#I may use this for an article I plan on writing in the future lol

[herbaklava]

I’m watching a video essay about how teachers are quitting because apparently younger Gen Z and Gen Alpha have horrendous behavior problems and a complete lack of wanting to learn or excel at anything education related and that is absolutely heartbreaking. A lot of kids growing up today (like five year olds to younger teens) can’t even read and write well because their parents (mainly older millennials and Gen X) shove iPads in their faces and don’t actually engage with them on a genuine level academically or even emotionally as parents. Since they were basically born with social media and the internet, the nurturing they should be getting from their parents is coming from these addictive devices which in turn exacerbated these nihilistic mindsets, disregard for their own or anyone else’s wellbeing, and complete lack of empathy in general.

[aluria-sevhex]

I BEAT THE GAME

a solid 3rd of my ISAT notes on my phone are just from 'today' (writing this past midnight lol)

my ISAT masterpost

every post in this series is also tagged as #Aluria plays ISAT for the first time (please don't spoil)

please note that there's a bunch of notes in this post because i was still in Act 3 at the beginning of this post lol

-i'm not playing it rn but i have decided to break my 'no looking stuff up' rule so i know where to go to make Sif rember what they say when carving stuff

[WRITING TUMBLR POST ALURIA NOTE: i later looked up maps of the House to help me keep track of stuff lol]

-ok now i know. i like figuring things out myself but i could not fucking remember lol.

-i have a really long car ride so. MORE ISAT

-title theme shout-out

-Sif tripped on a rock. "you're clumsy and not at all threatening and overpowered compared to them!" :(

-they almost forgot to catch Isa :(

-dang, Siffrin didn't say nya this time D:

-hehe they hit it back. one could say it's a... COUNTER-attack B)

-SIFFRIN GHOST ON THE WAY TO THE DORM

-WAIT FUCK DID I FORGET THE SHARPENING STONE

-fuck it i was planning to loop back after finding out what to say anyway

-ah don't i also need to find more i fo on the King somewhere? eh i can do that on the next loop... so much to keep track of...

-LMAO. THE PHRASE SIF SAYS. "please don't look bad please don't look bad please don't look bad" BIG FUCKING MOOD TBH

-Sif on his way to talk to their tools and project while carving or sharpening:

-aight time to die lmao

-Loop my belooped

-hm... it's Loop's job to remember Siffrin's mistakes...

-"you don't have to remember to yell' always gets me :(

-I FOUND THE ARTICLES

-ok so currently i'm thinking that the King and Siffrin are probably from the same place. which may or may not be where Loop is from and/or the disappearing island and/or connected to the color thing.

this game has a lot of weird shit going on.

-Bonnie doesn't know what a star is

-OH FUCK NO. AM I GOING TO HAVE TO GO TO THE OBSERVATORY. I'M LEAVING THAT FOR A LATER LOOP.

-another ghost :0

-ISAT: 📚

ISAT if Siffrin could pick locks: 📕

-WHAT. "you used to find them disgusting, but someone you knew loved them, so you tried them."

"someone you knew?"

"who?"

O_O

-aw, Isa hugged Mira on this bathroom trip

-"you wish for rest" yeah...

-"please be sharp, please be sharp, please be sharp"

-the Keyknife is now the Knifekey. WAIT. THIS MEANS IN THE FUTURE I CAN DO OTHER SHIT ON FLOOR 3. HELL FUCKING YES.

-wait. OH C'MON. boooooooo

-i picked malanga fritters and almost skipped past something that seems important. they remind Siffrin of his parents? :0 their head hurt...

-"BECAUSE YOU FORCED THEM TO!" :(

-"where r u from" "no u"

-JUST FUCKING CONFESS ISA FJHDHEJKSMXMDKSKS

-*sighs* guess i should talk to her. actually... what if i called Loop?

-huh. can't call them here.

-"i just hope that one day you might learn" WAIT THAT'S DIFFERENT- wait nvm i got things mixed up in my head :(

-"in this moment, you were loved"

-"that was a nice rehearsal" OH FUCK.

-i just skipped from loop 37 to 40

-time to kill myself with a banana! oop- *plantain*

-"you broke your head open on a rock" it did not use to describe it like that.

-wait. Sif. if you're annoyed there isn't a more dignified way in the village to loop. just kill yourself. you have a knife. just fucking kill yourself to loop forward.

-...fuck what the hell is this game doing to my thought process

-ok what should i look for in this room...

-"BUT YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO READ IT" in large font... :(

-:( Sif is trying to remember something and it's tied to the stars

-aight new thing to ask the king time to get myself killed via tear yippee

-seems like the King wants Siffrin to remember their home... "something we've all forgotten" this is definitely about the disappearing island and the colors

-i need to go to the library and find the books on it.

-hey isn't Rock also called Protection Craft? kinda interesting that the King has it

-damn i died to the King because of timing bullshit ToT

-"one more time."

-huh... it evades active remembrance

-it had a belief centered on the Universe...

-need to figure out why the King is obsessed with Vaugarde

-freezing something perfect in time... do i need to find one of those Time Craft books again?

-gonna loop forward to the King

-"even the King feels easy to fight, now"

"i still can't say it" the name of their home. he wants to be able to say the name of his and Siffrin's home. ouagh this game is going to leave me emotionally devastated ToT

-fuck i missed the option to ask Odile if she was going to continue her fake research on a loop where i didn't spend time with her

-"can we group hug after i talk to the Head Housemaiden?" oh?

-DAMMIT ODILE INTERRUPTED ISA THIS TIME

-time to talk to her. again. again and again and again and again

-"you can start breaking down now" lol

-"the curtain falls" DAMN

-"HERE AGAIN?" woah Loop why so aggressive?

-"i'm too lazy to open up new dialogue choices" lol

-hm... show Loop the souvenirs...

-wait huh. in another loop this lady in Dormont said she has no siblings but now she has a sister. odd...

-:O THE LONG THINGY-THING

-huh. Loop reacted kinda weirdly to the kid's doodle

-hey what if i gave Isa the flower at the end?

-FUCK I FORGOT THE FUCKING ROCK I GOT TOO COMFY. this is embarrassing

-hey hold up the theme that plays when everybody's discussing the country in the library is the same song that plays when Loop is recapping things

-hold up. the King was in Corbeaux. Corbeaux is where the House doing the color research is.

-took the photo. PERFECTLY FROZEN IN TIME

-oh fuck

-calling Loop

-hm. the star-shaped gate that's locked. is the passcode the name of Siffrin and the King's home?

-we're gonna use a bomb i guess

-i asked the King where he's from and uh... now a slowed-down version of the song is playing...

-what the fuck

-Sif and the King are going to die, aren't they?

-"BUT IT'S ALL GONE!"

-i'm going to loop forward and try to talk to the King. again.

-*sighs* the peel is so dorky

-FUCK I FORGOT TO EQUIP THE MEMORY OF KNIFEKEY

-wait. asking him nicely. FUCKING WORKED???

-"The Universe leads... we can only follow"

-FUCK. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. OF COURSE. OF COURSE. OF COURSE. GO FUCK YOURSELF.

-so the King knows about the loops, even though he can't remember them.

-"Wish Craft" :0

-WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO.

-BONNIE NO

-NO NO NO NO UNHAND THEM

-BONNIE NO BONBON NO

-okay. i looped back. Bonnie is okay again. i just need to kill the King.

-hold the fuck up. it says i'm in Act 4. bad things mark the end of acts. Act 1 ended with me getting in the loops. Act 2 ended with killing the King failing. Act 3 ended with...?

-please don't let Bonnie be dead somehow

-THEY'RE OKAY THEY'RE OKAY

-...the little moments of time rewinding seem to correlate with Sif wishing to go back

-:O I CAN READ THE BOOKS NOW

-THE GATE. OH FUCK YEAH

-fucking hell when did i get (Just attack) because DAMN. Sif is so fucking done with everything.

-WISH CRAFT

-i just fumkign one-shot the Nostalgie on floor 1. "just attack" indeed

-"you need a break" :(

-Sif is like constantly teetering on the edge of a mental breakdown

-let's see how well they do against a boss

-DAMN

-ok so what the fuck was Euphrasie doing before shit hit the fan? and why does she blame herself for Siffrin's situation?

-i just realized something funny. if Vaugarde is fantasy France. and Siffrin and the King are from an island north of Vaugarde. DOES THAT MAKE SIFFRIN FANTASY BRITI- *gets shot*

-gate time.

-what was the question? what was the answer?

-"couldn't i just create another me? someone who'd understand?" ok so somebody's a clone got it.

-Loop? i should talk to Loop

-ok i guess i'll have to be like "hey Loop are you a clone?" in person (plot twist Sif's a clone :P)

-"i saw a weird shade" WAIT HOLD UP YEAH THAT'S SUS THAT SIFFRIN FUCKING SAW RED. OK THAT WAS DIAGETIC. FIRST COLOR IN THE WHOLE GAME.

-gonna kill the King again, talk to Loop, then loop again forward to Floor 2 to read the color theory book

-WAIT SIFFRIN HASN'T CRIED ONCE THIS WHOLE GAME BITCH REPRESSION IS NOT HEALTHY!

-"especially if she knows" Sif. did you forget Odile's name. OH FUCK

-"HOW BLINDINGLY WONDERFUL, FOR A ROLL OF TOILET PAPER TO BE THE ONLY HOPE YOU HAVE LEFT RIGHT NOW!" this would be so funny if not for the context

-"you wish for eternity" WAIT HOLD UP

-SIFFRIN IS USING WISH CRAFT. AND WHEN THEY PRAY TO THE CHANGE GOD STATUES THEY SEND THEIR WISHES. ARE THE BUFFS AND THE KEYKNIFE THE RESULT OF WISH CRAFT?

-hey Siffrin uses a more shy and sad portrait for the 'thank you' afterwards now :(

-FUCK I FORGOT TO SHARPEN THE KNIFE

-y'know what it's fine i have the bomb

-hey Sif i think what happened last time might've uh. traumatized you? ;-;

-welp. i used the bomb. it was anticlimactic.

-"i wonder how this country looks from the outside" *proceeds to imply that the time loop only affects Vaugarde* hold the fucking phone

-ok tho srsly Siffrin is in what looks like *extreme* duress

-oh damn Sif has different portraits for the 'you should disappear' bit. less smug and determined, more... *haunted*

-dang, can't give Isa the flower at the end

-*sigh* gonna talk to her again

-"the actor has become the director"

-there's a lot more theatre comparisons than there used to :(

-woah Siffrin you are weirdly enthusiastic to see Loop

-time to loop forward to read the books woooo

-Sif i am very concerned about this dialogue portrait. your enthusiasm is *desperate*

-hey something funny: people wish on stars

-this game has a LOT of motifs i love: wishes, stars, time, memories, etc.

-hm... what is Siffrin's 'ritual' when doing the wish-y thing?

-:0 a wish is trapping Siffrin?

-what if they're actually being trapped by their own desires or smth? like some sort of- WAIT. WHAT IF LOOP IS TRAPPING THEM SOMEHOW???

-i am in conspiracy mode i think

-moving forward to get to the library

-Siffrin is now level 85...

-maybe a wish is how the island disappeared?

-FAVOR TREE IS WISH CRAFT WOOOOOOOO

-i think the way Sif wished was from something they learned as a kid

-3, 6, 7, 13, all are numbers with significance

-HEY LOOP LOOK WHAT I LEARNED

-welp time to die ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-ok what is in that one house in the main part of Dormont

-hm. Euphrasie was apparently asking everybody what they wished for. she probably realized something tied to Wish Craft was wrong...

-maybe the list in Euphrasie's office cataloguing the names was categorizing based on wishes?

-looping forward

-"you're a living comedy sketch"

-my guess is that the wishing to save Vaugarde enabled Siffrin to loop so they could defeat the King, but something went horribly wrong, thus causing the loops to keep going

-ugh i need to talk in person. tear time!

-a sped-up version of the happy song after you beat the King is playing and Siffrin has the desperate enthusiasm portrait...

-Siffrin, you already tried saving Vaugarde.

-"maybe you don't loop because you die... but because you feel like there would be no reason to go on, maybe?" makes sense to me. Siffrin doesn't have anything to look forward to after defeating the King.

-"something that, to you, feels on the same level of hopelessness as death? on the same level as the world ending?" me when the time loop wants me to get therapy:

-hey Sif you just looped. right in front of Loop.

-looping forward to the King.

-Odile's realizing she's missing something. too bad she'll forget it. maybe i should try making the others really suspicious of me on a future loop

-"please don't interrupt" :(

-this game has me constantly on some variety of edge and i love it

-maybe this time Isa will get to confess?

-the static is starting and i haven't even talked to Euphrasie

-damn i did a minor loop back :(

-talking to her won't work. it can't work.

-STOP SAYING THE SAME DAMN THING STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT

-I WAS RIGHT AS TO HOW EXACTLY SIF GOT STUCK

-the wish is broken. MAYBE IF I DO SOMETHING ELSE MAYBE IF HE'S DEFEATED SOME OTHER WAY PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

-OH FUCK. so Sif's current theory is that somehow he has to deal the final blow

-"You just need to defeat the King on your own" BUT YOU NEED THE OTHERS TO DEFEAT HIM?

-also damn the way Siffrin's thoughts spiral into a mess is a mood.

-i am now in Act 5.

-:( the Dormont music is slow now

-Sif's portrait in the menus has changed again, there is nothing in the body text of his profile, and their title is now "The Lost One" :(

-wait. the Change God statue is glitchy now and i can't get buffs there anymore

-Sif is like perpetually pissed off

-aaaand now Mira's upset

-Sif is going to fuck things up with the others as well, won't they?

-i think Odile's gonna figure out that Sif is in a time loop

-i feel like i'm in a horror game right now. well. i've felt like that for a while. but i am fucking terrified of Siffrin right now. Siffrin you need help please they only want to help you you can't bottle up everything or it only ends up worse

-the battle theme is slowed...

-sometime i should write a crossover fanfic where Rose Lalonde picks apart Siffrin, i think it would go very interestingly

-unrelated but i just realized Isa has a hair banana hehehe... i need to cling to levity while in this hell

-uh. dude. why is your dialogue looping

-SIFFRIN! I. I KNOW YOU'RE STRUGGLING BUT ALL THEY WANT TO DO IS HELP YOU AND YOU KEEP HURTING THEM PLEASE THEY ONLY WANT TO HELP YOU I KNOW VULNERABILITY IS HARD BUT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE THEY'VE BEEN *TRYING* AND THEY'VE BEEN NOTHING BUT KINDA TO YOU AND IT HURTS TO SEE THIS SIFFRIN BECAUSE YOU KEEP GETTING WORSE AND WORSE AND IT'S TERRIFYING!

-fuck man this game is getting me to care so much about this guy. Mental Illness Simulator 2023

-the irony of Sif calling Isa a coward who projects confidence but not backing it up... Siffrin is projecting.

-and yet despite all that... Isa still ended the conversation rather kindly ToT

-Loop seems really unsure and yeah. past me would not believe this but i am siding with the starheaded bitch.

-...Loop fucking LIED

-Sif is going alone

-oh dear the music

-most of the memories are gone. and the skills...

-level 99

-wait the room layout is fucked

-a Sif ghost but with a black hat instead

-"you're hungry" :(

-so. i think Sif just hallucinated his party members.

-"your stomach hurts. you feel cold." :(

-the world is glitching and breaking haha and i am scared i'm scared i'm scared Siffrin *please*

-how is the photo event occurring if i'm on my own?

-*oh no*

-ok brb i need to take a break

-ok back from my break and refreshed! now i can go back to Siffrin's Descent Into Hell

-entered Mira's room. her hallucination did the "head is covered in darkness creepily" thing...

-Odile...

-i'm in the Keyknife room except now the background is the post-King fight background...

-the feeling of the grim march towards a specific goal reminds me of the Undertale genocide route haha...ha...ha... ...

-stomachache, headache, and the smell of sugar...

-no more running, only a slow, slow, walk to the end

-"you've trapped this country in time even more surely than i have" oh fuck

-not often that a game makes me terrified enough for me to feel my heartbeat...

-red.

-his sprite is on the game over?

-where the FUCK am i?

-spooky shadow Siffrin

-OOO DO I GET TO FIGHT A MANIFESTATION OF SIFFRIN'S MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES?

-hm what does mal du pays mean- oh :( it translated to homesickness :(

-you can't fight your own shadow

-"it's not like you haven't let me die before, right?" *OH FUCK*

-you broke your promise didn't you?

-red

-dude i think the depression is collecting its due. loops and loops of bottling your shit up has been unhealthy and now you are paying for it :(

-"if something has been forgotten by everyone, has that thing ever existed?" FUCK

-red

-more red

-BRIGHT RED

-if i had a nickel for every rpg i liked where a monochrome manifestation of the main character's mental illness taunted him in a scripted fight, i'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. bonus: the dialogue box calls Mal du Pays 'something'! oh and both games open with a content warning i guess

y'know maybe the fact i found out about this game from a blogger that i followed for Omori stuff should've been some sort of indicator.

-"the sadness within you is right" FUCK

-OH GOOD SIF DIDN'T DIE THE FAMILY CAME TvT

-"a weird shiny person helped us!" LOOP :D

-AND THE MUSIC IS UPBEAT OH THIS FEELS SO GOOD TvT

-IT HAS THE TITLE SCREEN MOTIF TOO

-i'l have to look up the song later and compare to other themes but i think it might be a medley/remix? i've definitely identified the post-King fight theme and the title theme, probably more i can't clearly identify

-everybody's battle portraits are so bright and happy

-"i still cannot remember its name" :(

-damn. he froze. womp womp

-ok but what about Loop? what's going on with them?

-glitchy background...

-i'm on Act 5. aren't there like 6 acts? idk maybe this can end and Sif can move forward. then again... the last few times. that did not work out.

-haha Sif pls don't die on us rlly tho pls don't

-so slow...

-RED...

-Mal du Pays is following us

-FUCK

-*exhales* ok the darkness is gone

-is it weird that i kinda like this moment more than the moments of closeness with the others in Act 3? maybe cuz it feels more real, somehow... or because for once, Siffrin is the one being vulnerable...

-i think the problem was sticking to the script and treating the others like actors or well... NPCs

-FUCK FUCK FUCK NO NO NO DON'T YOU DARE GO INTO GLITCHY MODE.

