#and only one month to fix a bunch of things that could literally change my future

[stardust41]

. TW PERSONAL VENT!!!

(Because i cant talk to anyone about this rn)

[konigs-left-pec]

Scent

A/N: I unfortunately had to start my blog over due to a bunch of stupid things I couldn't fix, so I'm reposting the only two fics I've ever posted (including this, my first ever smut.) Please give me your feedback so I'll know if it's shite. Thank you, babes! ❤️

Rating: E/MDNI. (Breeding kink.)

Summary: Despite having been intimate with you for some time, König notices something different about you and it's absolutely irresistible.

"Oh, schei��e... that's it."

You perked up at the way he rasped those words against the seam of your cunt, distracting you from the way you were aching for his fingers or cock, positively soaked and waiting for him to do something. Anything. You were always ravenously horny at this point in your cycle so this wasn't unusual for you, but his reaction despite still being fully clothed and literally just getting into bed with you was.

"You smell so good. I just-" you heard the clinking of his belt, felt his hands moving against your belly and thighs as he pushed inelegantly at his pants and boxers, "Fuck..." In a fit of possession, rough hands grabbed behind your knees, pressing them back to your chest and pushing the air from your lungs as he dove in straight at the source. He licked and sucked from your clit to your entrance like it was life-saving nectar, the sweetest ambrosia, filling his lungs with your scent as his nose bumped against you, the little hits of sensation lancing up your spine and making you squirm and arch against the bed.

"König, it just means I'm fertile." You said matter-of-factly, a throwaway comment as you stretched with an airy sigh, spreading your legs wider and dragging your nails gently over his neck and shoulders, wishing he'd just get to fucking you. He sat up and wiped your slick from his chin in a way that made your core twitch.

"Ach! I've been trying to figure it out for months." One thick digit pressed into your heat quickly followed by a second, causing you to gasp. You were so wet and so ready it felt like honey pooling in your slit, causing your bones to itch with anticipation.

"Will you let me fuck a baby into you?" He asked suddenly, seriously as his fingers kept on sawing into you, your hips churning slowly in counter. Had you heard him right? His eyes were glued to where his fingers plunged in and out, his other hand pressing down on his hard cock. He looked up at you pleadingly, withdrawing his hand only to place those sticky fingers in his mouth and suck, leaning fully over you.

"You will be so beautiful when you're full with my child, Y/N -" he said it like it hurt, a private confession pulled into the light to be judged. He pressed into you, heavy cock slipping finally through your sopping folds to repeatedly, blessedly bump against your neglected clit, "Bitte, mein liebling."

You had barely said yes before he'd made his first thrust, thick length parting your gummy walls as you threw your head back, hissing out a breath and clutching his shoulders as he rocked deeper and deeper into your aching clasp. He was desperately kissing you, all teeth and tongue as he licked into your mouth like he could steal your affirmation before you changed your mind. Honestly, your mind was pretty useless with the way he was groaning and fucking into you; each thrust deeper than the last, a jolt of pleasure pain on each ingress that burned out your senses and had you bearing down on his cock as you inched closer to your end.

"Touch yourself." Came his strained command, his rhythm faltering and pace slowing slightly as he breathed heavily through his nose, jaw tight as he reined himself back from the edge. Lazy thrusts lit up your belly as you quickly reached between your bodies to swirl your fingers over your clit, overcome with images of a pregnancy and your King with a babe in his arms, a babe with your hair and his eyes...

"m'close, so close, König... please..."

He all but whimpered against your neck, licking a hot stripe up the column to purr into your ear, "Give it to me, mein schatz." He picked up the pace, pressing into something devastating inside you that had you keening, twitching and pulsing around him as you hit your high, gasping into his mouth as he spent himself with a painful sounding groan. He thrust lazily a few more moments, drawing out the aftershocks and making sure his seed stayed where you both wanted it to be. He gently rested above you, holding his weight off of you as he began to soften; he studied you as you recovered, gentle puffs against your cheek and dark eyes set on your flushed face as he hoped you wouldn't regret this.

"You know..." you pressed a sweet kiss to the apple of his cheek, ruffling the damp hair at the nape of his neck, "it doesn't always take the first time."

"I guess we'll have to keep trying, ja?" He chuckled, clearly relieved as he withdrew from your body, drawing you close and lovingly pressing a hand over your belly where he hoped to take root and make his home.

[wutheringmights]

Anyone ask for the commentary yet for the latest chapter >:3 *dies*

You’d be the first!

So this chapter is cursed. Let’s talk about that first. 

You probably noticed that my writing output has been in the gutter this year. I have not written half as much as I should have. There are two main reasons why. The first is that I finally decided to get off my ass and have a more enriching personal life. This means a lot more of my evenings and weekends have been spent exploring other hobbies or taking weekend trips. I don’t regret any of those, and they have really improved my life overall (but I do write more when I am a sad little shut-in).

The second, more pressing reason was that there was a very important wedding I was the maid of honor for. That means I have spent a lot of my free time this year planning a bachelorette, a bridal shower, and helping with general wedding prep. I honestly was not nearly as busy as an expert maid of honor would have been, but all of this took up so much of my brain space that I was having trouble being creative. Multiple times, I would go to a coffee shop with plans to write, only to spend the entire time stressing about buying a new dress or researching hotels. 

I did not realize how stressed I was about this whole thing until literally this week. The wedding is over now, and I am already biting huge chunks into the upcoming chapter. I just have so much more brain space to write. I feel free. 

All that’s to say that this chapter was primarily written the month leading up to the wedding, and my head was Not There. I was struggling to figure the chapter out, and that struggle is reflected in the quality of the prose. For that, I apologize, as inevitable as it was. 

I won’t make any major revision to this chapter, but I have plans to redo my proof-reading. There is an egregious number of typos in this chapter, more than I consider acceptable for a one person team of me. 

(That being said, my typos have gotten worse this past year; ever since AI was integrated into Grammarly and Google Docs, both have been godawful for helping me fix errors. I appreciate how lenient you all have been with my most blatant mistakes.) 

Now that all of that is established, let’s talk about this chapter.

This introduction to Proxi is really, really bad. I am frankly a little embarrassed that I went ahead and published it. While I had a vision for the first few scenes of Link trying to help Proxi and Jakucho’s aid afterwards, I didn’t realize until the day of writing that I actually had 0 plans for how Warriors and Proxi’s first conversation would go. 

I am not even joking. I have a bunch of plans for their interactions together afterwards (which will appear next chapter). But their first conversation once Proxi started to get better? None. 

So what little they talked together here feels like a waste of space. What’s worse, I don’t even know what I would change the dialogue to in order to fix it. My brain is blank. I don’t know.  It’ll probably hit me in a few weeks. This is the trouble with publishing what is essentially the first draft of a story. If my initial ideas are solid, it’s great. But when my brain farts, I’m screwed.

That being said, my favorite part of the past section is that first half where Link frets over how to help Proxi, as well as Jakucho’s speech about the fairies disappearing. 

I have been trying to subtly establish this era of Hyrule as being one that is shocking devoid of magic; having Jakucho mourn the loss of fairies and what omen that could mean feels like I am ruining things. Nonetheless, I just really like the idea of Jakucho having this small moment of wonder over seeing a fairy, as well as her verbalizing these fears that darker times are ahead. 

I think I just enjoy reading about older people having the same anxieties about the world as younger people. It’s more comforting to me than an all-knowing mentor. 

So this chapter has a lot of random names splattered all over the place. Me being me, I stole some of the names from other media and such I enjoy. I’ll point out any fun connections as I find them. 

So for Proxi’s list of names for Link, there’s two of note. The first is Grimshaw, which is the name of the male lead from Lightlark. Despite how much I talk about Fourth Wing on this blog, Lightlark is the bad book I am truly passionate about. 

The second is Wen-li, which is for Yang Wen-li from Legend of the Galactic Heroes. He’s the character of all time for me, and I will go insane if I think about him for too long.

This Proxi section was supposed to go on a little longer, but by the time it came to write it, I was 100% over this chapter. Luckily, next chapter will be a fresh slate and I can finally deliver on all my promises about Proxi’s return. 

I cannot emphasize enough how frustrating it is to know that I fucked up an important character’s return. It’s... sigh. C’est la vie. Whatever. 

Onto the present day:

So I have a particular problem with the present day section. The last chapter, this chapter, and the one I am writing now are all the same plot point in my outline. I severely underestimated how long the lead up to a Very Important Event was going to be. No doubt, I have probably made similar mistakes before. But I am trying to finish this story, so any time I have to draw out the pacing, I die a little on the inside.

I think I initially planned to just skim over how Warriors got to the castle, but then I realized that this was the politics stuff that is the supposed bread and butter of the story. But the reason why I wanted to skim over everything was (as Legend pointed out) fucking networking.

What’s worse, I got to this chapter and realized that, realistically, Warriors should have to spend at least a few months building up a cult of personality. This should be a (purposeful) multi-chapter arc. I don’t want to do that, so I tried to really emphasize how much Warriors was using his reputation as the hero and legends surrounding it to his advantage. Does it still feel unrealistic? Yeah, but we’re just going to have to cope with it. 

Sevas is named for the male lead in Ava Reid’s Juniper & Thorn, which was sitting on my desk when I realized the priest needed a name. 

Colonel Remarque is named for Erich Remarque, author of All Quiet On the Western Front. I think I had made a post name-dropping him around the time I got to this character.

Matthew Thorn... again, Thorn is for Reid’s book. Matthew was just the most bland name I could think of. 

Vlad Dubarry... so I was watching both Castlevania and Rose of Versailles and took the first and surname from both respectively. 

Between the conversation with the priest, the provost office, and Remarque, I was trying to give out a few more details every time to paint a clear picture without boring the reader by reiterating information over and over again. Unfortunately, I still managed to write three pretty boring scenes. 

That being said, I think the friction Remarque offered was interesting to write, even if I had to resist pointing out every single plot hole during it. 

So everything from the castle to Spirit being poisoned took me the longest to write. I knew it was boring, but I could not figure out a way to make it more exciting without omitting the networking stuff entirely. I didn’t really hit a stride with this chapter until I got to Spirit being poisoned. 

The entire time Spirit was being poisoned, I was rubbing my hands together maniacally. I have been searching for a good moment to have a true poisoning in this story and I finally got it. 

Also, I think if this chapter was of higher quality, someone out there would have realized that, for purely medical reasons, Hyrule had to technically give Spirit and smooch on the lips. There should be at least two very silly memes about this. But, alas. The quality.

You can tell I ran into the realization that, realistically, the Royal Guard’s structure would be more complex than I have alluded to previously. Very importantly, you can tell I realized that I should have mentioned the King’s Guard sooner if they were really going to be this powerful subsection of the Royal Guard.

