#and the easy flow of the three of them as Max learns to be less stuck in his head and scared of himself

[dr-lizortecho]

there’s no better pick me up after a bad/long day then reading the kaliz dance scene from The Truth is Right Here (it works every time without fail)

[scarletwelly-boots]

Books Read 2023

I read 33 books this year, which is 3 more than last year. I also read 22 graphic novels/comics that I did not factor into the challenge. Not counting those comics, I completed 66% of the challenge. This is my eighth year doing the Popsugar Reading Challenge. Let’s get into it under the cut.

The Famine Plot, by Tim Pat Coogan (a book you meant to read in 2022). I barely remember this book. This book was vindicating to read but it also pissed me off. It’s an Irish history book about the Great Hunger, basically highlighting the conscious failure on the part of the British to relieve the suffering of the Irish during this time and the lack of effort that essentially caused the crisis to become as devastating as it was. Coogan is a very good writer so the book is easy to get through even if you don’t know much about Irish history, but if you’re not really a big nonfiction reader, it might not be the book for you.

How to Be Ace, by Rebecca Burgess (a book you bought from an independent bookstore). This is a graphic novel memoir of the author growing up and discovering she is asexual. It was really interesting, as an ace person myself who also took a very long time to figure it out, to see how similar my experience was to hers. Definitely recommend if you’re ace, think you might be ace, or want to learn more about what it means to be ace.

The Celebrants, by Steven Rowley (a book about a vacation). This was okay. It was a book club book, and there were some things I liked about it, but for the most part I wasn’t impressed. A group of friends makes a pact in college to hold each other’s funerals while they’re still alive to help them appreciate life and the people who care about them while they still have the time to do so. I’m told Guncle was better. I haven’t read that book yet.

The Reckless Kind, by Carly Heath (a book by a first-time author). Really good. Queer and ace and queerplatonic. Three young adults who are sort of outcasted for more than just their sexuality (but that becomes part of it) become a sort of found family in nineteenth (?) century Scandinavia (the country is specific in the book but I don’t remember which it is). Definitely recommend.

Dear Mothman, by Robin Gow (a book with mythical creatures). This was so good! It’s a middle grade book told in verse and partially epistolary. A trans boy (I think he’s in sixth grade) takes to writing letters to Mothman to cope with the death of his friend, who was also trans. It was so good, but honestly I ended the book pissed off that (I’m pretty sure) Mothman isn’t real (irl, I will neither confirm nor deny whether Mothman is real in the book), so I’ll never get to meet him. Highly recommend.

Playing the Palace, by Paul Rudnik (a book about a forbidden romance) Terrible, stupid. Another Red White and Royal Blue wannabe and doesn’t even come close to the original. Just read the original, it’s so much better. He doesn’t even use the Oxford comma in this and it honestly makes me so mad. Do not recommend.

This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (a book with a color in the title). Oh my god. I love this book so fucking much, guys. This was amazing, and I did not expect it to be as good as it was. I had been meaning to read it for awhile, but after the end of the Loki show, I needed something queer and vaguely related (as in time travel; Loki is obviously not involved in this book). First, I botched this entry. As you can tell, there is not a color in the title, but the characters’ names are Blue and Red, and the cover (of my copy at least) had a bluebird and redbird on it, so I counted it. This book is so beautifully well written, I was not expecting it to be so lovely. It is the kind of flowing, descriptive writing I strive to do myself. I think I devoured this book in less than a week. It isn’t a very long book, but I’m an incredibly slow reader, so regardless of its length this is still quite the feat for me as an adult with responsibilities and more distractions than I had in school. It is partially epistolary and, as I previously mentioned, queer. It is also (by my interpretation) a fantastic demonstration of the difference between being able to shape-shift and identifying as genderfluid. Highly recommend.

The Daughters of Madurai, by Rajasree Variyar (a book published in spring 2023). Another book club book, but my pick this time. Really good. Dual timelines, following a mother and daughter as they deal with their very different experiences as women in different times and places, and how these experiences impact how they relate to and understand (or misunderstand) one another. Recommend.

Rose Daughter, by Robin McKinley (a modern retelling of a classic). This is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, and is McKinley’s second Beauty and the Beast retelling. In junior high, I loved Beauty and the Beast and devoured every retelling I could get my hands on. I read McKinley’s Beauty, which was published in the 70s, during junior high, though I don’t remember much of it. This one was very good but very archetypal. This one came out about 20 years after (which I was surprised to note upon double checking just now; I thought the first was in the 90s and this was like 2013). I meant to reread Beauty to compare, since this book also temporarily reawakened my Beauty and the Beast obsession, but I ended up sating that by just watching the animated and live action Disney films, and a very weird semi-stage performance on Disney+ that had been created for the 30th (?) anniversary of the animated film. Recommend (the book, not necessarily the production).

Gender Queer, by Maia Kobabe (a book that’s been banned or challenged by any state in 2022). This was so good. This is another graphic novel memoir, this time about discovering you’re genderqueer. Even though the author is genderqueer and I’m genderfluid, the experiences were very similar, and I spent so much of the book hollering, “Me too!” It was really fun and quick to read. Definitely recommend.

In Deeper Waters, by FT Lukens (a book that fulfills your favorite prompt from a past challenge). I don’t remember much of this. I think I liked it. It took me way too long to realize it was not just a fantasy book with mermaids but legit like a queer retelling of The Little Mermaid. The boys are very cute with each other and it was a fun read, what I can remember of it. Recommend if you like queer retellings of fairy tales that aren’t necessarily beat for beat retellings.

Erasure, by Percival Everett (a book becoming a TV series or movie in 2023). Book club read, didn’t like it. I felt like the themes were interesting and some of it resonated with me as a writer myself, since the protagonist is also a writer. But he was just so pretentious and unlikeable to me. I have to like the main character in order to get anywhere with a book, and I know that’s kind of looked down upon in the literary world, like just because a protagonist is unlikeable doesn’t mean the book is bad, but I’m here to say I personally think that’s bullshit. I need a buy-in to read your book, and if I fucking hate the guy I have to follow around the entire time, I’m not gonna like your book. Sorry about it. If you like books that make you feel like you’re too stupid to understand them, or you like pretending like you understood a book like that to get one over on people, go for it. The main character is an asshole, the premise says good things but the person who says them is unlikeable so it’s like that meme and I should have just read that meme whose exact wording I forget and moved on with my life.

This Time Tomorrow, by Emma Straub (a book set in the decade you were born). Another book club read, but this one I actually enjoyed. It’s time travel, which normally I don’t love, and a time loop, which I love even less. But it did a pretty good job of it and kind of rushing through the repetitive parts, which is the main bit I don’t like about this trope. The relationship between the main characters was really great, and I was also laughing uproariously because the main character’s dad is an author, and his first (and for the first run of time, only) novel got adapted into a tv show that is basically Supernatural but time travel. Like eerily similar, like Straub definitely watched at least a couple episodes of the show. Recommend (the Supernatural references are brief and honestly easy to miss).

Self-Made Boys, by Anna-Marie McLemore (a book with a queer lead). Ugh, so so so good oh my god. I think I included this in last year’s even though I wasn’t finished because I needed to talk about it so bad. This is a trans retelling of The Great Gatsby where Nick and Gatsby get together and it’s all I’ve wanted since I read this novel in high school. McLemore does this retelling soooo well.

