wish the journey wasn’t so…dumb.” She tilted her head to one side. “So, is that what set me off?”

“Um, maybe?” Charlotte shrugged. “Hitomi wasn’t there, so there’s no way to know for certain. She just said that one day, everyone but Gretchen and Homulilly up and disappeared, and that you two seemed to know why but refused to say.”

“That’s awful,” Gretchen said in a small voice.

“These stories very often are,” Charlotte muttered. “Anyway, not much to tell after that. Apparently a huge storm hit out of nowhere and everyone in the city needed to be evacuated, but your, uh, past selves never showed up to the shelter and were never heard from again.”

“A storm?” Candeloro rubbed her chin. “Why do I get the feeling that that storm was no storm at all?”

“Because it wasn’t,” Charlotte said. “Apparently Hitomi was contacted by an Incubator not long after who told her that it was some kind of giant Walpurgisnacht and that you all were Puella Magi, all the while conveniently leaving out the part about you turning into witches yourselves. She said that he gave her the impression that you were all still alive somewhere, so she wished to be able to find you guys. Er, Gretchen and Oktavia specifically.” She shrugged. “And she got knocked off in her first fight with a witch, so I guess it came true. From a demented point of view.”

“Wow,” Gretchen said.

“Wow’s right,” said Ophelia, finally pulling out a chair to sit down as well. “That kid’s had it rough.”

“So, wait,” Oktavia said. “A big Walpurgisnacht was threatening the city? You guys don’t think that it might have been, um, us?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Charlotte said. “I thought about it on the way home, and the timelines just don’t make sense if it was. Homulilly and Gretchen disappeared right after the storm cleared up, so they must have turned into witches right after. And we had already been here for years when they showed up.”

“That just means that they got taken down at least a few weeks after,” Ophelia pointed out. “If they were the last Puella Magi in town when it happened, then they could have been wandering around as witches for a while until new ones showed up.”

“Huh.” Charlotte blinked. “That’s, uh, that’s a good point. And…a very disturbing one.”

Homulilly breathed out. That was a possibility that she really rather not think about. And judging by the nauseated looked on Gretchen’s face, she felt much the same way.

“Okay, but wait,” Oktavia said. “What happened to the boyfriend?”

“Why, you hoping he’ll turn up as well?” said Ophelia. Oktavia crumpled up a napkin and threw it at her.

“No clue,” admitted Charlotte. “He kind of dropped out of the story around the storm, so I guess things got weird between them. And now their relationship is definitely not going anywhere.”

“I can’t help but feel for him as well,” Candeloro said. “I mean, to lose both his close friend and his girlfriend in such a short period of time without ever knowing why. That can’t be easy.”

“Well, sure,” said Ophelia. “Until you remember that he’s still supposedly a musical prodigy who got his goods back and will probably end up rich and famous.”

“That doesn’t change anything. If anything, it almost makes it worse. Survivor’s guilt and all that. I mean, can you imagine, just when it looks like the universe has aligned to give you everything you ever wanted, everyone around you is just…gone? And you’re stuck alone, wondering why you deserved to have your wish granted and no one else did?”

Oktavia slowly exhaled.

After a long enough silence had passed, Homulilly said, “Did you learn anything else?”

Charlotte cleared her throat. “I did, actually. To be specific, I learned names.”

“Like, our names?” Ophelia said. “I mean, I figure that you got Tavi’s old name, but the rest of us?”

Charlotte shrugged. “Apparently Hitomi was introduced to you all at one point. Anyway, I showed her your pictures, and she was able to identify them.”

“Oh.”

Oktavia squirmed uncomfortably in her chair. “So, should we hear them? I mean, I know it’s not good for us, but I can’t help but be a little curious…”

“Same. Only problem is we have no way of knowing how it’ll affect us.” Ophelia turned to Homulilly and Gretchen. “I mean, you two only heard them like once or twice, but you said it’s got your heads tied up in knots, right?”

Homulilly sighed. “Yes. It’s…not been fun.”

“What’s the rule on that anyway?” Oktavia asked. “I mean, I’ve heard of witches showing up with people that they knew and hearing their old names like a couple dozen times before someone put a stop to it, and nothing bad really happened.”

“There’s no hard and fast rule on it,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “But apparently, the longer it’s been since your death, the harder it is. I guess if your new identity has had time to settle, then it’s more likely that your old one can really screw you up.”

“Oh,” Ophelia said. “Then yeah, better keep that to yourself.”

“At least for now,” Candeloro added.

“Cool. All right, I guess I’m the secret keeper now,” Charlotte said with a sigh. “Possessor of forbidden knowledge.”

She probably meant it as a joke, but nobody laughed. In fact, nobody really had anything to say at all. They all fell silent, each either looking downward or staring off into the distance.

But despite the melancholy mood, Homulilly had to admit that she did feel a little better than she had earlier. True, Hitomi’s supposed past friendship with Gretchen…complicated things, but at least she now had confirmation that it wasn’t romantic in any way. Heck, if anything, she and Gretchen had been something, given that they had been the only two left for some time. True, it had probably been a very depressing time, but still.

Then Ophelia broke the silence with another question. “So…” she said, drawling out the vowel. “What about our families? Did you learn anything about them?”

Charlotte blinked. “Oh yeah. Kind of. So apparently, Gretchen and Oktavia both had families. Er, I mean, you probably still have, to be honest.”

“Really?” Gretchen said, perking up.

“Well, yeah. I mean, you both were friends with our new weirdo, so it makes that she would know them.” Charlotte pulled out some notes. “Okay, you want to hear this?”

Gretchen stared at her. Then she gave the briefest of nods.

Charlotte opened her mouth, but then Gretchen quickly said, “But no names. I…think it’s probably safer that way.”

“Fair enough. Okay, you have a mom and a dad and…” Charlotte breathed out. “Brace yourself, Gretchen. You’ve got a baby brother.”

Gretchen breathed in through her nose and slowly exhaled. “I knew it,” she whispered. “I just knew it.”

Homulilly squeezed her hand.

Oktavia shot Gretchen a worried look. She cleared her throat and said, “Er, what about me?”

Charlotte winced. “Sorry Oktavia, but she had her fit right after I found out your name and that your family is still around, but before she could actually tell me their names, so I couldn’t find out anything about them.”

“Oh.”

The mermaid’s expression was…odd. She didn’t look sad, or angry, or shocked, or even unhappy. She just sat back and stared.

Ophelia laid a hand on her shoulder. “You gonna be okay?”

“Sure,” Oktavia said. “Just…I always figured that they were out there somewhere, but to actually learn that they exist…” She sighed. “It’s a bit to process.”

“Tell me about it,” said Gretchen.

“I just wish…um, that…”

“That I had gotten their names?” Charlotte said.

Oktavia winced. “Sorry, Char. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s not your fault.”

“Well, it’s not like Hitomi’s going anywhere,” Ophelia said. “Maybe you can find out about them sometime later.”

“Sure. And maybe risk going nuts as a result.” Oktavia sighed. “Jesus, what a mess.”

No one disagreed with her on that. Ophelia looked up at Charlotte. “What about the rest of us?” she pressed.

Charlotte grimaced. “Well, that’s not so pleasant. Apparently you three were all orphans, at least as far as she could tell.”

“Oh. Well, that sucks.”

“Yeah, um.” Charlotte consulted her notes. “Okay. Candy, your parents apparently died in a car crash.”

Candeloro took a deep breath. “I see,” she said. “I guess that explains my…situation. You know, when I first woke up here.”

“Oh shit,” Charlotte said, her eyes widening. “I didn’t even think of that. Yeah, I guess it does.” She shook her head. “Anyway, um, Ophelia, I didn’t get much about you, I’m afraid, but-”

“Suicide,” Ophelia said flatly.

“Huh? You sure?”

“Yeah, you remember all those nooses from my little nightmare cathedral and that stained glass window?”

Charlotte was silent for a time. Then she said, “Right. Yeah, that, uh, makes sense.”

“But why everyone but her?” Oktavia said. “I mean, that window showed her mom, dad, and I guess her little sister? What happened?”

“Who the hell knows?” Ophelia said, all good humor gone from her voice. “Maybe I did, and that was when I learned that you gotta smash the soul gem to kill a Puella Magi.”

Just the thought of that made Homulilly wince. The more she learned about their past lives, the more she was glad she didn’t have to actually remember any of it.

Then, as if just having the thought subconsciously directed the conversation to her, Charlotte said, “Okay, Homulilly. Hitomi didn’t have much about you, except that your parents had been gone since you were little, and you had already been alone for quite a bit before you transferred to their school. She said you had been in and out of hospitals due to heart problems, and had gone to some kind of Catholic school in America before that.”