I actually like how the idea that the King’s Guard is only super powerful in matters relating to the king, aka: Castle Town, and is pretty insignificant otherwise. The bureaucratic bullshit that must cause feels very real. But you can tell that I have no idea what rank that would make Endicott. I have been bending over backwards to not state that man’s ranking. 

That being said, his absence from Warriors’s social circle until now is kinda important. Put a pin in that. It will come back.

Also, Endicott is a name I stole from Over the Garden Wall. I picked it because it sounds like the name of someone important. I picked Roald at randomed.

I am really happy that a lot of you have been enjoying the growing distrust the Chain has for Spirit. Insert rant about how victims have to remain palatable in order to be emphasized with, and how tragic it is that the only person who seems to understand that is the person who traumatized him in the first place. 

I feel like I have been fumbling Time’s character a bit, and his conversation at the floor of Spirit’s bed is me finally getting back on track with him. I enjoyed writing that so much, from him trying to fold the scarf to him being upset that no one has learned their lesson yet, all while still not learning a lesson himself. 

There was going to be a comment somewhere that Spirit is in such bad shape in part because his lungs are weak from all that smoking he does, but I honestly don’t know if anyone but Spirit would make that connection. 

I also need to put Legend and Midna together more. They can be so snarky, and I want them to keep a running commentary of Warriors and Spirit’s bullshit like they are two sports announcers watching a football game.

I first imagined Spirit and Warriors’s conversation taking place on the parapet, and came to the same realization about the ladders that Spirit had. I’m glad I put them by the moat, though. The bit about the smell is probably my favorite bit of prose in the chapter. 

I also really like this conversation between Spirit and Warriors. It’s not as insanity inducing as their past bullshit has been, but it hits a few notes. I like Warriors showing off how much he understands Spirit’s abilities (via the jacket), as well as Spirit’s utter disbelief that Warriors is capable of caring for anyone but himself. 

I was also trying really hard to put more of their bullshit into subtext. I have a bad habit of having characters just state what they are feeling out loud, so I am trying to write more coded dialogue. It’s never just about a toaster, etc. 

Warriors was also having such a night of self-discovery. First he had a little moment to freak out about how much his sincere attempts to help sound like manipulation. Then he realized that he would probably never be fully exonerated from his past. Big night for him.

Being unable to fully fix your past is part of the reason why I buffer against the idea of Warriors having a redemption arc. That implies a certain amount of undoing that is just not possible. I don’t know if I am putting that well. However, I am concerned that I am letting my Catholic upbringing color my perspective.

That being said, if Catholicism was a thing in Hyrule, Warriors would be that and be plagued by Catholic Guilt

He’s Catholic coded.

Irish Catholic, to be specific. There’s a difference. 

Anyway, Four. When Four showed up, I was going to have this bit of dialogue where Spirit would allude to knowing about Vio (and therefore, Four) having a relationship with Shadow. It would have been nestled in a larger, coded bit of dialogue where Four would obliquely imply that he was starting to suspect what the Hot Mess is. I cut it because A) Spirit is so socially inept that he cannot do subtly like that, and B) Spirit’s spirit senses would not give him the ability to know about Shadow. 

I also did not want to commit to Four figuring it out first, if at all. 

I have so many ideas about what Warriors the Symbol means to the people of Castle Town that I will hopefully be able to elaborate on in this upcoming chapter.

Realistically, Hyrule Castle should probably be more like a fortress. But again, I have been watching The Rose of Versailles, and I just really liked the idea of the castle being this symbol of opulence during a time of poor economics. The people are struggling but the nobles are thriving, babes. 

Also, Endicott is so much fun to write. He’s like the true antagonistic version of Lincoln. That man was enjoying making Warriors squirm, and I was having a blast writing it. The sexual favors line? I was utterly delighted. 

Realistically, Endicott probably could have been replaced with Whitestone. However, Whitestone is still on the front and I don’t regret putting him there to be Wind’s superior during his short stint as a soldier. (Even if I still think I could have cut out Whitestone in favor of giving Impa more to do.)

I also feel bad for killing Meemaw off so suddenly, but I was enchanted by the idea of her name having to be crossed off because the death was that  recent. 

I also was going to have Endicott spare Warriors for unknown reasons, with the reveal that Ganondorf had been bribing him coming later in the story, However, I was so worried about this seeming too-easy for Warriors that I decided to reveal that detail early. 

Okay, King of Hyrule stuff.

I’m trying to play at this idea of Zelda’s reputation not matching her actual role. Earlier in the story, Warriors describes her as a socialite with no political sense, and Zelda derisively thinks that of herself as well. Then that bit about her being the face of the kingdom is supposed to contradict that perception. She can’t just be a socialite if she had been the mouthpiece of the king since she was a child. 

There’s supposed to be multiple mistakes going on here: Warriors assuming the worst of Zelda, a sexist perception of Zelda by society as a whole, and Zelda feeling worthless because she knows she’s just a symbol. Not sure if I conveyed any of that well. 

Reuenthal’s dementia was caused in part by a stroke, but he also has a condition called prosopometamorphopsia, which is a form of face blindness where faces become distorted the longer you look at them. 

Fun fact is that I generally knew that there was some kind of condition that had made Reuenthal isolate from other people, but I did not pick prosopometamorphopsia until I read this article from the New Yorker. I won’t go as far as to say that I wrote an accurate version of the disorder; I definitely played up the emotional distress it causes for dramatic effect. That is probably problematic, so please do not trust this story as a definitive source on it. 

This also went unsaid in the story, but I imagine that because every daughter in the royal family is named Zelda, they probably go more by their middle names. I almost named dropped one of her sisters as Zelda Artemis, just to be mean.

The last line “A week later, everything went to hell” is, admittedly, very silly. I had a whole section describing what that meant written, but it seriously sucked. I am in the process of rewriting it now, and it’s already so much better. Plus, now that I have another chapter to hit these plot points, I can explore a more daring version of my original idea. Very excited for it. 

That being said, I would 100% cut off that last line and probably improve the chapter by 3%.

And that’s the chapter! Again, I am so sorry that it was such substandard quality. I promise that the next chapter will be better. 

In other news, can I get your opinion on something. Ever since polls came out, I have wanted to do a little census poll on how many people know about CTB, read it, or choose to read it. Just to gage how big the actual audience is. 

On one hand, I think it would be interesting. On the other, it’s a practice in vanity that is very antithetical to how hard I try to be nonchalant about everything. I don’t know. Let me know what you think. 

[juchily]

isekai fix-it au part 1

A/n: switches from third to first person, all gender friendly (no pronouns) but presumed fem because reader joins the team, other than that all people friendly (unless you don't like Chappell Roan's music and hate the idea of being born in Chicago to the point you won't read something where its just like that...), angst at the end, a lot of existential philosophical thoughts

Sorry, but if *I* got sent into the 1990s I would literally steal Femininomenon because that shit is gasssss this is the only pop song I can have on repeat forever not even Joyride compares i fear

One second reader was in their home town of Chicago at the Lollapalooza Chappell Roan set, circa, and next thing they know they're in an oddly highly populated mall listening to the low hum Madonna through upheld speakers

Odd, very much odd. What's odder, they think they might have just seen their favorite sapphic cannibalistic TV show protags

The spritz of water coming from the water fountain in front of them lowers with the pressure of the nice looking decoration and, yep, that looks like the shaggy bleached wolf-cut of Natalie "something catholic middle name" Scatorccio

Oh my fucking god. That's defiantly the constantly mewing face of Sophie Thatcher. *Wow*. They quickly ask themselves in their noggin, 'what harm would it be if I *just* asked if they were friends of dorothy...?' feeling the silent creep of desperation creep up in their warming with flush hands

oh God, they must be staring—

wait they have so many questions, first of all, what's going on?! Is this real? Would real mean canon compliant? What's even going on, are they dreaming? Are they hallucinating? Is life a simulation and it got fucked up to finally failed and Yellowjackets is reality??? To much thoughts, too little time— if this is in any way real, do this mean Lottie 's hallucination was based off of this?

They can't confirm at all since they have half the head to look away, what could be worse than to have the very real looking Yellowjackets look at *you* as if you're a weird starer and not an omniscient not-god?

You smell some fresh ass Auntie Anne's and your stomach rumbles from the shitty concert food you bagged in... your world (would be the term I guess) but then you think more about it and realize your money and pocket change are probably dated for a date that has yet to happen which will definitely bring up some questions and problems with getting the pretzels.

After the initial excitement they sort of wander around Wiskayok, it's far different than Chicago, although you figure that's because it's in the northern part of New Jersey, the south side is probably the more Chicago-ee part

Really it was just a bunch of walking, you explored the very much fictional but now real Wiskayok, and really it left you with a lot of time to ponder (read: overthink)

By nightfall you were, yes you guessed right, still in this damn town, and you were starting to get worried about not returning home, because you don't know what's going on, but if we humour the situation as an isekai, does time work the same? If you spend a day here does it equal two years in your world?

You could feel yourself getting a headache at the thought(s), you she already wandered around the overwhelmingly small town and checked out the school at a reasonable distance, you think you spotted the trailer park where Van and Nat live

You settle in the library for a bit, thinking 'fuck it, I don't have anything better to do, maybe I can get some sort of idea about what's really going on', and next thing you know you're looking at a calendar reading February 3rd, 1997. Yeah, very much not 2024...

But this peaks your interest, obviously the crash hasn't happened since you saw the girls together eating Chinese food at the mall, but you're here about four or five months before the plane crashed. And a little seedling sprouts in your little head

But still, nighttime fully arised and you were locked out of the library. And you don't exactly know where to go, it's not like you have a place to go. So you find a nice bench near a fairly shaggy side of the town— cracked, chipped sidewalks, weeds growing out of the sides and heeps of uneven dirt and stray cigarette butts littering the crevice where the sidewalk and the grass (if you could even call it that) meet, and you can distantly see the trailer park about a block or two down to the left– huddling up in a bean against the shitty metal arm

Hey bright side, at least you're sleeping on a bench during an age where they didn't sleep proof/devoid benches of their damn purpose

Of course unbeknownst to you in your shitty but albeit deep sleep, a certain red head on her way home in her worn green pickup truck driving home from a hookup with a certain curly haired girl noticed you, just a glance and yeah, okay young homeless person on that bench

When you woke up, you found yourself with a sore back met with pollen straight to the nose. Very much not your time

Okay... Well there's no way this is real right?