The Universal Christ, by Richard Rohr (a book with just text on the cover). I had to read this for my class at church. I do not remember it very well. It was kind of about the difference between Jesus the Man and Christ the cosmic entity. Rohr needs an editor is the conclusion we came to. And there were some chapters I wished were longer and some I wished were shorter. If you like Christian books that should be shorter, knock yourself out. Otherwise, maybe avoid.

[Omitted for personal information] (the shortest book on your TBR list). Sorry guys. This book is about murals in my hometown, and I’m not disclosing the title or giving more information about the book.

Imogen, Obviously, by Becky Albertalli (a BookTok Buzzfeed recommendation). This book was so funny. It was like Albertalli followed me around my freshman year of college taking embarrassingly detailed notes and then wrote a novel about it. Imogen is convinced she’s straight as a line (despite years of hints to the contrary) until she meets one girl that completely upsets that assumption. And now you know how I figured out I was bi. Like this story is so scary accurate, down to both my and my ex’s names being included somewhere in the narrative (not as important characters, mostly just mentioned once, but it’s still eerie). I recommend, but I think a really huge reason why I liked this book is because I was cracking up every time Imogen said something I thought as an eighteen year old idiot.

The First Christmas, by Marcus Borg (a book you bought secondhand). Another church class read. This was really interesting. It compared the Christmas story in the gospels and how it ended up in the gospel with the Roman dogma of the time that the Christians were trying to disprove with the mythos of the Christ child. It was a little hard to read as a reformed Catholic, because even though I know the Nativity story isn’t wholly (or at all) accurate, I like pretending that it is and the residual Catholic guilt doesn’t like starting out the discussion with the understanding that the Christmas story is apocryphal. Again, recommend if you like Christian books, but otherwise probably not.

Loveless, by Alice Oseman (a book your friend recommended). This book was really good too. Another book of “I didn’t realize I was [blank], but I fucking should have.” There’s a literal line in it that says “There were signs. I had missed every one,” which I immediately screenshotted and sent to my friend with the caption ME. This time, it’s a college student figuring out she’s ace, which is earlier than I figured it out, but again, shouldn’t be. Same with Imogen, Obviously, I recommend, but it might just be because of how similar to my experience it was that it had me laughing multiple times.

Flight, by Lynn Steger Strong (a book about a family). Another book club book, with a million characters that almost all have at least one chapter from their perspective. It was a little hard to keep the characters straight, but because I have a large family, I think it was a little easier for me because I’m predisposed by experience to keep a bunch of people straight. While they all had somewhat distinct personalities, the way the women related to the men was all kind of the same dismissive, annoyed tendency about everything. I was left wondering for different reasons why the couples were even together. The story was interesting, though. Somewhat recommend?

Good Night, Irene, by Luis Alberto Urrea (a historical fiction book). This book was really good. It’s another book club book. It’s a historical fiction book about women in World War II who made donuts and coffee for the troops as a way to raise morale (it was a real organization apparently, a non-medical branch of the Red Cross). Much of the real-life records have been lost, so a lot of the research the author had to do for the book was through oral histories with women who actually volunteered, who knew his mother when she was part of the group or knew women who knew his mother. The main character is loosely based on his mother, but my favorite character was the other woman that Irene works with, because it’s implied that she is probably queer in some capacity (though she doesn’t really make that clear in the book and her only relationships are with men, but that means nothing). I thought it was really good, but it really doesn’t gloss over the grittier parts of war (which is a good thing, just hard to read at times). Recommend.

Loki: Agent of Asgard, by Al Ewing (a book you think your best friend would like). This is a reread, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t listed it on any Books Read Posts (I didn’t go back to check though). This is the second comic I ever read, and the first comic run I read straight through. It’s so good. It’s what made me really fall in love with Loki as a character and made me like comics. Al Ewing is far and away my favorite comic book writer because of this story, too. I love how he characterizes Loki. This is also the comic where we meet Verity Willis, perfect woman and love of my life and ace icon. This comic is my Loki fan bible. I love it and I don’t care if I’ve already put this on a top ten list, it’s going on the Top 10 this year. It’s been several years since I’ve reread it straight through.

The Prince and the Dressmaker, by Jen Wang (a book you should have read in high school). I reread this every year, so if you want more information about it, look at the posts from 2022, 2021, and 2020. I love this book so much. It’s a graphic novel about a genderfluid prince whose masc name is (sort of) my masc name. The category isn’t quite botched, as I do think if I’d read it in high school I might have been able to figure out I was genderfluid (but as mentioned above, I was/am an idiot, so maybe not). However, this book had not been published when I was in high school. Still highly recommend.

Norse Mythology, by Neil Gaiman (a book you wish you could read for the first time again). Another reread every year. I’m obsessed with this book. Not sure how many book posts I’ve included this one on, but it’s several. Gaiman is my favorite author, and this book is in part why. I love his retelling of the myths and his characterizations of Thor and Loki (and Freyja as well). The audiobook is the best way to read this book, I think, because it’s read by Gaiman. Still highly recommend.

Family Lore, by Elizabeth Acevedo (a book by an author with the same name as you). Another book club read. I liked this one. It’s magical realism (sort of), following a family where all the women have an ability. Each chapter changes perspective, and there are quite a few characters like Flight, but I liked this book better than that one. Recommend.

Disney’s Treasury of Children’s Classics, by C. Coombs (a book based on a popular movie). This is a very large book with a bunch of Disney films adapted for abridged text (they take out a lot of the film and leave only the main part of the story, so that they can tell the story in 3-4 pages with a lot of the page dedicated to the artwork of the films). The edition I have belonged to my mom, so while it’s been updated a couple times with more recent films over the decades, the edition I have is from 1978. I’ve never read it straight through, so mostly that was the goal with this entry. It’s fine, but it’s faster and more interesting to just watch the movies. I guess the only interesting thing is that since this edition was published in ‘78, one of the stories comes from Song of the South, which Disney will not let you view anymore. It’s a story from the movie rather than the live-action portion, which I think is where most of the racism problems come from (but I’ve never seen the movie, so I don’t know for sure), so the story itself seemed more like an adaptation of a folktale and less racist than those parts of the movie, but I don’t know if I’d necessarily advocate buying this book if you can find one nowadays, if you’re trying to avoid supporting that movie? I don’t know, the debate is complicated, and I’m neither equipped nor do I have the time to get into the nuances of it here. I’m not even sure if you can find this edition anywhere now.

Peter Darling, by Austin Chant (a book that was self-published). Another reread. I love this book. Again, you can find more information about this book in previous posts. This is simultaneously a sequel and retelling of Peter Pan. Peter is trans and gay, and some parts of the book follow Peter as a child to explain how he found himself in Neverland to begin with and why he returned as an adult, but most of the book takes place when he’s a young man, so the ENEMIES TO LOVERS ROMANTIC STORYLINE is a lot less problematic than it sounds when I explain this book incorrectly to people. You know which enemy, you do. Stop grimacing, you were here for the Onceler shit and you at least thought about it. I know you, veteran Tumblerite. Don’t @ me. This is hot, and we’ve both shipped worse things in our time (and probably ship worse things right now). Okay, I’m done being unnecessarily over-defensive about this pairing. Highly recommend.