“What’s America?” Homulilly asked.

“What’s Catholic?” Gretchen added.

Charlotte’s brow went up and down. “Uh, America’s a country, Catholic’s a religion, and that really wasn’t what I was expecting your reaction to be.”

“Sorry,” Homulilly said. “It’s just…what am I supposed to say? A few years ago I said goodbye to my past self. I didn’t know her name or what she was like or anything about her, so I figured that was it. Now I know her name and what kind of school she went to. I know her medical history. She was an orphan, or maybe abandoned, or something like that. It’s like she died three times: when she became a witch, when that witch got killed, and when I let her go. Now she’s back, and I don’t know what to think.”

Ophelia breathed out. “Yeah, maybe this whole fact-finding thing was a bad idea.”

Sighing, Candeloro pulled a free chair out from the table and sat down. “Guys, look. I know all of this is really scary, but understand that no matter what we might learn about our past lives, we shouldn’t let that change anything about who we are now. We know a few new details now, but none of them really changes anything. We already knew we were friends before, and the sequence of events more-or-less matches what we already had figured out. This just fills in some of the gaps, that’s it.”

“Is it?” Gretchen said hollowly.

Candeloro tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

Gretchen shook her head. “I mean, I already guessed that I had a Mama and Papa, but now I know for sure! And if I ever want to know their names, I just have to ask Charlotte. Except that’s dangerous, so I probably shouldn’t! And…I have a baby brother! I don’t know him, but I know about him now. He’s going to grow up knowing about me, but never knowing what happened to me. What am I supposed to do with that?”

That last sentence ended in a small sob. She covered her face and started crying softly. Swallowing back a lump of her own, Homulilly turned her chair toward her and drew her in, letting Gretchen bury her face in her shoulder and holding her as she cried.

After a while Oktavia shook her head and said. “Y’know, I’m starting to agree with Fee-Fee. This was probably a bad idea.”

Charlotte shrugged. “Well, what’s done is done. Now we just need to figure out what to do going forward.”

Gretchen drew back from Homulilly. She picked up a napkin to dab at her eyes and blow her nose. “What about Hitomi?” she said. “What are we going to do for her?”

“For her?”

“Well, we have to do something! You said she was all screwed up. I mean, if just this little bit upsets us this much, imagine what she’s going through knowing everything!”

“Nothing,” Ophelia said. “We’re doing nothing.”

Gretchen shot her a pained look. “How can you say that? Don’t you understand how upset she is? How scared?”

“I do,” Ophelia said. “And that’s why we’re doing nothing. Look, she remembers you, and she remembers Tavi. You guys were her best friends, and then she lost you and didn’t know why. Then she learned about something she should have never known about, and it destroyed her. Now she’s here, having to come to terms with being dead, with never seeing her family and friends again, with knowing that aliens and magic are a thing, and everything. That’s gonna really fuck someone up. Now suddenly you two are back in her life, except you’re not you. You look like you, you sound like you, but you’re both half monster and don’t remember her at all. Hell, she can’t even call you by the names she knows you by. Nothing good can come from trying to reinsert yourselves into her life. The best thing to do now would be to stay as far away from her as you can and let the FIB do their thing. And then…” She shrugged. “Maybe in a few years, after she’s been all therapied and more stable, then maybe you can work something out. But not now. That’s not going to help anyone.”

“That’s kind of awful,” Oktavia said.

“What is? What I just said or that you all know I’m right?”

“Both.”

Ophelia breathed out. “Yeah, well, can’t disagree there.” Then she frowned. “Though hey, something just kind of occurred to me. Hey, Charlotte?”

Charlotte blinked. “Huh?”

“Look, I kinda just realized that we’re all here going on and on about our past lives and shit when you still don’t know anything about yours. I know you said that you don’t care, but I know you better than that. So let me just say this: I don’t care either. I don’t care if you weren’t part of the original group, I don’t care if you weren’t our friend back then, and hell, I don’t care if you were already a witch and we all were trying to kill you when everything went down. None of that matters. You’re just as much a part of this family as any one of us.”

“Definitely,” Candeloro said.

“Yeah. Super agreed,” Oktavia added.

“Same for me,” Gretchen said. Homulilly nodded slowly in agreement.

Charlotte went pink in the face. Her mouth opened, and then closed. She seemed completely taken by surprise.

“Wow,” she said at last. “Er, I…Huh. Th-That actually means a lot more to me than I thought it would. Thank you.”

“Well, okay,” Oktavia said after a bit. “Even if we don’t put ourselves back into Hitomi’s life, we still should at least keep tabs on her. See how she’s doing and all that.”

“That’s fair,” Candeloro said. “I’ll call the FIB and see what I can get arranged.” Then she looked around and addressed everyone. “In the meantime though, we do have a lot to think about and digest. And remember that we all took the classes and know how…dangerous this sort of thing is. So can we make an effort to keep in communication with one another through this? We’re all in this together after all.”

“Sounds good,” Ophelia said.

“Yes. Definitely yes,” said Gretchen.

“Good. All right, we do this together.” Candeloro bunched up the end of her right ribbon in a close approximation of a fist. “Stay strong, guys. We can work through this.”

…

So editing this one was kinda haphazard due to its length, amount of information being discussed, and me being brain fried, so if I missed anything, give me a head’s up.

Until next time, everyone.

[pet-diary]

⟰Here are my 2018 New Year Resolutions!!!⟰

This year I am hoping to be really focused on building better habits in the things I want in my life. For instance, I really want to be better at drawing. I know that I have to practice DAILY if I ever want to be a ~person that draws~. I used to be a ~person that draws~, but over the past 10 years, I’ve really just let that habit fall to the wayside for other habits and hobbies, which makes me so sad! I used to love drawing! And this is something I really want to be a part of my life, a part of who I am as a person... So I decided to set some realistic goals to motivate myself into learning new styles and mediums that I would love to know how to do, while maintaining the habit of drawing daily. You can see how I did it below. Same for all my other resolutions and goals, I tried to set up plans to make them work. :) Some of my resolutions are just general and I didn’t come up with a plan for them. I just need to remember to check-in with myself every so often and remind myself to do them.

PLAN FOR ACHIEVING RESOLUTION GOALS

The template (in case you want to do it this way too):

[Name of resolution - Quick tag line so you can see it at a glance] ✨ Goal: What is the main goal here? How would it define you as a person? 🎯 Target: Specifically, what will it look like to have ultimately achieved this goal? 🏹 Aim: What steps can you take to achieve it?

ACADEMIC & CAREER // [Continue learning Japanese, gain basic everyday life language skills] ✨ Goal: Learn enough Japanese to be capable of basic conversation and writing. 🎯 Target: Study Genki textbooks + online apps or sites every week. Practice vocab in daily life. Teach Trev basics to make it more fun. Learn vocab for everyday life items and situations. 🏹 Aim: Read and practice Genki textbooks or Textfugu at least 1 session weekly, practice vocab app or other forms of study at least 30 mins daily.

CREATIVE // [Draw regularly again + Focus on practicing a monthly artist style/medium] ✨ Goal: Be a regular drawer, learn how to use different art mediums, practice favorite artist's styles. 🎯 Target: Dedicate every month to practicing a new style in art, choosing one medium and one favorite artist to focus on. Drawing something daily. 🏹 Aim: Draw at least once per day, doesn't matter how much, but ideally aim for an hour daily. Practice monthly art style for inspiration. Choose at end of month specifically who/what to focus on, print off inspiration to hang around room and be inspired by. Try to learn something about the artist along the way, immerse in artist's life/process while learning the style.

Some possible artists to study (off the top of my head):

1. Risa Mehmet 2. Faetus 3. Hospicemilk / fever-breath 4. Song__Caramel / Caramelsong0915 5. Henry Darger 6. Winsor McCay 7. Yumiko Ōshima (The Star of Cottonland) 8. Minipete 9. Guppy 10. Nao Emoto (Forget Me Not) 11. Gosho Aoyama (Case Closed) 12. CLAMP (Sakura) 13. Henriette Willebeek le Mair 14. Yuko Uramoto (The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up) 15. Tyrus Wong 16. Louis Wain 17. Eon (Super Secret)

Some mediums to study (off the top of my head):

1. Watercolor 2. Pastels 3. Ink 4. Markers 5. Crayon 6. Charcoal 7. Graphite 8. Collage 9. Paint of some kind (gouache?) 10. Clip Studio Paint 11. Color pencils

[Share photography regularly + Focus heavily on shooting/sharing film] ✨ Goal: Become listed as featured artist on Grace and Girlhood (i.e. post enough film photos to be considered film photographer). 🎯 Target: Edit and share photography every month, focus heavily on film. Post to IG, submit photos to G&G. Keep up with scanning negatives so that it's easy to post film regularly. Learn to use to continue practicing w/ diff film and cameras. 🏹 Aim: Post at least 5x monthly. Work on photography scanning/editing for at least 1 hour weekly.