And so for two more days you wandered around town, slept on the bench, scrambled quick scraps of food either from the local food bank, one of the various churches, or by doing an odd job for a diner

And then it sort of settled in on you. Is this *permanent?* Uh... What the fuck are you supposed to do? This feels *very* real

You don't really know what else to do, at some point you happen to take a walk and pass by the school right when soccer practice is happening, and you have to say that no TV screen could compare to the sight

I mean, you didn't really have much going for you back 'home' so to say, no partner, no job, no hobbies you actually stuck to, no sports, nada zilch zam, it was school, go home, and sleep. That was your routine

So with a sign you figured if this might be long term you should try and conjure up a fake identity and apply to the school, which wouldn't be the easiest thing to do, but what's the harm in it? At least then you have something to do

About a dozen and a half library books later and a few very interesting conversations you were applying to Wiskayok Public School under the guisse of being a foreign exchange student (God bless your basic French and/or Spanish skills), telling them that your papers had yet to come in and switch to the American database (suspend your disbelief, damnit)

And so you found yourself taking Calculus again despite having that in the real world during your first semester, so you did well

But anyways, you had a class with aforementioned redhead. So Van was most interested when the homeless person is suddenly in the school, more so that they're a foreign exchange student

Even more weird, apparently Taissa (her hookup who Van of course is starting to have more than just hookup feelings for), saw the same damn homeless person with a pile of books at the library. Soccer, survival, psychology, health and wellness, the Dutch Famine of WW2 for some reason? So wow, they must have so many hobbies!

More interestingly so was when this same person (still sleeping on that bench as far as Van is sure) is applying for tryouts on the team. Late. Like, months late. But, with a hot headed attitude and determination, and surprisingly quick thinking skills with both their head and feet, they managed to impress the coach.

States comes around and for *some* reason this homeless person (to Van that is, no one else knows they're technically homeless) is... bombing? No one wants to accuse them of intentionally trying to make the team lose (besides maybe Tai...) but like... They slide tackled Jackie when she had the ball?

And sure one of the opposing team were close too, maybe they just overshot trying to go for the opposing player, but they've seen you play better than that.

Things happen and at some point you get benched by Coach Martinez and you have the absolutely worse panic attack of your life, you don't know what to do, you planned to just make the team lose states so that they never board the plane in the first place

But what are you supposed to do benched? And so you can't bring yourself to watch on the bench, walking to the locker rooms with tunnel vision and a bp that borderlines the beginning of hypertension.

You slide down against your locker that's in the corner of the room, knees to your chest and arms wrapping around your head as you try to stabilize your breath and shaky thoughts.

What now, what do you do? This is permanent is it not? Are you ever going home?

Your heart is beating up your spine, you can feel it in your chest, your throat, your head and it feels like your skull will split in two and you just want to scream and shout because what can you do now?

Do you go on that plane? Do you suffer too? What do you do? What can you do what can you do what can you do?

You put this pressure on yourself in the first place and yet you can't relieve it. Tears of frustration and horror fill your eyes and your body shakes with silent, utmost quiet sobs that make no sound but shake your shoulders.

And you hear the cheering outside and you know the Yellowjackets won.

Maybe you should have just busted Jackie's kneecaps so she couldn't play

But then maybe Shauna would have taken over and made the winning goal.

Or Taissa would have tackled a player on the opposing team and stolen the ball and made a pass to Nat so she could make the winning goal.

To many questions, too many variables, infinite situations. It's not something a finite being can predict or control.

You wipe your eyes, pulling your way out of the locker rooms to sneak away before they come into the locker room.

@kings-paintbrush @rougeclasslover @acidthecorvid

[moony-2001]

How I would’ve constructed the 10 year time skip

✨Brought to you by my deep loathing for Lore Olympus✨

•warnings: super long post (I’m not joking), death, kidnapping, violence•

What The Fuck Happened

There was so much potential for the punishment arc. We could’ve seen a lot of character development, fleshed out storylines, reconciliation between certain people. We could’ve seen both Hades and Persephone going to therapy instead of claiming that one therapy session has fixed all their problems and then never going again.

Instead we got horny Persephone, pretty much no clue about what happened to Demeter OR Persephone during that time, and an easy plot device (sorry Cerberus) for Persephone to be like “I’m a big girl now harrumph harrumph, time for me to go reunite with my crusty ass bf who I’ve only know for a month”.

I hate the way she reunited with Ares. Ares is just a bonafide creep throughout the whole comic (although I liked when he attacked Zeus lol). I guess what I mostly hate about Ares and Persephone’s interaction is, yet again, it’s another example of every guy in the comic going AWOOGA over Persephone. Also Athena’s design is so fugly. I guess Rachel is completely incapable of drawing masculine presenting women as actual women.

The whole Kronos plot line is stupid. I hate it so much. Imo the whole “the titans are trying to escape so they can rule Olympus again” is overdone and not particularly done well. The fight between Kronos and Persephone is lame as shit. Like what, she gets big for all of 20 minutes, burps out a bunch of bees (which aren’t even aggressive creatures), and then does her version of the Wuxi Finger Hold from Kung Fu Panda and has Tartarus spirit Kronos away, magically fixing all of their problems (except it doesn’t and nothing is actually fixed).

Also I might get a lot of flack for this, but I don’t think the addition of Morpheus’ character was necessary. I like Morpheus. I think she’s cute. But she’s a) slowly turning into another version of Hecate and b) not really vital to the narrative imo. We already have so many other characters and plot lines that take away from the central “romance” the story is SUPPOSED to be focused on. I just don’t think we need ANOTHER character whose arc is probably not going to go anywhere.

So yeah, overall very L writing, L plot, and L characters.

What I would do differently

The first thing I would change is that the whole punishment arc would be an entire season unto itself. You’ll see why it has to be a separate season.

The second thing is (and this literally pains me to say) in order for me to rewrite this portion of LO without rewriting the entire comic, I kinda sorta have to throw the entire timeline of Greece out the window. If I try to follow a timeline based on the history of Greece, the entire timeline of LO has to shift massively. I’m already getting a migraine trying to think about how I could possibly make it work.

I do know this: Instead of 10 years I’d do somewhere between 1,000-3,000 years. 10 years is a joke. When you’re a god, 10 years is a trip to the time out corner

For now, let’s just say (assuming LO takes place in the Ancient Greece era) and Ancient Greece spanned ~1500 years, Persephone’s punishment would’ve needed to have been established near the very end of the collapse of the Late Bronze Age, spanned the entirety of Ancient Greece as we know it today, and ended some time in the very early Byzantine era. So like what, 1500-2000 years? Fine. I can work with this.

The Famine

You know how the first 400 years of Ancient Greece was deemed the “Dark Ages” and it was a time of war, famine, and loss? I want to start the punishment there. It would make sense for what we know about the characters thus far:

Demeter has had complete control over the growth of the flora and fauna on earth. She’s the goddess of the harvest after all. But we also find out that while Persephone has been in Olympus, Demeter has also been carrying out her duties as the goddess of spring. Plus Demeter has been around for forever and a day. She knows what she’s doing

Persephone doesn’t (at this point in the comic) really have control over her powers. Even in her fits of rage, she ends up doing more harm than good (i.e. her act of wrath, turning Minthe into a plant, etc.). In comparison with everyone around her, she is a literal infant. I mean shit, she’s only been alive for 20 years compared to the fact that everyone else has most likely been around for a minimum of 500 years.

If Demeter is stripped of her status as a goddess (and thus her powers) it would make sense that there would be a lot of death and famine and war over territory/food. Persephone would be left with nothing: no guidebook, no how-to. Of course a lot of people would die while she’s trying to figure her shit out. It could also be a very interesting tactic for psychological warfare on Zeus’ part. Zeus KNOWS Persephone doesn’t know what she’s doing. He knows people will die. And he knows that since life is precious to Persephone (or at least that’s what she claims), it would punish her further.

We can see episodes of Persephone struggling to provide for humanity. We could have real world examples of the affect of famine and depopulation. We would see her struggling with her powers, her mental health. We could get an episode that explains how her hands got destroyed from trying to mimic her mother’s powers. We can see what the fuck happened to Demeter in Attica.

Now obviously things will eventually go on the up and up for Persephone and her compatriots. The whole 1500-2000 years isn’t just going to be one big clusterfuck. As time progresses and chapters pass, we could see real character growth for Persephone not just mentally, but in almost every aspect. Since she will have been alive at that point for over 1000 years, the readers would be able to see her newfound maturity. We could also see her build strong female support systems and strengthen her friendships, something we NEVER saw in the OG comic (or at least they never happened without Hades somehow being involved). You get the point.

What’s Old Man Hades up to?

I have big plans for Hades and none of them involve him going into a 1000+ year coma or getting possessed by his creepy-ass dad. He is an asshole though. I kinda wanted to portray him in this the way he is in the original myths (which for those who don’t know or haven’t read it, it’s not good).

So in Greek mythology, Hades actually had a wife before he even met Persephone or Minthe. Can you take a wild guess as to who?

Bingo! It’s Leuce. Contrary to popular belief, Leuce is actually NOT a home-wrecking POC version of Persephone (don’t @ me we all know the nymphs represent the lower class and POC). In mythology, Leuce was Hades’ first wife/lover and she died sometime long ago and I believe was turned into a white poplar tree. No she is not a cousin of Thetis and Amphitrite. She is not even remotely related to them. And Thetis and Amphitrite are sisters, not cousins. Do your fucking research Rachel.

Unfortunately, Greek Mythology doesn’t really mention all that much about Leuce outside of the fact that she was a daughter of Oceanus, she was kidnapped by Hades, and when she died (for unspecified reasons) she turned into a tree. Which means I’m going to be taking a lot of creative liberties for this portion of the post. Sorry to all you diehard fans of Greek myths out there. I shall try to do her justice.

In my head-cannon Hades and Leuce had been in an arranged marriage for thousands of years. Leuce was offered by Oceanus as a peace offering after the War and Hades, not really having any other viable options for a wife, agreed to take her to the underworld (much to her dismay). Over time, they grew to have a mutually loving/caring relationship. Unlike LO Persephone, Leuce was a good queen and she worked hard to make sure the denizens of the underworld respected her and that they were well cared for. Unfortunately, they got divorced because Hades starting having an affair with Minthe. Even though she loved her kingdom and the people of the underworld, she divorced Hades because she couldn’t stand to be around him, which, y’know. Fair.

A few notes: in my head-cannon, Leuce is still around leading up the the trial and punishment. Her portrait would still be up, we would see signs that Hades and Leuce still interact (more in terms of business, not romance), etc.

Also, unlike Persephone, Leuce would not take her anger out on Minthe or turn her into a plant or destroy her apartment. She would simply wish her good luck. She would be mad at Hades for cheating and for taking advantage of Minthe while she’s at her lowest. But I’m going to be straight up: even though Leuce is meant to be the better Persephone, she still has her flaws. She’s not going to feel inclined to help Minthe in any way. Would you want to help out the person who your partner is cheating on you with? The answer is no and if you say yes, you’re lying.