-FUCK

-now that they're here they know something is wrong.

-please game please grant Siffrin one small mercy and let the others loop back with him this time

-RED

-uhhhhhhhh

-Sif did you just become your weird sadness self

-woah this is a beautiful scene

-WOAH. now THIS is a battle! and it is *beautiful*. the red and the stars...

-oh fuck. my options are hurt them or self-harm.

-wait are they HEALING ME? :(

-the battle menu simply refers to Siffrin as 'user'

-JGJRJENNDNRJE LMAO ODILE JUST PULLED A CLASSIC MOM MOVE LIKE "don't you dare storm up to your room earlier in time, young man!"

-forced group therapy

-oh, Siffrin's portrait

-i HATE that my options are hurt my friends or hurt myself. and i refuse to let Siffrin hurt their friends. it's... heartbreaking...

-chat i don't think the wish the player chooses was Siffrin's *actual* wish

-:0 hatless Siffrin

-AWWWW THEY'RE HUGGING

-aw... smiling Sif... hugging Bonnie :]

-:0 EVERYBODY IS SO HAPPY IN THE MENU!

-"It's you!!!!" also hey Sif's title is "The Traveler" again!

-"you will stay together for a little while longer" :]

-i love how the lack of hat makes the fact that Siffrin is really short apparent lol

-these new conversations are precious :]

-Odile thinks the fact that Sif loved everybody so much they got himself stuck in a time loop to be cute XD

-NO WAY. IS THIS FINALLY HAPPENING. IS HE FINALLY GONNA SAY IT?

-HELL FUCKING YES!!!!!!!!

-ok i just talked to all the housemaidens and Dormont residents. time to talk to Loop

-...

-maybe Loop was just. a manifestation of the wish...

-:0 THE SILVER COIN? ARE WE GONNA FINSLLY USE THE SILVER COIN?

-TvT

-I BEAT THE GAME :D

-:o Siffrin is no longer on the title screen

[coolingrosa]

Last yap session from me for a while ong:

Where can I find the fanfic? I found u and ur series from YouTube :3. Another question I have is that the fact you're doing college *and* doing a series this giant and complex is genuinely such an impressive feat, what do you plan on doing with your writing degree after you finish? I was considering college, then wasn't, now I'm considering it again when I saw ur answer about how you're puting ur writing classes to use for this, kinda inspired the idea back lol ur so inspiring with multiple things dang >:3

1. You can find the fanfic on my AO3 under the user COOLINGROSA1000

2. Some of my viewers may be surprised by this, but writing a book with my degree knowledge is not the top of my list! My ultimate dream is to be an editor or a publisher, while my back up career is a psychology focused textbook/article writer!

While I love writing for myself, I much prefer editing and non-fiction writing, to be honest. If my writing ever seems to be pretty logical and simple, that tends to be why! I write essays and analysis in my spare time and because I hate public speaking, I tend to prefer writing arguement essays

However, writing a fiction book isn’t off the table as I have many personal stories I’d love to elaborate on in the future. I love college! It’s a great place to find yourself and be independent and it’s made me a happier and healthier person. Plus, you get to pick what you want to learn. No more being forced into classes you despise- as you pick your classes and schedule. I highly suggest thinking it over again!

[wistfulweaverwoman]

💞

thank you for the ask @thesweetnessofspring!!

💞 = what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language

Well I for sure look to achieve a balance of all of these things, but I think the most important is the technical stuff. As a reader I will absolutely stop reading a story (fanfic or published book) if the basic sentence structure is off. I find it very off-putting, because instead of being able to immerse myself in the work I am constantly pulled out with having to work out what the author actually meant. So I end up not even getting to any of the other stuff on the list that the author may or may not have done well.

My first goal as a writer is to make the words flow well together, and the second is be as clear as possible to avoid confusion. The other stuff is really important too, though I really like nuance and adding in lil nuggets of information in bit by bit, because I really enjoy that as a reader.

As for the figurative language, I hesitate to go overboard with it because one of the first writing tips I received was to not write something in 10 words if I can concisely express the same thing with 5 words. I've always instinctually saved figurative language for more emotionally charged moments.

This is something that I wrote back in 2014 as a new writer (The Awkward In-Between) and while I'd change it a little I think it's a decent example of what I mean by saving the more poetic language for emotionally charged moments:

Looking up at Peeta, it's as if Katniss has never truly seen him before this moment. Like a moth, her silver eyes are drawn in. His hair has dried haphazard and wild, and the sun, now directly behind his head, haloes his curls, setting them ablaze. The mesmerizing azure of his eyes are intense as the blue center of flame. He is a vision. Her sudden terror isn't that his fire would ignite her, but that his own light would be snuffed out, and she'd be forced to flit around in the dark forever, his loss leaving her an empty shell.

I also see it as a finisher, something I often add in the editing process, though there are some things I see long before I get to that chapter that haunts me till I write it out, like this example.

For my latest fic, The Apothecary's Daughter, I've gone through the process of plotting the entire story out, in three acts, using a specific method. I love writing and I actively want to improve my skill in crafting good stories, so I challenged myself to write this fic as if I were writing a novel. While the main plot points are simple and echo bits of cannon, there is a much more complicated subplot that's only been hinted at so far, that I feel wound be a lot more difficult to pull off if I hadn't already plotted out the basic story with bullet points first. After I'd divided up the basic story into three acts I further divided each act into 9 chapters (like THG books). And then I plotted out each chapter. Some chapter bullets have a lot more details than others, but that's okay because I've gotten more ideas as I've written each new chapter and in fact had to move some plot points to future chapters to accommodate them.

A month or two back I read through my outline and went back to the structure I was following because I'd moved stuff around and the story flow felt off. The I fell into a hole of rereading all the articles (I have some of her books too but I was too lazy to get one off the bookshelf LOL). While I'd originally planned for each act to be 9 chapters I discovered that while this method worked for SC (she's a master) that for me this shortened what should be the longest part of the story (act 2) and made the other two acts much too long. The formula should be approximately 25%/50%/25% for the 1/2/3 acts, respectively. I really took the time to understand the difference between plot points, pinch points, and the center point, and the purpose for each.

If anyone is looking to understand the technicalities of plotting I highly recommend checking out that blog and her articles.

As for the characters, those are for sure incredibly important too... but since I'm writing fics right now and have not dipped my toe into OCs I don't have to worry about creating characters, just making sure I keep my characters as close to cannon as possible, which is only possible through character analysis, which I have been doing for THGs characters since before joining the fandom back in 2014. The most consistent feedback I receive on my cannon divergent fics is that my characters are some of the most in character representations that the reader had read. I am very very proud of that, honestly, because it's not always easy to suss out meaning or intention with the POV of a person that's not always specifically aware of those things themselves.

Character in my AUs are going to be in varying levels of OOC because they've had different experiences that cause them to feel and react differently than they would in a cannon divergent fic. Part of that comes from identifying what it was in the characters background that lent to a specific trait and either changing those circumstances, or starting the fic at an earlier age, like in The Shape of Us.

World building is super fun for me. Sometimes I pull from my other fics, like some of the merchant culture I'm exploring in The Shape of Us . Sometimes I already know ahead of time when I'm going to add something in, and sometimes I'm writing out the chapter and need to give some context to something that's been plotted. And while I'm following an outline I still end up adding things to the story spontaneously, like the bath scene I wrote in the last posted chapter of The Apothecary's Daughter.

[whentherewerebicycles]

time to declutter my brain by making some LISTS!!!! 

time available to me in the immediate future:

had amazing weekend in pittsburgh! am flying home tonight so will have about 5-6 hours of airport and flight time where i can work on whatever

i have only one meeting & one tiny work task on the agenda for tomorrow so i will have that entire day

wednesday morning is packed with meetings but i’ll be finished by 12 and then will have the rest of the day to run errands, pack, and do other last-minute trip stuff

thursday morning will be a bit of a mad scramble but then i will have 10-11 hours of sustained work time on the plane to use however i want

things i need to get done: 

pre-trip errands. i ordered a shitload of travel clothes & other stuff that all arrived this weekend, so i need to try everything on, decide what i’m taking with me, and drop off all returns before i leave. i also need to buy dog food, water plants, and pay some medical bills.

campus visit. i’ve gotten too far in the weeds with all the prep work and research, which is fine, like i needed to do that reading and thinking, but also now it’s time to step back from it a little bit and start thinking about the pieces i’m going to pull out for the actual talk. the sooner i can get a detailed outline together the less stressed i’ll feel, so i think i may spend tonight’s plane ride outlining by hand (since writing things out instead of typing helps me organize my thinking more efficiently). i want to think about several possible configurations for that hour, and then i also want to create a to-do list so i have a clearer sense of the stuff i need to prep or script in the next couple weeks.

i know i am going to put a lot of pressure on myself to do this “perfectly” or whatever, but i want to try to gently push back against that impulse. i am so prepared for this interview. the presentation doesn’t have to convey absolutely everything because i will have the entire day to answer questions and bring up things i want to mention. my goal is to not get lost into the details but to keep my messaging simple, direct, and compelling. i also read a bunch of articles in the chronicle this morning about how hard it is for universities to recruit and retain talented admin staff right now, and that made me feel a bit better about going into the interview. interviews are two-way evaluations and if they are interested enough in me for this role to invite me to campus, they are also going to be feeling some pressure to make this a positive experience and to convince me that this is the place i want to be.

IUI planning. i test tomorrow but kind of have a gut feeling this cycle didn’t work! i know i’ll be disappointed if the test is negative but i also think i’m so busy with other stuff that i’ll move on pretty fast and be ready to try again. i just need to reach out to my doctor before my trip to see what she thinks about squeezing something in around the travel and the campus visit - the timing will get a little hairy so it might not be worth it to try this month. we’ll see! but i have to do that before i leave as i need to know if i should take the meds with me & i also will need to set up my sister with the info to call the donor bank for me.

fic comments. lol my goal for this last cycle was to do 14 comments in 14 days and i only managed to do 4!! i will cut myself some slack here as when i set the goal i didn’t know about the job interview yet and didn’t anticipate that other stuff would fill all that open time. but i might try to do a few more on the plane tonight - maybe i can get to 7 at least. 

okay! there’s a lot ahead of me but honestly i think i did a ton of good work in march and that has prepared me to roll into a very busy april in a reasonably calm state of mind. i can handle everything that lies ahead. and wow i’m about to have a very cool travel experience too!! and basically two full weeks where  don’t have to think about my current job for even a second! i know i’ll probably be tired at the end of the trip but i hope it’s also a good brain break for me.

[geschiedenisish]

This blog 101

[Voor de Nederlandse versie van deze post; zoek ff op "Dit blog 101"]

"Enchantée! You found a nerd of the Victorian, Edwardian and history at large, mainly Dutch history. Look around, you may find some fun stuff. :) I mostly use this blog to reblog or to dump stuff here I found in old Dutch books. Normally I'd annoy my friends with that, but they didn't like it. Hopefully Tumblr is more fond of my findings. ;)"

That was the original intention of this blog. Now it has turned into a rando Tumblr blog about all kinds of things! But I'm not planning on doing anything about it. EMBRACE THE RANDOMNESS OF TUMBLR!!!!!! And scroll down far enough and you'll actually find some real fun stuff from Dutch history.... ;)

If you speak Dutch, I also highly recommend checking out my Wordpress;

On there, I write longer articles about historical rabbit holes I have fallen into. There is some really cool stuff on there! Especially about the formation of Dutch culture and Dutch society. Real tin foil hat stuff, but it's all true and historical! Real fun. ;)

Profile pic on here is my great-greatgrandfather Cornelis Hendrik Herman Wisse (1877 - 1954).

Here's my basic tag system because there is a bit of order in the chaos (but I am absolutely one of those "my tags are a mess" type of people);

rant = longer text posts

NS = stuff about trains

Christianity = stuff about christianity

religion = stuff about religion in general (also for esotericism and spirituality)

(Dutch) history = stuff about history, also tagged usually with the period in question

hot people from the past = self-explanatory

Tumblr = for fun Tumblr stuff, especially posts I never thought I'd encounter in the wild (seldom used though lol)

[soms others I forgot about and I'll add in the future]

That's it for now. Hope you enjoy my blog! :) <3

Oh, I don't have any DNI's, I just don't really like confrontation. For example, I'm an atheist with a fascination for religion, especially christianity. But please don't try to convert me. That's never gonna happen, no matter what you say. I have heard it all. But if you're willing to look past my atheism, we can have some real fun and cool conversations about theology or ecclesiastical history. (Or make a tier list of Bible Books or whatever. It doesn't have to be deep.)

Same with politics. I hope the fact my DNI is at the end tells you enough about me. As long as you're nice, I'm pretty sure we can get along. Even if we disagree on, like, fundamental moral things... Don't let that stop you from exchange ideas with me. <3

[financialsecrets]

Baby Boomers Making Money Online

Hello GmaKelly here with you again!

Today we're going to talk about Baby Boomers and how they Make Money Online Baby Boomers If you were born between the years 1946-1964, Congratulations, your a Baby Boomer! According the National Census, Baby Boomers make up approximately 21% of the population. By the year 2030 all Baby Boomers will be over 65. Social Security says you can retire at 62 years of age and collect 70% of your benefit, prorated monthly up till you reach age 67 and receive 100%. And 40% of Boomers plan to “work until I drop” according to an AARP survey. Baby Boomers came to be during a time when we had just came out of a deep economic depression, WWII just ended. Men were coming home to wives, that for the first time in history, had worked outside their own homes. Do to these factors the mentality of Baby Boomers is softer and calmer They previous generations where men singularly ruled their homes. They came with a new outlook on life: - Value independence - Being part of the community was important - They sought health and wellness in new ways. - They worked hard to provide a future for their families - They bought businesses and homes. - Confident in all they do. - Sought a more pleasant way to communicate. - They adapt to change - They have the "we can do it" mentality - Goal oriented and successful With these skills are already in place, Making Money Online comes natural to the Baby Boomer Generation. They rise of remote opportunities make Working From Home even more appealing. While they have worked for years in a closed in office, or even worse a "cubicle", they long to be able to provide a good life for their families, while still having the luxury of spending time with loved ones.

8 Opportunities for Baby Boomers to Make Money Online - Many baby boomers are using their skills and expertise to work as freelancers, offering services such as writing, consulting, and graphic design. - With the rise of online education, baby boomers with teaching experience are finding opportunities to tutor students remotely. - Many companies offer paid online surveys, which can be a simple and flexible way to earn extra income. - Baby boomers are starting online businesses, selling products such as handmade crafts or vintage items. - By promoting products on their blogs or social media channels, baby boomers can earn commission on sales made through their referral links in Affiliate Marketing. - Sell products (yours or someone else's) online through e-commerce platforms such as Etsy, Amazon or Shopify . - Baby boomers with financial expertise can work remotely as bookkeepers or accountants - Many companies are hiring customer service associates to work from home, which can be a flexible and accessible job for older adults. There are many opportunities for people to Make Money Online. They Baby Boomers are learning alongside the rest of us about how the internet can be monetized. They were taught and/or trained by their employers to provide value to the work and provide assistance where possible. So Online Marketing should be a breeze for them. Final Thoughts Baby Boomers, being over 21% of the population, are already heavily involved in Making Money Online. With Age and Experience they may have quite a head start on the rest of us. I bet they don't struggle to find a "niche" lol. They have lists already made up in the back of their minds just waiting for a chance to explore it. In short, you don't have to "work till you drop". Welcome Baby Boomers to Affiliate Marketing. Thank you for sharing your time with me today. Have a super great day! GmaKelly Read the full article

[hotdogdynamitezzz]

Hii! Happy Valentine's Day 💌 If you don't mind, may I participate in your game?

My initials are AK and here is my birth chart:

Thank you! 💜

Hi Love thank you for choosing option 3! I can't wait to get started💗🥰

1. Pluto conjunct Chiron In the 5th house is pretty interesting. With the wounded healer asteroid conjunct the planet of Destruction or Power in the house of Joy and Pleasure you might have been robbed of childhood experiences and grew up early. In Sagittarius your spirit may have been brought down a lot by overbearing religious views or you may have felt abandoned in your childhood? However the positive side of this aspect is that you can literally destroy your wounds and past trauma through things that make you happy. In Sagittarius this could be travel, straying into different forms of spirituality that aren't common or taboo, and also learning different languages or writing but in a philosophical way. It could be poetry or writing songs! You have the power to heal others and reach their hearts like no one else through the expression of your hobbies. It just may make you feel restricted and scared to touch base with your creative side as it might have been pushed down and you feel lost sometimes when delving into those hobbies. But really it's a special placement 💖

2. Oooh okay so you have Pallas conjunct North Node in Leo. Your Pallas is at a 0° (Pure degree = Leo) and your North Node is at 3° (Gemini) in the 12th house. Your North Node ALSO conjuncts your Ascendant in Leo at 5° (Another Leo degree).

Soo Idk too much about Pallas but I have looked at other charts with this asteroid and from what I've read on different articles and seen this in my friends & others charts is that Pallas really has to do with the type of skills and knowledge you possess. It's almost like a hidden talent asteroid except your minds hidden talents. It's where you know how to strategize, think creatively, and where you are wise and have a lot of knowledge over. There is a theme from what I've seen is where this asteroid is placed you tend to be naturally talented or just seem to understand and easily apply your knowledge to that area. Basically with your North Node conjunct Pallas in Leo you may be a natural at grabbing people's attention! In the 12th house you could have great visual talents and an eye for piecing fashion together and hidden meanings within art or poetry! You are probably very good at guiding others through dark times and naturally inspire others when they watch you perform or do your thing. You are equally good at strategizing your future plans and taking charge in situations you're uncomfortable in. With this in Leo people may think you're naturally very confident and sure of yourself even when you think everything is going wrong. You definitely are talented with your intuition because Leo being a fire sign (fire rules over intuition) ruling over the heart often gets very strong gut feelings while in the 12th house this speaks of the Unconscious mind where things are hidden and unseen as well as the house of loss. Therefore you can easily see creative solutions having to do with others hearts or emotional problems that are usually very unknown. Andddd I do wonder if you can easily find things that are lost lol? Like do you naturally come across items others have lost like a human lost & found detective 😂 I'm curious about that lol especially when it's conjunct the North Node I feel like you can just FIND things to use for the future.