LIFE // [Immerse myself in lifestyle (grad school, art, Seattle, etc), blog/vlog whole process (good & bad)] ✨ Goal: What is the main goal here? How would it define you as a person? 🎯 Target: Specifically, what will it look like to have ultimately achieved this goal? 🏹 Aim: What steps can you take to achieve it?

[Become an early riser + Go on daily walks] ✨ Goal: Wake up earlier every day, taking advantage of daylight. Have more time to spend with Trev. Become someone who goes for morning walks/runs (be that person who finds a body on an early morning jog!). 🎯 Target: Wake up early, go to bed early, make it a regular habit to become an early riser and get the most out of the daylight. Go on morning walks regularly.🏹 Aim: Go to bed around 9:30-11pm, wake up at 5:30-7am, make a coffee/tea to go, go for a walk/run, make breakfast when I get home. Wake up as early as possible!

[Cook more + Learn more Japanese & vegan recipes + Prepare bento regularly] ✨ Goal: Cook dinner more, and make bento for work/school the next day. Make rice-based recipes more often, eat healthier meals, snack healthier. 🎯 Target: Make enough rice to justify buying a new rice cooker (reward!). Go through recipe books and try more Japanese recipes. Eat healthier, make more vegan-based meals. Make bento for me and Trev with cute bento accessories, for work/school/picnic. 🏹 Aim: Make a rice-based recipe at least once a week. Plan and make meals from books and saved recipes from Pinterest (focus on vegan and Japanese recipes) every week. Make lunch for Trev and I the night before using bento accessories and online inspiration.

[Watch more anime + Read more manga] ✨ Goal: Become someone that watches anime/reads manga and web comics on a regular basis. Become more familiar with existing shows/comics. Pick up art inspiration for web comic and art styles. 🎯 Target: Watch anime regularly, read web comics everyday instead of wasting time on other stuff. Get inspiration for my web comic. Practice techniques from shows and other comics/manga. 🏹 Aim: Watch anime at least 1x weekly, instead of other things I watch. Start a series w/ Trev and add it to show rotation. Read web comics/manga at least 1x daily, check update feed for series I follow on Webtoon and other apps. Check feeds like My Anime List, Anime News Network and Honey's Anime for inspiration.

(Cutting the rest of this entry because it’s already written in the image, but wanted to include it for readability and searchabilty).

ACADEMIC & CAREER // * Continue learning Japanese, gain basic everyday life language skills * Apply for grad school * Learn how to talk about what you know, about yourself, & to talk in general * Continue fleshing out career goals

CREATIVE // * Draw regularly again + Focus on practicing a monthly artist style/medium * Share photography regularly + Focus heavily on shooting/sharing film * Start the ephemera shop! * Start working on graphic novel!! Don’t let the idea die unrealized

LIFE // * Immerse myself in lifestyle (grad school, art, Seattle, etc), blog/vlog whole process (good & bad) * Become an early riser + Go on daily walks * Be openly autistic – fuck worrying about what ppl will think anymore * Make new friends, make an effort to meet ppl, esp in grad school * Set down roots, even if you have to uproot them eventually * Continue taking the bus, be more self-sufficient, grocery shop, run errands alone * Cook more + Learn more Japanese & vegan recipes + Prepare bento regularly * Watch more anime + Read more manga * Read (for fun) at least 1 page a day * Start watching movies again, the feels can be good in the long run * Listen to music more often, get into new stuff

PHYSICAL & MENTAL HEALTH // * Maintain weight, don't go over/under healthy ideal weight * Look cute more often, even just around the house * Stretch every day, regardless of exercise * Go on weekly walks, at least 3x weekly, esp morning walks * Exercise alone or w/ Trev at least 1x weekly, aim for 2x weekly * Push yourself to do things that scare you! Esp if it’s irrational fear * Look into getting on medication to deal w/ anxiety * Maintain positive mindset, esp upon waking up & greeting Trev at end of day * Be nicer, control anger better, be more empathetic & friendly

[canvaswolfdoll]

CanvasWatches: Stranger Things

I am super late to the Stranger Things… thing, and it took the premier of the second season and an unexpected stretch of free time to finally sit down and watch it. Even then, it took me a couple extra weeks.

I’ve been a critic of Netflix’s binge-focused release format. Not because I don’t enjoy a good binge watch from time to time, but because I like the freedom to choose when I take a break. When bingeing a show formatted for segmented release, each episode tends to be written in such a way as to let the audience comfortably wait a week, either because the narrative is one and done, or by carefully pacing the series to allow it to hold up with a time gap between episodes.

Also, everyone was raving about Stranger Things, which induced some hype poisoning, and I was born after the 80s died, so I don’t really have any nostalgia for the era. Besides Back to the Future and Ghostbusters, I never really watched much 80s media.

Plus everyone was so excited by how the show featured D&D. There are very few D&D-centered episodes that I like, as such depictions always fall short of my expectations.[1]

Besides one groan worthy aspect in season 2[2], I was actually pleasantly surprised by how the show handled the subject: by making it a casual part of the kids’ lives. Season One opens with a game, and closes with a game, and it’s sometimes used to color dialogue, but it’s never in focus, which is good. Hobbies should color characters, not define them.

The actual plot of season 1 was well written, and uses the only plausible excuse for characters not telling each other vital information: by segmenting the plot between three groups that have no reason to interact until the plot threads run together.

Sure, Chief Hopper maybe should’ve been keeping Joyce appraised a little more often, but he was also busy, so I can give that a pass.

Oddly, beside Eleven, I didn’t actually care about the Kids’ plotline. They’re well cast, don’t get me wrong, but the argument over what to do once El enters their lives just runs in circles until the other two plotlines convene, and I just wasn’t particularly invested in them.

And the teens are likewise dull until Nancy and Jon start proactively hunting the eldritch horror. And even then, it’s plagued by gross High School Romance drama. I don’t care who Nancy starts dating, I want to know what’s up with the supernatural weirdness and the effects that has on people.

Which, of course, leaves Hopper and Joyce to be the ones to pull me through. Also Eleven’s flashbacks. You know, the parts showcasing and developing the things that are strange.

The first season is, mercifully, a rare example of a well-executed secrets plot. The mystery’s set off by Will’s disappearance, a strong inciting incident that gets three different casts going down three different plotlines until convening at the end.

Because of the nature of who the characters are and the methods they use to accomplish their goals, they’re kept separate not because of tedious secrets kept to ‘protect’ others, but because they just don’t have any reason to interact.

Hopper and Joyce’s efforts to find Will lead to the Government Conspiracy, and they are unaware of Eleven’s existence for most of it. Eleven is (rightfully) afraid of the Energy Research place, and doesn’t trust adults because of it, making it reasonable the kids wouldn’t know. The teens (once they get past the dumb romance drama) are trying to find Barb, who no one else cares is missing.

The moment the three groups learn they’ve been pursuing different sides of the same puzzle, they work together and share information without fuss. Then they split again when their goals lead in different directions. Hopper and Joyce don’t want to put the kids in danger when they go to confront the big bad; the kids continue to protect Eleven; the teens seek revenge on the demogorgon.

And all three contribute to the resolution.

Then the second season opens, and Hopper, who I loved for being a reasonable protagonist, betrays my trust. Eleven’s hurting being separated from her friends and her friends are hurting not knowing her fate.

A problem easily solved if Hopper just told Mike “Hey, Eleven’s with me, she’s safe, but I’m keeping her out of the public eye. I’ll try to arrange some visits, but they can’t be frequent. Here’s a morse code info card, and a frequency. Don’t keep each other up too late, and don’t tell anyone who hasn’t already met her.”

There, Eleven’s got some social stimulation, no one’s pining, and everyone knows where things stand.

They all worked together for season one’s finale. Hopper’s actions are inexcusable.

Hopper went from my favorite character to one of the most annoying.

As a whole, the first season felt much more tightly written than the second. The first balanced the eldritch horror and psychic powers sufficiently well.

The second advanced and built upon the Upside Down in exciting ways, including a giant central intelligence to the whole place. Confirmation that, instead of just a decaying world to mirror our own, the entire place is a single malevolent entity, represented by an enormous, alien being. I love what is being done with the Upside Down.