Point Pleasant, by Jen Archer Wood (a book that started out as fan fiction). All right, veteran Tumblerite, strap in for this. This is a 2012 self-published (I think) Mothman-featured destiel AU. Yes, I read a published destiel fanfic in the Year of our Lord 2023. And I mostly loved it. Guys, it’s Mothman! Destiel! Dean knows he’s gay! Two Cas inserts! Cop Cas! Actually, no, that last one was the only thing I hated. ACAB, including, apparently, Please-Don’t-Sue-Me Cas. His “overprotectiveness” of Dean expresses itself in some really gross ways, to the point that there was a good several chapters where I didn’t want them to end up together. Overall it was pretty good, though. I read this right after Dear Mothman, and it was so fun for how different Mothman is portrayed in both books, like he’s kind of scary in this book. Recommend, if you ship destiel. Just be aware there’s some moments where Cas acts kinda horribly.

The Friend, by Sigrid Nunez (a book with a pet character). Another book club book. I read this in January, so I don’t fully remember this book. I think it was okay, but I was projecting a lot on these characters so it was kind of hard to get through. The main character ends up taking in her best friend’s massive dog when he dies suddenly (it happens I think before the book starts so not a spoiler). It was fine.

Dark Rise, by CS Pacat (the longest book on your TBR list). This was a reread, because I read it when it came out two years ago and then the sequel came out in November and I couldn’t remember much of what happened. This is another of my favorite authors, and I love this book, though I’m really looking forward to the sequel because I’m hoping the boys are going to get closer to getting together this time. She does a lot of enemies to lovers, and this is a trilogy so my guess is they won’t get together-together until the last book, but they’re starting the sequel as a little less of enemies at least, so that’s a positive. This is a dark fantasy that takes place in the Victorian era. If you want more of a description, see the books post for 2021.

Last Summer on State Street, by Toya Wolfe (a book with alliteration in the title). Another book club book. I liked it, but I wasn’t as impressed with this as I was hoping I would be. It was interesting but I was expecting more. The majority of the book is about a middle school girl growing up in the projects in Chicago in the last few months that her building is open, as the entire neighborhood was torn down by the end of the nineties I believe. It’s a novel but I think the author also grew up in this area so she drew somewhat on her personal experience. Sort of recommend? It was okay.

The Hate Project, by Kris Ripper (a romance with a fat lead). I barely remember this one too, but it was okay what I remember. This is a companion to The Love Study, which I read a few years ago. It was another enemies to lovers, which I liked. I did not remember any of the other characters from the other book, so it was like I was reading them for the first time. I’m sorry, I don’t remember enough to give you a summary, but I liked it. Recommend.

Dark Heir, by CS Pacat (A book that comes out in the second half of 2023). I’m still reading this one, but I’ll be done by the end of the year (possibly by the time this goes up. I’m queuing it a few days before posting). This is the sequel to Dark Rise, and I’m loving it. The enemies-to-lovers are interacting more than they did in the first one, and the stakes feel higher because of what was revealed at the very end of the first book. Definitely recommend.

Comics (Not counted in challenge)

Animal Crossing, by Kokonasu Rumba

Marvel Voices: Pride (2022), by Charlie Jane Anders, Andrew Wheeler, Christopher Cantwell, Danny Lore

The Defenders, by Al Ewing

4-7. Loki: The Liar #1-4, by Dan Watters

8. Fence: Redemption #1, by CS Pacat

9. What If…Dark Loki, by Walt Simonson

10-14. The Immortal Thor #1-5, by Al Ewing

15. Guardians of the Galaxy, by Al Ewing

16. Alligator Loki #1, by Alyssa Wong

17. Scarlet Witch #8, by Steve Orlando

18. Loki: The God Who Fell to Earth, by Daniel Kibblesmith

19. Thor and Loki: Double Trouble, by Mariko Tamaki

20. The Mighty Thor #359 (1984), by Walt Simonson

21. The Mighty Thor #353 (1984), by Walt Simonson

22. The Defenders: Beyond, by Al Ewing

My top ten new reads of 2023 will be coming in another post.

[yikesharringrove]

Show Pony

Chapter 2: Legends Never Die

Read on Ao3

-

Billy was watching porn when Steve texted.

He’s never clicked out of a video so fucking fast in his life.

The message just read hey, this is steve :) which like, of course, the fucker uses little emoticons. Of course , he types out little smiley faces. It’s so dumb. It’s so cute.

And Billy just stared at it. One hand still on his dick, the other hovering over the keyboard.

What the fuck does he reply?

Obviously, Steve knows it’s Billy. Like. Duh.

So he just tapped out a little Hey.

Steve texted back almost immediately.

you have a good day? Billy found himself grinning maniacally, so he rolled over to hold his pillow close to his chest, burying his chin into it. He didn’t wanna deal with the fact that this stupid adorable cowboy was making him smile and flush. Stupid.

Yeah, it was nice. Way too hot, but nice.

lol try wearing jeans in that heat. sweatin through my damn saddle. Billy laughed into his pillow.

Jesus, you’re such a fuckin hick. Billy bit his tongue when he pressed send.

And Steve just sent back >:(. And God. He’s so cute. Billy. Hates him.

And then Billy’s phone buzzed twice, another brand new text from Steve.

One that made Billy’s heart fucking stop.

i have the day off tomorrow. no tiedown on the schedule. you should come by and we could hang

Which sounded like. A date. It sounded like a fucking date. And Billy wanted to ask. If Steve’s invitation was for a goddamn date.

But like, he can’t just ask. Can he? Is that weird? Okay, maybe he’ll just-

Should I bring Max?

Right? Like if Steve says to bring his little sister, then there’s no way it’s a date. Because, who would want their date to bring their little sister? People who are just hanging out as friends, that’s who.

was hoping it'd just be you and me

And hoo boy. Hoo boy. That’s. That’s a fucking. That’s a date.

Then yeah. Just you and me.

And Steve sent him another little :) because the fucker loves his emoticon smiley faces. They’re not even, like, actual emojis. Steve doesn’t take the time to use fucking apostrophes, but he does type out little faces.

And maybe Billy’s spending too much time thinking about the smiley little shits.

But, like. It’s just. It’s Steve. And it’s a cute fucking thing that Steve does.

Billy’s pretty much obsessed with him by now.

And maybe Billy should ask for, like, a time to meet. But he was halfway through a video and his cock’s still hard and kinda starting to ache, pressed against the mattress where it was. He rolled over, slid his hand back into his shorts, and wrapped his fingers around the base of himself.

So it’s easy just to, slide it up. Run his fingers along his length. Pretend his rough hand is Steve’s rough hand. Pretend the tight vice grip is Steve’s mouth. Hot and slick around him.

He could picture Steve, on his knees in the dirt, those tight fucking jeans beginning to stain at the knees, those big pretty eyes looking at him so reverently, so softly.

And he came all over his hand, pictured those pink pretty lips covered with cum. Imagined scooping it on his fingers, pressing them into Steve’s mouth, making him lick them clean.

It wasn’t even the most depraved fantasy Billy’s ever had. But it was for sure in his top five best orgasms. No doubt about it.

He wiped his hand on the sheets, turning onto his side, staring at the short little conversation with Steve.

Thinking about their fucking date tomorrow.

Max was on his ass the second he woke up.

She cornered him as he was coming out of the bathroom, making him startle and nearly smack her.

“The fuck you doing out here, Shitbrid?”

“What are we doing today?”