Anyways, during the Punishment, Hades and Leuce reconnect and Hades finds out Leuce is dying. He tries to convince her to leave the underworld and return to her father, but she insists that she is going to stay, even if it means she dies away from everyone she loved. She won’t abandon her kingdom, her people, or her ex-husband (although that’s much better than he deserves). They move in together and Hades begins to take care of her, even as she begins to deteriorate. They also begin to rekindle their past relationship and (with the help of a therapist) work through some of their past problems together.

Note: their relationship rekindles a couple hundred years into the punishment so by the time the punishment ends, they’ve been back together for a minimum of 1200 years

The aftermath and the Rape of Persephone

Before any of you go gaga over me for the title used above, the original title used for the myth is The Rape of Persephone (or if you want to be really original, The Rape of Proserpina). In the context of the title, the term “rape” means to be taken/kidnapped rather than having sexual violence inflicted upon you. Rape stemmed from the traditional Latin word “raptus” which means “to be seized” or “carried off”. Okay? Okay.

So after the Punishment ends and Persephone feels like she has thoroughly improved herself, she goes to find Hades and talk with him about their relationship. Mainly that she feels they rushed into it, and even though she does like him she wants to take things really slow (kind of like how she wanted before getting married 3 episodes later).

Upon arriving to the underworld/Hades house, her worst fears are realized: not only has Hades (seemingly) moved on, he has found someone else. Or rather, he got back together with his ex-wife.

Persephone freaks out (“who is she?”/“I’m his wife!”)

Persephone, throughly upset for getting her hopes up, flees back to mortal realm. Hades goes to leave Leuce, but not before she tells him that if he leaves her for Persephone, she will never forgive him. Hades leaves anyways, much to the absolute despair of Leuce, who is left wailing as he runs off.

Persephone returns home and finds Demeter and they hug. Demeter is initially horrified to see what happened to her hands, but is proud of the work she did during the punishment. Persephone cries to her mother about Hades, and Demeter tries to comfort her but it inadvertently comes off more as “I told you so” rather than “I’m sorry you had to experience that” (although Demeter is sorry that Persephone’s heart is broken). Persephone, already feeling incredibly emotionally distressed, lashes out at Demeter and they start to argue. This is when Hades arrives.

Hades sees Demeter and Persephone arguing and inserts himself into the situation. Persephone becomes more upset after seeing him and Hades (assuming that Persephone is upset about the fact that Demeter is getting in the way of their “relationship” and not the fact that Persephone discovered Hades went back to his ex-wife after saying he loved her) whips out the the “one personal question, no exceptions” card and proposes to Persephone. He insists that he loves her and only her and that they should spend the rest of their immortal lives together.

Persephone says no.

Hades, not taking no for an answer and not wanting to leave the mortal realm empty handed, kidnaps Persephone, much to the dismay of Demeter, Artemis, and the nymphs. Hades returns with a traumatized Persephone to the underworld to find that Leuce has died and turned into a white poplar tree. While Persephone is sobbing on the floor, Hades weaves a mock crown from the branches and leaves of the tree, places it upon Persephone’s head, and tells her she better get used to their life together.

Thus ends the season and the punishment arc.

Afterthoughts

Thank you for sitting through my ramblings. I officially joined the anti-LO community about the time the trial happened and had been wanting to make a post like this for a reaaaaally long time. Besides the fact that the trial in of itself was completely unethical (@genericpuff made a whole post about that) the punishment arc just really pissed me off. Like go girl, give us nothing!

Anyways, I may or may not do a whole timeline reconstruction of LO depending on how much I feel like offing my sanity with the amount of research that would have to go into that. Until then, I hope you like this post and look out for other anti LO posts coming your way :)

[megumi-fm]

26th to 30th Apr; doa🚲 complete!!

hi. gah. okay. here's my wrap up for the month

📝 prepped for and completed the last set of internal tests for this degree [2/2] (which I got through after much cribbing and whining and quite literally projecting study topics onto my blorbos 👍 ) 📝 started GRE prep!

🎓 got some gradecard related paperwork done 🎓 spoke to my prof regarding my internship deliverables for uni—report format, certificate requirements, etc etc

📥 I voted! it was the first central elections since I turned to an adult and the whole experience was quite interesting

💻 completed a bunch of tasks for my internship

💻 made like a super extensive flowchart about all the work done at my internship which took me like a total of 20+ hours T-T 💻 finished preparing my Uni Internship presentation! 💻 submitted the presentation to the assistant guide, waiting on her response to make changes atm

🍶 7+ glasses of daily water intake 🎵 svt's new single is out and I've been going insane about it and thus this challenge comes to an end... I had started this off as an 18day daily habit tracker but then it kind of grew out into a challenge for the month. Special thanks to Yumi the loml <3 (@thelastneuron) for starting the Days of April challenge (Yumi idk when you'll see this but i miss you and I hope you've been kicking ass during your hiatus). also massive thanks to Zip (@zipstidbits) for leaving the kindest comments/tags on my post during the past week and to Tanishka (@booksbluegurl) who is literally the sweetest and has been sending in asks and keeping me company during this challenge <3

there's a lot more i wanna yap about in regards to how the month went but I'll leave that under the tags xD goodnight besties <3

month end brainrot

april started off with dips and more dips but by the end of the month it feels like I've caught up. productivity is a wave so as long as I keep riding at it i'll be okay.

also. progress is cumulative. even the seemingly inconsequential completion of daily tasks has lead to an overall improvement through the week. things add up

I spent a lot of time this month (and moreso this past week) feeling dejected that I've been leaving my tracker posts (and my digital planner entries) incomplete... but like. the whole point of trackers and planners (and this studyblr) is to get work done. work is the priority and the tracking is a means to an end. so if im getting work done that is already a win. yeah... i've had to keep reminding myself that

there is no one-tool-fix for tracking and journalling. what works for planning out one task will not work for the other. I need to strop trying to fit all my plans into one formulaic strategy box

on that note. it's time to return to handwritten journaling. digital journalling (notion + YPT + discord + tumblr) was fun while it lasted <3 but my brain needs novelty again so it's time i switch back. I think I finally have an idea for a system that could be sustainable for me... although I say that every time I switch to a new form of tracking. but hey. as long as it helps me get work done for whatever duration of time, it's good enough

using kpop and kdrama references to make notes and study really paid off. ngl I only did it cause I was super desperate but incorporating stuff I couldn't understand with a topic I really like paid off. It also gave me the motivation and momentum to study for much longer than I otherwise would have

last but not least. my water intake has been really good this month! I've also been eating healthy and I've been cooking more my phone usage has also been reduced by a lot. sure none of them have had a perfect streak but i started at zero and it feels like I've levelled up quite a bit. the exercise component has been a bit difficult to maintain given my workload :/ i need to figure out what to do about that...

yep. that's it for now. this month really tired me out, I think im gonna lay off daily challenges for a while. For now I guess I'll stick to my (bi?tri?)weekly tracker posts xD

[thunderheadfred]

Im sick and crabby and don’t have a healthier outlet so I’m gonna a rant about a bunch of random shit okay? Cool

The world

Do I have to? It’s horrible. Every day it’s more horrible

Why is America like this

Why are all these powerful despots doing the shit they are doing

Why are literal children being exploded

Why is the earth on fire

Just stop

I think about Jesus a lot

Like a lot a lot

I’m not Christian but sometimes you just gotta think about Jesus

The fact that we gotta just like… do the day to day rigmarole despite the global panopticon broadcasting suffering directly into our consciousness, to the point that if you don’t take up volunteering or meditation or healthy religion or radical love you will in fact go insane

How do we fix it? Without becoming what we fight against

Jesus Jesus Jesus

Anyway. Breastfeeding

It’s ironic because I was so afraid of breastfeeding triggering body dysphoria. It’s triggered a lot of things, but not that

We have a bad latch, and I underproduce milk, probably because of my CFS

So whenever I try to breastfeed her, she ends up miserable and crying in a way you can only understand if you’ve been in this exact situation, and it feels like I am holding a knife and stabbing my own heart again and again

Because I can’t breast feed exclusively, we feed 50/50 formula and pumped breast milk, and she’s perfectly healthy and so so so happy, but I still feel like an axe murdering psychopath

These days I pretty much don’t directly breast feed her at all, and if you’d asked me before baby, I’d have thought that would be ideal. But no. I just feel guilt.

WHY DOES IT MAKE YOU SO SWEATY?? No one warned me about this, but apparently everyone gets postpartum sweats for like. months and months. it's so gross. I'm just moist. damp. wet. all the time. I thought I was going insane but no. it's just another one of those Pregnancy Things. thanks body

Child Free People vs. Pro Natalists

Why these new terminally online identity categories???

I didn’t get the idea of declaring myself “child free” before kids, even when I MYSELF thought I could never want kids

Calling children “parasites????” WTF unhinged

Calling childless people "psychopaths????" equally without hinge

Yes pregnancy is pure body horror but that doesn’t make it the BABY’S FAULT. A fetus is not some kind of malicious alien, it’s a human being in progress??? All human beings are consumers in nature but that doesn’t make us inherently evil, especially those of us who are the most tiny, ignorant, and vulnerable. A baby is just… trying to survive

Yes childbirth is transformative and awe-inspiring but why are a certain subset of rich imperialists so fucking gross about wanting to impregnate as many women as possible. Shut up until you can push the baby out yourself, then get back to me

Look. If you don’t want kids, don’t have kids? Don’t think about kids? Move on and solve world peace or something. Why is there a subreddit pathologically obsessed with hating children and shouting it loudly as part of their bio? I get that the world is full of horrors and it’s hard to imagine the future sometimes. “How could you bring children into the world” Yadda yadda. Climate change or WWIII or whatever existential threat appears tomorrow, every human being dies eventually. Death isn’t really an excuse to give up on the continuity of life writ large

but also? a declining population isn't the greatest threat humanity has ever faced, Elon you ketamine-addled incel shitface. It just means capitalism might break under the strain of the way we devalue and fail to care collectively for elders. even elders who currently HAVE children

You can just. Ignore children and live your life. Making it an identity reeks of insecurity, doubt, and a weird nihilistic doomed mindset

If the counterargument is “well parents make parenting their whole identity and that’s equally stupid and annoying” no it isn’t.