Then there’s ‘The Lost Sister’. Which is… the episode literally doesn’t fit. Eleven leaves, seeking her mother. Okay, good development. This leads to some new exposition of what Eleven’s young life was like. That’s good! Slowly exploring that works for the show! Introducing another test subject in the form of ‘8’. Logical, since Eleven is, well, number Eleven.

Elle/Jane goes looking for this mystery girl. That’s where the show goes off the rails. Not that Eleven searching for others like her isn’t a fair plotline, but it literally takes the show away from Hawkins and all the endearing characters we’ve met.

It’s a filler episode, and it turns Eleven from ‘Oddity with connection to the Eldritch’ to ‘Blossoming superhero’ which… Stranger Things wasn’t a superhero show. It’s a mystery and thriller. It’s an episode so divorced from the other eight episodes, you can literally skip it and lose nothing.

Kali’s gang has no redeeming features. They’re criminals and murderers, plain and simple. Elle finds them, establishes a connection with Kali, and then it’s just a ‘Good Character is lead down a dark path before leaving’ plot. It adds nothing.

And Kali has a different power set from Eleven, deepening the Superhero aspect where each mutant has a different power. If, instead, Kali had the same (but weaker) Psionic powers I might take her inclusion better.

But, worse still, none of it has anything to do with the rest of the plot, even when it would’ve been easy to integrate, though that probably would require more time.

Kali’s gang, as mentioned, are bad people. Send them rocking into Hawkins in search of a place to lie low while the heat dies off, maybe induct Billy Hargrove… maybe they could find a space.

Actually, no, nevermind. They’d still be a distraction. It’s a series that works on the strength of it’s dynamic characters. Suddenly hamfisting in Kali and company would strain that.

In fact, I’m not sure searching out numbers 1 through 10 (maybe 12) will ever work, because that would imply a road trip season, which would suck because we’d see less Hawkins in favor of Scooby-Doo’ing up the series.

So keep the fates of the previous ten test subjects a mystery. They were experiments that failed. And considering how much hullabaloo Eleven’s escape caused in the first season, Eight getting away without any remark until now is ridiculous.

It… just doesn’t work. It’s too Kyle XY.

So, let’s take some metaphorical scissors, snip after episode 206, and before 208, remove the middle episode, and drop it out a window. It’s gone, hopefully never to return to hurt us.

Keeping Eleven separated from the rest of the cast for most of the season is the greatest sin of the second season.

Having strong characterization can only go so far if you limit who characters interact with. Segmenting the cast by age groups in the first season was fine as we were meeting the characters, so we need to learn about them in their preferred environment and when normality is interrupted. They come together at the end and cooperate to save the day, an experience shared by all. Mike and Nancy even have a heart-to-heart about how they won’t keep secrets from another. Real touching stuff.

For the second season, besides needing to flesh out the now present Will, we know the cast. So the fun should come from now intermingling the cast. Have Nancy consult Mike about getting hashtag Justice for Barb; Jonathan and Steve becoming romantic mentors to Lucas and Dustin;[3] Hopper becoming an unwilling paternal figure to the party; and show Eleven adjusting to the Real World.

Instead, Eleven only interacts with Hopper all season, and, yes, Daddy Hopper is adorable, though he should maybe try and remember he’s caring for a socially stunted psychic before he starts yelling. Maybe have him start yelling, Eleven gets mad, one bookshelf falls over, both stop to look at this reaction, then Hopper runs both of them through the deep breathing exercise from the end of Season One before talking it through.

Eleven and Hopper’s arc should’ve been about learning to trust in a scary world, instead of… whatever they were going for. And giving her limited interaction with her friends would’ve allowed for this growth, as the party would first have to coax her out of the cottage, and then she’d have firmer ground to question Hopper keeping her cooped up.

And I so love fish out of water stories. Learning what money is and asking Hopper for an allowance? Stumbling about and learning not to assault people who offend her?[4] Being the first kid to form a bond with Bob? All would’ve been nice to watch happen.

Also, Bob was… okay. He didn’t leave much of an impression on me for a generically nice man. They should’ve worked the ‘Bob founded the AV Club’ thing in way sooner, so it wasn’t an awkward line shoved in after his death to retcon in stakes for The Party. It was awkward.

Also, no one else wearing costumes is the least realistic thing. After my 13 years of public school, I know that would never happen.

It’s not all bad, let’s be clear. Upping the threat of the Upside Down and giving it a central intelligence was good, as was expanding on the Demogorgon lifecycle to bring in a nice Alien touch. The tunnels made the threat feel more immediate, and explained the pockets of Upside Down that broke out in season 1. Max is… promising. Hopefully she’ll get more of a concrete arc going forward, but she’s got a good start.

So, in summation, I liked Season 1, and 2 was as enjoyable with a few missteps that hopefully won’t be forced back in. My one fear is that they’re going to put the Mind Flayer on the back burner and spend the next season on the less interesting ‘Other Test Subjects’ plotline. We’re heading towards the end of the Superhero Media boom, while I can’t think of many properties that focus on themes of eldritch and inhuman intelligences that the Mind Flayer and Upside Down presents.

Still, when Stranger Things 3 arrives, I’ll watch as eagerly as anyone else.

If you enjoyed this review, may I suggest to trawl through my archive to see if you enjoy my other works? (The CanvasReviews tag should give you a good start). Also, feel free to send me messages and question. I also have a Patreon, if that’s your sort of thing.

Kataal kataal.

[1] Yes, even Community’s much beloved take. There was no passion in it and it was weighed down by the ‘One Character for all games’ and ‘Dice results dictate everything’ concepts that makes zero sense. [2] How can you forget about Rogues, you idiots? It’s literally the best class! [3] I will go on record: if you sit me through a tired love triangle, but follow it up by having two corners advise on a new love triangle, I will be on board for that absurdity. [4] For context, my ideal ending of the the show is the town just transitions into casually accepting that, sometimes, eldritch horrors pop up, and just deal with them casually.

[farylslair]

Holding Myself Accountable - January-February 2017

okay so new year, new me, yadda yadda yadda, let’s get to some hashtag real talk.

One of the things I stopped doing on this blog a little while back is posting regular writing updates. Not book updates, per se, but giving myself a little pat on the back if I had a really good writing session or made significant progress on one of my projects. I’ve pretty much moved all that to Twitter, since that’s more of a place for little “nothing” posts, and I want to spread out my social media activity so that no two platforms are completely redundant. 

While I’m not saying that making regular writing updates is bad (I know and follow a lot of writers who do it, and this is by no means any personal offense toward them), it’s kind of a double-edged sword for me because even though it makes me more active and you get a little more insight into my writing habits, it becomes a little cluttering after a while, and sometimes the more substantial updates (such as: requests for beta readers! release dates! review copies! I finally got an Instagram if I ever get one!) get buried under all the progress posts. Not to mention that, because I’m technically an author now and because this is a significantly more up-to-date version of my website, I need to factor in a level of professionalism that says: I intend for this to be a career, not just a hobby. So while I’ll still talk and post stupid stuff every once in a while, this blog is going to be as tidy as it can possibly be.

That being said, I’m going to offer a compromise in the form of bimonthly goals.

Yes, that’s right: bimonthly. Not quarterly, like all the cool kids are doing.

Why?

Well, being in college means that my life is measured in semesters instead of quarters: fall semester, spring semester, midterms, and summer (obviously not in that order). It just so happens that those “checkpoints” can be measured in two-month increments: January-February covers about half of spring semester, March-April covers the other half, May-June covers about half of summer break, and so on (yes, I know they’re not exact. Give me a break).

Not to mention that I feel like I can trick myself into being more productive if I have to do ten things in two months instead of four. And I would do monthly goals instead, but as I learned from questionMark’s copyediting process, a lot of setbacks can happen in a month (especially if I’m in school and I suddenly get a really bad cold in the middle of October), so it’s impossible to foresee exactly what I’ll be able to do. Two months gives me just enough wiggle room while also giving me that subconscious prod I really need.

Also, one more thing: this is a list of writing- and marketing-related goals only. Personal goals are off these lists since I don’t think they’re worth mentioning here, and if they are, they’re really generic stuff. Like “get homework done on time”, “take care of the animals” and “don’t get hit by a car″. 

With that being said, here’s a list of my ten writing goals for “spring semester part 1″ 2017, my goal being to complete at least 6 out of 10 by February 28th.

Finish This Draft of Project C I’m actually just a chapter away completing this one, but it also doubles as another “goal”, since it’ll technically be the first novel-length piece that I’ve ever finished. Finishing this one also opens me back up to work on other projects (aptly named Projects A and B), and it also times out well to me going back to school.

questionMark Sales Goal Not going into too much detail about this one, simply because I don’t want to have too much of the accounting stuff on here when there’s much more interesting stuff to talk about (such as how certain aspects of Evangelion represent key concepts of quantum mechanics). 