“ We aren’t doing shit all. I will be heading out. Soon.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, jutting her jaw in a way he absolutely knows she learned from him.

“Are you going to the rodeo?” she hissed through her teeth at him. “Are you going to see-”

“That’s none ‘a your fuckin’ business.” He pushed past her, lumbering down the hall, almost making it into his bedroom before she slipped inside with him, slapping his elbow and kicking the door closed.

“Are you going on a date ?”

Billy glared at her. He clenched his jaw, speaking through gritted teeth.

“Pretty sure we agreed not to fucking talk about this shit here.”

She pursed her lips, shifting her jaw.

“Just nod or shake your head.”

Billy kept his head very still.

She kicked him once in the shin before stomping out of his room, nearly slamming the door, catching it at the last minute, and closing it quietly.

Neil didn’t approve of doors slamming in his house.

It was rule number. Three probably. First rule was don’t be a smartass. Second rule was don’t be Billy. That was kind of an unspoken rule. But it was there.

And Billy was faced with his newest dilemma.

What does he wear?

Because it’s gonna be another hot fucking day, and his typical date outfits have more, more.

He’s got one clean pair of cut-offs left. Okay. Yes. And he puts on a printed button-up shirt. Leaves it almost all the way unbuttoned, because, like, of course, he does. He’s got a good body. He wants Steve to see it.

He’ll be mostly cool, and he looks better than he did last time he saw Steve.

Black Converse complete the look, and he maybe spends more time than he usually would putting his hair into a ponytail, using one of Max’s bright scrunchies.

She’ll get pissed if she notices it but. Whatever. He steals them from her all the fucking time.

He hasn’t looked at his phone all morning, figured he could head over to the rodeo, and whenever Steve texted, he’d play it cool and act like he wasn’t already there.

But, cowboy hick Steve was obviously an early riser. As the most recent text Billy has is from that cowboy hick Steve. At six. In the morning.

you wanna meet up around ten?

It was currently just past nine.

Does Billy head up there now and wander around the grounds for a bit?

Yes. Yes, he does. Because frankly, he looks gay as fuck in this outfit and he should probably dip before his dad sees.

He sends Steve a thumbs up and the three dots show up almost immediately, showing Steve typing.

you got a car right? can you pick me up outside of the parking lot? i gotta get outta here

And Fuck. Billy knows that feeling.

No problem. You wanna get breakfast? I know a good diner if you’re into that kinda thing.

hell yeah im into that :)

Ah, yes. There was that little happy face just in time to give Billy lots of nice heart palpitations.

Great. That’s what he needs. To get sappy and gross over Steve’s emoticons. Again.

He slipped out of his house without interference, taking a lap around the block just to kill time before setting off to the fairgrounds.

He was trying to make his car look presentable, shoving the few gum wrappers Max left by the gear shift into his pocket, brushing off any stray cigarette ash with one of the baby wipes in the glove box.

And by the time he reached the fairgrounds, he saw Steve skulking along the front of the parking lot, hopping over cracks in the sidewalk like the cutest little bunny.

It was the most adorable thing in the fucking world.

Billy pulled up next to him, blaring the horn and watching Steve startle at the sound.

He was wearing cut-off denim shorts like Billy’s, and a goddamn crop top. It had the silhouette of a horse on its hind legs, its mane flowing in the wind behind it, and Harrington American Rodeo brandished across his chest. It was cut just at his waistline, where his body nipped in right above his hips.

Steve smiled his pretty smile at Billy, just about skipping around the front of the car to slide into the passenger seat.

And Billy tried not to think about how fucking good Steve looked in the passenger seat of his car, those long fucking legs all on display, his thighs, thick and pale, covered in dark hair.

“Hi,” Steve was leaning with one elbow on the center console, putting himself in Billy’s space, and Billy was thankful for his dark aviator sunglasses, as his eyes went wide and probably panicked with Steve moving in so close.

Because if Steve was leaning in to kiss him, that kinda feels like a lot. And Billy’s not a prude, not by any means but he's, he’s got lines, and rules, and-

Steve just knocked his head into Billy’s shoulder, leaning back to buckle his seatbelt, like headbutting Billy’s shoulder was casual and normal.

And fuck.

Billy’s in so deep for this guy he barely fucking knows.

All he could do was push the car forward, and will away the flush on his cheeks. And pretend like he hadn’t jerked off to the person sitting next to him less than twelve hours ago.

“So. Billy. Tell me about yourself.” Steve shifted in his seat, turning to look right at Billy. “All I know is that you’ve got a kid sister, a cool car, and that you’re really hot.”

Billy smirked, turning to look at Steve over his glasses, found Steve biting his bottom lip demurely.

“Well, there’s not much else to know .”

“Oh, come on. Where are you from? How old are you? Shit, probably shoulda asked that sooner. Please, tell me you’re not fifteen or something.”

“I’m literally driving, right now. And relax, Pretty Boy. I’m eighteen next month.”

“Okay. Okay, good. I’m eighteen, by the way. Just so you know, that I’m not fifteen.” Billy shook his head, rolling his eyes with a smile. “But I still want answers to the other questions.”

“Well, I’m from here. Born and raised in San Diego. Uh, I graduated high school in May. And I work at the diner I’m about to take you to, which might be the lamest shit in the world, but they have good pancakes.”

“I like pancakes.” Steve was fiddling with some of the knobs in the car, turning the air conditioner up and down. Billy was just resisting slapping his hand away.

And then he reached for the volume knob on the radio, turning up the Ratt Billy had playing, and audibly scoffed.

“God, I should’ve known you liked this .”

“Yeah? What about it?”

“Just, you know. Sex charged drug-fueled hair metal.”

“Oh my God. What in the fuck ?” He gave Steve as incredulous a look as he could muster. “Are you a housewife from the fifties?”

Steve gave one of his excellent bright laughs at Billy, and Billy’s gut got a little bit gay and a little bit fluttery.

“Alright, Stevie. I’ll bite. What kinda music are you into? And if you say country I’m blowing my fuckin’ brains out.”

“Well, unfortunate then because, yeah. Fuckin’ country, man. Although, I prefer folk.”

“See, you call my music sex-charged and drug-fueled, at least I’m not listening to posers rant about their tractors.”

“Oh, no. I hate that shit as much as you do. I mean like, Johnny Cash. Willie Nelson, you know? Emmylou Harris, Marty Robbins, Miss Dolly. The good stuff. There’s like, a few modern artists that are doing the same kinda thing that I like. It’s all just stories and good music.”

“That’s all my music is. Stories set to music. And, you say my shit is drug-fueled, you do know that Willie Nelson is famous for being a stoner? And that Johnny Cash publicly dealt with addiction and all that?”

“Well, yeah, but they’ve got class.”

“Okay, Cowboy. I’ll let you die on that fuckin’ hill while I party it up on mine to some eighties metal.”

And Steve reached out to shove Billy lightly, laughing while he did it.

“Agree to fucking disagree then. Just take me to pancakes and don’t try to reason with me about shitty music.”

“Then change the subject. Tell me other things about you besides your terrible music taste.”

Steve leaned back in his seat, blowing out a puff of air.

“Uh, I mean. Jeez. I don’t do much besides the rodeo, you know? Just movin’ all over the country.”

“That must be. Exhausting.”

Steve reached out to brush his fingers against the dashboard mindlessly.

“It’s not so bad. I try to make friends in the towns, you know? Makes it kinda fun.”