3. Okay so I got super carried away umm LOL but the last thing I want to talk about is Neptune opposite your Leo ascendant. Neptune is technically in the 6th house here but when it conjuncts the Descendant line sometimes you can see themes of Neptune coming into the 7th house! Especially when it's a tight gap of 1° orb. I find oppositions to the Ascendant tend to be what qualities you possess that others see in you but don't accept. You may struggle to show off these qualities because you get put down for them. Buttt when you embrace them it feels enlightening as it's a part that represents your character! So with Neptune here it seems others could view you as a pushover or too kind, they may think you are fake when really you're very genuine you just have a lot of love to give, people could try to take advantage of you in relationships and don't really accept your soft side. You may feel pressured to fit in by becoming more practical or downplaying your personality because you might very idealistic and have grand ideas for the future to help others. In general your chart is very compassionate! So instead of listening to anyone that wants you to be more normal and downplay your personality just to call you fake and etc. Embrace your grand ideas, overly compassionate nature & very emotional personality. It will inspire a lot of people when you become more secure in yourself. Just make sure to trust the right people (ik it can be hard🥲) and listen to your own intuition! Boundaries are important with this placement because Neptune in the house of other people can project their insecurities onto you or make them feel as if you're supposed to be there to help everyone. But the whole point of this placement is that enlightening others and giving compassion to a healthy degree helps you feel fulfilled within your identity even if other people don't accept you for it and may call you a people pleaser and blah blah blah. The whole point is that those Neptune qualities are fulfilling for YOU.💖🫶

Omg I got cardies away again. I clearly don't know the meaning of brief LMFAOO

[hopeshoodie]

Ok so in light of the Independent article (see my tag #fusebox layoffs for more info), I’ve been trying to piece together the sequence of events that lead to FB Going to Shit™. 

All of the below is based on articles, tweets from the staff, and dates from screenshots. Especially with the Matchmaker stuff, I’m using the dates I personally accessed the stories- that might not be accurate to when they were actually released to an international audience, just when my phone updated the app. In hindsight, I’m not a great person to do this because I have a shit memory and don’t keep receipts, so if you have any corrections PLEASE lmk either in the dms or replies. 

In sum, the timeline appears to be:

1. Key players left Fusebox in early 2020. 

The one that people are probably most familiar with is David Gallopim, one of the artists who helped define the S2’s distinct style, leaving sometime before March 2020. He seemed to indicate that there was conflict over the new art style of S3, and released assets he’d designed of Harry in his own style (notably way prettier than Harry looks in-game). 

But probably more important to the direction of the company, Michael Othen, one of the co-founders and former CEO, left in July of 2020 (I had thought it was earlier in the year but according to LinkedIn it was July). It’s much more unclear why he left, but it’s notable because he was a huge force in making the game inclusive of LGBTQ characters. 

So all in all, not a great sign when employees who had a huge hand in creating the content and direction of a game that defined its success jump ship. Especially after the game was seemingly hitting its stride, with the host of Love Island (the TV show) doing a sponsored Let’s Play of S3 and projects in the works like Boat Party and CMM.

2. It seems like Fusebox‘s CEO/executives hired new management, either in 2020 or early 2021. Employees complain that the executives don’t understand what it takes to make a game and are pulling the studio in the wrong direction. It’s unclear if the newly hired execs had experience. 

Wil Stephens, the CEO/founder, has been with FB since its inception but also appears to have only founded game distribution ventures and not worked in any development or employment capacity. If that’s the case, maybe the complaints about lack of experience/knowledge about the mechanics of making games work are about him. If not, then some of the newly hired execs would likely be to blame. 

Paul Virapen, COO, was brought on in November of 2020. He’s worked with Disney’s gaming division, Big Pixel studios, Wooga. The quality of that experience is dubious since he headed up the ‘let’s make apps for Apple watches, it’ll be the next big thing’ department… Lol. Notably also, all of his roles had been in the executive/managerial realm, not the development teams, so the complains might have been about him. THIS IS SPECULATION, but I’m willing to bet that Virapen was a if not THE driving force in switching Fusebox’s focus entirely to matchmaker. All the studios he’s worked with have primarily produced and promoted Match 3 games, and he has a background working with big studios that produce games for large international audiences, not small studios making narrative games for limited audiences.

A new Manager of Finances, Ruth Erskine, was brought on in December of 2020

Rob Goddard, a new producer, was brought in January of 2021

Several key operations positions were filled by existing employees being promoted to management- 2 as far as I can tell. But as a whole it seems like December 2020 was a huge shift in leadership for the upper management while a lot of the other teams expanded but kept their old players as well.

3. At some point in late 2020- mid 2021, the executive team made the decision to switch LITG’s focus from a narrative pass-based game to a Match 3 incorporating romance narrative cut scenes. In early 2021, Fusebox teased more content to come while releasing S3 (seemingly referring to Matchmaker and not S4). In the interim between S3 endings and Boat Party’s release they put out an interview confirming the new game will be Match 3 but did seem to indicate that the plan at that time was for Matchmaker to be a side project with a different development team and not replace the main game. Notably, the LITG writers and artists were reassured that their roles will continue to exist (according to the independent article) as they’re working on S4.

3. In September of 2020, Matchmaker became briefly available in the US. That’s when I first downloaded it, at least. It would be added/removed from the google play store multiple times before having a unilateral release in July of 2021. 

Throughout 2020, Matchmaker is available to Asian audiences solely with LITG S1 getting rolled out in incremental updates. 

Eventually, Beanie Quinn is released (March 2021)

LA Noir is released (May 2021)

Seduction Games is released (late May or June 2021- I got the update and played it June 3rd, but hadn’t opened the app for a month or so. It might have come out before then, which is unfortunate for this timeline since it’s so inextricably linked to the open letter and layoff dates)

LITG S2 is released (only like 20 levels of it) the same month- June 19th for me. Notably, all of these stories are only released to an international audience, with the UK and USA still not having access to the app.

4. At the same time, Fusebox’s internal affairs are pretty quiet from 2020-2021, at least on social media. 

S3 comes out in 2020, Boat Party comes out later in the year and finishes in 2021. Post S3 in October of 2021, a survey goes out gauging player interest in new art styles and representation, which was pretty in keeping with past actions and seemed promising for S4. 

Boat Party features a promising cross promotion implementing irl brands into the game. It’s unclear if enough money was made from this on FB or the sponsor’s end to make that strategy viable, but that might’ve impacted management’s outlook for the profitability of LITG.  

Fusebox teases more content for the summer on Instagram, and then follows up and confirms it’ll be a proper season.

5. More key players leave in early 2021

Ed Sibley is still listed as Narrative Direction on LinkedIn, but he’s not credited as a writer on Season 4 (he was on 3,2,and 1) and started work with NetSpeak games in May of 2021, so we can assume he left around then or at least transitioned away from Fusebox then.

Fred Francis, another writer who had been on the team since S1, turns in his resignation ‘weeks’ before the layoffs were announced in late June. So we can assume he made his exit sometime early June or late May.

6. Prior to the release of Seduction games in May/June, staff expressed concern about the biphobia in Seduction Games. No sources have given a specific time when this took place. They were reassured that the problem would be corrected prior to release, but then the story was released as is to an international audience in June. The article released by the Independent is unclear- there might have been discussion prior to the open letter where staff expressed concerns and then were reassured before the game going live. OR the open letter might have been the first expression of concern by the staff. I tend to think the former, and the open letter was a response to Matchmaker going live with Seduction Games anyways, but I have no proof for that. On May 24th, 31 employees sent an open letter of concern regarding the problematic content in Matchmaker. This letter isn’t public, so we don’t know the scope of the employees' concerns or who the employees were.

7. To resolve the situation, a meeting between the staff and at least the COO (likely more than just him though) was held sometime after May 24th. Allegedly, Virapen was disrespectful to the employees who had questions, refused to answer, and ended the meeting early before any resolution was had by closing his laptop and leaving the room. At least 4 HR complaints were made in the wake of that meeting, we do not know the nature of those complaints. 

8. Some time mid-July (maybe July 26th? A writer tweeted about their job ending soon on that date), employees were made aware that the LITG app would move into ‘sunset mode’. It’s unclear what was communicated, but it seems as though S4 will be heavily delayed or cancelled altogether and no future seasons would be made. Writers begin to post about looking for work on Twitter

9. June 30th- The majority of Fusebox writing staff announce on twitter they’re out of work. In addition to the entire writing staff, unity engineers and producers are also let go.

10. July 5th - Fusebox executives respond to an article by MCVUK with a statement asserting they were “consulting with [their] employees on a proposed change to its business model” that would focus on producing Matchmaker content. They also expounded that the move was to secure “cash injections and and continued support from respected investors across the media and gaming industry”

11. July 6th- Fusebox announces that S4 will be delayed from the summer release date and that there is no fixed release date. 

12. August 2nd- three jobs are posted to Fusebox’s careers page on their website, one being Head of Narrative Content. In the job listing, it specifies that they’ll be maintaining existing properties as well as new ones, and that because of the co-development model (re:fusebox outsourcing Matchmaker to another studio) the new Narrative Lead must collaborate with external content creators.

Hopefully posting this timeline gives players a better understanding of how radically Fusebox has changed in the course of 2021 (and how royally they screwed over the people who made LITG what it is). Again, please let me know if you have receipts showing dates are different or things to add. 

[thatsthat24]

New Inktober for 2019!

Once again, I was asked to create a new list of art prompts for October this year! These creations from you guys are ALWAYS so amazing, so I’m excited to bring you a new list! I got so many suggestions from my friends! You can use #TSinktober if you’d like to share your creations!

Remember: Even if we’re on Day 31, and you wanna post art based off the Day 1 prompt, you DEFINITELY can! There is no lateness for posting art, because it’s all entirely for fun! Hope you enjoy!!

Day 1: In a twist from the past years’ Day 1 prompts, I want to see you take a traditional Halloween monster or character, and draw what they look like Sep. 30th, and then their traditional look when it’s October 1st!  Maybe they don’t get spoopy until October 1st haha.

Day 2: Turn fall weather into a character! Could be the human embodiment of Fall, or the spirit responsible for Fall occurring, or something else!

Day 3: Turn a famous painting into a spoopy Halloween version!

Day 4: Draw a classic still life of items belonging to your favorite character. Let us guess who the items belong to!

Day 5: Draw your best friend or yourself (or both) GOIN GHOST. Ya know, that good ole Danny Phantom transformation!

Day 6: A Pokémon hanging out with (or running from) the zombified version of itself

Day 7: Choose two months, personify them, then draw what their first date would look like

Day 8: Sanders Sides characters on their dream vacations!

Day 9: A business that a Halloween monster or character would thrive on if they ran it!

Day 10: Take any popular author, imagine if they were a superhero, and draw what their comic book cover would look like!

Day 11: Portray any Disney princess as the “monster/scary thing” from a horror movie such as The Conjuring, The Nun, etc., either depicting them in a scene from the movie or the poster for the movie!

Day 12: Take any two coffee flavors, like Pumpkin Spice and Peppermint, and draw a battle between them, Mortal Kombat style (brew-tality lol)

Day 13: Take any Avenger from the MCU, and reimagine them as a Pokemon Gym Master! What would their Pokemon team look like?

Day 14: Reimagine a Sanders Sides, Cartoon Therapy, or other original character from our content as a kind of humanoid piece of candy or sweet treat!

Day 15: I really enjoyed this prompt from last year, so this year, take any Disney Villain, and use them as the inspiration for a Met Gala outfit! NO DALMATIAN PUPPY FUR ALLOWED, ALL OF YOU CRUELLA FANS.

Day 16: Take any traditional Halloween monster/character or any horror movie villain and make… them… CUTE. Now whether that’s adorably cuddly cute or va-va-voom cute is completely up to you! - Erin

Day 17: Take your fave character or OC and reimagine Steampunk versions of them!

Day 18: Take your fave food and create a cartoon character based off of it! It can have its own style, be stylized after an existing cartoon, whatever you wish!

Day 19: Take a quote from a book, song, or movie that particularly inspired you, and make it the main centerpiece of this day’s piece of art! Wherever you’d want to take the art from there is up to you!

Day 20: Here’s a cool challenge for ya! You can draw any Halloween-themed picture you want, BUT It’s all in ONE pen stroke. You can’t take your drawing utensil off the paper!

Day 21: What if anyone else from Halloweentown, other than Jack Skellington, had discovered and fell in love with Christmastown? Would anyone else have tried to dress up as Santa? Would they hatch another plan entirely??

Day 22: Back due to demand, take your fave character(s) from two different animated tv shows/anime/movie and depict them in each other’s animation style! An animation swap, if you will!

Day 23: Ever watch a movie or show and wish it had ended a different way? This is your chance to correct the plots to conclude the way YOU wanted it concluded! Oh boy, this may end up getting controversial lol

Day 24: We all know traditional Halloween monsters... but create what you think the Halloween monsters of today or the FUTURE would be!!

Day 25: This one is purely selfish because I’m still so in love with the past creations. Take ANY character of your choice from ANY piece of media and draw them in the style of a Tim Burton illustration!

Day 26: Speaking of classics, gotta include this one cause it’s tradition! Draw your OTP in Halloween costumes that are designed to go together!!

Day 27: Take any dramatic scene from any scary or Halloween-y movie... and meme it.

Day 28: How to Train Your [Insert Monster/Demon/Halloween-y creature here]

Day 29: This one is SUPER open-ended, but I’m into that. Take any book, turn to the 13th page (so the book has to be at least 13 pages lol) and go to the 13th word on that page (if it’s an article like “a” or “the”, just go to the next adjacent noun/verb/adjective/adverb) and use it as the inspiration for a one-worded scary movie/book. Draw that poster or book cover!

Day 30: Slightly inspired by the eerie vibe one can sometimes get from Spinel (SU), Betty Boop cartoons, etc. take any character, Halloween-y creature or otherwise from any of your fave piece of media, and depict them in the classic rubberhose/ Max Fleischer-inspired art style!!

Day 31: HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Do you remember a specific Halloween that was especially memorable for you?? It might have been because of the friends you spent it with, or a memorable moment that happened, or because of a costume you were particularly fond of. Or maybe there were a series of Halloweens that were dear to you because of a tradition you did with your family (and maybe still do!). Depict that moment along with an explanation! If you just wanna write about it, that’s fine too!

As always, you guys have been absolutely blowing me away with your incredible creations!! I love this time of year and seeing what your talents produce!! Thank you for all the amazing works and have a WONDERFUL October!!!

Thank you to all my friends whose suggestions helped to make this list!

Dahlia, AJ, Tammy, Ellen, Adri, Fariha, Brei, Rafaela, Jack, Esteban

[courtingstars]

Notes for The Vanishing Prince: Chapter Nine

Yay, Chapter Nine is finally posted! As I mentioned over on Ao3, I’ve been looking forward to sharing this one for a loooong time. I don’t have much to share in the way of cultural notes, but I still had some pretty big things I wanted to talk about… Like info about the mental health topics from the therapy scene, plus a ton of rambling about things I’ve been researching and/or planning for a while. So if that’s something you’re interested in, well… enjoy? //laughs

As always, I updated the Pinterest inspiration board with images inspired by the new chapter. (I actually did that last month, which was when I originally intended to post the chapter before my schedule fell apart… So anyone who was checking the board during that time got an accidental sneak peak of what was coming next. Oops? ^^;) You can check the board out here.

And with that, on to the notes!

Cut for a writer babbling on and on about mental health research, references to earlier events in the series, and also violins (!!) …

Akashi’s Childhood Friendships

So the first scene of Chapter Nine features a headcanon of mine that has been popping up throughout the series… Which is that when Akashi started going to school, he attended a private elementary school that mainly catered to elite, wealthy families and their children. He was generally encouraged to spend time with his classmates, rather than seeking friends elsewhere, and he never made any close friends from a different social “class” until he started going to Teikou. (Which he joined specifically because he asked his mother if he could go somewhere that was different from his elementary school.)

As this chapter reveals, he never told his father about the friends he ended up making through basketball, because of the values he was modeled earlier in life. This was actually brought up alllll the way back in The Fast Train to Kyoto. (Though it was pretty vague!) In fact, Akashi referenced it in the very first scene:

Maybe it was the echoes of his father’s voice inside his head, just another series of frosty words he ached to forget:

“It is not for an Akashi to associate with just anyone. Your time is valuable, Seijuurou, and so is your reputation. See that you don’t waste it, on trivial pursuits, or persons unworthy of your stature.”

Akashi cringed. ‘Persons unworthy of his stature? What a ridiculous idea. Everyone he had ever known who had made his life worthwhile, had no particular wealth or rank to speak of. (With the crucial exception of his mother.) He had long ago discarded this principle of his father’s as nonsense.

I also explained the backstory with his elementary school and his struggle to make friends in a lot more detail in Chapter Three of Fast Train. (As well as why he decided to go to Teikou, and how he started making friends there, particularly Midorima.)

That aspect of his childhood turned out to be pretty important in the series, so I thought it was worth mentioning that Akashi did talk about it before… Especially since those early values still affect how he sees his friendships, plus it’s one of the reasons why he’s been trying to keep those friends as separate from his home life as possible. (Until Furihata came along and wanted to sleep over at his house, and he just couldn’t say no to his BFF, apparently? //laughs)

Attachment Theory, Disorganized Attachment, and Dissociation

So, uh… I’m not qualified to talk about any of this, like, at all. //laughs That being said, I’ll start with a big disclaimer: I am not a mental health professional, or an expert about this subject in any way whatsoever. So if anything I say doesn’t make sense or I get any of the details wrong, I sincerely apologize in advance! This is just based on the research I’ve done and some first-person accounts I’ve read over the years. As a non-expert, I find a lot of psychology theory to be difficult to research in general… Since a lot of the science is still being studied and verified, and things are becoming outdated all the time.

Okay, so with all that being said… In this chapter, Akashi’s psychiatrist brings up a theory in psychology called attachment theory. If you’d like to learn the basics of how it started, the Wikipedia article has a decent overview of the initial studies. Basically, the theory has to do with the idea that children bond with their primary caregiver (stereotypically the mother, but it doesn’t have to be) either successfully or unsuccessfully, based on how the caregiver responds to the child’s needs. A child who bonds with their caregiver in a healthy, successful way is said to be “securely” attached, while an unhealthy bond is an “insecure attachment.”