Rewrite One of My Old Novelettes A novelette is a much-longer-than-average short story (but a depressingly-shorter-than-average novella), and a couple of mine made it into questionMark (”I Saw the Fairies” and “Dreams”). However, there’s one that didn’t make it called “Research” that I plan to rewrite at some point so that I could submit it somewhere. Which brings us to ...

Submit Three or More Short Stories This one speaks for itself. There’s only so much marketing for questionMark that I can do, so I need to give some of my other pieces a chance to shine. I already have some ideas of where I’d like to submit stuff, but I’m always open to new ideas.

questionMark Review Goal This is another accounting one that I won’t say much about, but one I do have a plan for. Remember those DARCs I mentioned in an earlier post? Yeah, I’ll be arranging those at some point, hopefully by the end of the month, so questionMark can start getting reviews! Which, yeah, you can read the Facebook post I made on that if you don’t know how awesome reviews are.

Make Substantial Progress on “Project A” I’ve been working on “Project A” in the background for a couple years (even alongside questionMark when it was in the early stages), and I’m super excited to be able to work on it again after I finish this draft of Project C. Just like Project C, I’m not allowed to say too much about it, except that there’s no co-author this time. That’s right, a novel-length piece all on my own!

Write At Least Three New Short Stories In the same vein as goal four, I need to work on little tiny projects in between the larger projects so I feel like I get more done. To add to the stories I already plan to submit, I need to start writing new ones and, well, soon.

Plot Out Timeline for Project C Because Project C has a pretty confusing timeline, I need to work with my co-author to get it straightened out for the next draft so there aren’t any inconsistencies. Because, well, there were a lot in mine.

Read At Least Five New Books This is an important goal for me, since I am an absolutely horrible reader, mainly because of school and writing getting in the way. One of my “resolutions” is to get better about that, and I have a reading list that probably stretches from here to California (here being not California, unfortunately). However, I’m narrowing it down to five for this “half a semester”, and here’s the tentative list: - Prey by Michael Crichton - A Working Theory of Love by Scott Hutchins (my dad recommended this one to me YEARS ago, and I’m just now getting around to it, so, uh, sorry, Dad, if you’re reading this) - The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly - Cinder by Marissa Meyer - Apocalypse Machine by Jeremy Robinson

Reread At Least Three Nostalgic Books Hey, another reading goal! How ‘bout that. The purpose behind this one is to remind myself that inspiration doesn’t just come from new things, but it also comes from getting a new perspective on things that I may have forgotten. So, without further ado, here’s the tentative list: - Generation Dead by Daniel Waters - The Sisters Grimm: The Fairy Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley (don’t judge me) - Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (probably my favorite YA series of all time)

So that’s everything for now. I’ll come back to this post at the end of February to see how I did, and I’m going to be working hard to not embarrass myself in front of everyone. More news on DARCs and other things soon (hopefully--no promises since school starts up again next week), but thanks for sticking around, and stay tuned for more updates.

[allisonawakened]

( part 1 ) Wow ! Thank you again, I'm very thankful for your insight. ☺️☺️ yes that's pretty much what Vedic astrology is except they work with time periods of planets and signs and different divisional charts but they all kinda believe that everything is set in stone and that they can predict things in people's life so easily. I've heard that some believe that we come into this 3D world with a certain intention, in a family, astrology chart and name that suits that intention

( part 2 ) But that we still have the will to choose what do to with it, just like you said. It’s kinda like DNA I guess but then there’s epigenetics aka how the environment and the stuff you eat and encounter in life can change the DNA, not to talk about how emotions and thoughts effect the body. May I then also ask how come some people seem to be able to predict more things in ones life? Is it their beliefs in astrology that makes those things to be fulfilled ? Is there some psychological

( part 3 ) impact of astrology that shapes the persons decisions? Are some more likely to fall in the road of their chart and does one consciousness, being “awake” effect these outcomes? I guess it does like you said, once someone knows something you predict they can turn that around. the consciousness of these things might be the same way epigenetics are DNA modifications are to us. (depending if the environment is good and how you cope with being psychic) this is again long and I understand

Part 3, if you don’t have the energy to keep replying to these hahah it’s just amazing to talk to someone like you who have these gifts and this understanding of things on a deeper level, that can tap in to this information! Thank you again for answering me, it’s been really helpful since the concept of determinism and karma and all that has really weighed me down the past while 😌😌

Hi There :)

No worries re: the long ask. I’ve taken a few days off to catch up on some self-care, as my schedule has been absolutely nuts and will be just as crazy this week too. Thank you for your patience in waiting to hear back about all of this.

I’m going to highlight each question you asked above, and write / channel a response with the help of Spirit below that. My answers may not be as lengthy this go-around (due to that self-care thing I mentioned). 

How come some people seem to be able to predict more things in ones life? Is it their beliefs in astrology that makes those things to be fulfilled?

In a lot of ways I so-so-so wish I knew this answer. I don’t even fully understand why I possess the Spiritual Gifts that I do, and how I can be really accurate sometimes without the aid of any tools other than wonderful teamwork with Spirit.

From what I can tell, the ability to predict more things (or rather, the ability to be *more accurate*) really depends on a few variables. But mostly, I like to liken one’s ability to be a better Psychic, Medium, or Astrologer to any other talent or skill. What makes someone a *better* singer? A *better* athlete? A *better* doctor? etc…

For me, the formula for success in anything has always been:

Natural-Born Talent + a Willingness to Learn + Loads of Practice

I believe this to be true for Psychic, Medium & Astrology talents as well. You don’t have to possess all 3 of those parts either, plenty of people in other professions or with other hobbies / interests / abilities, may only possess 1 or 2 of those things… What they don’t possess they then replace with the super-secret 4th ingredient in this formula - Dedication.

Now when it comes to Psychic abilities, you will hear a lot of people cite “how old the soul is”, “past lives”, “calling” etc… as a reason for being *more accurate* or *better* than others. I totally used to feed into all of that too. But what I’ve come to learn over time is that those things don’t 100% account for the abilities I possess, and instead of trying to spend all of my time trying to understand “why”, I instead spend all of my time using my abilities to help others.

Is there some psychological impact of astrology that shapes the persons decisions? Are some more likely to fall in the road of their chart and does one consciousness, being “awake” effect these outcomes?

When it comes to psychological impact + astrology = shaping ones’ decision? I think it’s a bit of a stretch. That would require a load of people to believe / follow / intimately know astrology (which there aren’t). And of that load of people, a bunch would have to allow the Astrology to be some sort of influence in their decision making (for most people there are very few things that supersede what they believe to be true in their hearts & minds - hence why those of us that *DO* take into account all factors / variables tend to over-analyze / over-obsess about a decision for ages before even fully making / committing to one course of resolution). 

When you ask if some are more likely to fall in the road of their chart than others - Sure. That’s basic statistical maths right there - some will be more likely to fall into it, just as some will be more likely to work against it. But as I said with my previous post / answer, that’s a choice made from one’s free will. Like when I likened a Natal Birth Chart to a map of the world. And the fact that we may know / be aware of all possible destinations, but most of us do not choose to travel to all possible destinations within our lifetime. I believe the same goes for Astrology there.

So does “being awake” effect the outcome of “falling into” one’s chart? Well I for one, would probably describe myself as “awake”. I also have a healthy curiosity about Astrology. I’ve read my chart at one time. I think about my own astrology *maybe* once every 3 to 4 months, and read a brief amount up on it. 50% of it resonates, 50% of it doesn’t, and then I move on. I don’t actively even seek out to know how my chart will predict future behaviour / actions / outcomes. I just don’t have the desire or time to do so. So I would say I haven’t “fallen into” my chart (as far as I know). 

Which means that, using me as an example, not everyone who is “awake” will “fall into” their chart.

I think that’s it!

Thank you for the Asks again. I know my answers are a bit less thorough this time around - needing that self-care I mentioned and all. I hope that this helps you in figuring out what you think / how you feel about Astrology, Karma & determinism (or even destiny for that matter).

I wish you the best of luck on your search as well. You have such an interesting take on things ♥ ♥ ♥

[animaginativefreak]

Think… But not too much

Unlike every day, I like to wake up early during weekends and get on with the work I plan during the weekdays. These two days are quite significant as I get to work on the stuff I usually learn during the rest of the week. Estranged from the rest of the world, I simply give myself some ‘lone time’ with a hot cup of tea. After all, we all need to some time to connect with ourselves without external interference.