“Where were you born?”

“Indiana. Really small town. My mom and I stayed there for three years while my father traveled around. I’ve been on the road since.”

“Holy shit. Since you were three? Did you, like, go to school?”

“No. Uh, I actually have a tutor that’s on the road with us, and I’m. You know. Supposed to get my high school diploma soon. I’m behind schedule since,” he waved his hand flippantly. He was staring at his lap, playing with the frayed hem of his shorts. And Billy was grasping for another subject as Steve’s cheeks went red. Because obviously school, had struck a nerve.

“What kinda horse is June?”

“She’s an American quarter horse. That’s the usual type for most rodeo events. They’re good ranch horses because they’re a little more compact. I’ve been with June for five years now, and she’s a beast. I’ve got two others with me, on rotation so that none of them get too tired doing the shows over and over. June, Patsy, and Loretta. They’re all quarter horses, and each one is only about fourteen and a half hands tall. I like my horses a bit smaller for tie-down.”

“I understood, honestly, like, nothing of what you just said.”

Steve tossed his head back, laughing loudly over the radio at Billy’s confusion.

He laughed a lot.

Billy liked it.

“Don’t worry, I’ll teach you rodeo slang. You’ll be a natural,” Steve said, reaching out to where Billy’s right hand was resting on the gearshift, wrapping his finger’s around Billy’s wrist.

“What about their names?”

“All ladies of country. Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, and June Carter. Carter-Cash, I guess. She married Johnny but had a career in her own right.”

“Jesus, you’re a fuckin’ hick.”

“You’ve said that before. Just because I’m in the rodeo-”

“No, it’s because you’re in the rodeo, and listen to country music, and wear fucking cowboy boots -”

“They are literally made for riding horses, okay? That’s why they were invented .”

Billy rolled his eyes again, but he was smiling brightly as he pulled into the diner parking lot.

It wasn’t too busy for a Sunday morning. Billy bets it’ll pick up in an hour or so for the brunch crowd.

He began working at the diner three years ago, bussing tables and washing dishes, getting paid under the table because technically, he was too young to work. He was a server now, usually taking the evening dinner shifts to miss that time when his dad was home from work.

The bell jingled above their heads as Billy held the door open for Steve, and Billy stuck his tongue out at the kitchen staff, leaning over the counter to swipe a few menus from the stack.

He led Steve to a booth in the back corner, waving at Lorraine, the older woman who was working their section, gesturing to the booth for Steve to take a seat.

“Wow. You’ve totally got this place on lock.”

Billy grinned at him, leaning against the wall to stretch his legs up on the booth next to him.

“I’ve worked here a few years. Kinda done all the staff positions. It’s a nice place.”

“Well, then what do you recommend?” Steve carefully opened the laminated menu, his big eyes flicking over the pictures on the side of every dish.

“Pancakes are good, so are the waffles though, if you’re into that. I like the full breakfast. Eggs, bacon or sausage, hash browns, pancakes, or toast. Kinda the best of everything.”

Steve snapped his menu shut, smiling softly at Billy.

“I’m trusting you with my breakfast here. It better be good .”

Lorraine approached their table, already pouring Billy a cup of coffee and sliding it to him along the table.

“You really love us that much you find your way in here on your day off?”

“Only you, Lorraine. Everybody else can fuck off for all I care.”

She shook her head, rolling her eyes at Billy.

“You want the usual cook-up?”

“Yes, please.”

She took his unopened menu, turning and smiling brightly at Steve.

“What can I get for you, Darling.”

Steve’s eyes were wide when he looked up at her, his cheeks starting to flush.

“Uh, just, the same as Billy, please.”

“You want a coffee?”

“No, Ma’am. Just a water for me please.” He handed his menu back, giving her a bright smile, his cheeks a soft rosy red.

Lorraine winked at Billy, nodding her head once in Steve’s general direction. Billy waved her off before she could say something embarrassing.

“Sorry, I get kinda weird sometimes.” Steve had pulled a napkin out of the dispenser on their table and was looking down at it, tearing off little chunks and rolling them into balls.

“That’s okay. Lorraine gets it. Plus, you were polite, and that’s all that matters. I wouldn’t be caught dead with you if you were an ass to servers.”

“Oh, God. My dad is such an ass when it comes to, really any staff. Like, servers, or, frankly, most of the people that work for him. Don’t even get me started on the animal carers. I mean, that’s probably the most important job at the whole rodeo, and he’s been trying to dock pay left, right, and fucking center.” Steve rolled his big eyes, huffing like Max.

“Wait, so your dad is like, the head of the whole operation?”

“My name is Steve Harrington,” and Steve pointed at his shirt, the name Harrington emblazoned over the horse.

“Oh damn. I thought that name was familiar when I saw the shirt. Figured I had just seen the rodeo name or something.”

“Nope. That’s me. A whole Harrington. My great-grandpa started the rodeo. He was, like, an actual ranch hand. Started one in the town we’re from. My grandpa was the one who got the idea to take it on the road. My dad came up through it like I did. He was in steer roping. And basically, his end goal is that I start running the whole show in a few years. Take over for him.”

“And, you don’t want to?”

“Nah. I don’t really have a brain for business. Don’t have a brain for much other than riding and tie-down, honestly. Don’t know the first thing about how to run a traveling rodeo.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

Steve smiled at him, but his eyes seemed sad, and his smile was tight.

“You got plans for next year? College or anything?”

“Nah. I think college is, on the horizon, but I’m taking a gap year. Saving up to move out and pay for school and everything. Probably gonna go to community college to save some money. And then maybe grad school?”

“That’s smart, you know? Finding ways to save up. My dad is debating pushing college on me. Like, if I do run the business, there’s some shit I should know going into it, right? But I think he also sees that I’m way too dumb for college, and, like, I don’t need a degree to get hired. I’ll just,” Steve made an upwards sweeping gesture with his right hand. A gesture that Billy understood to vaguely mean nepotism.

“What would you rather do? If not run the thing.”

“I like tie-down, and I could feasibly do it for a long time. I could branch into other events, too, like steer roping and all that. Same idea as calf roping but a different animal. Literally. It’s a steer. But I’d be content just doing the events until I croak. I have absolutely no desire to rise through the ranks, or whatever.” Steve rolled his eyes, balling up the little napkin wads he had made into another napkin from the dispenser. Billy appreciated it. He’s had to clean up crap like that from this very floor. “I just love being around the rodeo. The animals and all the people. I don’t really wanna be anywhere else.”

“At least you have something you love. Like, you’d be happy to do that for the rest of your life, and not in an I’ve got nothing better to do way, but in an, I’m passionate about this way. A lot of people don’t really. Get that.” Billy included.

It’s not that he doesn’t have passions, it’s just that they’re not necessarily sustainable to him.

He knows he’s dangling by a thread with his father. Knows after his eighteenth birthday, he should be ready to be kicked out or asked to pay rent at any time. He needs a career that’ll get him some fucking money if he wants to get out and cut off his dad entirely. He can’t be forced to go crawling back to him because he wanted to self-publish his gay ass poetry that never took off or drum in a rock band that went nowhere.

To name a few.

“Yeah, I mean. Sometimes I think that I probably would’ve never set foot in a rodeo if I wasn’t literally born into one, so I kinda wonder who I’d be if this wasn’t everything I knew, but I still really love doing it, and it’s something that I’m actually good at, which speaks volumes.”