From there, it gets more complicated… There are a few different types/forms of insecure attachment, and these types can be classified in different ways, depending on the study. (There’s also something called “attachment style,” which from what I can tell is an idea inspired by attachment theory, that adults will have a general style of bonding that originates from their main caregiver bond in childhood. This idea is often used to help adults work through issues in their adult relationships.) For example, there’s generally an “anxious” form of attachment where the child is overly scared and tends to cling to their caregiver if they try to leave, out of fear that they won’t get the care they need. Then there’s an “avoidant” type where the child tends to push the caregiver away or ignore them, and can seem very apathetic and independent. (Even though they’re actually just as scared on the inside of not being cared for as an “anxious” child.)

As you can imagine, there are a lot of theories about why this happens, and what exactly in the caregiving process could contribute to it. What’s more, some children display both anxiety and avoidance… A form of this is called “disorganized attachment.” As Akashi’s psychiatrist explains, this describes a behavioral pattern where the child clings to their caregiver AND pushes them away, sometimes very close together. This style seems to often develop when the child has been through some kind of early trauma, often severe abuse or neglect. It also seems to be prevalent among people with dissociation disorders, which isn’t surprising, given the common thread of childhood trauma between the two. You can read more about that in this article here.

Actually, I first learned about disorganized attachment—and attachment in general—when I was reading a blog many years ago that was written by someone chronicling their experience with Dissociative Identity Disorder. As I researched the subject in more detail, I came across a few explanations about how children with this attachment style tend to act very confused and distressed around their caregivers, and I found the descriptions really sad… It helped me begin to better understand some of the difficulties that these children go through, and how it affects their minds when they’re still developing. It’s not hard to imagine how a child who longs to be taken care of but also has painful experiences of being denied that care (for whatever reason) can really struggle with trying to make sense of their reality and survive it on an emotional level. And that struggle causes lasting damage.

It’s important to note, though, that some psychologists will caution against assuming that a child’s attachment to their primary caregiver always dictates how they will attach to other people in their life, or in their future relationships. Also, there’s some evidence that children may struggle with attachment issues not just because of the actions of their caregiver, but also due to their own personality/ genetic predispositions. You can read more about both of these topics here.

Way back when I started planning this series, and deciding how to portray Akashi’s backstory, I found myself returning over and over to the concept of disorganized attachment… I wasn’t sure if it would make it into the fic directly, and it’s certainly not the only thing that influenced my portrayal of Akashi’s mental health. But it was definitely something I had in mind from the start, and helped shape the series, so I’m glad that I did end up referencing it in some detail.

The Akashi Family Servants

Since I just introduced the housekeeper, now seems as good a time as any to mention this… Originally, I didn’t plan for the servants who work for the Akashi family to have roles in the series at all? XD Takeda is the only one who’s mentioned in The Fast Train to Kyoto, and he doesn’t have a name. (I refer to him as either Akashi’s “driver” or “valet” depending on what he’s doing… This was actually before I’d decided that Takeda is the one who drives Akashi around when he’s in Kyoto. OTL) Then I mentioned several of the servants during Furihata’s visit in Storming the Castle… But almost no one gets a real introduction? Except for the butler, Ginhara. //laughs

One reason why I took so long to give them names/describe them is that I try to mostly stick to writing about canon characters in fics, instead of creating a ton of OCs. (I consider the families of the KnB characters to be canon, since they’re in the fanbooks. XD) But I enjoy coming up with minor characters, if it feels like a good fit for the story! Still, you can really tell that I didn’t know I would end up using these characters as much as I did, because their names are alllll over the place… Especially Takeda, which is roughly the Japanese equivalent of naming a character Mr. Smith or something? (LOL.) For a while I really regretted that I didn’t come up with a more interesting name for him, since he ended up being in this series CONSTANTLY. Also, I recently received this incredible comment on Chapter 5 of The Fast Train to Kyoto and it’s one of my all-time FAVORITES:

“Yo the drivers probs just sitting in the front like

Mmm this tea is piping hot”

(And they signed their name Yeet too, omgggg XDD)

… So yeah, I have decided this is totally Takeda’s reaction, to Akashi and Furihata’s whole “friend breakup” in the rain in the first story. //laughs

That said, I kind of love that Takeda has such a generic name now? Especially after he showed up at Seirin in sunglasses in this chapter. (Like maybe Takeda isn’t even his real name, because he actually had an exciting former life as a secret agent or something like that, and now he’s working for this super rich kid from a powerful family and maybe he’s actually hiding some epic skills so he can double as Akashi’s bodyguard if he needs to…? I DON’T KNOW, I HAVE WEIRD HEADCANONS.)

In any case, I enjoyed coming up with the characters for the Akashi family staff, even though it took a while! And I’m glad a few of them were able to play an interesting part in sneaking Akashi out of the house, so his dad wouldn’t find out about Furihata. (Though we don’t know what any of them think about that, or not yet, at least. XD) There will be at least one more member of the staff who gets an introduction, which should be coming soon. But for now, we’ve got:

Takeda, Akashi’s personal valet (and driver, sometimes)

Ginhara, the Akashi family butler and head of staff

Umagami Ichiro, Yukimaru’s groom

Inuyama, Akashi’s father’s personal valet

Hanamitsu Atsuko, housekeeper for the Akashi mansion in Tokyo

The Akashi family chef (name???)

(Plus some maids, who I also did not name)

… And as you can see, most of them still don’t have given names, even the ones with family names. That’s how disorganized I’ve been about this. //laughs

Also, I have a feeling no one was actually wondering (lol), but if you happen to remember this scene from Episode 63 in the Teikou arc in the anime:

In my headcanons, this guy is the head chauffeur for the Akashi family household, and he used to drive the whole family around. (Which would mean that he was also mentioned in The Fast Train to Kyoto, in a brief flashback about Akashi and his parents! Where he’s just “the driver.” XD) Now he mostly drives Akashi’s father to work, and sometimes chauffeurs Akashi as well, when he’s in Tokyo. (Whereas Takeda drives him around in Kyoto.) I briefly referred to him as Onoda in Chapter One of The Vanishing Prince, so… I guess that’s the name I came up with for him? //laughs

TL;DR… I’ve really enjoyed writing about the various characters who work for the Akashi family, and I had way more fun including them in the story than I expected. <3 (Maybe I should give in and post character sketches for all the OCs in this series sometime… That would be a project. XD)

Beliefs About Ghosts

I might go into this more in a future chapter, but I did want to briefly discuss how Reo talks to Furihata about ghosts, and how/why they haunt certain places… There are a LOT of different beliefs all over the world about whether ghosts are real, and why they appear. There are also lots of theories about whether they need the help of living humans to pass on or not.

For this fic, I tried to include some of the most common beliefs in Reo’s response, including the “revenge” ghost stories that are super common in Japanese folklore. But it’s not a comprehensive explanation by any means, and there are a lot of people who believe in ghosts and spirits but wouldn’t agree with the ideas Reo mentioned. (Basically, I had to pick among a bunch of different supernatural ideas about ghosts for the fic, and these are some of the ones I chose to include? But that’s not to say that they’re representative of my own beliefs, or of every Japanese person who believes in ghosts, either!)

The Akashi Family Curse (…?)

So I know some readers have been discussing this and making predictions about it in the comments for a while now… And while I don’t want to spoil anything about where the story is going, I’m really excited that I finally got to reveal another piece of the legend/rumors about the Akashi family curse:

Furihata’s mouth dropped open. It never occurred to him that some people might still think that the Akashis were cursed, centuries later. Or that these rumors were somehow connected to their catlike eyes. Was that maybe even how the peasants in the legend came up with the curse in the first place? Were they just creeped out, by this super-rare genetic thing that ran in the family?

Or… could it be true? Could the Akashi family really be cursed?

I can’t remember if anyone specifically connected the dots about the legend being connected to the “catlike” eyes or not… But if you saw this coming, YES YOU WERE TOTALLY RIGHT AND I AM IMPRESSED. <333

As for what the legend/rumors say about how the curse works, and whether or not it’s actually real… I guess I shouldn’t go into that just yet, for the sake of spoilers. XD But hopefully you can have fun guessing for now! And I’m glad I can finally point to the connection between the idea of a family curse and the “catlike eyes” to explain why I kept including so many passages like this one:

He and Akashi were walking through another long passageway. This one was lined with life-sized portraits—and oddly enough, Furihata recognized some of the faces. He had seen them in paintings in the Tokyo house.

“Are these your relatives?” he asked. They didn’t resemble Akashi very much. But a few did have the same unusual, catlike pupils.

Akashi nodded, as he glanced up at the huge frames. “They led the family, several generations ago. This one was my great-great-great-great-great grandfather.”

He gestured to the largest painting. The steel-haired man in the portrait wore a piercing frown. Even his posture was severe, somehow.

… Yeah, there are a BUNCH of descriptions in A Spark of Light of portraits of Akashi’s relatives, and how some of them have the same eyes as him. Also, as I’m sure a lot of people noticed, I mention Akashi’s eyes A LOT throughout the series. And this is one of the reasons why I wanted to emphasize it so much. XD

(Well, okay and also like a lot of fic writers, I enjoy pretty descriptions about eyes. XD BUT I WOULD’VE TRIED TO CUT MORE OF THEM IF IT WASN’T SUCH AN IMPORTANT PLOT POINT… Or so I’ll claim, anyway. //laughs)

And Finally… THE VIOLIN

Ahhh I’m so happy I finally got to post this scene! I’ve been saving the moment of Akashi playing his violin for Furihata for a loooong time… I foreshadowed it briefly back in Storming the Castle, when Furihata notices Akashi’s violin case sitting in his study. But I got the idea for this scene even earlier… All the way back when I drafted that part in The Fast Train to Kyoto, where Akashi plays his violin after he writes to Furihata to tell him they can’t be friends. (YES. IT HAS BEEN THAT LONG.)

So, yeah… I had no idea know how long it would take to get there, but I definitely knew that Akashi would have to play his violin for Furihata at some point. And I wanted it to be a Really Big Moment in their romantic arc. So I did the best I could with it. (Because, I mean… How could I NOT include a scene where Akashi plays the violin for Furihata? That just had to happen, come on. //laughs)

As I mentioned over on Ao3, I do have my own idea about which piece Akashi plays for Furi… I might even mention it directly in the next chapter, but I’m not sure yet? (Either way, if you have a piece that you’d like to imagine him playing instead, you have my blessing. xD I tried to write it in such a way that he could be playing a lot of different songs!) So here was my thought process on that…

I figured Akashi would probably decide to play something on the simple side for Furihata, rather than anything too technical/demanding on the ear. I also realized that he was probably thinking that Furihata would like a sweet, romantic sort of song, because of this scene from Storming the Castle:

“Oh, r-right.” Furihata let go of the flower. He managed a laugh. “Sorry. I’m being weird, huh?”

“I just never realized you had such an interest in roses,” Akashi said, with a hint of humor. “But it shouldn’t surprise me, really.”

Furihata didn’t follow. “Why’s that?”

The edge of Akashi’s mouth dimpled. “Well, you are a romantic, after all.”

And that was when I realized… ROSES. Like, what if the piece had to do with roses, because Akashi was remembering that conversation about Furihata’s romantic side that they had in his rose garden…? So in my head, Akashi plays a version of The Last Rose of Summer, which is this really sweet, old Irish song that was later set to a poem of that name, written by Thomas Moore. It’s an easier piece to play, so it’s a little difficult to find a nice version of it by a professional violinist. But I did find this arrangement that is SUPER old-fashioned and adorable:

And my personal favorite version with strings that I found (and linked first on Ao3) is probably this one. Though I believe the violin doesn’t start until around a minute and a half into the recording?

(My sister and I thought the first soloist *might* be a viola… Apologies if we’re wrong though!! We took band a thousand years ago in high school but didn’t play in an orchestra, so we’re basically clueless about anything with strings. XD)

Anyway, I just thought that the song would be fitting because of the whole “bonding over roses” connection to Storming the Castle, and the fact that they’re still on summer vacation in this story… Plus the words of the poem are kind of the most Oreshi thing I’ve ever heard??? It’s REALLY sad, but also all about friendship. You can hear how it’s sung and see the complete lyrics in this version by Charlotte Church if you’d like (again, the song starts at around 1:30), but I’ll also include the beginning and end of the poem here:

Tis the last rose of summer,

Left blooming alone,

All her lovely companions

Are faded and gone.

…

So soon may I follow

When friendships decay;

And from love's shining circle

The gems drop away

When true hearts lie wither'd

And fond ones are flow'n

Oh! Who would inhabit

This bleak world alone?

… TELL ME THAT’S NOT AN ORESHI KIND OF POEM. It’s all about friendship and being afraid of being alone, and I just… gahhhh. T_____T

Also, you might have noticed that the versions I linked don’t have any parts where the soloist plucks the violin strings, which I described Akashi doing at one point… That’s because I like to think that in between playing a simpler version, Akashi also slips into a few sections of Variations on the Last Rose of Summer by Ernst, which you can see the violinist Midori playing here. (Unlike the other versions I linked, this is one of the hardest pieces ever written for violin, period… Apparently it’s so difficult that many top-tier professionals won’t even play it in front of a crowd! So for those of you who want to picture him playing something more badass, I’ve got you covered. XD)

(And while we’re still on the subject of different versions… My all-time favorite when it comes to different instruments playing The Last Rose of Summer has got to be this one. BECAUSE IT’S A KOTO, LIKE OMGGGG YES. Honestly, if my series had a sound, I’d like to think that it would be this…? Because roses and traditional Japanese instruments, that’s why. //laughs)

Also, I’m not sure whether anyone was curious about this part of the scene:

Akashi chuckled as he unlatched the case. Resting on a bed of crimson silk was a delicately carved violin. Furihata didn’t know how to tell if an instrument was well made, but he was pretty sure that this one had to be.

So I do indeed headcanon that Akashi would have a really nice violin… For those who might not know, violins can be EXTREMELY expensive, most notably at the professional and soloist quality levels. As in, the famous Stradivarius violins are valued at $10 million or MORE, for example. XD Though I personally tend to think that Akashi probably wouldn’t play a Strad himself… He’d have too much reverence for the instrument for that. //laughs (Although I wouldn’t be surprised if his family owns a Stradivarius and lends it out to some world-famous soloist… Which is apparently how it works in real life, by the way!) But I still imagine that his violin would be a super fancy one, maybe somewhere in the $100k range or something? (And now I’m just imagining Furihata finding that out and freaking out, lol.)

And last but not least, since I’m already rambling a lot, I would like to credit a new favorite YouTube channel of mine that I discovered while writing the violin scene… I really wanted to make sure that I described the violin playing correctly, because like I mentioned, I understand nothing about stringed instruments whatsoever. (I was a very mediocre flute player, once upon a time. //laughs)

So while I was hunting for references, I stumbled across TwoSet Violin, and OMG THEY ARE THE COOLEST CHANNEL EVER. I’d recommend them to literally everyone, even if you don’t play the violin or have any interest in classical music! They’re two professional violinists from Australia who make tons of super-entertaining content, like analyzing the way actors pretend to play instruments in movies and Chinese dramas, or trying to play the cheapest violin they can buy on Amazon. And it’s FANTASTIC. XD They’re super skilled and funny, and they even inspired me to listen to classical music again, so yeah, I can’t recommend them enough. <3

Well, this post turned out a lot longer than I expected…? //laughs In any case, I hope it was interesting, and thank you for reading! And as I said over on Ao3, thank you again to all of my lovely readers for your patience, especially while I dealt with my grandmother’s passing. I have the next chapter of the fic drafted, just like last time, but it does have some issues so I’m not sure how long it will take to edit. (Hopefully less time than this one did. OTL) I’ll definitely do my best to post it as soon as I can. In the meantime, I really hope everyone is staying safe, and see you then!

[embeanwrites]

Finding Home Gavin Reed x Reader

Chapter 19

Masterlist

There had been a pit of nervous energy in my stomach since I had woken up this morning, my first day of class. I was on autopilot as I got ready, I was stuck in my head worrying about how class would go. While brushing my teeth, spit had dripped down my chin all over the black shirt I was going to wear. It took five minutes for me to find my purse, which was just sitting on the edge of the couch. 

By the time I got to my office, I had bitten down all my fingernails and was worrying at the skin around them. I skipped lunch, half because of my stomach and half because I just spaced it. I had been writing some emails, having sent out my syllabus the night before I couldn’t really edit that anymore. 

With an hour left till class and nothing to do, I just paced around my office, writing a little script for myself for how I would start class and introduce myself, muttering the words under my breath. I knew in my head that I was prepared, that there was a very good chance that class would be fine, but it felt like I was forgetting something important.

The past week or so Gavin and I had hung out a decent amount. We spent the first two days of his suspension playing with his cats, going out and getting food, and watching movies. I got him to watch Into the Spider-Verse and he made me watch Robocop in retaliation. Though we didn’t really pay attention to the movies, too busy cuddling and making out. It was easy being with him, but I didn’t know how to make the next move, I didn't want to make him uncomfortable like I had the night of the fight with my dad. So I resolved to let him take it there, but he never did. Since his suspension ended, we’ve avoided meeting at the DPD since I’m not ready to talk to my dad. Gavin hasn’t mentioned anything about him or Connor. I hadn’t heard from Connor either. I’ve talked to Tina a bit. When I told her Gavin and I were dating, she flipped out. Even though Gavin was already invited to the wedding she keeps insisting I should ask him to be my “plus one”.

I was interrupted from my thoughts by three short knocks on my office door. I stopped pacing and looked up, it was Nines.

“Nines! How have you been?” He walked in slowly, staying close to the door.

“I have been well. Chris and I wrapped up the android black-market case.” I nodded. “I have come to ask you a favor.”

“Of course, what’s up?” I sat on my desk and waited for him to continue.

“I believe Lieutenant Anderson has been under extra stress since your fight and Connor is worried it may be affecting his health and work performance.” Nines paused. “Connor wanted me to ask you if you’d stop by tonight to talk with both of them.”

“Why isn’t he asking me?”

“He was unable to get away from the Lieutenant without raising suspicion.”

“Why didn’t he text or call?”