The ‘lone time’ has its own benefits and consequences; either it can be highly productive, or you can just lay in your bed endlessly. It will not be a fair judgment on how the rest of the world deal with the ‘lone time’ but I have struggled over the years to make this highly valuable period as productive as I think it can be. Trust me, it hasn’t been easy! When you are aimlessly fluttering about the empty rooms of the house, it’s not very difficult for the shady and gray thoughts to out-power your happy morning hours. When we start seeing these tumultuous images with open eyes, we tend to lose the sightings of what’s actually around us.

The successful people that I have met and/or read about, they had one thing in common, which I like to call it - Thought Process Management. It is the way you channelize your thoughts and put conscious efforts to make your brain process the information smoothly. In a way, it is also a way to teach your brain how to prioritize these thoughts. It’s the natural tendency of a human brain to run wild if loosened up. In my perspective, that’s the primary reason why we worry too much because it’s our natural tendency to unleash the randomness of our mental processing, leading to the unrealistic and random imagination.

1.    Have you ever noticed that sometimes we think about multiple things at a given time & often, the things that bother us?

2.    Have you ever noticed that through the day, we give only a very little time to the thoughts that will give us joy, motivation, happiness or an idea that may simply turn the course of future?

There are other questions also that we need to ask –

1.    Why are we in a continuous process to think about the things that we desperately want to avoid?

2.    Why are we in a habit of staying in a continuous loop of repetitive thoughts? Repetitive to such an extent that it almost feels like a trapped song that keeps on playing till it drives us crazy.

Scientific studies have shown that an average person can process 50,000 thoughts in a day, meaning 38 to 40 thoughts in a minute. What if we start processing 100 thoughts per minute or even more? Chances are, we will go crazy. It is also important to note that even a single negative thought can trigger 1000’s of other negative impressions of the present and the past. We often tend to start losing touch with the reality. Most importantly… the present! When it happens, people spiral down to experiencing anxiety and depression. Many times, we think about something, we do something else and our interpretation of the event is out-of-context. Hence, it becomes extremely vital to managing our thought process. And it takes effort and practice.

Thinking with Singularity

Growing up hasn’t been easy for me. It has been my habit, which I have inherited from my mother, not to let go the thing easily. Adversities left a resonating impact on my personality. I experienced a drastic shift in my mindset. The scary frescoes of my bad experiences made me increasingly fearful. Over the years, I continued adding obstructive thoughts to my bucket but cared very little to let go of the ones that were already in there. For the first time, I could witness the multiplicative nature of the impeding thoughts which were obstructing the good things that were on my way. My over-burning brain was finding it extremely difficult to differentiate and process what was more important. It drove me insane; I was apprehended with depression, paranoia, and resentful anger. I could literally hear voices in an empty room. Yes, it was that bad.

Back then, I was estranged with the concept of meditation. As I increasingly submerged myself into the various meditative techniques, my own thoughts became more and more tangible. I could identify them, differentiate & observe them like a third person. It helped me to take a long walk with a single thought at a time. I could muse on it as much as I wanted to and then, let go of it for good. It helped me to gain a better understanding of how much importance I was giving to so many inconsequential memories and how I could open the gateways for more positive objects. Finally, meditation brought me in peace with my inner demons. To a greater extent, it helped me to achieve singularity in my way of thinking i.e. to channel my entire focus and concentration on a single thought at a time.

Once I was able to achieve this, I was resolute in applying the same approach in my day-to-day work. This approach not only helped me to focus on my work better but also helped to manage the welter of problems that I was surrounded with. I convinced myself that I am not a superhuman and it would be best for me to deal with superficial issues only when I have absolutely nothing else to deal with.

Have a hobby

While returning back from work every Friday evening, I try to answer one significant question. What is it that I am going to engage myself with? After a seemingly endless and lackadaisical job, I feel an immediate need of something that can boost my creativity; something that can compel me to think differently; something which can help me to channel my thoughts in a positive direction. That’s exactly what hobby is for. A hobby is something which can spark & stimulate creativity. Moreover, it happens to be the only verb in the English language that can exhilarate us emotionally and physically. Yet, people miss out on this very important aspect of life. When I connect with new people, I feel the curiosity to know what is it that they love to do and I get to hear very interesting things and related stories. Sadly, I also come across phrases like, ‘I don’t know what I like…!’, ‘I haven’t discovered it yet’ or ‘I like to sleep or take rest’. This shows that people who give out such excuses have become accustomed to and trapped inside a very single tracked & a hard-lined routine. They live their lives with a fixed mindset.

A few days ago, I was attending two days of training cum a workshop wherein the trainer asked the audience to tell everyone about their hobbies as a part of their introduction. One attendee said – “As a hobby, I like to roam around”! On being asked to elaborate, the morose gentleman said, “I just like to roam around and do nothing”. Well, even the zombies share the same hobby. They live, they eat and they die when they get shot in the head.  Well, I think that’s the area we need to work and avoid getting a bullet in the head if we are mistaken for a zombie. As I child, my only hobby was to play video games… all day long. To a certain extent, it helped me to develop some strategic thinking along with my cognitive skills. But as I grew up, I made it my responsibility and took a challenge of exposing myself to the other things as well.

Back in 2009, on 26th July, I was watching a Kargil Vijay Diwas special broadcast on one of the Indian news channels as a tribute to all martyrs of the wretched war. I was spell bounded with the stories of their martyrdom. It struck me so heavily that could feel the tears slipping down my cheeks. It was a moment when I was feeling intense emotions like never before. As soon as the show got over, I took a couple blank sheets & a pen and I went on writing for hours & ended up with four pages long poetry. Till this day, it is the most heartfelt stuff I’ve ever written. That night I had discovered a hobby that would become the most exciting part of my life. It would be wrong to say that it was easy. Rather, I made it look easy but I had to write as long as five hours at a stretch to bring out one of my most cherished creations. In next few year, during my college days, I was earning my pocket money as a part-time columnist in one of the local newspapers. I saved some money and bought myself a new, but very basic digital camera.

It was a hot afternoon of the year 2012. I noticed that there was a tiny bug sitting on my bed. I took out my camera, closed my room, put all the curtains on and captured my little friend in an absolute dark.

That become one of my most memorable clicks; that was My National Geographic Moment.

I exposed myself to certain conditions, took an intense interest in exploring my abilities beyond textbooks and got myself some attention despite being horrible in mathematics. Hobbies are important and should be taken seriously.

Avoid Social Media

Social Media is a platform where you can showcase the wonderful life you are living… telling the world, that how forgiving your life really is. For some, it is just virtual space where they can hang out to have some fun, get important updates about your social circle and the world around us. For some, it is a space that makes people feel deprived, insecure and overwhelmed. But such big claims require logical backing –

1.     Social Media is highly addictive.

2.    It happens to be a major source of false information, fake news, and exaggerated opinions.

3.    A huge mental distraction.

Dr. Cal Newport rightly said in his Ted X talk, that “social media is not a fundamental 21st Century technology, rather it is something that leverages the technology for hooking up people”. He also mentioned very interesting fact, “The social media companies hire individuals called Attention Engineers, who work on the borrowed principles of the casinos in Las Vegas among other places to make their platforms as addictive as possible in order to maximize the profit from the user and the data he provides/share on such platforms”. Like Dr. Cal, I too am doing great without the social media and still have too many friends. We know what we give out to such virtual platforms but we know very less on what we end up losing in this process… and it’s called Attention. Many of us spend countless hours running up and down through our profiles in the name of entertainment, but we often lose sight of more significant duties & responsibilities that lie on our way. And we procrastinate!

The widespread engagement of the youngsters has statistically shown their declining level of motivation, self-confidence, and self-esteem. When a teenager is exposed to the virtues of falsely conveyed realities, it leaves him with the feeling of despair, loneliness, and frustration, more often due to perceived inadequacies when comparing themselves to friends. This is a perfect recipe for an implosion. It also impacts their ability to think independently. The biggest downside… our real-life conversations go downhill.

Avoiding the social media can not only help achieving the singularity in thinking, but it can also bring you out of your biggest life crisis. Just imagine the world, where Facebook won’t be reminding you of your mother’s birthday anymore. Take a moment and think about it!!