They were interrupted by Lorraine returning, placing two identical plates in front of them, a glass of water for Steve, and pulling hot sauce and ketchup out of her apron pocket.

“You two let me know if you need anything else.”

Steve beamed at her, thanking her softly and Billy’s heart fluttered like a stupid idiot.

They tucked in, Steve shoving food into his mouth until his cheeks were bulging, chewing aggressively. It made Billy laugh and nearly spew coffee all over the table.

“I figured you’d have better manners, being the heir to a rodeo dynasty or whatever.”

Steve pulled a face, showing Billy the chewed-up food in his mouth.

“How’s that for manners?”

It was actually fucking funny watching him try to swallow everything stuffed in his mouth.

“It’s borderline painful watching you eat.”

Billy laughed as Steve flicked a piece of scrambled egg at him. It landed on his shoulder. Billy slurped it right off his shirt.

“See! Now, who's the one with no table manners?”

“Still you, Sugar. Still you.”

Breakfast was, like, actually fun.

Not that Billy was expecting it to be shitty, but he wasn’t expecting it to be as carefree, as easy, as it was. He and Steve just, kinda, clicked.

Steve was easy to talk to. He was easy to listen to, easy to laugh with, and even easier to look at.

He’s kinda, everything Billy has ever wanted in a person.

He slid his hand into Billy’s as they were leaving the diner, smiling shyly at Billy when he looked over at him.

And Billy stopped in his tracks, right there in broad daylight, tugging Steve by his hand closer to Billy’s body, sliding his hands up his arms, feeling over Steve’s shoulders, and down his back to settle on his hips. Steve wrapped both arms around Billy’s shoulders, leaning closer to him, almost pressing his whole body against Billy’s.

And it was easy. Kissing Steve was just as easy as talking to him, as laughing with him, as looking at him. It was simple and nice and made Billy feel something he really didn’t want to put too much thought into.

Something that was decidedly not easy.

They pulled away from one another, both their lips red and slick.

Billy opened the passenger door, and Steve folded himself into the seat with a ridiculous amount of grace.

And as Billy drove them aimlessly through the city, he tried not to think of the expiration date on this whole thing, on the dates listed on the back of Steve’s t-shirt.

They’ve got a little under a month together.

And Billy was determined to make that the best goddamn month of both of their natural lives.

[currentfandomkick]

Miraculous Team and the Batboys

Longer update, wrote the ao3 version first this time. if you want to find me there, crazyjc.

--

Thankfully there weren’t any akuma attacks that day or that night. Marinette was glad to get some sleep for once. Her body, confused and used to a few hours a night, got her up early.

Marinette decided to help with the morning rush—quick to handle the register and make adjustments to some people’s orders (no extra charge for the exhausted high school and college students) when she managed to find someone as dead as she was after an akuma messed up her commission schedule and sleep was skipped for a week.

“Wow, you’re getting the ‘Please Don’t Let Me Die Again Yet’ special.” Marinette turned before the zombie could speak. “Maman, watch the register, someone looks worse than midterms and commissions me.”

Once Maman took the register again, Marinette worked on her disaster drink that only a few particular customers knew of from her personal menu--mainly the dead college and high school students insane enough to pull a weeks worth of all nighters like her. And baby parents that liked her parents bakery.

Gurarana beans instead for the extra caffeine with her special blend of licorice root, peppermint and green tea poured in--double the caffeine with less effort, glucose for the brain fuel, sweet and mint for wakeup and focus, and green tea for lasting energy boost.

“Here, this should keep you up and a bit more functional than usual.”

The man raised an eyebrow.

“Oh my god, what got Finals Angel up this early?” One of the regulars almost yelled, staring at her with a look that screamed the universe was going to collapse in on itself, and they were now anticipating this outcome until they got their morning fix.

Marinette shrugged, moving to the next customer as the dead man took a seat and pulled out his laptop. She continued to help until it was getting close to class.

“Maman, the rest of that brew is under the cabinet for the laptop zombie, I’m taking my morning delivery now.”

Maman took over while Marinette made her way to school, passing out the usual deliveries as she moved about.

“Adrien, your insult to caffeinated monstrosities everywhere.”

“Thanks Marinette!” The blond held his (essentially) hot chocolate with one pump expresso, and five three shots of caramel on top of whip cream.

“Chloe, why you have me grab something this sweet this early is only further proof of your crimes against humanity.”

“You’re welcome Dupain-Cheng.” The girl nabbed her (in Marinette's opinion) low caffeine sugar water--licorice root with half a bottle of honey, and lots of ice with whip cream and honesy drizzled on top. She would never understand that order, but was too afraid to ask at this point. She might be taking the Bee thing too far.

“Alya, thank you for being a sane coffee person, Nino, we are having a talk about your scheduling.”

“Thanks gurl." Because close or not, Alya was an addict with a simple and reasonable coffee that restored Marinette's sanity while making it.

Nino groaned as he took his pastries and three cream, one expresso. “Not again, I still haven’t recovered from the last time.”

Marinette shrugged. “Your mistake, not mine.”

“Oh, did you get my cookies?” Sabrina asked.

Marinette rolled her eyes with a fond smile. She likes Sabrina when she isn't in full cling mode, and giving her boxes of pre-paid cookies put together on Marinette's whims? Very calming after dealing with Adrien and Chloe's offending orders. “Yes. You paid for a different set everyday.”

“Thanks!” Sabina examined her current mix, more obscure cookies since Marinette got them before the morning rush.

“Markov, please tell me Max got some sleep last night?” Marinette asked as she handed another of her special “Max needs a nap but is to stubborn to” order--which is essentially an energy drink blend with a few slow-release teas mixed in.

“Affirmative. He got the requested minimum of three hours. I will ensure he gets more once school is out.”

“I’ll take what I can get.” He was less prone to akumatazation with more sleep, and Hawkmoth does like using Max. Marinette likes knowing she can have her teammate in the field without wondering if he'll pass out.

Marinette took her seat by Alya. They weren’t as close anymore, but it did mean Lila was alone in the back and didn’t see the group document.

“Class, we have a new student today!”

Marinette frowned. She wasn’t informed of any newcomers. She looked over at Chloe who huffed. She didn’t know either then.

“Class, this is Damian Grayson from America. His father is here on business and will be joining us for the semester!”

Chloe and her shared a look. With Chloe as the current president and Marinette as the head of the welcome committee, this was very last minute for them not to be informed. Especially as Bustier had the time to since both were here early.

Alya shot her a look.

Marinette shook her head. She really didn’t know, and it bugged her.

Alya narrowed her eyes as the new boy came in. Black hair, stood too straight and Middle Eastern. She wondered what his first language was briefly--someone in school was bound to be fairly fluent. If it was related to Arabic, Rose would be a good translator. Her and Adrien both have Mandarin now, and her English was passable to Americans--not so much for the UK. Alya has Spanish while Nino has Portuguese covered. Chloe was good for UK English and so was Adrien, but those two weren't good for new kids... especially from the America. Mylene, Ivan, Nathaniel and Juleka were bad at talking most of the time, so they were no-gos...

And she still had to finish Ali's commission… This would be a headache if they were an old Chloe-type.

“Damian, why don’t you tell us about yourself.”

“No need to. I do not plan on making friends.”