“We both found you would be more likely to comply if one of us talked to you in person instead of over the phone.” I groaned and started rubbing my temples.

“Does Gavin know about this?” He nodded. “Okay, what time?”

“Connor and the Lieutenant should arrive home around 6 tonight. I should be returning to the DPD.”

“Alright, Nines. Thanks for stopping by.” He walked out of my office and I sighed again. Great now not only was I anxious for my class, but now I had the possibility of a fight to worry about. I got my phone out of my skirt pocket, which just this morning Gavin had made fun of me for texting him about how great this skirt was. Looking at my phone I saw I had new texts from Tina and Gavin.

 Good luck today!!!! I love you!!!!

 Love you too, T! Lock up some bad guys today!

  good luck pipsqueak teach them assholes some stuff

 Thanks, Gav! Although I doubt all of them are assholes…

 …babe its detroit

 I laughed and put my phone away, grabbed my bag, and headed to the lecture hall. Since I was going to class early, I took the long way around campus. Admiring how full it was compared to this summer. It felt nice. I’ve always loved being on college campuses, they feel more alive than anywhere else.

My class was located in the General Lectures building on the first floor. I checked my phone, I had about 20 minutes before the class right before ours would be out of the classroom. I stood nervously by the door. There were a few students sitting on the ground on their phones. I decided to text Gavin.

 I’m 20 minutes early

 lol y

 I got too nervous! Nines stopped by and threw off my rhythm

 ur rhythm of pacing???

 Go call someone else out lol. Did you know about Nines asking me to go to my dad’s tonight?

 yea

 I don’t want to go.

 but u told him yes

 I’m going, it doesn’t mean I want too.

 i guess

hey almost a crime scene text me after ur class

 Will do, be safe

 I shoved my phone back in my pocket and took my backpack off, kneeling down I started double checking I had everything.

“Flash drive, class list, pen, hard copy of syllabus.” I mumbled. Students were starting to exit the classroom. I peered through the door and saw the professor was logging off the computer. She was taller than me, with tan skin, long brown hair, and she was wearing a nice summer dress. I walked in and over to the podium and front desk and smiled at the other professor.

“I’m Dr. (L/n), it’s nice to meet you!”

“I’m Dr. Morrison.” She smiled and we shook hands.

“What class are you teaching?”

“Classical literature. You’re the new sociology professor, right?”

“That’s me!” I laughed nervously. “I actually have a minor in classical studies, those were some of my favorite classes in undergrad.” She smiled.

“I’m glad someone else sees the importance.” She continued packing up. “You can go ahead and log in if you want.” I nodded and started getting ready. Most of her students had left and a few students filed in, most sitting in the back. The classroom was tiered, which I hated. It was nice to be able to see everyone’s faces, but these types of classrooms always made me feel so small. “Well, I’ll see you Thursday, good luck!”

“Thank you! See you Thursday!” I turned on the projector, got my slides up, and tested the remote. I looked over at my class list, I was expecting about 50 students and so far there were about 35. Which isn’t bad considering class didn’t start for another ten minutes. I looked around the front of the classroom. I had a podium and a small table at the front of the classroom. I walked over and moved the table, so I’d be able to sit on it and still see the projector screen. I walked back to the podium and got out my phone and hid it behind the desktop. I made sure my phone wouldn’t go off while I was teaching, and I did a last-minute check for text messages. I smiled.

 Good luck, you’re going to be amazing!

 Thank you, Connor.

 I checked the time and took a deep breath and walked out from behind the podium.

“Hi everyone, I’m Dr. (L/n) and welcome to SOC 345: Human and Android relationships. First day agenda,” I clicked the remote to get the slide show going and sat on the table. “I’m going to tell you guys a little about me, our goal for the semester, and what you can expect from this course. We do have the classroom for an hour and fifteen minutes, but I highly doubt we will need all of that time.

“As I said I’m Dr. (L/n). I’m new to WSU. I received my doctorate at (dream/school). A little about me…I really like cats and I was born in Detroit. I enjoy old movies and I’ll probably try to weave some into the class. I’ve been studying android and human relationships before deviancy was known about and I’ve spent most of my life dedicated to this subject. I was recruited by WSU to write an extensive report about the android revolution.

“I’m aware many of you were in Detroit during the revolution and I know you may have some feelings towards what happened whether it be negative or positive. I want you to all know that I firmly believe androids are alive and deserve to be equal to humans. My classroom will be run on that basis. This isn’t a class to debate that, but rather a chance to use a sociological lens to see what led to the revolution, what happened during the revolution, and what the future may hold for both groups.

“This is my first class at WSU, but not my first class I’ve taught. So far in the syllabus I’ve decided that we will have two tests, one in 6 weeks and another in 12. Instead of a final exam we’ll be doing a final project. By project I really want to leave it up to you. You can write a paper, give a presentation, or anything else you want as long as it hits all the points of the rubric. I should have that posted in a couple months.

“Are there any questions about the course I can answer right now?” I looked around. A blonde young man in the front row raised his hand.

“There’s some days on the syllabus that are blank, what does that mean?”

“Those are days I have blocked off for possible speakers to come to the class. Those days will be optional, but if you come and participate you can get up to five points of extra credit on your lowest test for each day. My hope is to have at least two days of guest speakers.” A dark-haired young woman in the back raised her hand and I pointed at her.

“There’s no textbook listed, is that right?”

“Yes! I was a student too and textbook prices are ridiculous. For the most part nearly all the material will come from my lectures, but occasionally there may be a paper you have to read. Those papers will be posted online. Attendance is really important in this class. I have no plans to post my lectures, but if you come to my office, you’re more than welcome to look over the slides.

“Oh! Before I forget there is going to be one assignment, I wanted to tell you guys about it. So, before every class I would like someone to research a topic related to what we’re talking about or something in the news that has to do with androids and humans and bring it for discussion. On Thursday we’ll make the order and talk more about the assignment, but you really just need to read one article and tell the class the issue and then we’ll talk about it.” I looked at the clock. We still had 30 minutes. “Are there any more questions?” No one moved. “Well, I’ll stay here for about 15 minutes if anyone has any other questions, but other than that I’ll see you all on Thursday! Have a great rest of your day!”

The students quickly packed up and started leaving. No one stopped to talk to me, which I get there’s not a lot to talk about. I took out my phone and sent Gavin a text.

 Talked to fast and ended 30 minutes early lol

 He didn’t respond which made sense, since he was definitely still at a crime scene. I looked up and a young woman was nervously shuffling in front of the podium.

“Hi! How can I help you?”

“Hi Dr (L/n), I’m Lisa Turner. I just wanted to introduce myself and let you know I’m really looking forward to your class.” I beamed at the nervous girl.

“Hi Lisa! I’m glad you’re excited! Please feel free to come to my office hours anytime you want to discuss…well anything! I’ve done a lot of research that we won’t be able to cover in class and I love getting to know my students!” She smiled softly.

“Okay, umm…I’ll see you Thursday.” She quickly ran away. She reminded me a lot of what I was like in undergrad. Nervous, but desperately wanted to learn. I waited another ten minutes and decided to head back to my office to start working on my interview list.

 It was about 5:30 and I was nervously biting my lip. I knew if I wanted to be on time to my dad’s I needed to call a taxi within the next few minutes. I looked at my phone, Gavin hadn’t texted me back yet and I had no other messages. I sighed, put in a request for a taxi, and headed outside.

When I got to my dad’s house his car was already in the parking lot. At least I wouldn’t have to wait outside for them to get here. Sighing, I walked up to the door and knocked. It only took Connor a few seconds to open the door. He gestured for me to come in. I nervously walked in and took off my shoes.

“Where’s dad?” I asked softly. I followed Connor to the couch where he sat down.

“He’s walking Sumo. He should be back shortly.” Connor sighed as I sat down next to him. “I’m sorry, I hadn’t kept in touch this past week.”

“You’re fine Connor. Things have been crazy for me too.”

“How did your class go?” He asked.

“I think it well, the first day never really counts because you’re not really teaching anything.” He nodded in agreement. “Connor, are you okay?” I gently put my hand on his shoulder. He gave me a small smile.

“Of course, (Y/n). It’s just been a difficult week at work.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Before I could ask anymore questions my dad and Sumo walked inside. My dad noticed me and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Hey, (Y/n).” Sumo ran up to me and I started petting him.

“Hi dad.” He walked over and sat in the armchair. He shifted in his chair uncomfortably under Connor’s glare. After a few moments Connor pretended to clear his throat, which made my dad roll his eyes.

“(Y/n), you were right and I’m sorry. I’ve known Gavin for a while, but that doesn’t mean I know how you two will be. I shouldn’t have started that fight.” I nodded gently, keeping my eyes on Sumo.

“I’m sorry for what I said. I was angry, but that doesn’t excuse my words.” Connor shifted next to me.

“Hank, tell her about work.” My dad groaned.

“I’m guessing you’re still seeing Gavin?” I nodded and looked at him. “Gavin’s been…less of an asshole since he got back from his suspension and I’m pretty sure you’re the reason.” I smiled.

“He can be nice when he wants to.” I whispered. “Could the four of us grab dinner sometime? I really want you to give him a real chance.” My dad sighed and Connor gave him a sharp look.

“Dinner sounds fine.” I smiled and stood up.

“Both of you give me a hug right now before I lose my mind!” They laughed and compiled. I missed them both this past week and I didn’t even realize how much until I was in their arms.

[hereisisa]

I read an article where Jen Lee said that the Sami people are Elsa’s future. What the hell does that mean? So Anna, Elsa’s True love and family is no longer Elsa’s future. How about Olaf, her son, he is no longer Elsa’s future either I suppose? If A & E aren’t each other’s future what is the point of the entire Frozen franchise? This is so messed up I’m so many levels.

I had a few of my elsanna friends telling me to not answer to this, because “you know it’s a troll”, but I want to answer because it’s important that we complain about what we didn’t like.

It’s the only way we have to (maybe, maybe not because I’m delusional) change things. And we have to try.

So...I’ll do it, and I thank you for the opportunity because nothing in set in stone right now, and this may work good for us and bad for the trolls in the end. ;)

First of all I went to check what Jenn said (because I remember she said something similar) and here it is:

“What I loved is she meets a group of people and this is the future, the people she'll spend time with and she'll figure out where she's going”

from an obscure platform I’ll not link, who did nothing but mix quotes and sentences from other interviews, cut and sew back together.

Where does this leave us?

1) We don’t even know if Jenn will be the one to write whatever comes next for Frozen. I think Disney will ask her to do the job, because they proved how much they don’t care about the story (unless it comes to killing their star!) and how much they care about money.

And Jenn did good, with a fucked up ending but with good numbers.

But this can work greatly for us too. How?

I’ve just said it.

Disney only cares about numbers/money. And what could actively destroy the Frozen franchising? A female love interest for their star.They’ll lose money. TONS of money all over the world. Not pointing fingers torwards any country because we all have millions of homophobic people living among us.

So...Disney wants money. They may give the job to the one who provided that, and Jenn will not be able to do nothing remotely gay because the “one million moms” will set puppets of Elsa on fire if that happens!

You could say “but elsanna.....look at the subtext!” Oh friend, elsanna are sisters. They can give us WAY MORE than they’ll ever give to a lesbian or gay couple in a cartoon. Because normal people don’t think it’s weird.  That’s the good thing about my ship:

Elsa and Anna are the story, Elsa and Anna are true love.

The story will always be about them in the end, and since they’re coded as romantic they can get away with constant hand holding, hugs, sweet words, etc....

Can you imagine Elsa (or Kristoff) doing the same with another character and the homophobic parents of the world laughing it off?

LOL

2) They started from a “Elsa is dead” pov. And they had to change it last spring. So whatever they did after that wasn’t set in stone for the previous years....why should we consider it now? Elsa wasn’t supposed to live with those people, she was supposed to be frozen. They changed it few months ago. They can change it again.

The only thing I’ve read critics about (real critics, from magazines and journalists!) is the END. It’s clear many had problems with that.

Sure a next movie could try to fix it. But how? Showing us the adventures of Elsa and the strangers in the woods? Explaining what she does now?

Ok but this excludes ANNA.

And you know kids like the 2 of them (but Elsa more), and they like their adventures together!Disney doesn’t even know how to market them separately!

So whatever happens in the next chapter....I doubt it will end up separating Elsa and Anna even more. They already got scared of the reaction and added a “letter” moment at the end. I know they said it was there since the beginning but.....HOW if Elsa was supposed to be dead until April???? ;)

So this “Elsa and the strangers” plot does exclude Anna. And even if Elsa is their money maker.....

Frozen is a franchise about 2 SISTERS.

Let’s not dump one of them.

3) Let’s also address the things in the storyline that don’t make sense, because the end was rushed and went against everything Frozen was.

Elsa finds her true call, being the 5th spirit, fine.

Anna is left with no choice but being Queen, fine.

But Elsa doesn’t have to live in a glacier alone or in the forest since with can travel really fast with Nokk

And what Elsa does in the forest? She could save people from a flood once, save a stranger from another natural disaster another time, saving a family of squirrels, unfreezing a lake so the strangers can fish in the winter too....how....riveting.

and all of this without Anna.

Bit me but I don’t think we’ll see much of this. Could be....2 minutes of intro of Frozen 3? A story on a Frozen mag in case they decide to do a solo-Elsa adventure?

Elsa always wanted to be with Anna, and suddently she dumps her, her friends, she leaves her home, to follow a voice.

And it wasn’t even what they had in mind, (dead Elsa, remember?) of course it doesn’t make any sense! ofc it’s rushed!!! ofc...everything the critics said applies to this!

Forbes’ critic said: “The end should be maddening and hearthbreaking and it’s treated like a minor inconvenience!”

4) Now, let me focus on the sentence Jenn says “What I loved is she meets a group of people and this is the future, the people she'll spend time with and she'll figure out where she's going”

and this is exactly what I hated.

You can’t retcon a character, her motivations, her spirit, write one chapter of her adventure (which includes previous movies and books) and say (after you planned another ending until 4 months before!!!!) “ok this is where she is now, let’s see where she goes from there” “let’s see what she’s ready for now!”

(And if you do it I’ll just reject this and whatever comes after this.)

WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE.

- Let’s still talk about where you led her doesn’t make any sense! (And I’m not talking about Elsa re-finding herself or being the 5th spirit. This is fine. I’m talking about Elsa leaving Anna, friends, home for a glacier or a forest). WHILE SHE COULD HAVE BOTH.

- Let’s talk about how kids want to see Elsa and Anna TOGETHER, not Elsa and the strangers.

- Let’s talk about how the gay story few want (NOT ME! I WANT HER SINGLE and asexual as the movie hinted!) will be crushed by the mouse, so whatever she’ll do in the forest....it will NOT be a girl.

- Let’s talk about the critics they received and if it’s possible for them to ignore them or not.

- The Elsa we knew wasn’t ready to leave her sister after just 3 years together, and yet they retcon it. So excuse me if now I don’t buy the “she lives in the forest, let’s see where she goes from there now!” BULLSHIT!!!!

They write this story starting from the END. From a PLOT point of view, not from a CHARACTERS point of view so let’s not fucking pretend they’re listening to the characters NOW!!!!!

And there’s a lot to discuss before “she starts from being in the forest with these people and goes from there”.

Even because they also said the glacier is her home (Chris said they saw a glacier and thought it would be a beautiful home for Elsa, AND Elsa actually moved the Snorgies and Marshmellow there), so it’s still a confused topic of discussion.

But even if we have to start from a “she’s in the forest, she’ll spend time with those people nobody gives a fuck about”, nothing tell us she’ll still be there at the end of Frozen 3.

Could you imagine she would be there at all, now, after Frozen, Frozen Fever and OFA? No.

Honestly, I’m still focused on “bullshit, she was supposed to be dead and now her future is with strangers? you changed it before, changed it again!” point, and I can’t take seriously whatever she says now.

Thanks for giving me the chance to write all this, anon.

[teacherimagines]

My Tc Diary

Hey y’all. This is my tc diary from 2018 and I decided to post this now in 2020 since I don’t think my identity will be revealed from anyone I know possibly reading this. It was sooooo weird rereading this, seeing what my thought process used to be, and the silly things I thought were important. So much has changed in my life since this phase of my life, but I hope you enjoy!

M/N stands for my name. I am not gender specific in the anecdotes. I am bisexual, and I talk about having three different tcs in here. I just use they/them to talk about them. And when I refer to ‘my tc’ I am talking about my first tc (the one I am crushing on the most). The other two I only talk about in one divided section for each.

*ONE FINAL VERY IMPORTANT NOTE* My teacher crushes were always professional when I was around them, they did absolutely nothing to suggest that they liked me as anything more than just a student. I started writing this because I was crushing on them badly, and I needed a way that I could share the times I was around them that made me happy. I hold a very high respect for my teachers, and I am so grateful that I got to have them in class. I never did/would never try to do anything that would harm/intrude on their careers, relationships, happiness, and personal lives. My relationships with teachers are the way they should be, the fact that I was crushing on them did not get in the way of that.

My Masterlist

-

I was walking out of school today, and my tc was walking behind me. I heard footsteps but I didn’t know it was them! Anyway I walked out the door, and held the door for them, and they thanked me. Their ‘thank you’ sounded so genuine and nice, I nearly had a heart attack.

-

I had my first class with my tc at the beginning of the semester. During the first week of class my tc had to shout out names for attendance because they didn’t know everyone yet. But they knew me. They never said my name during attendance. It just felt good, to have them remember me after meeting them only a couple of times before. Especially because I’m crushing on them super hard.

-

My tc got really excited today in class omg. We are doing a project and we get to pick our topics. So my tc comes up to me like “What is your topic?” And then I told them, my tc got so excited. Their eyes widened a little, and they went into this little rant about how fascinating my topic was. I like to see them being so passionate about something.

-

Someone in my class has a pet snail, and they keep it in a jar and bring it to school. So they go and ask my tc if they want to hold the snail. My tc (seriously) asks ‘does it bite?’ I WAS LIKE ARE YOU FOR REAL RN? I think it was cute because it was such a little snail.

-

My tc helped me write an essay today. They were super helpful, like, I was stuggling so bad, and they just helped me without making me feel like a complete idiot :)

-

OKAY IM SORRY OKAY TEMPTATIONS. I watched my tc put on chapstick today. Trust me, I wouldn’t watch it if they were looking directly at me. They were just staring off into space. *Note from future, I watch them do this quite often lol.