[lshamrock22-blog]

I'm bad at multitasking. I can be in a total flow state, doing my job, enjoying it 100%, and then I get some email (e.g., I don't know, some question from my landlord), and I cannot resist taking care of it immediately. Once I'm done with that email, I'm simply unable to switch back to what I was doing initially. I need to go through the whole "read some Hacker News, do some research for my hobby project, watch a show or some YouTube, etc., get bored, start working" routine all over again. Quite often, before the routine is over, some other stimulus pops up, resetting the progress, preventing me from being productive.There are exceptions:Sometimes I get so involved with my job that I'm able to ignore the irrelevant distractions (impossible to reproduce, it just happens, rarely; usually it happens in streaks, and results in an overburn).Sometimes I intentionally go dark and turn off everything that can pull my attention (normally unacceptable, since some distractions can and should take precedence over whatever I'm doing, e.g. like a phone call notifying me that my house is on fire).Sometimes burning deadlines are so hot and/or peer pressure is so strong that my brain somehow learns responsibility and starts prioritizing better (again, unacceptable, since I'd like to retain my mental and physical health, and have actual control over my life).But they're just that, exceptions.The last few months I've been dumping every thought requiring action into a to-do app. In fact, I've been using to-do lists for years now, but I've gone all-in only recently. Thankfully, this has helped with quite a few types of distractions (and the contexts they appear in), but, unfortunately, not all of them. I think I could classify the problematic ones as "short-term", some examples being:Personal emails, calls, messages. I don't want to mute anything, since time-sensitive matters can appear out of nowhere, like, say, a friend deciding to invite me to see a movie today, after work, which is in two hours (let's pretend there are valid reasons to not want to miss that).Work emails and chats. Again, I can't just close my email client, close Slack, and be done with it. Sometimes my colleagues might be blocked by me, or maybe I could help them make a better decision on something, if I were to see their question earlier, before they went ahead with their potentially poor choice. Endless scenarios where real-time is handy.Taking breaks, reading something. I can't just sit down for 4 hours, do pure work, have half an hour for a lunch, work another 4 hours, and go home. Even if possible to accomplish, that's extremely harmful. However, without going full Pomodoro (good for health and focus, bad for creativity), the timing becomes really fuzzy. This results in me randomly opening Hacker News and sometimes drowning way more time into some comment thread than I'd be comfortable with (or doing some other activity, like looking up Massdrop deals on keyboards, and ending up researching mechanical switch internals, or going into a yet another Wikipedia recursion).I don't want to eliminate any of the above. Their absence would be an objective downgrade of my lifestyle. I like short notice plans, I need near-real-time collaboration, I must stretch my back/legs and distract myself with non-work-related stuff regularly. However, I'm unable to orchestrate/schedule my day on-the-fly. Yes, my self-discipline is quite bad, but you can't just have it become good on a whim, gotta start with training wheels (and probably stay with them for a long time, if not forever).Maximum resolution of GTD-style tools is a day (well, maybe morning/midday/evening; you can enter exact times in some apps, but the user experience of prioritizing stuff in a single day is beyond awful) and calendars are extremely rigid (e.g. if some pre-allocated task takes longer than I expected, I'd like to have the rest / some part of the day shift, not the next closest task shrink). And in both cases, how do I write down something like "Reply to Jack about that ski trip during my next break, which should be approximately an hour after my previous break"?So, my question is (and I guess the TL;DR of this post): How do you deal with short-term distractions and what tools do you use for that? Is there some rolling planner software with relative timing and recurring tasks and such, with lightweight input? By lightweight I mean not having to fill in a JIRA-style form for a "give Jeff a USB cable when he's in the office". At this point I don't care if it's paid or not, I've been wasting too much time for way too long.Pardon the length. The original intent was to have a paragraph or two, but it blew up into a short bio. Did my best at keeping it concise. via /r/productivity

[viralhottopics]

David Levithan and Rachel Cohn’s writing advice to get you started in 2017

Woman writing notes in backyard (Blend Images via AP Images)

Image: AP

2017 has just begun, which means it’s time to make (and stick to) your resolutions.

SEE ALSO: MashReads Podcast: How to set a New Year’s reading resolution you’ll actually accomplish

If one of your resolutions is to write more, maybe finish that novel you’ve always meant to write, you’re not alone. And Mashreads has your back. We went to not one, but two of YA’s best authors: David Levithan and Rachel Cohn. Not only are they award-winning and bestselling authors in their own rights, but together they’ve collaborated on such amazing books as Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares, and its 2016 sequelThe Twelve Days of Dash & Lily.

Keep reading for Levithan and Cohn’s advice on writing, reading, and collaborating to get you started on all those writing resolutions.

How long have you been writing?

DL: I always date my writing career to a story I wrote in third grade, which is the first time I remember being proud of a word Id chosen. (It was in the middle of a chase scene all of my stories were chase scenes then but while the chase genre did not survive into my YA career, the wonder at finding the right way to say something endures.)

RC: Im going to be honest and admit that my writing ambitions took root when I was a teenager and completely in love with ABC News anchorman Peter Jennings. (I loved his Canadian accent and the particular flourish he gave to the word Nicaragua.) So, like many writers, I started out writing fan fiction: romances involving me and Peter Jennings, which I passed around to my friends. They kept asking for more, I liked the attention and eventually moved on to other kinds of story writing. (Never did have that mad affair with Peter Jennings IRL, though. Sadness.)

What’s the biggest obstacle you had to overcome early in your career?

DL: My horrible singing voice. Oh, you mean WRITING career.The biggest obstacle I had to overcome was IT IS NOT EASY TO WRITE A NOVEL. But I tricked myself into thinking I was writing a short story that got longer and longer … and thats how I finished Boy Meets Boy, my first novel.

RC: My biggest obstacle may have been all the people insisting of course I could write, but getting published was probably an unrealizable dream. To which I responded by placing my hands over my ears and proclaiming BLAH BLAH BLAH until they stopped talking.Very mature, I know. But tuning out all the noise saying how hard it was proved my most effective tool for just getting that first novel finished.

What is your process when you start a new project?

DL: Goat sacrifice. Only, Im a vegetarian, so the goat is made of tofu.Then I just sit down and write.I am not an outliner by any stretch.

RC: I hate that he can just sit down and write. My process involves 90 percent procrastination (cleaning, eating, shopping, staring off into space) and 10 percent just finally sitting down and writing. Sometimes I outline before and sometimes I dont; every book is different. For me, character comes first, and I try to tap into that characters voice by just writing random scenes, and seeing if it clicks, and if I feel like theres more story to tell. Then theres more procrastination and then I finally write. In the time it took me to do this process, David has written and edited five new books.

What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever been given?

DL: A high school English teacher told me to forget about fiction and focus on writing essays, presumably for the rest of my writing life. But even from this bad advice came a good lesson: Sometimes proving someone wrong can be an excellent motivating force.

RC: Write what you know. Sure, try that. But dont limit yourself to that edict. Its OK to totally make stuff up that has nothing to do with anything you know.Spoiler alert: Its also kind of fun.

What’s the best writing advice you ever received?

DL: Dont be afraid to fail, because nobodys going to see a thing you write unless you decide to share it with them.

RC: A book signed to me by Ellen Gilchrist: Keep writing remember its just typing, and love.”

What’s the best utility tip for writers (apps to use, products, practical process tips)?

DL: I use this revolutionary program called Microsoft Word. Its SO MUCH EASIER THAN A TYPEWRITER!

RC: A typewriters not bad, either. Wait, you meant more recent technology?I use the Notes app on my iPhone to remember random ideas and pieces of story or dialogue for books Im working on.

What’s the best advice for collaborating with another writer?

DL:Go along for the ride. Dont try to control the story, but follow it where it goes. Try to make your co-author laugh as much as possible. Use collaboration as an excuse to try different things.And, most of all, have fun.

RC: Trust is key. Understand that you both have a shared interest in and love for your characters, and you need to trust that what the other person does with those characters is the right thing, even when its not the choice you would have made. Or ply your collaborator with enough sugar and flattery to make them believe that any changes you suggest are actually their idea.

Besides reading, what are good hobbies for a writer?

DL:I dont know if editing counts as a hobby … but putting your own words down for a while and focusing on someone elses can be helpful.

RC: Any kind of theater or live storytelling. Listening to audio books.Exercise even if its just walking around the block to combat too much time sitting hunkered down at a computer and also give your brain a rest.(And often the time away from the computer will allow your brain to answer the writing questions that might have been slowing you down anyway.)

BONUS: Someone designed a notebook that can last forever

Read more: http://on.mash.to/2jaYeLm

from David Levithan and Rachel Cohn’s writing advice to get you started in 2017

[fauxhammerblog]

Cheap DIY Dice Tray in 15 steps

Welcome to the new year everyone, let's hope 2017 is a great year for all hobbyists (well, for everyone really, but you guys are my favourite people ;) ). 