Unless we're talking about the equally deranged opposite end of the spectrum. Everyone is unhinged about kids these days, almost as if capitalism and individuation and the "nuclear family" have imploded the basic inter-generational human village that makes having children desirable and healthy for people on the whole

Having children is a huge amount of labor, never mind the emotional importance of family to uhhh most people? So yeah, it’ll be a huge focus for most. Whereas being childless is just. That. Focus on something else more interesting, since you don’t have to worry about kids. No need to make a thing of it. It seems counterintuitive. Don’t like kids? Stop thinking about them so much

For women especially, having an unnecessary hysterectomy or doing other damage to yourself seems so… self harm adjacent? You truly DONT know if you will change your mind (I did) but even more importantly, removing or altering your organs can have consequences on your hormones and quality of life. There are other forms of birth control that seem far less invasive and destructive. Your body your choice, always. But. These seem like unnecessarily harmful choices.

I’m not interested in confronting anyone about this trend which is why it is all behind a cowardly “read more” cut but I just find the whole aggressively child free identity mind boggling

Anyway back to thinking about childless MVP Jesus again

Jesus

Fuck. Did not expect having a baby to make me so conscious of Christ.

My unmedicated labor was a religious experience, so now I have to Deal With That

Still not Christian, but increasingly a fan of Buddy Christ

Christian nationalists need to get his name out of their mouths

Trump is the Antichrist. If not THE Antichrist, at least AN anti-Christian

How do we reprogram all these people who think they are heroic righteous saviors when they are about as violent and power seeking as it is possible to get

See “how to fix it without becoming the bad guy”? (Real Jesus had answers. Sorry MAGA, but most of them involve being forgiving, generous, vulnerable, introspective, or gentle)

They have so many guns

The idea that you could think Jesus is with you while you talk about rounding up migrants and killing criminals and hating your neighbor like. Jesus was very much not a fan of these things?? Jesus did not have an AK-47, he um. He rode a donkey.

Jesus liked to sit with kids under trees and wash feet and famously rejected power and wealth and kings and uhhhhh KINDA DIED ABOUT IT

LEAVE JESUS ALONE

I’m having a normal one, clearly

Here’s a happy baby

[kuromi-hoemie]

here's my scattered, ranty, kind of shitty take on “vote blue no matter who”: i have been painfully aware of how fucked up our country is since Trayvon Martin was killed and the country just came together and said it was fine and deserved even.

We were the same age, he was a month older than me and they justified that boy's death through the media for doing mundane shit any of my friends would've been doing too.

And i have seen year after year, death after death, this country let's people get murdered by police or people who want to play police and they get away with it almost every time.

Most of white America doesn't give a single fuck about this issue because it doesn't affect them, they would prefer if we didn't have to see or talk about it at all because talking about race (or anything outside the “norm” for white people) at all is uncomfortable.

Now as shitty as he was, the silver lining I saw in Trump is that white people were no longer able to escape how evil this country can be. Like hey!! When the state sees YOU as undesirable TOO it really has a way of bringing people together - in resistance, solidarity, support etc. Trump was a trash ass president, but as A Country we were FINALLY having some real, honest open discussions about the way this shit works and what better options could look like - even tried implementing some changes so we're less reliant on cops in some places. Ironically, it's when leadership is at its worst that we choose to move forward collectively.

But then in the run-up to the presidential election all the vote blue no matter who liberals, the back to brunch liberals, all of them hounded anybody with even the slightest skepticism or dislike of our candidates and even now make it impossible to have any critical conversation without coming in like “do u want trump/ron/[whatever republican that applies] to win?? we HAVE to vote it's our ONLY choice the world is going to END”

THIS IS HOW IT IS LITERALLY EVERY ELECTION, IF THE STAKES ARE REGULARLY THIS HIGH SOMETHING IS FUNDAMENTALLY BROKEN HERE.

Vote blue no matter who and back to brunch liberals have fucking brain worms and are the most useless helpless political group. I remember them saying we HAVE to get Joe Biden in then pull him to the left, just this one time bro just this one vote bro I promise. All of the solidarity we've had and all the support we've shown won't instantly vanish the second we're safe we promise we won't leave you behind again just one more vote bro-

maybe go to hell?? maybe we should fucking LOSE and have fear and suffering inflicted on us to make that solidarity an actual, real persistent thing that transcends presidencies. My shitty take is sometimes it IS helpful to have horrific leadership so the privileged class can see how it feels to be ANYONE ELSE for a change. And you would hope they fucking learn something but all the back to brunch liberals are hijacking posts speaking frankly about israel's ongoing genocide and the US's complicity in it, and making the conversation about having to vote for Biden or whatever Democrat anyways.

We don't even have elections coming up right now!! Read the fucking room!! Biden is greenlighting genocide and so are a bunch of other politicians on both sides of the aisle, but back to brunch liberals can't be bothered with ANYTHING. Any sort of valid criticism at all is shut down with "well, choices suck but you HAVE to vote” actually in my heart I think you have to suffer until we get some better fucking choices and you actually help advocate for them, instead of being this useless recurring presence that only shows up to shut down conversation instead of wanting to actually fix anything.

[roosterbruiser]

this post is for Landslide baddies and Landslide baddies ONLY 🫵🤨

remember when I talked about writing a bunch of alternate versions of Landslide? and one of them was what if her and Jake met first?

while that will never be written (I love Landslide so much and I don't want to change anything about it sorry love you) mother has decided to feed her children a few crumbs....

here were the tentative plans for the story where her and Jake end up together (and they're largely unfinished, literally just crumbs!!!):

-starts on December 2016, so only a few months after Maggie's death

-her and Jake meet on NYE so she’s like three/four weeks pregnant but has no clue obvi

-they meet outside The Hard Deck. she isn't going in--she's just kind of standing around the entrance. she's not super fucked up yet, but she's high. he gets to talking to her, obvi thinks she's gorgeous and a conquest. but then cut to the chase bc she's like come back to my house and who is he to disagree?

-and then when they get back there, instead of having sex right away, maybe he notices that her air conditioner in the living room isn’t working. and he fixes it while she kind of just stands there. and then maybe he’s even like looking around her house a little bit while she goes into the bathroom and takes some more pills and he sees all the pictures on the walls and then realizes that he’s with Clover Ledger—whose sister is dead as of recently. like, super recently.

-so then maybe when he goes into the bedroom, she’s waiting for him, naked. and she’s kind of like not really there. he doesn’t want to take advantage of her and feels quite sick about this whole situation. and she’s high so she’s not much help. so maybe he just covers her up and she is able to whisper, could you just stay? and he does stay. he just holds her. 

-and the next morning, maybe he orders in some breakfast and sits in the living room while he waits for her to wake up. so then he starts playing a record and it happens to be Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. she wakes up to her sisters song playing in the living room. at first, maybe she thinks it’s a ghost or something because she can’t see him. but he walks up the stairs holding pancakes and eggs and hash browns. then they eat breakfast together. 

-he can tell that she’s deeply sad, deeply wounded. she's very obviously self-destructing.

-they should have one scene where she’s slightly sober. and maybe it’s the first time she’s laughed in a long time—he’s made her coffee and they’re just chatting about the academy and school and where they grew up and stuff. breakfast accidentally spans out across the entire day. they don’t even kiss, barely even touch. it’s just a pure interaction. she gives him her number and he promises to call. 

-I think he is enamored with her already and he doesn't even have the best version of her yet.

-they end up hanging out maybe once or twice more. maybe they even have a random meeting at the grocery store or something. it’s kind of a weird fated thing. 

-but then she kind of falls off the map after that. so like he calls her and texts her and she doesn’t answer. and then he finally swings by her house, not trying to be creepy. he is genuinely worried something happened to her. 

-finally Bob answers her phone in like late March and there’s a misunderstanding because Bob thinks Jake is just another guy that’s taken advantage of her but Jake has to tell him that they were friends and blah blah blah. so Bob says the next time he sees Faye, he is going to ask about Jake and then maybe he will let Jake know what the next move is. Bob slays.

-so he waits about another week or two and then gets a phone call from Faye’s phone—it’s Bob on the other end of the line. he tells Jake that Faye said if he really wanted to come see her, he could come during visiting hours. he tells Jake that she is in an in-patient treatment facility in Arizona. then he tells Jake to call if he has any questions. 

-Jake can’t stop thinking about Faye. she really touched him deeply. so he does it one weekend—he goes and visits her. se hops on a plane and goes to the treatment facility and sees her. she looks better physically—she really does. she doesn’t look as dead as she did before. she’s awkward and embarrassed and broken and he’s just happy to see her—he doesn’t care that it’s in a rehab facility. she tells him almost as soon as she sees him that she’s pregnant—and then he can actually see it. when he visits her in late May, she’s about 14 weeks pregnant.

-he is randomly all in. he calls her when he can and they have long conversations on the phone. he visits her whenever he can, too—somehow always missing Bob. he is unspokenly there for her for her pregnancy, too. he wants to be there for everything she’s going through. 

-she leaves rehab when she is about 20 weeks pregnant. she goes home. he helps out around her house. and then they start spending like a lot of time with each other. like they’re kind of just best friends. he doesn’t really know a lot of people in San Diego and she doesn’t have her sister or Bob at the moment. or her family. so they just start doing everything with each other. he helps with things like her air conditioning and just stuff around the house. 

-she’s starting to prepare for the baby. she doesn’t want to force anything on him, but he insists that he wants to help her. so he starts going with her to pick out baby clothes and nursery items and all that good stuff. and then eventually he starts going to her appointments with her whenever he can. he will go out and buy her pickles in the middle of the night. he is the one who tells her that she should start going to childbirth classes. and he shows up for her there, acts as her partner. 

-as it progresses, he’s still just there. he’s falling in love with her for sure, but more than anything wants to just support her. he cares about her a lot. she always jokes that he should go out and find a girl and sleep around and go crazy but no—he just wants to be there with her, feeling the baby kick, doing whatever she wants to do. 

-a point of contention is that he is in love with her but she needs him as a friend so desperately. like she doesn’t want to believe that he is only there to fuck her. and he does love being her friend but is truly also in love with her. 

-when she goes into labor, she’s a little bit early. I’m thinking she goes into labor on August 1st, just after midnight. and she drives herself to the hospital and is there for a few hours before Jake figures out what’s going on. and he only figures out because she tells Bob and Bob is scrambling because he was supposed to be flying in in a few weeks instead of August 1st. so he calls Jake to be his placeholder. 

-he's there through everything--even the emergency c-section. he strokes her hair and even manages to get her to laugh a few times. he gets to see her face the first time she hears her son cry. they are both overwhelmed with emotion, crying and laughing, totally shocked and in awe.

-he is very little because he was early, but he's healthy. Jake is actually the first person who gets to hold him (partly because Faye is numb and strapped down and partly because all of the staff thinks he's dad and neither him or Faye is correcting it). he watches her kiss him and love him and oh, boy. he's in real trouble now. all of this feels too good, too weirdly good. too natural.