-

My tc said “good morning, M/N.” today! I said good morning back and was really happy. My tc also made a lot of eye contact with me today :o

-

I walk into my classroom today, and there were only two other students sitting at the desks. The class has about twenty students in it, and the bell was about to ring. One of the people in the room says “ooh, there’s a third one.” as I walk in. And my tc laughed and smiled and looked at me.

-

My tc was passing back papers and their arm accidentally bumped mine. Lol I’m dying inside.

-

When my tc lectures, they are very active with and linger their eye contact with every student. And I mean like that’s a good thing, but it makes me nervous when they look at me lol. OKAY BUT LIKE EYE CONTACT IS NOT OKAY. It is okay. But it makes me not okay. Especially when I’m trying to concentrate on the lesson, I just keep thinking back to five minutes ago when their eyes met mine and I felt all gooey in my tummy.

-

Got a paper back and on the top it said ‘good work M/N!’ in my tc’s handwriting. Felt good lol. I literally stared at my name written in their handwriting for like ten minutes. I need to stop. *not from future- I kept ALL of the papers from their class.

-

My tc will always ask the class something opinionated, and they will always make sure that everyone answers the question. And if it is regarding something that has to do with us being comfortable (ex: someone making a joke that is slightly controversial), they just make sure that everyone is really okay, no bs. OMG I FOUND A TEACHER WHO ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT THEIR STUDENTS WELL BEINGS. And I may or may not have a massively obvious crush on them.

-

I saw someone (a student) flirting with my tc today. This person is a MAJOR flirt. I know that they would never actually date my tc so I am not really worried about it. But they interrupt class a lot and flirt with them. IT IS SO OBVIOUS OMG.

-

I was walking in the hall today, and I saw my tc. They looked at me really quickly but as they walked closer they just stared at the floor lol. They do that a lot. Also, on another day, I was standing in the hall talking with my friend and my tc walked passed us. I know they looked at me- even if it was only for a second- I could feel it.

-

How can someone be so alert, friendly, and attractive at the beginning of the school day?

-

Today I was sitting doing my work and my tc comes over to my desk. They ask me how I am doing on the assignment and I said I’m doing okay. They stand by my desk, looking at my paper for what felt like a minute. I felt so awkward so I looked up at them with a face that said ‘need something’? Then they nodded and walked away. Like okayyyyyyy I’m not okay.

-

Every damn time I say ‘thank you’ to my tc they say ‘of course ‘my name.’ AND I AM LITERALLY MELTING RN MELTING

-

My tc learned a few fun facts about me today! Also, almost no one in my class believes in sasquatches (even me), but my tc does. And they got so frustrated because they said that sasquatches are ‘tangible’. Plus, they asked me where I see myself in ten years and I said I have no clue, and they were like ‘okay so you have like what, two years left to figure the rest of your life out?’ THANKS TC THANKS A LOT

-

My tc asked me if I had anything to share with the class today, and I said no lol. They asked another student and they said no too. Lol. Then my tc said ‘I shouldn’t let you all say no to me.’ Haha I’m dead.

-

I saw my tc with their significant other today. I feel really sad, and I really do care about my tc’s happiness, it just makes me sad that I can’t be that kind of special to them.

-

I saw my tc run today. I feel so blessed.

-

My tc said I did really good on writing my essays, and thanked me for handing them in. also—MY TC SMILED AT ME TODAY AND THEY ARE SO CUTE AND THEIR SMILE IS SO CUTE IMMMM DEADDDDD. Their smile was literally like this :)) They don’t usually smile at me, Idk why, but like I am also wondering what put them in such a good mood.

-

My tc gave me a letter today. At first I was like- woah?. Then they told me it was an invitation (from another teacher) for taking a AP course in their subject next school year. I was like ‘ah thank you’ but inside I was screeching (THE LETTER WASNT EVEN PERSONALLY FROM THEM WHY AM I FREAKING OUT??). Even though they won’t be teaching the course (they are moving schools), I want to make them remember me as someone who wants to excel in their subject (so I will take the course, plus I was planning on it already with my guidance counselor). Also, this means that they had a conversation with another teacher about me. So they probably thought of me recommended for me to take AP? This makes me happyyyy :)

So today my tc asked me if I read the letter they gave me. I said yes. They asked if I signed up for AP and I said yes. They got so happy omg- I was like trying to be chill (so were they). They said “that is so good ‘M/N’, you would make a really good fit in that class.” Then they kept smiling at me- I couldn’t concentrate! IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY THAT MY HARD WORK IS STARTING TO PAY OFF, AND MY TC IS RECOGNIZING THAT.

-

My tc gave my class a free work period and I was caught up on my work. Usually every night I try to read at least one news article before I go to bed, so I stay up to date on things (ya know, like nerds do). I didn’t get to read last night so I read some news in class. My tc comes over to see what I am doing and asks me “M/N, are you reading the news?” I nodded. Then they said “that is a very good use of your time.” Lol I wasn’t even doing the work they assigned. Then they come over later in class and ask me if I read from The Atlantic. I told them no, and they were like “I think you’d like them, they have very in depth articles. There’s this one a teacher showed me this morning about Donald Trump, and how he won the election, it was really good. You can let me know later if you’re interested in reading it.” I was like OKAY with a big splash of happiness. I want to read the article they suggested, but I was like hesitant to ask them for it, so I am just going to try and find it on my own lol. *NOTE from future, I read this website a lot now because it makes me think of them and it’s like, what if they read this article too?

-

MY TC SNEEZED TODAY AND I WAS LIKE AHHHH

-

I saw my tc in the hallway this morning and they said “good morning M/N.” They were carrying a cup of coffee, and that’s when I got to see how they drink their coffee-with a lot of creamer.

-

OKAY WHAT IS GOING ON? There’s this other teacher I have. My friend says she likes them. I thought I didn’t like them that much, and I expressed that to her. BUT THEN they start giving me this eye contact, and joking during class. And one day they try helping me on an assignment and LITERALLY THEIR ARM WAS TOUCHING MINE. I didn’t want to be rude and move it, and THEY JUST LEFT IT THERE. I have little physical contact with humans- I’m weird like that- I don’t usually like it when people touch me, there’s really no reason for it besides it is what it is. But I was fine in this situation. They also make a lot of conversation with me. Then I saw them in the library and they looked at me and smiled- they are gorgeous. I DONT KNOW WHAT TO THINK ABOUT LIFE ANYMORE. I thought I was only crushing on my original tc, but that’s changing now?¿ I think I take simple situations and go crazy with them, but STILL. So much more has happened between me and this teacher than me and my tc, but I still like my first tc more. ALSO, they bite their lip when they are concentrating on something difficult- I am swooning. *NOTE- I had a dream (rated R) about this teacher. WHATWHATWHAT? Today, I walked passed this tc and it LITERALLY felt like slow motion- and they kept eye contact with me as they walked by.

-

I’m hormonal. There’s this other tc I might have now. They are a different gender than my other two tcs. I like them a lot and I had them in a class before but I never thought of them like this. I realized that I have a lil crush on them today when I passed them in the hall and had some small talk. I thought wow, they’re a good person, they teach really good, they just talked to me like a normal person, and they’re attractive. MY BRAIN IS EXPLODING I HAVE LIKE THREE TCS NOW AND NO ONE IN MY LIFE KNOWS?

-

Today was my last day with my tc :(( it was kind of bittersweet though. They never really gave anyone a formal goodbye, but we did have a good conversation (which is the longest one I have ever had with them). I was on the computer doing a research project for a vacation to Italy. I was exploring around on google maps and they come over and ask me ‘where are you looking at?’ And I say Venice. So I zoom out and show them Italy from a map view, they talked about Italy, and just Europe in general. I then told them that I have been to Paris and London before, and they thought it was cool. Then they told me about their significant other who has traveled to London for a semester at college. Then they told me about their dream vacation to southern France, to see the lilac fields. They said ‘That would be my picturesque vacation.’ I WAS LIKE AWWWW (internally lol). I like flowers a lot, and I am pretty sure my tc knows that bc I wear clothes that have flower print, my backpack and pencil case is flower print too. And now that they told me that they like flowers too- I am just so happy! I have a lot in common with this tc, and it saddens me that this was our last interaction :((

[hongism]

finding beauty in your darkest places - chapter 1

Pairing: TBA (we’ll see where this takes us lol - let’s just call it OT7xreader for now)

Genre: Psychiatric Clinic!au, Heavy Angst, Some Fluff

Word Count: 8802

Warnings: deals with mental and emotional illnesses and disorders as a heavy theme of the story, future graphic depictions of disorders - please do not read if this makes you uncomfortable

Rating: PG-13/Mature (nothing sexual, but it deals with heavy themes)

Summary: Everyone has their issues, and everyone deals with them differently. Jungkook thinks that avoiding his problems is the best option out there.

aka

Jeon Jungkook is the newest patient at the Omelas Specialized Psychiatric Clinic, and he just wants to get in and out as quickly as possible so that he can go back to university and be with his friends again. Of course, that doesn't work out according to his plan.

also! this idea came out of nowhere and i kinda just ran with it. we'll see where it takes us! lemme know if you like it and if you'd like to see it continue! also, i am very curious as to what you think each person has in terms of disorders, if you have any idea thus far! i really only insinuated it with three or four people, but i'm very curious about what you guys think so let me know below!

Note: please know that nothing in this story is meant to be a glamorization of any disorder, this is meant to be a real approach and depiction of these things, and i did a LOT of research prior to writing this about every disorder mentioned so that i was careful about what i wrote about each one. I am trying to be as knowledgeable as possible in terms of the content written within this story. I do not intend to glamorize any disorder within this story whatsoever.

Again, as I mentioned earlier, I did a lot of in-depth research before writing this work, and I continue to do more research with every chapter I post. I truly try to be as accurate as I possibly can by reading articles, watching videos, and doing other medical research in order to write this with as much knowledge as I can. The last thing I want to do is incorrectly depict something as serious as a mental or emotional disorder.

That being said, some things contained within the story are altered or distorted from the truth, including the nature of the clinic the story is based in for the purpose of plot and characters. Note that I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist, or anything close to either of those things and that this is a work of fiction at the end of the day.

Chapter:

1 | 2

...

Finding Beauty in Your Darkest Places

Chapter 1: Jeon Jungkook?

The white room suffocates him. Of all places to be, this would be the last on his list, because he knows that behind the white door with the small rectangular window lies a number of unknowns. They know he hates the unknown, despises it and fears it with every fiber in his being, yet they still throw him to the wolves like this? It was supposed to be a warning, a mere threat, but now he’s sitting here in this cushionless white chair alone. One duffel bag in the seat beside him and nothing else.

“Jeon Jungkook?”

He lifts his head at the sound of his name, a crisp voice calling it out through the stiff silence of the whiteness around him. The door he has been dreading since he set foot in here now lies open, a young woman—you, L/N Y/N, he would later find out—in the frame, wearing clothes he would not have expected a nurse to wear. Also behind the door, however, is a man who seems quite a bit older than you, and he bears the pale blue scrubs Jungkook was expecting to see. The man sends Jungkook’s heart through his stomach, but the cold stare of the you imbues a strange sense of dread. He stands up, trying to ignore how his legs quiver as he does, and wipes his palms against the fabric of his grey drawstring sweatpants. You tap your foot against the white tile floor, piercing eyes glancing over his form, then place a hand on your hip.

“I’m assuming that’s you, since your voice doesn’t seem to work?” Jungkook chokes on his breath.

“Y-Yes, sorry, um, yes. I’m the new patient?” He balls the fabric of his pants into his fist.

“I know that. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be saying your name.” Jungkook tries to blink away the stinging sensation in his eyes and bites down hard on his lower lip. This is exactly what I was afraid of. “Relax, kid. I’m messing with you.” Your voice softens, and when Jungkook dares to bring his gaze back to you, you wear a more sympathetic and relaxed expression. “That’s how they treated me when I got here, but having been in your shoes, I know how hard it is. We’ll have to check your bag and belongings before I take you in, okay?” You walk closer to him, tapping your nails against a wooden clipboard. You blink at Jungkook as though waiting for something. “Permission granted?” Comes the question when he still says nothing.

“Oh, yes! Yes, sorry, I didn’t think you would ask,” Jungkook says, before adding hastily, “for permission, that is.”

“Right, gotcha. I’ll let him—” you motion over your shoulder to the man dressed in scrubs “—pat you down since you seem...nervous. Ah, right, he hates introducing himself, but that Nurse Kang. He doesn’t like being called anything other than that.” You drop your clipboard on the chair beside his duffel bag, and Jungkook shifts his gaze from you to the nurse — Nurse Kang, that is.

“Um…”

“The pat downs are part of protocol, so no, you can’t avoid it. But you should at least know his name before he basically feels you up.” You slide a coy smirk Jungkook’s way. The heat rises up his neck before he knows it, and you laugh at the expression on his face, whatever it may be. 

“Stand over here, arms straight out.” He does as asked, facing Nurse Kang as the man searches his pockets for anything out of the ordinary. “Turn around.” When Jungkook faces you, your eyes watch him instead of the duffel bag in the chair. Well, to be more specific, you are analyzing Nurse Kang as he does his work. “No drawstrings, kid.”

“Huh?”

“You’ll have to take the drawstring of your sweatpants out,” you explain, finally turning towards his duffel bag. “The clinic doesn’t allow any object that could be a potential harm to any of the patients inside. Out of courtesy for your fellow patients and insurance of the utmost safety for all people within the clinic, you are asked to remove any such object from your being prior to entering the premises.” You speak with a cadence, a playful one, as though you’ve heard the statements a thousand times. 

“Anything can be used as a weapon,” Jungkook argues. You spin on your heel, sending a pointed look at him, and shake your head. The playful gleam drops from your eyes, leaving Jungkook to stare into a cold brown color. 

“If I were you, I would avoid saying anything like that once we’re inside. You have to understand this: the people inside have different issues, different brains, different wirings to their mentalities and emotions. Even saying something as simple as that could be a potential trigger for them, and it is highly recommended that you keep your mouth shut for the first few days so you can learn about your fellow patients. Safety is the most important thing here, then comes recovery. Understood?” He wouldn’t imagine arguing again when you’re speaking in such a serious tone. 

“Yes ma’am.” Jungkook starts yanking his drawstring out, sighing as he does so because dammit these were brand new pants.

“Oof, no, don’t call me that. It’s weird, okay?” You cringe as though your whole body detests the word. “Pretty sure we’re close in age, I might even be older. I don’t know: I’m not allowed to see your file.” Jungkook places the drawstring in Nurse Kang’s awaiting hand with a huff.

“You’re good to go. Miss L/N, you’ll bring him in when you finish?”

“Yes, yes, I will.”

“You know the rules.”

“I’m not going to harass anyone, Kang.” You plaster a grin onto your lips as you face the nurse, who bristles at the way you say his name. “I’ll follow the rules. I’ve been here long enough to know them by heart. Besides, why on earth would I try anything with the receptionist right there?” You point at the lady behind a glass barrier that Jungkook spoke to when he came in initially. Nurse Kang rolls his eyes at your attitude. “See you later, Nurse Kang!” He ignores your pestering in favor of leaving through the door he came in, dropping Jungkook’s drawstring in the trash as he goes.

“What did he mean by that?”

“By what? The rules? The doctors were supposed to go over those when your parents agreed to ditch you here.” Jungkook opens and closes his mouth. “Sorry, was that insensitive?”

“No, I mean, yes kinda, but that wasn’t my question. Why does he have to ask if you know the rules?” You pick up Jungkook’s duffel, tossing it at his chest with no shortage of force. He coughs when it pegs him but catches it nonetheless. “What was that for?”

“For asking too many questions, newbie. Another thing you should know: don’t ask other patients about anything personal without asking if you have permission to do so or if they tell you themselves. Common courtesy of the clinic.” You snatch your clipboard off the chair, scribbling something on the paper there. Jungkook blinks at you again, examining your outfit of sweatpants (also without their drawstring) and a t-shirt.

“May I ask you a question then?”

“Depends on what it is.”

“What are you?” He inquires, and you scoff.

“Human, what are you?” You squint at Jungkook. When he shows no signs of laughing or even slight amusement, you purse your lips. “I, like you, am a patient. I’m not a nurse, and that’s why I don’t have permission to look at your files, so I don’t know what you have or how old you are, your tragic backstory — I know nothing except your name. Is that all you want to know?”

“If you’re a patient, then why are you doing this and not someone like Nurse Kang?”

“Because, Jungkookie — can I call you that?” You interrupt yourself with a smile.

“Um, no?” He denies, even though he suspects you’re going to call him that no matter what.

“Anyways, the clinic is special and unique for many reasons. One of those reasons is that it allows patients to pursue and do things that make patients feel less like prisoners and more like people. This includes helping induct new patients since it’s simple, easy work. So, I get to do fun stuff like this, and it’s best if patients give the clinic tours because we know all the secrets and best places in the clinic. You’ll learn more as you get settled in, and things will start making more sense in time. For now, why don’t you follow me, and I’ll show you around a bit before a nurse comes to snatch you away?”

“Please tell me that’s a joke,” Jungkook requests as he trails after you. He has never set foot on the other side of that white door with the barred window. All his previous visits consisted of staying in the waiting room or in the head doctor’s office, which is outside the area to which he heads now. 

“Haha, of course it’s a joke, Jungkookie. Do you not have a sense of humor?”

“Apparently not one as morbid as yours,” he mutters under his breath. If you hear the comment, Jungkook doesn’t know because you make zero acknowledgement of it. Instead, you wait for him to cross through the threshold of the door, then let it fall shut with an echoing thud. Chills go up his spine as soon as it slams, the air around him dropping in temperature. You must notice the expression of discomfort that crosses his features, because you start up another conversation.

“Have you ever been to a clinic before?” The newfound warmth in your tone eases some of the anxiety growing in Jungkook’s gut.

“Uh, yes. Actually I’ve been to three others before this,” he admits, eyes trailing along the walls of white on either side of them. The confession causes his cheeks to burn with shame, as though the notion that three other doctors and inpatient facilities couldn’t help him is his guilt to bear. You motion towards the hallway, and he falls into step beside you.