As an aside - My hobbying resolution is write ad write the ultimate beginners guide in 2017 by compiling a huge amount of resources and knowledge from across the internet into one easily digestible guide for newcomers/returners. As I have been away from this hobby for over 16 years, coming back was so daunting. When pro's write guides, I find that sometimes they are so far disconnected from the introduction to miniature war-games they're speaking a different language to what beginners would even understand. Hopefully with my former knowledge (of what's important) and my recent re-introduction I feel I'm in a great place to write in a way that's more directed at beginners. Essentially miniature wargaming 101. (I may even move away from this blog to a separate website dedicated to Miniature wargaming info)

I'll be looking for help from people in the the community for this mammoth task, so if you are interested in helping staff build a community resource, comment or drop me a line and I'll be in touch.

Anyway, on with the post. If like me you got some new games for Xmas or you have some old ones you play on the tabletop. I've found a dice tray is a fantastic tool to stop you hitting your mini's or getting rolls that land on the edge of something. to keep games fair too, we've instigated the rule that the dice must hit a side of the tray to be counted. Just to avoid anyone trying to do trick roll and get what they want every time. 

Shortly after having my first ever game of Space Hulk, I realised a Dice Tray would be useful to stop my dice from knocking minis, landing at odd angles against the board, falling off the table and would just be a generally cool thing to have. (sorry if you don't like the colour, but in case you can't tell by the blog theme, I like Black and Orange) You can make this in pretty much any colour you like (so long as you're happy with the frame in Black or White, or you want to paint it.

I usually turn to eBay for all of my hobby supplies, 2 reasons. one is that it is normally the cheapest place to pick up supplies and tools, and 2 is that if you click my links and make a purchase, eBay will pay me for the referral. Yes, I'm making some money (like £3 a week) from this site, but at least I'm not bullshitting you about it. Anyway, this time eBay failed me! Search for Dice Tray and you're looking at £15 minimum. It's not too bad, but the quality of the cheapest items did not seem worth £15 to me. So, with a little ingenuity, I decided to make one, and doing this meant I could have a decent sized tray in the colours I wanted. The best part is it cost me less than £5 and I managed to make this on Boxing Day, that includes going out and buying the parts. Dice Trays on eBay After the Jump, I'll show you how to make one for yourself for less than £5 (£10 if you get the components online).

First you want to pick up the parts, there are only 2 things you need (and some consumable items you probably already have)

Ikea Ribba Frame 23cm x 23 cm

(It's about £7.50 on eBay, which is daft as it's only £3.50 in store for Black or White)

Luckily for me, I live this close to an IKEA, i can be from my front door to theirs in less than 3 minutes if I run (I don't run, it took 5 minutes).

Coloured Felt, 

You can pick this up in packs from a few places, I just pulled 2 sheets out of a large multi coloured pack, they are about the same size (area) as a normal sheet of writing paper, the ones you want are about 1mm thick. Just have a close look at the pictures of what you're buying as some of the stuff is thin (as in you can see through it, it's still technically 1mm thick) you don't want this stuff. If this costs more than £1 / £1.50 you're paying too much.

The rest of what you need I'll assume you have but I'll list it so you can get it ready;

PVA Glue

An old, fairly large brush (for applying PVA)

X-Acto Knife or generic Craft Knife

Fabric Scissors

Coarse Sand Paper

I used 2000 grit as it was right next to me in my supplies box as I was doing this, but you ideally want something more coarse, like 80.

Model Clamps (optional)

Super cool option, get some Felt Transfer Paper and make a cool design you can Iron on to your felt practise this first as the colours may clash or the felt show through when you transfer it. Luckily felt is vey cheap.

Step 1

So, I guess this step is simply to lay out all your parts and clear your work area

Step 2

Open the Photo Frame, take out the backing board (Also take out the Glass, paper and picture Mount/Surround, and bin them, you don't need them) and make sure your felt is big enough, mine was about he size of an A4 sheet of paper and was just big enough, it stretches anyway and the frame will cover a couple of mm on each edge, so if it's just slightly too small, don't worry Note, you could use the glass as a palette, but it's quite thin and has sharp edges, it would probably break and/or cut you at some point. FYI, the GW pot is glue, I just put it in a spare pot after Decanting all my GW paints to Dropper Bottles

Step 3

Cover the whole backing board in PVA Glue, do it quick so it doesn't start to dry, I also had about a 70%-30% mix of PVA Glue to Water to make sure the PVA was smooth. (apply too much or apply it too watery and it will soak through the felt)

Step 4

♬ I have a Backing Board ♬ - ♬ I have some Felt ♬  - ♬ Unghhhh ♬ -  ♬ Felted Backing Board ♬ Literally stick the felt to the backing board, I did it he other way up than shown in the image, then flipped it over. by doing it this way I was able to smooth out the felt so that I had no creases. and keep my eye out for any glue coming through. Give it 10 minutes so the glue starts to set, then flip it over. put something flat and heavy on it. I used a dinner matt and a fruit bowl. this is just to hold it in place. leave this a few hours to completely set.

Step 5

The best part of this photo frame is that it is deep and has an inner surround. So, if you want to you can have a photo recessed into the frame so that you have a deep frame. (perfect for decoupage). of you can use this to push the picture and/or mount to the front so that it is directly behind the glass. W're gonna use this inner frame to felt the edges, this is totally optional, but the finished product looks cooler. (you could also use a different colour felt here to contrast the colour of your base)

Step 6

Sanding - As mentioned above, I used 2000 grit sandpaper because I didn't realised I'd need it before I started, the 200 grit was inside in my modelling supplies and my coarse sandpaper was outside in the garage and it was cold, it was Boxing Day and i was in my Pyjamas at 2 in the afternoon. You basically want to take the smooth surface off the inner frame, so essentially key it and give the PVA Glue something to bind to. If you are really desperate you could just cut into it loads with a knife I guess. unless you start carving chunks out, it's still gonna be smooth when you put the felt on. Whatever you do, be gentle as the frame is rather weak.

Step 7

Measure up the felt for the edges, put the frame on tits side over the felt, make sure you have enough to cover the side and come up the edges, I was close in this first pic to not having enough, but, most of this is covered and the Felt stretches.

Step 8

Glue and hold, you see the pegs? don't use these! Put some PVA along the inner side, just as you did with the backing board, don't put it along the edges just yet. Put the felt down, smooth it across the surface of the inner side and find something to hold it in the edges. you want something flat across the whole surface. the gets were too much and left dents in the felt. This mostly brushed out but in some cases it let the PVA Glue soak through and now there's a hard patch. you cant tell in the final pics and anyone who sees this in person probably wont know, but I know and it pisses me off! If you had something flat to sit over the felt and spread the surface area pressure, you could peg or clamp that in place and jump onto the next step, otherwise, wit for this to dry. Your only putting glue on one edge, you may have some overlapping felt going up the other side, you can trim this later.

Step 9

Do the opposite side, if you aren't pegging (oh the lolz), you may want to wait for first side to almost fully dry before you do this step

Step 10

Make sure its dry and trim the excess going up the edges, one side should be one solid piece of felt, we are having all the joins in the corners. Use an X-Acto Knife or Craft Knife to trim right into the corners

Step 11

Glue the third edge, trim this as you apply it now, use your X-Acto Knife or Craft Knife. you can now push this into the corners as the felt has a little stretch to it, make it neat in the corners get it nice and smooth then clamp it in place until it dries

Step 12

We've done the same thing now for three steps, I'm going to leave the instructions for this step open to your own interpretation, but basically get the felt on the final edge.

Once this is dry, trim all the edges so that you have enough felt for the overlapping sides but not much more or it wont fit back in the outer frame.

Step 13

Trim the backing board, if you left all the inner frame edges to dry, the backing board is definitely dry by now. trim this as close to the edge of the actual board as you can with no overlap.

Step 14

Put some glue on the edges of the inner frame (on the side that will be closest to front of the the outer frame) and fold over the remaining felt, you can clamp it here if you want but the pressure of closing the frame up will be enough to hold it in place as it dries. As you push the inner frame into the outer frame, use something like a ruler to push the felt into the crease so that it is neat. Also, confusingly, I have put the felted Backing Board beneath the frame here, it looks like i've put it in the frame, I haven't, I just sat the frame on it as I took the photo.

Step 15

Apply glue to the inner edge of the inner frame (the edge facing the rear) and fold over the felt, Put the backing board back in and again use something flat like a ruler to tuck the felt into the edge as you press down. Use the frames clips to hold the backing board in place and wait for it to dry, but you can now pretty much use it as it is drying.

Now, Roll some dice! any guesses from anyone what set these dice are from?

via Blogger http://ift.tt/2iZhnPq