-she names the little boy Bowie Palmer Ledger.

-she keeps expecting Jake to hit the road. but he never does. he leaves for a half hour to go home and grab a bag and then sets up camp at her bedside. he's totally obsessed.

-the last night in the hospital, in the afterglow of it all, they admit their feelings for each other. but Faye says that she's a mother now and she can't be getting involved with anyone just yet. plus Jake is the best friend she's had since Bob and she doesn't want to lose that. Jake agrees with her. they both decide it's best to be friends for a the time being. but they do share one tiny little kiss.

-but the biggest issue is: Jake is absolutely in love with her. like more than he's ever loved anyone ever before. he has no desire to leave whatsoever. he wants to stay with her and raise this fucking baby—and he knows that’s crazy. 

feel free to send me any thoughts on this....maybe we could expand on some things together....

[roxyteal]

So, concerning WTTW. It's been almost three months now, and I'm deeply sorry for it taking so long to put out the epilogue. Even worse since it's only supposed to be as long as the prologue was.

But instead of making everyone go "wait that's it?" after the long wait, I'm going to do another double update. When the epilogue drops, so will the chapter 2 expansion. Yeah, I'm working on that; I want to flesh it out properly so that it fits in with the rest of the chapters' lengths. Like, as of this writing, ch 2 is the last remnant of the time where I wasn't planning a whole story. So I'm gonna fix that.

All in all, this way there'll be a little more to have looked forward to. I hope it's enough. I don't know when they'll be out, but as always I'll share them when they do.

And yeah, looking back I also feel guilty that instead of just making the epilogue, I instead wrote a few things on the side that're only tangentially related at best, and was mostly just for fun. None of which is on AO3 because I don't know where I could put them in terms of fic listings. If I figure anything out with that, I'll port them there, if desired.

Anyway, one preview for each thing I'm working on, and then more information, will be in the Keep Reading. If you wish to stop reading this post here, I just want to say: Thank you to everyone for enjoying WTTW while it lasted thus far. I know I say this to literally anyone who so much as says they liked it, but I genuinely mean it from the bottom of my heart. This story, like all others I do, has been a labor of love.

You have my gratitude.

Ch 2:

Epilogue:

Okay, now for more information.

For my next work, I really want to get to that final Baldi STG story, and it would conclude that series for the foreseeable future. Here's what you can expect from it:

Working title is "One Final SUM"

Return of C Baldi, his friends, players, and Plus

Introduction to Susan Summerton, her in-house physician Jared (surname WIP), Andrew, Doug, and BADSUM (!!!)

Existential crisis over creator expectations vs organic developments (particularly with M)

WTTW is mentioned but doesn't affect the overarching narrative, so readers don't need to read it to understand what this one's going for, and vice versa

The Ending of All Time

Then? Well, I have considered a WTTW sequel. What could I possibly do with that? Thing is, I have a bunch of ideas for it, but I would have to find a way to string them together cohesively. But here's what I do know, and am willing to share:

It would be set in the future, probably the 2030's

Takes place in a myriad of locations on the Internet, from Neocities sites to Google Earth. The Webspace as we knew it is gone, and remains only as an archived domain

Some major characters have changed in some way and/or have been separated as a result. Some characters never written about previously will have time to shine

Variations of pre-established character types may appear (wow more clones can ya believe it)

Introduction to a new character entirely. Everyone please say hi to Emil. He's from a fangame prototype called "Detective Emil: Private Eye". It was never finished, but was instead thrown Online. But to be clear, it doesn't exist

This story's more like a "reunite everybody" kind of feel

It's Alex's fault

I think that's all for now. Thanks for reading up to this point!

[greggermeister]

Why OOP is a bad fit for custom software

Ever notice that custom OOP projects tend towards a flaming pile of spaghetti crap? Have you ever seen anti-patterns like the following:

Changing a line of code to fix screen A blows up screen B, which have no relation to each other

Many wrappers - a Service is wrapped by a Provider is wrapped by a Performer is wrapped by a ...

It is hard to track down where is the code that performs a certain operation

Playing whack a mole, where each bug fix just yields a new bug

Ever ask yourself why OOP has design patterns? I would argue that OOP assumes up front design before writing any code.

In particular, OOP shines when every important thing is known at the outset. Take a Java List or Map as an example. They have remained virtually the same since the roll out of Java 1.2 when the collections API was added, replacing older classes like Vector and Dictionary.

A List or Map is a simple beast - they are just ordered sets of data. A list orders items by index, a map by their keys. Once you have basic operations like add, change, iterate, and and delete, what more do you really need? This is why Java has really only added conveniences like Map.computeIfAbsent, ConcurrentHashMap, and so on. Nothing huge, just some nice things that people were already doing anyway with their own convenience functions and/or classes.

But custom software paid for by a customer who only knows what they want today is something altogether different. You literally don't know from one month to the next what feature the customer will ask for, or what bug they will report. Remember that OOP design pattern for random structural changes on a dime? Neither do I.

Why imperative is better

OOP intrinsically means some kind of entanglement - once you pick a design pattern for a set of classes, and write a bunch of code for it, you can't easily change to some other design pattern. You can use different patterns for different sets of code, composing them as needed into a larger system. But each part is kind of locked in to a chosen pattern, and it is a significant hassle to change the pattern later. It's like the coding equivalent of vendor lock-in.

Unfortunately, a set of code doesn't necessarily shout out "Hey this is the strategy pattern". You have to examine a set of code to reverse engineer the pattern of it, or ask someone. Have you worked on a team that stated up front what patterns were being used for different parts of the system? I don't recall getting very much of this in my career. Really, in a lot of cases, there simply isn't any real conscious choice of design patterns, just replication of whatever the devs saw before elsewhere, often without any real contextual information of why.

This entanglement easily leads to hard to deal with code if someone doesn't fully grok whatever pattern(s) are present. More often than not, using OOP for custom who-knows-what-the-customer-wants-next-week software is setting the system up for failure. Not failure as in it doesn't work, but failure as in it will virtually guaranteed become very hard to maintain.

Using a simple imperative pattern is much better, which you can do even if the language is a primarily OOP language like Java. In the case of Java, just use static methods, where each class corresponds to either a data structure, or a series of static methods that operate on data structures. By passing data structures as arguments and returning new data structures, effectively the code is working from the outside, which makes the code simpler to understand, and tends towards less entanglement.

You could organize packages like this:

Top level packages represent functional areas (eg, configuration, database access, REST API, validations, etc)

Sub packages for data structures and functions that operate on them

Some sub packages can represent a design pattern like model, view, and controller

For example, it might be organized like this, where app is the top level dir checked out of the repo:

app/db/util: some utility functions to make db access easier

app/db/dto: database transfer objects that represent data as stored/retrieved in the db

app/db/dao: database access objects that store/retrieve dtos

app/rest/util: some utility methods to make REST a bit easier

app/rest/view: objects that represent the data as sent/received over http

app/rest/translate: translate app/db/dto to/from app/rest/view

app/rest/model: make app/db/dao calls to store/retrieve data, uses /app/rest/{view, translate}

app/rest/controller: define endpoints and methods, use app/rest/model to do the work

app/html: SSR html generation

You'll notice I mention MVC above, which is an OOP pattern. However, this pattern can be simplified as a set of directories with one responsibility per directory, which can still be an imperative way of writing code. It can still be operating on the data objects from the outside. Just because we don't want to use OOP doesn't mean we can't apply some of what we've learned from it over the years in an imperative way.

The above looks like a monolithic design. It can be a hybrid if you want:

Make app/{service} dirs, which in turn contain db, rest, and html as shown above

Each service can be its own application

Services can be grouped into a smaller number of deployments, you don't have to deploy each service in its own container

The other most common mistake

One of the most important things to consider is (DO)RY versus (DONT)RY. The over usage of (DONT)RY is often a very big pain point in OOP. Like Lists and Maps, (DONT)RY works best in a limited area of code, such as reusing some common code across all Map implementations. Essentially, it is just another variation of what I said earlier about knowing the design in advance - (DONT)RY can be quite useful when you know the considerations up front, but just another factor in making spaghetti code when you don't.

(DO)RY is far more useful when you have a changes by the week application - the duplication isolates changes. For example, say you have a customer address and a business address. They seem kind of the same thing, with only minor differences:

Businesses have 3 lines, for doors and stops and other cupboard-under-the-stairs things individuals don't need

Businesses can have multiple addresses, so they need a type (physical, mailing, billing)

It sounds like you could use the same code for both. But over time, random requests are made for random changes, and some changes need to only apply to one or the other address type. (DONT)RY causes these increasing differences to get harder and harder to manage, which is exactly the bad form of entanglement I keep seeing. (DO)RY means copying code when a change needs to be done for both.

The improvement stems from the fact that when a particular change must be implemented quite differently due to their differing code bases, there is no tangled mess problem - instead, it is just more effort to do the change twice in different ways, without causing either code base to become any harder to read or modify.

In some cases, a data type that has its own logic for persistence and retrieval/display might also be contained inside another data type for another use case. When contained, there is no reason to believe in the face of random changes that it will necessarily always require the same validations, persistence, and display logic as when it is used as a top level object. As such, all the logic for the contained object should be a copy of the top level code, so the two use cases can be as different as they need to be.

Conclusion

Imperative programming combined with (DO)RY encourages making separate silos for each data type - separate queries, separate db reads/writes, separate REST endpoints, separate HTML generation. This separation expresses an important truth I alluded to earlier about your data - every top level data type is completely unrelated to any other data type, it is a thing unto itself. Any correlation or similarity in two separate data types should be viewed as both accidental and temporal: in other words, they just so happen to be similar at the moment - there is no reason to believe their similarity will continue in the face of random unknowable future changes.

Separating all your top-level data types with their own imperative code and using (DO)RY - copying code as necessary to maintain the separation - is the key to managing code that has to be dynamic in response to frequent unknowable future changes. The resulting code will be larger as a result of copying logic, but more maintainable.

In other words, everything in programming is a trade-off, and the combination of imperative and (DO)RY is the best trade-off that results in more total code, but more maintainable code.

[alyjojo]

March 🌞 2024 Monthly - Libra

Preshuffle: This can’t apply to everyone but there’s a message for someone with two options: King of Cups 💧 and King of Pentacles 🌳. There’s a lot of passion and flirtation with King of Pentacles, it’s new, and that’s the right decision. The other one will never change, you already know where it goes.

Meditation: Blinding lights are a thing this month, and then that song started playing for your meditation, maybe will resonate. I was like ACK MY EYES and you were some quirky little dude on a ladder like “Ope sorry, just fixing the light, moving on to the next light”. I mentioned that can only be Pisces’ light and you smiled and pointed over to Virgo, like that’s next. Fixing them. Also water and earth again, that could resonate for someone.