“Wow, only three? How old are you then? Must be young if that’s the case.” Jungkook exhales a laugh, not out of amusement, rather out of disbelief. He welcomes your sudden desire to comfort him and make him feel more at ease.

“I’m turning 21 this year. I, uh, had to drop out of university for this, so I’m kind of hoping it’ll be my last one.”

“Damn, Jungkookie, here I thought you were younger than me.” Jungkook tilts his head to the side, glancing at you with mouth open and ready to ask the question of your age, but you cut him off before he can even begin to speak. “Anyways, what’re you in for?”

“Pardon?” The question catches him off guard in the worst way. Clenching his fists, he fights the sensation of tingling that starts on the left sigh of his head and trickles downwards. “What do you mean?” The rapid pace of his breath interferes with the words, and even with the chilly temperature, he senses a bead of sweat forming on his temple.

“Oh, hey, hey, sorry for asking. You good?”

“I’m fine!” he insists, although the white walls blend into one mass, and you turn into two people as his eyes start losing focus. Dammit not now. Get a grip. Can’t do this already, cmon. 

“Right…” You don’t push the topic, which Jungkook supposes he should be grateful for, but it sends his brain further into a frenzy and convinces him that he has to justify his reaction.

“It’s anxiety, I’ve got anxiety. That’s all though.” You hum then click your tongue against the roof of your mouth. A pop resounds through the hallway. You stop walking to squint at Jungkook. He fidgets under your gaze, unsure as to what your reaction is supposed to mean. 

“Bull—” you poke his shoulder with your index finger “—shit. Do you know the name of this clinic, Jungkookie?”

“Um, yes, it’s the Omelas Specialized Psychiatric Ward.”

“Exactly, and do you know what kind of patients Omelas takes?”

“Ones that need inpatient treatment?”

“Incorrect.” You tap his arm again, this time with much less force. “This is a specialized psychiatric clinic, meaning that any and all patients are admitted here because they have more than one disorder. So, that means that there is no way you can be here unless there are other things you’re dealing with.” Jungkook clears his throat. “I’m not saying this to be mean, Jungkook, and unless you’re a pathological liar, it would be best if you stick to telling the truth. If you want out any time soon, then honesty really is the best policy here.”

“Okay, I understand.”

“By the way, I have a question.” You take a step back, eyes lighting up.

“Please don’t ask about my disorder again,” he pleads, close to begging at this point because his heart rate still hasn’t returned to normal.

“No, no, no. I won’t ask again. Next time we talk about it will be because you want to, deal? That’s not what I want though. Um, do you have any cigarettes?” He almost thinks you’re joking and laughs aloud, but you blink up at him with a deadpan expression. Zero shame or embarrassment. He swallows, eyes narrowing, and hesitantly asks,

“Is this another one of your jokes?”

“No, I’m being serious this time.”

“I don’t have any cigarettes.”

“Vape pens? E-cigarettes?”

“No and no. All of those are bad for your lungs and health.”

“Oh great, that sounds too familiar.” You rub your forehead. “The last thing we need is another Yoongi.”

“Another who?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

“Miss L/N, you’re late to your appointment!” You and Jungkook both look down the hall where a woman in a set of blue scrubs stands, hands curled into fists and pressed against her sides. “How many times do we need to have this conversation? I said 9:00 sharp!”

“You said that would be tomorrow because of the new patient? I don’t have an appointment scheduled for today.” You shake your head, disbelief shining through your eyes as you confront the nurse across from you.

“Incorrect, Miss L/N. Plans changed. Need I remind you again?”

“Ah, you know how it is, Nurse Irene.” You maintain a smile even in the face of the nurse’s frustration, tapping your temple as though sharing some secret information with the woman. “I’ll head that way right now though. Please take care of Jungkookie for me, Nurse Irene!” You don’t stop to say goodbye to him; instead, you walk down the hallway and out of sight without another word, and once again, Jungkook finds himself alone with another unfamiliar face.

“You must be the new patient?” Nurse Irene asks, meeting Jungkook halfway down the hall. He nods in response, shifting his grip on the duffel bag, and keeps his gaze glued to the floor. “Well, I have a patient to tend to, but I will take you to someone who can show you around before I go. Follow me.” Doing as asked, he walks behind her, watching her short black heels click against the tile. “Did Miss L/N explain the basic rules within the clinic?”

“Um, no, but I heard most of it when my parents and I met with Dr. Choi.”

“Well that’s good, at least. I’ll explain some of the basics, and then I’ll leave the rest to your fellow patients. They can help you figure out the rules that aren’t so important, but must be adhered to nonetheless.” The stiff and cold tone brings a scowl to Jungkook’s lips that he hides from the nurse by scratching his nose. “Understood, Mr. Jeon?”

“Yes,” he replies.

“Yes what?”

“Yes ma’am.” The words hiss between his teeth, whistling through the air and leaving all the contempt and bitterness there for Nurse Irene to hear.

“Good. Now as for basic rules, here are just a few. You are not allowed to leave the building unattended unless showing high improvement in terms of your condition. Even if you do show high improvement and have approval from a specified staff member, you are not allowed to leave alone, meaning that another patient — also approved — must go with you. Otherwise, you can leave the clinic if accompanied by an assigned nurse. The number of times you can leave all depends on your condition and improvement. You must already know, but family members can visit once a week if they so desire, as long as it falls on a Sunday. All phones call must be monitored. You are free to walk around the clinic as you wish, but there will be certain areas that you may not have access to. This includes treatment rooms, meeting rooms, and other patients’ bedrooms. Questions thus far?” Jungkook lifts his chin at last, finding the surroundings to be quite different now that they are no longer in the long hallway. 

“No questions, ma’am.” He peers around the open area, and the cloistering sensation of a typical psychiatric clinic breaks into his mind. The tingling of some unknown melody touches his ears, and for a second, Jungkook thinks he really must be going insane because he can’t find the source of it. The white on the walls has faded to grey but remains dull and monotonous still. If not for the color and the overwhelming steel bars over the windows, Jungkook would guess he’s in some person’s home, what with the couches and chairs strewn about. Tables that seat four, six, eight — the room, although large, leaves a boxed-in sort of feeling in Jungkook’s stomach. Despite all the available seating, no one fills a single place. 

“This is our recreational living area. You have access to this area all hours between curfew. You can do whatever you like here. We have board games, card games, puzzles, books, magazines, and many other things. If none of that is your cup of tea, I’ll show you to our other amenities. If you look out this window as we pass, you’ll see we have a full basketball court for when you need fresh air. Then on our left, you’ll see our entertainment room, which includes TVs, game consoles, a piano, and two acoustic guitars. Oh, and one of your fellow patients happens to be here too.” Jungkook leans through the door frame, scanning the room, and finds the source of the unknown melody. There, sitting at the piano Nurse Irene mentioned, is a man whom Jungkook can only see the back of and whose black haired stands out in sharp contrast to the pale tone of his skin. Nurse Irene keeps walking, but Jungkook hesitates there, the melody transfixing him and holding him to his spot. The right hand of the player pauses in the air, and he tilts his head towards the door. Panicking, Jungkook ducks away and hurries after Nurse Irene before the man can catch sight of him. 

“Now, to continue with our rules, Mr. Jeon, you should know that you will have a daily schedule that will include your medications, appointments, and any sort of group activities. Other than those things, you are free to do as you please around the clinic. Curfew is 11:00, meaning you must be back in your room by then. Breaching curfew will result in undisclosed punishment.”

“What the hell…” Jungkook whispers to himself. He speaks up a moment later, curiosity biting at the edges of his thoughts. “Um, Nurse Irene? How long do patients typically stay?”

“That all depends on the patient, Mr. Jeon. Usually, no one leaves in less than a year because of a willingness and a drive to continue treatment. Although rare, we have had patients leave in less than a year, but I wouldn’t say that they were fully treated when they decided to leave. Some, of course, do not put effort into getting better or improving, so they end up staying a long time. Others suffer greatly and tend to struggle with progress because of the combination of their disorders. We currently have two patients who have been here for almost six years now, but that’s the longest anyone has stayed.” Nurse Irene’s voice drops in volume. Her previously cold expression alters, morphing into a frown along with downcast eyes.

“Who are they?”

“That information is not my business to disclose. If you wish to know, then you may ask the other patients. Do keep in mind that it can be a sensitive subject. Those two patients have seen people come and go for six years, making friends only to have them leave later. It’s not easy.” Jungkook nods, finished with his questioning. Over a year? I’ll be so behind in my classes by then. Yugyeom and Mingyu will have moved up by then and I won’t be able to have classes needed for my major with them if that’s the case...God, am I gonna lose my life and my friends? He presses the heel of his hand to the spot between his eyes where a piercing pain arises. Nurse Irene just keeps walking and talking without a clue.

“We offer classes for all patients, seeing as most of our patients are at an age where they will be missing some form of school. You are not required to go to any, but we do recommend it. We’ve reached our last amenity, and this is where I will leave you. It’s our library and reading area. You’ll have access to all the books here and can take them out of the reading area so long as you check them out before you leave. Go ahead and follow me in, but give me a moment to speak to the patient inside.” The blue of Nurse Irene stands out now against the dark, rich brown of the bookcases that line the walls, as opposed to earlier where the grey and blue blended together. Jungkook takes in a sharp inhale at the sight of all the books. He should feel claustrophobic here, yet he finds himself more intrigued by the person within the library. 

Though sitting down, Jungkook can tell that the man is tall based upon his long legs and how his head stands only a few centimeters shorter than the back of the chair. He seems well put together at first glance, certainly not someone Jungkook would expect to see in a place like this. When Nurse Irene clears her throat to announce her presence, the man looks up, a pair of thick framed black glasses over his eyes. The brown of the shelves around him makes his skin seem darker than it is in actuality, but even so, his skin is a deeper tone than most. He reaches for his face and dips a finger through the spot where a lens should be. 

“Nurse Irene.”

“Mr. Kim, this is our newest patient—”

“—for whom Y/N is responsible for, correct?” He interrupts. Y/N? I wonder if he means the person who brought me in… Nurse Irene presses her lips into a fine line. “So where is Y/N?”

“Miss L/N is attending a pre-scheduled appointment at the moment. I have a patient to tend to, thus I am leaving the new patient with you so that you can finish showing him around and explaining the rules.” Pre-scheduled? That isn’t what Y/N said… The click of the nurse’s heel reaches Jungkook’s ear as she taps her foot against the floor. “I’m going to assume that you have no complaints and will do as asked. Thank you, Mr. Kim.” She turns on her heel as the man stands up, setting his book on the seat behind him. 

“Of course, Nurse Irene.”

The nurse brushes past Jungkook as she rushes out the door. He watches her walk around the corner and disappear before bringing his focus back to the library. The man — perhaps not much older than Jungkook himself — wears a similar set of sweatpants and a plain white T-shirt, which gives Jungkook the idea that it must be a common outfit among patients here. 

“Hello, you must be Jeon Jungkook? Y/N mentioned your name a few times.” He cocks his head to the side. The swell of panic rises in Jungkook’s gut, his throat threatening to collapse on itself before he gets a chance to speak. What had you said about him? What do you even know about him? “Don’t look so stressed, please. She just told me your name and that you’re the newest patient. I’m Kim Namjoon, one of your fellow patients.” The man extends his right hand. Jungkook blinks between the outstretched arm and Namjoon’s face, finding a soft grin on his full lips. The stark contrast between your greeting and Namjoon’s hits hard, but rather than inciting a sense of panic, Namjoon’s smile allows his heart to calm a bit. Jungkook grabs hold of Namjoon’s hand with his own trembling one. He attempts to hide all the signs of panic overwhelming his being by grinning back, but based on how strained and awkward it feels, he’s not sure he did a good job of concealing it. “I hope Y/N wasn’t too cruel to you. She lacks a filter sometimes and will say whatever comes to mind.”

“No, no, she was fine. I was a bit surprised and don’t do too well with new people, so…” Jungkook trails off, unsure of what to say because he would rather not throw you under the bus in front of Namjoon. The grin shifts into a slight scowl. Panic arises, and Jungkook tries to justify his words, but Namjoon speaks before he has the chance.

“She was mean, wasn’t she?”

“No! I promise she wasn’t.”

“Was it her humor? She thinks she’s funny, but honestly, her jokes are pretty much solely insensitive.” 

“No—I—she’s hilarious.”

“Oh god, did she make you say that?”

“No, no, I—” Jungkook cuts himself off, a huff of air passing through his open mouth, “—I was trying to be nice, that’s all.” The smile returns to Namjoon’s features, a slight half turn to one side of his lips.

“You don’t have to do that. I won’t be offended if you admit that she was a little rude, because I know how she is. We can keep it between us though; she might get salty if I call her out for acting that way.” A heavy hands falls onto Jungkook’s shoulder, and he brings his chin up to look at Namjoon. “It may be a bit difficult to adjust at first, but I genuinely believe that you’ll enjoy it here, place and people both. Come on, I’ll finish showing you around and introduce you to some other patients.”

“Thank you,” he mumbles, bringing his bag to his chest and keeping it in a tight grip there. “Would it be alright if I asked you a few questions?” Namjoon laughs upon hearing the question. He motions for Jungkook to follow him out the door and responds once they’re back in the white hallway. 

“Let me guess: Y/N told you not to inquire about anybody’s past or issues.” Jungkook shifts under the stare Namjoon directs at him, then offers a small nod to confirm his assumption. “Well, I am more of an open book than she is, so I’d be willing to tell you a bit about myself, if that’s what you are interested in. Otherwise, I can answer whatever questions you have about the clinic.”

“Well, all of that sounds nice actually, but I don’t want to pry or try to snoop around anyone’s personal life.”

Namjoon hums, hands pressed into the pockets of his sweatpants, then speaks, “Kim Namjoon. Age 23. Born September 12th. Majored in writing and literature at an online university. I read a lot, but I spend most of my free time writing and composing music. Hidden passion of mine. Good?” 

“Um, y-yea.”

“How about you tell me a bit about yourself while we walk around? I’m assuming Irene showed you most of the amenities and such already, so we can simply wander in search of other patients for the time being.” The lump in Jungkook’s throat swells further, and despite not having any food in his stomach, the contents there still threaten to spill forth onto the squeaky clean floor. The overwhelming focus on him and his life sends waves of distress over his body. Brushing a few strands of wavy hair off his damp forehead, he clears his throat as though it’ll change the panic rushing through him. 

“Ha, uh, well you already know a lot a-about me. Jeon Jungkook. 20 years old. Born Sep-September 1st. Yea, that’s all.” Namjoon sighs, refusing to elaborate on his thoughts about the response Jungkook gave. Does he think I’m weird or crazy? Probably crazy...can’t even function in a normal conversation. Dumb, stupid, idiot. Cmon Jungkook. Get it together. “So, uh, the nurses—do they all act like Nurse Irene?”

“Oh?” The question must catch Namjoon off guard, but he doesn’t reveal it with his expression. “No, not all of them. Irene prefers to have perfect control over everything here in the clinic. The other nurses and patients try to steer clear of her because of that. Not all of them are as bitchy and commanding as she is, but some of us are used to her behavior because we’ve been with her for quite some time.” 

“We currently have two patients who have been here for almost six years now, but that’s the longest anyone has stayed.”

“She mentioned that...that two patients have been here for a longer time than anyone else?” Jungkook pushes an inquiry into the end of his statement, the uncertainty surrounding Namjoon’s reaction taking precedence over anything else. “Not that it’s any of m-my business, I’m just—well nevermind.”

“No, she’s right. Two patients have been here for six years. Well, five years and nine months, to be accurate. The identity of those two people isn’t important though. I mean, what good will knowing do?” Namjoon doesn’t care to look at Jungkook, but the younger feels the heat behind the words nonetheless. Blood rushes to his head as embarrassment takes over, and he regrets introducing the topic.

“Sorry, you’re right. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“One thing to know about your fellow patients: people talk when they want to and when they feel secure in a situation or a relationship with someone. I haven’t asked you about why you’re here in the first place, have I?”

“No.”

“I’m grateful you haven’t asked me that question either, but even if an inquiry seems harmless, it could prove uncomfortable or disconcerting to another person. We have to watch our words with great caution around here. It took me a long time to get into that habit. Y/N struggles with that concept too, but I would advise not learning from her.”

“I understand.”

“You don’t have to treat me like a nurse and answer with such rigidity. I’m just trying to look out for you. I know how hard it is to adjust to this kind of situation and lifestyle, so it would be incredible if I could make it a bit easier for you to handle.” Warmth strikes Jungkook, and he blinks up at Namjoon, who smiles with his dark brown eyes more than his lips. “Why do you seem so shocked?”

“To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from anyone here, nurses or patients or doctors. The previous clinics and inpatient facilities I’ve been to...no one was like you. Everyone was there for themselves, and they didn’t who they had to step on to get out the quickest. I didn’t make friends in any of those clinics, because no one wanted that. Personal relationships were a completely separate entity.” The rant spills from his lips without thought, inhibitions leaving him in that brief moment before they rush back like a tide. Jungkook presses his chin against the top of his duffel bag, still maintaining the tight clutch he has on it.

“Even if some here seem a little rough at first, you’ll find that they all care about the people around them, no matter who they are or how new they are. Y/N too, she just...well, I don't know what excuse to give for her, but she’ll come around.”

“How many patients are here? Dr. Choi never mentioned it when we met.”

“Fourteen, now fifteen with you here. The nurses always say that they don’t want to exceed twenty patients at a time, since that would take away from treatment possibilities, so I guess we have a rather small clinic. I can’t compare it to another clinic; this is the only one I’ve been to, but I’ve read articles on other inpatient facilities. We’re rather lucky to have Omelas. It focuses on quality of life for the patients, which I’m not sure is the focus for other ones.” It’s not, Jungkook thinks. He opts not to vocalize what is on his mind, however, finding comfort in his own silence. The ease of listening to Namjoon talk is something new to him, but it calms some of the anxiety threatening to choke him still. “You mentioned that you’ve been to other clinics. Would it be alright if I asked how many?” Jungkook keeps staring ahead of him as they round a corner. The tinkling of music hits his ears again.

“Three. None of them were great, and two were overcrowded with patients who just dealt drugs and swapped medications right under the nurses’ noses. I’m hoping for a better experience here.”