And he was worse than an Old Chloe-type. There went her free period for commissions.

The entire class shared a look, and Marinette wanted to groan. This boy would be in for a rude awakening—there was no escaping friendship in Bustier’s class. And anyone difficult? They would sent Marinette as envoy--hopefully Alya didn't make easy.

“I presume my seat is in the back?”

“Actually,” Alya stood up with a grin, “I was going to sit back with Lila to help her catch up in our next class.”

Marinette froze as she realized what Alya was doing. Keeping the new kid from Lila was good, but she also needed to keep Alya from falling for Lila’s lies again. And she has no clue on his preferred languages and uh!

“Alya,” she hissed.

“Don’t worry, I got this.” Alya moved to the back with ease before the boy could say a word.

Marinette hit her head. Why was her friend like this?

“I guess that means you’ll sit next to Marinette. Marinette, can you show Damian around during your free period?”

Marinette knew that tone. There was no refusing without a lecture on being a good role model and another reprimand for stepping down from class representative and student government when she got more commissions and needed more time.

“Of course Miss Buster.”

Damian took his seat without saying a word.

Marinette decided it was better to stay silent with this one--he didn't want friends, and would only be here briefly. She could respect that, even if she could feel the others scheming otherwise.

“What do you mean you know—“

“Oops,” Lila grinned. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

And that was what Marinette was hoping to avoid.

Damian twitched next to her. Marinette sighed, “One sec, I need to remind someone to check her sources before getting ahead of themselves… again.”

Nino shot Marinette a sympathetic look while Marinette linked three redacted articles that starred Lila as her main source.

“And done.”

Damian raised an eye brow at her. “You aren’t going to pester me, correct?”

Marinette rolled her eyes. Honestly? “You made your stance clear. I’m here as the actual head of the welcoming committee, and during free period I’ll just need to know your interests so we can avoid the parts of the school that aren’t relevant for you, and to make sure you have an idea how to handle akuma attacks since I’m going to guess they didn’t tell you about that before you applied.”

“tt,” Damian leveled her with a scowl. “Of course I know about them.”

Marinette didn’t bother to hide her surprise. “So you know where to go for shelter, the drills, the apps and news sources that are good for tracking, which hospitals are contactable during attacks and which ones go into lock down, oh and what actions are allowable and not as civilian aides to the miraculous team?”

The boy froze before her. He didn't then.

Her face slid into a more neutral one--keeping her gloating to herself.“That’s what I thought. I have a few flow charts in the committee room to grab since its an info dump and no one processes those well, and your learning style may benefit from it for all I know.” Marinette made sure not add ‘since some people can’t be bothered to tell me.’ The new boy clearly wasn’t interested in friendship, and despite what the class thinks, she is not friendship-nip.

“I…”

“Class, turn to page 67 of your textbook. Marinette, make sure to share with Damian.”

“Yes Miss Bustier,” Marinette moved the book between the two of them, ignoring Damian besides checking where his eyes were on the page before turning as they followed along.

Once their free period began, Adrien had a Chloe guarding him against the Lila octopus, with Sabrina flanking his other arm as backup.

“I take it those three are together?” Damian asked once they left.

“No, Chloe doesn’t share her friends well,” Marinette explained as they moved through the halls. “And it keeps away his fans, so no one stops it anymore.” Not unless they wanted the Mayor’s ire at least. It was very effective against Lila.

“I see…” He was watching her. She wasn’t sure if it was an American thing or just a tic of his. Possibly both.

“That’s where the teacher’s offices are for before and after school,” Marinette gestured to one wing. “All the doors are labeled, so its easy enough to find who you’re looking for as long as you have a name. You’ll find most of the school services there as well, minus the nurse who’s room is closer to the quad.”

Marinette smiled when they got to welcoming committee room. None of the other members were there at the moment, but the file cabinet was. She grabbed one of the ready-made packets and grabbed a spare Bustier Class packet too.

“Here’s the information for being new in Paris, everything from common places to eat, the good hole-in-the-wall places itemized by what you’re looking for, everything relating to akumas is on the red papers, and the yellow is the school’s map and procedures.” Marinette handed him the blue folder, then the orange. “This one is the Bustier-class specific one approved by Miss Bustier. It lists everything from class rules, what caused various akumatazations with the victim’s consent to disclose it, so not all are listed, and it has your schedule and the class outing dates plus who’s interested in what on the pink pages for possible friends, but you said you weren’t interested so we can skip that.”

Marinette watched him look over the papers for a moment, waiting until his attention was back to her. “Now, anything you have a vague interest in that you might have some random inclination to do at Dupont during your free periods, before or after school?”

Damian raised an eyebrow at her.

“Its you let me tailor the tour for you, or you have to go all over the school and talk to me the entire time, when we both know you’re really not interested.”

“Tt.”

Marinette shrugged. “Have it your way, now, on with the tour!”

--

Damian gawked at the core ciruculum including what he knew was more college level than high school level. Then there was the fact these students had access to multiple state of the art facilities tailored to current students interests on campus, with little issue getting them apparently.

“How does your school get all of this?”

The pigtail girl almost laughed at his question. “I guess they just sent you here since we have the most flexible curriculum routines then.” The girl shifted how she stood. “Dupont is an experimental school, everyone is given high expectations on entry but as long as you keep up with grades the school gets whatever any student requests—a few years ago we had one kid that was allowed to do rocket science as part of his program, he went to some German facility with a translator every other day. Alix has a blanket permit to do street art and installations on public property, as long as she gets her design approved and can give them her schedule as long as she helps other student with history classes. I get full access to any designing materials as part of my deal with the school in exchange for doing any school event costumes and tailoring jobs that I get a two week notice on.”

Damian nodded along, processing this new information. Suddenly, the high amount of akumas from graduates and current students of Dupont made sense. They were specialists, extremely skilled at their crafts and more likely to be knowledgeable than the general population on a variety of topics.

--

Marinette was glad for their hour-long lunch. “I’d ask if you wanted someone to eat with you, but you look like you need some time to process. I’ll check in before school ends.”

She ran home, noting that the man from that morning was still there but looked much less like he would keel over sometime soon. She knew that brew would help. She grabbed a croissant and ran upstairs to finish Prince Ali’s latest commission—a variant on his usual princely attire that was more maneuverable but still formal enough that no one would notice when he wore that one instead of the traditional one.

She had a feeling he was going to use it to sneak away from his guards.

She set an alarm and got to work.

She was quick to leave once the alarm sounded—she gave herself an extra five minutes this time.

“Hey, you’re the coffee angel, right?”

Marinette turned to see the man from that morning, now much more alive.

“I guess.” Marinette knew not to give out names to customers unless her parents deemed them not-stalker-y.

“Thanks, that thing actually worked. What’s in it?”

Marinette smiled at that. “Sorry, that’s a secret not even Maman and Papa get to know.”

“Huh,” the man processed her words. “Guess I’ll have to keep coming when I’m low then.”

Marinette nodded. “Guess so, good to see you’re no longer a zombie monsieur!”

She ran off at that, not sure what to think of them yet, other than if they needed that drink regularly, they might be worse than her. And she has heroing as an excuse. He doesn’t.

--

Holy shit was not expecting this response.

Thank you all so much, was not expecting this much positive response and i think my brain broke a bit, in the good way.