Main energy: 3 Cups rev

This reading already mirrors the preshuffle, you’ve been with someone that has a bossy, authoritative or domineering personality, you’ve already set yourself free from it and you’re not about to go back to the same bs. 9 Wands shows this has been a hell of a journey, you’ve been knocked down, picked yourself back up, you’re almost to the end of situation and move on to new things. You’re coming up as Queen of Pentacles at the bottom, that seems like an omen…you’ve had to be strong to get where you are, and the future looks positive. But not where this past person is concerned, could be a spouse. For some it’s a slavedriver at work & you can’t stand them, you just want to be free of this person. You’ve felt trapped, and something has influenced you away from this “prison”. A person, thing, idea, an attractive offer.

What’s going on in March:

9 Pentacles:

333 as I start this row, I mentioned I see three people and 3 Swords is at the bottom of this row. You’re single, 9 Pentacles is financially and emotionally stable, happy all on your own. You’ve found a new passion for life, new interests, a new love even, you’re not interested in this ex (spouse?) coming back around trying to make things happen again. For some, the ending of the first connection may have come out of nowhere, it was a shock to this person how fast you left, or maybe how fast you moved on when it was over. May not have been long. Either your first person was heartbroken by you or they hurt you, someone didn’t do anything, made no effort, no communication, they did nothing to try to fix what was broken in this relationship - or that’s the perception. Could’ve ghosted 👻 I assume it’s you doing that.

The Emperor:

Probably your first person, along with the King of Wands rev, this is someone unreliable, domineering, sets a bunch of rules and boundaries for everyone else to follow but won’t follow the same rules themselves. They could really like attention, create situations of drama and competition for…their ego? Or they act like the boss and you get no say in anything. It could literally be your boss too, if you’re leaving a job you may never have even said you weren’t happy, they could feel bamboozled. It looks like you played it safe for a long time, not revealing your emotions, not communicating how you’re feeling, which is kinda important, that’s why they’re upset. Or switch it. You can’t operate in any connection having to constantly guess what the other person is thinking or feeling, that may be their point where you’re concerned. You just jumped ship, freed yourself from Confinement and they’re…unaware you were ever confined. Escape at the bottom is where your mind is at.

King of Wands rev:

This is a player, someone unreliable and full of themselves. Charming & attractive, sure, but also bossy, demanding, domineering and selfish. Could be a bit of a heartbreaker, 3 Swords again at the bottom. “Do as I say, not as I do.” type of person. This could be how they see you, seeing as there’s someone new here not mentioned yet. Or they could’ve been a player with you, if not just overly flirtatious, loves attention, can’t depend on them they’re full of shit. You may have played it safe by not talking to them at all, not moving forward with them, not answering texts. Again, ghosting. They could have anger or control issues and you just want to keep the peace, you know they’re mad. If they’re still trying to contact you, you’ll just leave them on read if that, you don’t want to speak, and that only hurts them more. There could be some player ways with this person you don’t even know about, or that’s switched.

Ace of Wands:

This definitely mirrors the preshuffle, exactly. Clarified by King of Pentacles and 10 Cups. There’s a new person, this is the one you see forever with, they’re the energetic match or soulmate you’ve been looking for. Your first person is devastated by this, they’ve been waiting for you to apologize or say something, try to work this out, maybe they’ve been trying. I mean you’re going from an Ace to the 10 of Cups pretty quickly, that’s unusual but things happen. This new person could be business oriented, maybe already have children/a child. You’re in the process of moving forward with this person and the ex is maybe not clear on the situation, have you even moved on, they definitely don’t understand how you feel. Imagination feels like you seeing your future optimistically and them forced to come up with their own answers because you won’t tell them or talk to them. Probably because they’d be upset. Some of you left a job to work for family, with family, or you met this new person at this new place.

4 Cups:

This is apathy, boredom, dissatisfaction with the choice that’s been made, either with you or this first person. Because Judgement is here, you could be looking back at something and feeling sadness or regret with how something happened, or they are. Maybe you flat out just do not care, not that they’re hurt, not anything about anything, you’re tired of this person and their issues existing. Stop talking to me. Don’t care, have a nice life ✌️ Especially if you’re happy now. Some of you feel like you made the wrong choice, if they’re acting like this, and some are not confused whatsoever about their choice, done is done and that’s the end of it.

Signs you may be dealing with:

Scorpio, Aries, Libra, Leo & Cancer

Oracle: ✨

16 Masculine Energy 💪

The sun ☀️ powerful, a life force without which nothing on this earth could survive. The masculine energy is one of action, doing, creating, forcing. In nature it is balanced out with feminine energy. When we find ourselves embodying this energy, we get things done - we are thinking, logical beings. If we reside here too staunchly, we do not have any room for the opposite energy to come in. Being able to effortlessly flow from one to the other - masculine to feminine - is the pinnacle of being in the flow energetically. Sometimes in love relationships, the energy turns topsy-turvy and we end up residing in an energy that doesn’t meet our highest need. This is hard to break out of due to fear: “If I don’t do it, if won’t get done.”

Realize that two people make up a relationship and in an evolved one - the relationship itself develops it’s own energetic balance - a perfect combination of yin and yang - masculine and feminine. No matter what kind of relationship, there’s motion & action, feeling & receptiveness, it’s a balance. If there is a void in one area, an imbalance will develop and, as is the nature of things, unconsciously we will try to balance it out. Being aware is the first step. Alternately, this card signifies a very important man in your life.

Confinement 🪤

Captivity - Tolerance - Unfreedom

Imagination 💭

Variety - Fantasy - Mind

Influence - Libra Venus

We enter into March as:

Pink From Pinkton 💗

“I am more than I think I am.”

Pink shows us the process of self-awareness. Are you trying to recapture a past moment that no longer fits? You may have outgrown something, and while it can be a challenge to admit it, being fully who you are is much more glorious than trying to fit yourself into the past. If you are presently upset or struggling with a difficult situation, it may be because you are trying to make something work when it simply can’t. You may be seeking to keep something far less than what you deserve. With self-awareness and discovery comes a new obligation, using your new knowledge. New ideas, projects & opportunities can only come if you stop blocking them.

What is to be learned in March:

The Lilac Key 🔑

“The last thing out of Pandora’s Box was hope.”

Change is coming. It is imminent and cannot be avoided. The desire to run from this situation is tempting. However this is a necessary challenge for you. You are going through the labor pains of birth. This may indicate a painful divorce or partnership ending bitterly. In all situations it represents a death of an old way of living, thinking, and surviving. Lilac Key appears when mere survival is not enough for you. Your will to live is what is forcing the change. It is a change of consciousness, which in turn will lead to a balance of harmony in all areas of your life. Cleaning up the past is a process that is often painful; yet hope and joy are the after effects. Remember, once the key has been used to open the door, once you have entered this new consciousness, you cannot go back. You will be left with a new way of living, one without keys - for where you are heading there is no need for locks 🔒

Purple may be a lucky color 💜

[ktkat1377]

As someone who's recently joined the chronically disabled, I feel this. Literally woke up fine one morning and had it develop as the day went on, and my life hasn't been the same since. Chronic migraines that resist every kind of treatment that we try, and to top it all off, they're vestibular migraines, not your usual migraines, so they don't respond to the usual migraine meds. Best I can figure is that the last time I got covid turned on a dormant hormonal migraine gene that affects a lot of the women in my family that skipped me entirely until now. Thanks, covid. Now I'm facing being medically retired from the army and having to get disability from the VA because I'm consistently getting 10 to 25 migraines a month, unless they just happen to find some treatment that actually starts to work.

My 1SG was having a bad day and was giving me flack one day because he tried to make me go for a run and I was only able to go 30 seconds before I was smacked with a bad migraine. Felt like someone popped me in the right temple. Eyes watering, could hardly see, super dizzy, couldn't think, so nauseous I wanted to puke. He starts questioning me about all the stuff I've done to fix it. I've had three MRIs, I've been to the ear, nose, and throat specialist, I've had vestibular rehab, vision rehab, been to a neurologist, seen the optometrist to rule out the prism issue that Joy had, tried Sumatriptan, Rizatriptan, Zolmitriptan, tried several migraine preventative meds that obviously don't work, tried a bunch of OTC migraine vitamin supplements to no effect, etc. And the man had the audacity to ask me if I had tried dramamine to help with the dizziness. Dramamine! You really think that wasn't one of the first things I tried when I had 24/7 vertigo that was so bad that I couldn't even drive or take a shower? People really think that you aren't actively working or trying everything under the sun when you have some sort of disability or chronic issue. They have NO idea that you could literally be perfectly fine that morning, and all of a sudden, your life could permanently change.

Whenever I get a particularly nasty message, I always check to see if they're following me first. Nine times out of ten, they're not. But they're also, unfortunately, the same people who feel entitled to send me multiple messages in a row, most of them heavily steeped in the language of moralization and purity.

Like whenever I talk about painkillers or pain management, I always get a handful of well-meaning people who are maybe new to my blog or are just young, asking me if I've tried diet/exercise/meditation, etc.

Sometimes I'll respond to them. Other times I'll just ignore them because I get those kinds of messages so often it's like white noise, and maybe part of me hopes if they stick around on my blog, they'll learn it through exposure via my incessant bitching.

When you see me responding to someone offering that kind of advice, it's either because I'm at my fucking limit or because I'm hoping it's a teachable moment and an otherwise seemingly nice person might unlearn some harmful biases.

The people who don't follow me are not interested in any kind of conversation on the subject. They do, however, feel the most qualified to tell me, someone they didn't know existed until one of my posts crossed their dash, how to manage my life, everything I'm doing wrong, and why I'm a bad person.

And for them, my disability is proof that I am a bad person because they view health as a moral issue.

If you're sick, it's because you don't exercise enough, don't eat the right foods, don't pray enough, don't do enough. They genuinely believe that if they say and do all the right things, like a Good Person, they'll never get sick.

It's their security blanket against the harsh reality that anyone is one bad day away from disability. One faulty gene, one bad infection, one bad accident away from a life-long diagnosis. And if they do get sick, it's a test. A challenge to be overcome with Willpower as they learn the True Meaning of Life.

It can never just be a simple fact of life that sickness happens. That disability exists without a moral reason.

And it's suffocating.

Day in, day out. Folks who don't know me from fucking Eve telling me I'm being punished. Not always as outright as that. They don't always use that word. But sometimes I appreciate it when they do because at least then they're being honest. They're not couching it in the softer language of leftist circles. Not hiding it behind concern.