“I promise Omelas will be better than that. We already beat out two of those clinics, right?” A huff of air passes through Jungkook’s lips. Namjoon pauses his movements outside the entertainment room Jungkook saw earlier, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the person inside. “Ah, we better not interrupt.” Namjoon clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, the pop echoing through the hall, and motions for Jungkook to keep moving. “You’ve already seen this part right? What about the kitchen and eating areas?”

“Nurse Irene didn’t show me that part. Um, who was that playing the piano?” Jungkook jogs to keep up with Namjoon’s long legs and quick feet. 

“Him? He's another patient, Min Yoongi.”

“The last thing we need is another Yoongi.” The words you spoke to him earlier ring in his head, and Jungkook does a double take, whipping his chin back to catch a glance of the man at the piano one more time. 

“Not to pry, but is there some sort of bad blood between him and Y/N?”

“I swear, kid, every time you say “not to pry”, you pry.”

“S-Sorry, nevermind, um we can change the subject.”

“No, it’s okay. As far as I’m aware, there is no bad blood there, and there’s never been.” 

But the way Y/N talked about him...Y/N sounded annoyed. I guess it’s none of my business though.

“Hey, Joon!” Jungkook snaps his attention forward, a surge of cold rushing through his body at the sound of a new voice.

“Mingyu!” 

Mingyu? The stupidity of Jungkook’s hope is laughable, because how on earth would his friend be here of all places? And how would Namjoon know him? No, the face before him shares no resemblance to the person Jungkook knows so well. His hope dissipates as quickly as it came, leaving him with an empty sensation.

“Jungkook, meet Mingyu and Yesung, they’re patients here too. Guys, meet Jungkook.” Jungkook presses his lips into a thin smile as he looks at the two newcomers. One, a tall man with lengthy limbs, cradles a basketball under his arm, and a few droplets of sweat cling to the strands of hair across his forehead. The other stands a bit shorter than his companion but shares in the sweat on his brow, chest heaving a bit.

“Hey, you must be the newbie.” The one carrying the basketball sticks a hand out for him to shake, and Jungkook takes his hand, trying to match the force of the handshake. “I’m Mingyu. Sorry we aren’t in peak condition to be introducing ourselves; we were just out playing a one on one match at the court. Yesung here thinks he won.” Mingyu shares a lopsided grin with the person next to him.

“I did win, fool.”

“Oh ha ha, we’ve got a cocky one over here.”

“Respect your elders, Mingyu,” Namjoon cuts in, a laugh trailing after the words.

“Yea yea, I know. Say, Jungkook, you don’t happen to play basketball, do you?” Mingyu tilts his head to the side, a smirk playing at his lips as he shifts his grip on the basketball.

“Uh, I-I used to in middle school.”

“You ought to join us for some matches. I mean, you seem like someone who works out a lot.” Something constricts in Jungkook’s chest. He squeezes his bag closer to his body, fighting the chill that runs down his spine, and clears his throat. He doesn’t dare speak again, because he’s certain that if he attempts to do so, anything that comes out will be garbled nonsense and embarrass him further. Instead, he forces a few nods to Mingyu’s satisfaction. “Well, see you around, newbie. Take good care of him, Joon.” Mingyu slides around Jungkook, shoulder bumping against his right one, but Jungkook blocks the brunt of the hit by pushing back. Air rushes through Mingyu’s cracked lips, a noise akin to a laugh seeps out, and he says one more thing in passing before disappearing around the corner. “Wouldn’t want to lose anyone again, would we?” The question means nothing to Jungkook, but he catches the way Namjoon stiffens, his spine straightening as he glares over his shoulder at the man who leaves. What happened? What did he mean by that, and why on earth did it make Namjoon so upset?

“Don’t let him bother you too much,” Namjoon says after a heave of breath. He rubs the skin on either side of his nose, eyes squeezed shut. “Disrespectful kid with too big a head on his shoulders. He’s always been like that.”

“That’s the kind of attitude I’m used to honestly.” Jungkook shrugs, hoping that Namjoon drops the topic. He does, and Jungkook thanks him silently before they move on, leaving the incident in the hall behind them. 

“Here we are.”

The area bleeds white, causing the people who occupy it to stand out even more. Jungkook looks to his right first because the people catch his eye more than the contents of the room. Conversation ceases, eyes find Namjoon and Jungkook, silence envelopes the circular table where four people sit. There are three similar tables staggered nearby, all sharing six similar plastic chairs. Namjoon redirects his attention by placing a hand on his shoulder, and he tugs him to the left rather than going towards the table full of people.

“You should have access to the kitchen at all times, unless the nurses tell you otherwise, but the staff prepares meals for everyone three times a day. The main purpose of this is for patients to be able to prepare snacks and stuff when they need to since meal times are set in stone. Typical kitchen utilities: oven, microwave, stove, fridge, toaster. You can sit at the bar counter at any time, unless we’re all having a meal, then everyone has to sit at a table.” Namjoon motions over the counter. The group of people who sit at the table closest to the counter maintain their stares on Jungkook, curious eyes driving a churning sensation to his gut. “And you get to meet even more patients. You must be lucky; most of the time, everyone is spread out and hard to find.”

“I wouldn’t call myself lucky,” Jungkook mumbles, turning his head so that only Namjoon can see his lips move. 

“I’ll try to make it easy for you,” he replies, “I promise. Hey guys!”

“Hi Namjoon!” A boxy grin and crescent eyes fill Jungkook’s visions as one of the people jumps forward, leaning across the table to get a better look at Jungkook. “You must be the new patient. I got so excited when I heard we were getting someone new, and even more excited after they told me that we would be roommates!”

“Uh, this is—”

“Taehyung! Kim Taehyung, age 21. This is going to be my fourth year here at the clinic, and they tell me that’s because I get too distracted with other stuff instead of focusing on my treatment. And you?” The barrage of information throws Jungkook for a loop, and he struggles to follow along with the speed at which Taehyung is speaking. He blinks at the older man for a few seconds after he finishes speaking. Namjoon saves the day and steps between Jungkook and the counter, blocking Taehyung’s line of sight.

“Tae…”

“Oh! I forgot again. You always remind me, but this happens every time doesn’t it? I’m sorry! I got too excited because I finally get to meet my new roommate.” Taehyung backs away from the counter, teeth digging into his lower lip as he hangs his head and takes a seat again. 

“Tae, could you please introduce the others for me?” Namjoon’s words flip a switch in Taehyung’s demeanor, and the man straightens in his seat, the rectangular grin returning to his lips in the blink of an eye.

“Sure! I’d love to! This is my best friend, Jimin, Park Jimin—” Jungkook only notices the hunched over man when Taehyung leans out of the way, and he offers a small wave in greeting, which Jimin returns without looking him in the eye “—who’s the same age as me. Then this girl with the short hair is Eunbi, and the other girl with longer hair is Miyeon.” Jungkook passes a similar way to both the girls. Eunbi returns the gesture with much gusto and a broad smile that flashes her teeth, whereas Miyeon nods at him.

“Hi! Welcome to the clinic,” Eunbi beams from her seat. “I hope you enjoy it here. I know it’s difficult to transition into a place like this, but if you need any help, feel free to ask!”

“Thanks,” Jungkook mutters in response, swallowing after he speaks, and the sound that follows seems so loud that he worries everyone heard it. “My name’s Jungkook. It’s a pleasure to meet you all.”

“Jungkook?” Taehyung’s eyebrows shoot up, and he glances between Jungkook and Namjoon. “Are you the one Y/N was supposed to help earlier this morning? If she was supposed to show you around and stuff, then...where is she?”

“Nurse Irene mentioned an appointment? I’m not quite sure though.” Namjoon folds his arms over his chest then shrugs.

“Appointment?”

“Um, the nurse—Nurse I-Irene—she told Y/N to go to an appointment before she could show me around.”

“No, no, no. That’s not right.” Jungkook draws his lower lip between his teeth, unsure what to say in response to Taehyung’s denial. “No, Y/N wasn’t supposed to have any appointments today. She even asked me yesterday to remind her that it had been moved. It’s supposed to be tomorrow, that’s when it was moved to.”

“Probably a last minute appointment then,” Namjoon reasons.

“She’s been doing well. There shouldn’t be any last minute appointments.”

“You can ask her when you see her later. Now, have you guys seen anyone else around?”

“I saw Chaeyoung go to an appointment,” Eunbi answers, pressing her elbows against the table. “Um, Hyewon was in the entertainment room earlier with Yoongi, but I didn’t see anyone else.”

“Ah, well, I guess you’ll have to do with not meeting everyone yet, Jungkook. You can meet the rest at lunch or dinner if they show up. Sometimes appointments and meetings cut into eating hours.”

“Jungkook, do you want me to show you the room? Since we’ll be roommates, that is? I can show you where it is and which bed is yours, if-if you want.” Taehyung fidgets in his seat and pressed his hands under his legs. Jungkook hesitates, unsure of what to do, but Namjoon nudges him with his elbow as though to encourage him to go along with it.

“S-Sure, yea, sure. That sounds good. I’d like that,” he rambles. His agreement pleases Taehyung though, because the man abandons the plate of crackers in front of him in favor of joining Jungkook in the kitchen and tugging on his arm.

“Cool! The nurses spent most of the morning cleaning it and making it perfect for the new patient, I mean, for you, since you are the new patient. They even woke me up early to start cleaning. I bet they’re almost done by now! Cmon, I’ll show you the way.” Before Taehyung has the chance to pull Jungkook away, the younger shares a glance with Namjoon. 

“I’m gonna chill with Yoongi in the entertainment room for a bit. I’ll be back later to help you out if you need me, Jungkook.”

“Ah, thanks.” 

Jungkook follows Taehyung as best he can without being dragged along, and once they reach another long hallway, Taehyung releases his arm.

“By the way, how old are you? I’d say you seem a bit younger than me, but I’m terrible at guessing age. Most people here are younger than Jimin and me.”

“I’m 20, turning 21 this year.”

“Wow, I was right! You are younger, although not much.” Taehyung links his hands behind his back, nodding as he laughs to himself. “So, since we’re gonna be roommates, we should maybe get to know each other a bit?” Jungkook stops breathing for a moment, fearing the worst out of Taehyung’s inquiries. “What kind of things do you like to do in your free time?” An exhale of relief follows Taehyung’s question, and Jungkook lets a relieved smile cover his lips before answering with a bit more ease to his speech.

“When I was at university, I majored in film studies and had a minor in music. I played lots of intramural sports on the side, anything from swimming to wrestling, just for the hell of it.”

“What a coincidence! I majored in film studies before leaving for treatment.” Taehyung laughs, eyes disappearing behind his eyelids as he grins, and Jungkook can’t help but to laugh back, if only because he’s grateful that he’s found someone similar to him here. “I’m glad we have something in common. That’ll give us lots to talk about whenever we have down time!”

“Yea...I’d like that.”

Taehyung points to his right all the sudden, making an indiscernible noise as he does.

“This is our room! Hehe, “our”, that sounds weird to say. I’ve never had a roommate in all the time that I’ve been here. The nurses are still tidying up, I guess.” Taehyung leads the way into the bedroom that vaguely resembles a hospital room. In fact, Jungkook would be willing to bet that the modeling of the room was taken directly from a hospital, because the layout so closely resembles one now that he stands inside it. “Hey, where’s my bear?” Jungkook quits looking around the room, redirecting his attention towards Taehyung, whose smile has fallen. It takes a moment for him to realize that Taehyung isn’t talking to him but the two nurses near the beds.

“What do you mean, Mr. Kim?” One steps forward, her heels clicking against the floor much like Nurse Irene’s did earlier.

“The bear. My bear. The stuffed bear that I always keep on my bed. It’s from someone important to me. I know it was there before I left the room earlier. I checked fifteen times, because I had to keep resituating him!” Taehyung’s voice climbs in volume, and Jungkook recognizes the descent into panic as his chest begins to rise and fall with accelerating speed.

“I don’t recall seeing it,” the other nurse explains, keeping his voice at a steady medium in the face of Taehyung’s loud one. “We might’ve taken it when we stripped the beds and cleaned them. It might be in the laundry room.”

“No!” Taehyung steps forward, about to get in the face of the male nurse. “You have to find it now! Immediately! You have to!”

“Mr. Kim, please—”

“Please, it’s important and special and I need it. I need it. I have to have it.”

“I understand that, Mr. Kim, but I need you to listen to me right now. Let’s calm down a bit first, okay?”

“No. Nope. Not happening. I am not calming down!” Taehyung pushes the nurse to the side, hands gripping the sheets on the bed in front of him. “You did this wrong too! This isn’t how I do my sheets. I told you before how I like to have my sheets!” He tugs at the white fabric, yanking and pulling in attempts to tear it off the mattress, clueless to the people around him.

“We put everything together in the order that you like and followed your instructions when doing so. It’s all put together the way you like.”

“It’s not. I would know. And you lost the most important thing!” Taehyung releases the sheets to grip his chestnut brown hair instead, tugging at the wavy strands with enough force that Jungkook thinks he might start ripping chunks out. A mirror, just like a mirror.

“Mr. Kim, did you take your pills this morning?

“No, because things weren’t in the right order. I have to take them with the yogurt at the end of my meal, but no one brought yogurt this morning. It makes me antsy, and I can’t take them if it doesn’t follow that order.”

“I understand, Mr. Kim, I understand. Why don’t we go get your pills and some yogurt, have a small meal and talk, then we can go look for your bear? Does that sound good?” Taehyung drops his hands to his side but keeps clenching his fists over and over. Is this some sort of sick joke? Why would they pair the two of us if not for that reason? Of course, one good step forward means ten bad steps back.

“Okay, okay. Yea, I need to calm down and clear my head. Need things to make sense again.” Taehyung swallows roughly, squeezing his eyes shut but they no longer resemble the soft crescent Jungkook noticed when he smiled earlier. The male nurse directs Taehyung out of the room, not acknowledging Jungkook in the slightest. Taehyung doesn’t do anything either, which leaves Jungkook with a bad taste in the back of his mouth and alone in a room with another stranger. The female nurse starts working straight away on fixing the mess Taehyung made of his bed and strips it to the mattress before beginning again. She must notice Jungkook standing by the door in silence, because she speaks to him in a quiet, even tone.

“Your bed will be the one closest to the window. Please know that Mr. Kim might be a bit difficult to live with for a few days, at least until you get to understand him better. We didn’t have another room for you to stay in, Mr. Jeon. This was the best choice.” 

Jungkook doesn’t move an inch until the nurse finishes making the bed and walks out the room. Once he is truly alone for the first time, he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from breaking down. 

Bag hits the floor with a resounding thud. 

Springs creak as he sits on the mattress.

Stiff, sterile scent of fresh linen in the air.

And nothing else.

He blinks at the empty bed across from him, a few wrinkles still visible from where Taehyung tried to tear them off. The speed at which Taehyung flipped from calm to panicked scares Jungkook a bit, despite the fact that he has seen similar things in the wards and clinics he stayed at before. The sight of brightness leaving Taehyung’s eyes and being replaced by something else was new though. Jungkook didn’t spend any time trying to get close to anyone in previous wards, stayed to himself as much as he could aside from group sessions. Taehyung wore a kindness and softness that Jungkook didn’t recognize, but the character that came after the switch flipped was something all too familiar to him.

...

written by: moonlightlino

p.s. i am very curious as to what you think each person has in terms of disorders, if you have any idea thus far! i really only insinuated it with three or four people, but i'm very curious about what you guys think so let me know below! ~(￣▽￣)~*

consider sending me a ko-fi!!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

[financialsecrets]

Baby Boomers Making Money Online

Hello GmaKelly here with you again!

Today we're going to talk about Baby Boomers and how they Make Money Online Baby Boomers If you were born between the years 1946-1964, Congratulations, your a Baby Boomer! According the National Census, Baby Boomers make up approximately 21% of the population. By the year 2030 all Baby Boomers will be over 65. Social Security says you can retire at 62 years of age and collect 70% of your benefit, prorated monthly up till you reach age 67 and receive 100%. And 40% of Boomers plan to “work until I drop” according to an AARP survey. Baby Boomers came to be during a time when we had just came out of a deep economic depression, WWII just ended. Men were coming home to wives, that for the first time in history, had worked outside their own homes. Do to these factors the mentality of Baby Boomers is softer and calmer They previous generations where men singularly ruled their homes. They came with a new outlook on life: - Value independence - Being part of the community was important - They sought health and wellness in new ways. - They worked hard to provide a future for their families - They bought businesses and homes. - Confident in all they do. - Sought a more pleasant way to communicate. - They adapt to change - They have the "we can do it" mentality - Goal oriented and successful With these skills are already in place, Making Money Online comes natural to the Baby Boomer Generation. They rise of remote opportunities make Working From Home even more appealing. While they have worked for years in a closed in office, or even worse a "cubicle", they long to be able to provide a good life for their families, while still having the luxury of spending time with loved ones.

8 Opportunities for Baby Boomers to Make Money Online - Many baby boomers are using their skills and expertise to work as freelancers, offering services such as writing, consulting, and graphic design. - With the rise of online education, baby boomers with teaching experience are finding opportunities to tutor students remotely. - Many companies offer paid online surveys, which can be a simple and flexible way to earn extra income. - Baby boomers are starting online businesses, selling products such as handmade crafts or vintage items. - By promoting products on their blogs or social media channels, baby boomers can earn commission on sales made through their referral links in Affiliate Marketing. - Sell products (yours or someone else's) online through e-commerce platforms such as Etsy, Amazon or Shopify . - Baby boomers with financial expertise can work remotely as bookkeepers or accountants - Many companies are hiring customer service associates to work from home, which can be a flexible and accessible job for older adults. There are many opportunities for people to Make Money Online. They Baby Boomers are learning alongside the rest of us about how the internet can be monetized. They were taught and/or trained by their employers to provide value to the work and provide assistance where possible. So Online Marketing should be a breeze for them. Final Thoughts Baby Boomers, being over 21% of the population, are already heavily involved in Making Money Online. With Age and Experience they may have quite a head start on the rest of us. I bet they don't struggle to find a "niche" lol. They have lists already made up in the back of their minds just waiting for a chance to explore it. In short, you don't have to "work till you drop". Welcome Baby Boomers to Affiliate Marketing. Thank you for sharing your time with me today. Have a super great day! GmaKelly Read the full article