Because the truth is, there are just as many folks who think they're liberal and enlightened who'd be happy if disabled people just stopped existing. They don't like thinking about us because it makes them think about themselves. About their own fragility and mortality, and they hate that. They hate that there's something they can't control with their thoughts and actions. That they can't moralize their way out of.

Honestly, it's a relief when people are just cunts about it because I can hit the block button, safe in the knowledge that they were never the kind of person who would see me as a person. But when it's some 20yo kid with their pronouns, orientation, and "ACAB" in their profile spouting the same kind of moralization, sometimes even with the language of eugenics, it feels like such a betrayal. Like a loss.

And perhaps if I wasn't multiply disabled, I'd have the energy to pull them back. To tell them why they're wrong and hope like hell they realize what they're doing is harmful. But then, if I wasn't disabled, they wouldn't be messaging me, so I wouldn't be dealing with it.

I wouldn't be expected to use my existence as a teachable moment to spoon-feed them compassion. But I am, and I do. When I can. Not always with the grace that's warranted. Not always with the thought and compassion I ought to. (And I don't; I acknowledge that. I'm prone to anger and off-the-cuff remarks that are hurtful too. Though I try to keep most of it to myself or save it for therapy.)

Basically, if you've made it this far through the TED talk, don't be fucking cunts to disabled people. Don't tell chronically ill people to try yoga. Don't moralize pain relief. Suffering is not noble.

You need to kill the cop and the priest in your head telling you otherwise.

And also if you're the nice people sending me nice messages. Thank you. It helps cushion all of *gestures* this.

[sagetsukimura]

(I just want to write it out, see if it helps me sort my thoughts out. Remind future-me that I tried. This week has been pretty... Chaotic, at work. )

I did it. I communicated to the best of my abilitiy in a stressful work environment, and i thought we'd finally gotten on the same page.

I'd done the right thing. I spoke to them directly, I used 'i feel' statements, and explained why, didn't cry when I got yelled at, only yelled back once and visibly made myself stop, and we managed to actually get on the same page ( at least I thought so, I hope so) once she realized i wasn't giving her a 'reasons why you suck' speech. I was satisfied with my feelings being proven wrong, because yes, it did turn out that nobody else was communicating with each other either. Misunderstandings and resentment. (We had 2 people quit this week.)

Problem addressed and acknowledged, if not fixed. I did it. I communicated. Glad that's over with because I hate being assertive or having people upset with me. (I don't like speaking up in situations like this, but so many people were having issues and... I don't know why I thought I could make a difference.)

Only today, a higher up comes in, and asks me a bunch of questions, and introduces me to someone, and I can't figure out what she wants from me., she's asking for specific incidents, and telling me I need to be a more positive team player, and I'm so tired of feeling helpless and frustrated I start crying when I have to talk about one of our more... difficult... Parents.

She tells me to take some time to calm down, I give the new manager a heartful 'nice to meet you, hope you stick around' that might've been TOO heartfelt (7 managers in one year guys, I'm getting desperate . I REALLY hope she'll stick around) and get back to the kids after making sure I don't look like I've been bawling.

Anyway, boss comes back an hour and a half later and says I need to leave. I'm confused and ask her if she means like, go home? NOW? And all I manage to get is *'things are worse than I was told'* and she's off... Somewhere.

... Ok?!

So I clean up, and i leave. No clue what happened or why. Did I do something? Did she want me to take the day to calm down? Was someone mad about yesterday? Apparently someone is/was lying? Should I wait for a phone call? An email? Should I come in Monday? Am I fired? What's going on?!

So now I'm... here. No clue what's going on. Brain is trying to come up with the worst answers possible, I'm trying to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I love my job, but when no one knows what is going on or where something is, or even who to ask, it means no one sticks around. I'm not sure if anyone else has been around long enough to know the Wi-Fi passwords besides me.

It's weird, how chilled out I am. Usually I feel physically ill at the thought that someone is upset with me. Maybe counseling really is helping? Or I'm waiting to know if I've been fired before I let myself mentally burn bridges and move on.

At least I know I've done my best. I've tried to make it obvious to the others that I'm trying in good faith. I've tried really hard. (I almost think too hard. I should've kept my head down, because even if I was willing to try and talk, I appear to be very bad at it.) I just... Don't know what the expectations of me are, since I've been at the site for twice as long as anyone else. I know things no one else does. But I also don't even know where to find the signup paperwork. I'm not a manager, I'm literally the bottom of the ladder, and happy staying there.

I feel confused, and worried. Overwhelmed, frustrated, and a little betrayed. There's a voice in my head telling me I should've kept my head down and my mouth shut, and rolled through the next few months.

But mostly, I just want to know what is going on, so I can make my own choices. If I stay, I want to know what changes and expectations I should expect, because it feels like they are changing all the time, and it's not just kids who like consistency. I have to ask myself, how long do I WANT to have this job.

I just... Hope I did the right thing, as best I could. That I can say I honestly tried, even if it didn't work. But that doesn't mean it won't suck if it turns out I was right to doubt.

[thisisanude]

like i love him so much i can’t imagine a life without him ive been so sure about him being in my future for so long now i mean we’re almost at 5 years and there were small parts of our relationship where i became uncertain mostly that one late summer/fall where i was posting a lot on this… but aside from those few months ive been so sure that we would be together forever. and after those few months ended and we fixed things for the most part and he got less mentally ill or. more like stopped projecting his mental illness on me. but now it’s just like. even weirder because those few months i was distancing myself from him and i feel like he could tell and he was trying to be better and then the next few months after that he was like genuinely the best boyfriend ever. and THEN when he HIMSELF brought up the fact that i want to fuck women and he was like yes you should do it that was when i was like i want to marry this man on the spot rn. and then he changed his mind )-: how could he change his mind again! he seemed so sure this time he seemed so confident in our relationship and so comfortable and trustworthy. and i don’t know what changed. i don’t i really don’t but i regret not making the situation work for him because i remember thinking this is my chance i don’t wanna blow it i need to make sure he doesn’t regret changing his mind he needs to be happy in his decision i need to be the best gf ever i need to make him horny from the fact not jealous. however i didn’t really try that hard and then he changed his mind and i regret asking him about it when he was in a bad mood because maybe he would’ve been more understanding if i asked him about it in a good mood. i literally feel crazy like im begging my boyfriend to fuck a woman and of course he’s gonna feel jealous but God why can’t i have both. i really feel like i need both. and every time we have a disagreement now im like wow i should break up with him because i want to fuck women but really the things we fight about are minor. sometimes he’s mentally ill and i’ve learned to not really be bothered by it and then he gets over it and apologizes and i don’t apologize unless i genuinely feel like i’ve done something wrong and i wonder if me being less concerned and more like just Ok whatever makes him feel like i don’t care about the relationship. it’s honestly also the fact that if i have more reasons to break up with him other than just i need to have lesbian sex or else i can’t live a fulfilling life and if he’s doing a bunch of stuff wrong and being annoying and starting fights over small things and not being understanding and empathetic then he’s not the same guy i fell in love with and i should leave anyway. because i cannot imagine a world where i break up with him for the sole reason of needing to fuck women and then not regret it. i would 10000% regret it. but the thing is. i would be in so much pain regardless! if he truly did a lot of things wrong and didn’t apologize and it got worse than it is now and i broke up with him i would be so sad i would be devastated. i’m in love with him ive never felt this way before i thought i was in love in my past relationship but that wasn’t even close to how i feel now. i want to build a future with him how could i want to tear that all down? the thing is i want to build a future with perfect him the nice him when he’s not being super mentally ill and also when he’s comfortable in our relationship and our trust to allow non monogamy. i literally WISH SO BAD he was even attracted to other people but ofc he has to be demi sexual so only sexually attracted to people he is romantically attracted to. that is not the case at all for me so that’s really unfortunate that we can’t relate at all on this topic. and what if he was doing a bunch of stuff wrong and i broke up with him and then all i could think about is when he was so good and all the times he’s helped me and all the times he was a great boyfriend. and all the times i wasn’t the best girlfriend. because of course im not perfect either but i never really pick fights idk

[krystalwuzhere]

ᴅɪᴀʀʏ ʟᴏɢ - ᴏᴄᴛᴏʙᴇʀ 9, 2023

So first full day of being free of my binds and able to explore my own world. It was rather eventful. Most of the day was spent just cruising around Capital City and the outskirts of the area. The old Adventurer's Guild is still there, though it feels like they've upgraded a bit from the old days.

So like from what I remember, the city was always some kind of weird Japanifornia? By that I mean there's obviously some Asian influence with the structures and the signage, but other than that, it's mostly English speaking with some diversity in its culture of course. Lots and lots of neon signs and billboards clearly designed with magic in mind. Like if you've ever seen any kind of synthwave style backgrounds, picture that but a whole city of that.

Now mind you, Capital City is rather special in it's the largest city in the World. We are from quite literally the capital. Various other cities, towns, and villages exist, of course, but if you're looking for everything and anything your hearts could desire, be it magic, fights, tournaments, the ability to fight in a guild and beat up magical creatures, Capital City is your place to be. Gods I feel like I'm just advertising at this point, fucks sake. Oh yeah the Adventurers Guild.

So the Adventurers Guild used to be the only place in Capital City that stuck to its roots from before MAGIC became the big thing. What was once a very fancy, but rather generic 1920s-30s themed lodge where Adventurers would meet up and find others to go Questing with is now a hip new place with thumping music, lights and dancing, and so much fucking booze. It's honestly unreal to see, but Hinata and I enjoyed ourselves so much. Apparently the Guild is the largest in the World? But like. Let's be real here, they took one of the last remnants before the Magical Renaissance and turned it into what everything else looks like in the city.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Oh! I forgot, we went to Toby's old house. When we opened Toby's safe back in Solaire a few months ago, the first thing she saw was the deed and the keys to Toby's house. But.. look, he's gone okay, but who kept the lawn neat? And.. I swear I saw a light come on inside when we disappeared to head back to our new place. I don't get it. Toby died in that other world. I saw his body... or whatever was left of it.

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right, uhm. next time i do a journal, i'll tell y'all about what i learned about the Agency of Arcane Affairs. Learned some things, but uh I need some time to process it all. It's a bit... lemme put it this way, i'm scared. I legitimately need help to fix this world or else I don't think anything is going to change. And I get it, y'all are a bunch of people on tumblr. You don't have any motive to help. But.. from one Guardian of the Many Worlds to the others, you know, the ARG players, those who love to solve puzzles.. I'm going to need help.

Anyway, it's late. Casually doing this at 6:30am when I should be sleeping (though... speaking of, I'm not feeling like I need to sleep as much? It's weird, like all of the innate exhaustion is gone, but the fur is still here.). I'm signing off. Good night y'all, and thanks for reading!

~Luna