So, we have a new fan to Marinette's secret menu, and a Damian slowly realizing why the school is targetted who is also going with the 'I don't do friends' thing, again.

leaving this one as a poll: Damian calls out Lila by the end of the day for how Marinette and him end up as friends, or he puts together Marinette is doing a lot for the class by the end of the day and wants to figure out why, especially after reading the Ladyblog during lunch, or any other ideas.

Any ideas on how Marinette meets Dick and Jason for when she meets the next round of Batboys?

@worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @littleredrobinhoodlum @northernbluetongue @kceedraws @pirats-pizzacanninibles @theatreandcomicfreak @daminett4life @catthhay @weird-pale-blonde-person @amayakans @chocolatecatstheron

[eternalgoldfish]

(This is for @delphineygt who made this piece of gold.)

Billy doesn’t mean to fall asleep at work sometimes, but it’s hard when the weather isn’t so great and the pool is dead, and Billy’s been up all night repainting the back porch for his dad, like they don’t rent their shitty little house. It’s not Billy’s job. His job is keeping snot nosed brats from drowning. So sometimes the siren song of a deck chair is too strong to resist. No one really comes to check on him, anyway.

It’s more his dreams that are the enemy. He sees too many girls in cute bikinis, has to watch Heather strut around all day with her hair up and her shoulders high. The girl has curves, legs for days, and no time for Billy’s winking eyes and wolfish smiles. But, well. A boy can dream. Way too much, in fact. 

He’s always imagined things in vivid technicolour, but the skin under his mouth feels so real, the sweat of summer on his tongue. Strong thighs grip his waist and hands wander inside his pants, and he’s weak, eighteen, still can’t always keep his hormones in check. It’s fucking embarrassing, popping boners at work. You’d think he’d learn, but. Billy’s foolish when he thinks about manicured nails around his cock, candy-red, glossy lips leaving smears down his chest.

Then it gets worse. Because Billy is an idiot, and goes to the mall, and makes the mistake of getting fucking ice cream. Which wouldn’t be an issue, if Steve Harrington wasn’t behind the counter with his hair wrecked and flopping out from under his stupid hat, scowling. 

Harrington bends to get something behind the counter and his shorts slide up a bit, just enough to make Billy swallow, and Harrginton’s ass is not something he thinks about, but. Navy looks good against pasty legs and freckles, and the hair on Harrington’s legs isn’t dense enough to reach his upper thighs.

“Did you want one scoop or two?”

And Billy has the blink before he leers. “Whichever floats your boat.”

Which is stupid, because Harrington stacks three scoops in the bowl and says, “You’re literally the one ordering. That’ll be five forty-three.”

Christ.

So the next time he’s at work, sprawled out on a chair for his break, it’s not a surprise that he dreams of navy blue shorts with white stripes, too short to begin with and then hiked high enough to reveal the swell of each ass cheek, maybe a skirt so small it flips up in the wind. Billy goes with shorts, and it’s obvious that the girl’s not wearing any panties, couldn’t be as he thinks about sliding his hands in from the bottom, getting a firm squeeze of that peach.

The girl is pretty, short brown hair, wide eyes, kind of rough as she digs her nails into his shoulders. Harrington gasps in his ear and mewls as Billy coaxes him against his thigh. He looks like one of those Japanese cartoon chicks with the big tie around his neck and tippy hat. Max had called it anime.

Whatever. Billy knows how to make Harrington cream those little pants. They’re so short he could slip them to the side and fuck him slow and sweet.

“Dear fucking god, oh my god, I need bleach.”

And that curly fucking freak Max hangs out with is definitely not in his dreams, so. Billy sits bolt upright, shades sliding down his nose as his face pinks. He’s hard, dick fully straining his shorts, and for Steve fucking Harrington.

“This is illegal,” Curly says, pointing. “Actually fucking indecent. Criminal. I need an adult to speak to? There are children here?”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Billy says. He maybe pushes Curly a little hard to get him out of the way, but if the kid slips on the deck and lands in the pool it’s not Billy’s fault. He has to go to the bathroom. He has a job to do.

Because the universe has a cruel sense of humour, that is not the last Billy thinks about that floppy tie or watering eyes. The rest of the week, he wakes in his bed with flushed cheeks and his hand around his dick, praying for something to think about other than Steve Harrington bending over. He gets nothing, just variations on the same theme. Harrington eating ice cream, tongue swiping lazily over the spoon. Harrington in nothing but the short blue top. Eating mint chocolate chip off Harrington’s thighs.

Billy’s not even gay. Doesn’t think he is.

So of course Steve shows up at the pool on Saturday, like he lives in Hawkins or something, wearing short navy swim trunks and his trendiest shades. A peach pit lodges in Billy’s throat as he catches a glance, nearly strangles him.

“Oh my god,” Curly says. “Are you fucking kidding me? There is a pervert here, Steve. Steve, I need you to protect me.”

There’s a second of clarity where Harrington looks at him, one split second where all Billy can think is oh. Then Harrington’s head is tilting down, eyes clearly following from Billy’s chest to his navel, right to the heavy weight between his legs, that he can’t hide between the tight shorts and the sunshine. Oh.

Harrington licks his teeth, maybe a little mean. “Think you got a little problem there, buddy. Might wanna go do something about it.”

And Billy does do something, but he’s an idiot. He takes five solid steps forward, places his hands on Harington’s shoulders, and pushes him into the pool.

He’s on probation, or something, which is really just a fancy way of his boss saying they’re too understaffed to fire him. It’s kind of lucky, but it’s a shitty kind of luck, the kind where he knows it’s the only break he’s getting this week.

His theory is confirmed as he’s changing at the end of his shift, stray thoughts of a freckled back breaking in to his evening party plans, when Harrington walks in and sets his bag down.

“Going to Nikki’s pool party tonight?” Harrington asks, like it’s nothing.

“Yeah, you going?”

Harrington shrugs. “Might not, now that I know you are.”

Steve Harrington is a liar. He sits on one of Nikki Addison’s deck chairs in nothing but his navy swim trunks, sipping a beer while cast in evening sun. Billy just wants to be plastered and forget about him, thinks it’s a pretty easy option. Booze is flowing freely from a cooler by the sizzling grill. Tommy thinks he’s a chef now because he can make frozen hamburgers.

It’s simple for Billy to slid back into his habits. He kisses Nikki Addison on the cheek and thanks her for her party, eats more hamburgers than he’s allowed, and ends up sitting in her empty living room around midnight, head tipped along the backrest, still in nothing but his trunks. An empty beer dangles from his hand, clumsy.

He’s pretty sure he’s dreaming, because otherwise Harrington wouldn’t be entering from the kitchen and closing the frosted French doors behind him, or walking across the room to straddle his lap.

“I’m so drunk,” Harrington admits.

“And fucking gorgeous,” Billy slips.

“You were staring at me.”

“God, you’re usually less talkative.”

And Steve gives him a look, nose sort of scrunched a second, before tangling a hand in Billy’s curls and jerking him forward by the neck. It’s a firm kiss, solid like the hand ghosting down his abdomen, and oh.

Harrington never kisses him in his dreams.

[bionicdragonguardian1]

Recluse Vampire Izuku

Inspired by @25coriandah‘s little bit of art (which isn’t even something that happens in this part, oops) where Izu finds Wolf Pup Kacchan and has no clue how Werewolves work, and every book is wrong.

Slightly moved the Timeline Forward c.1920s America, Izu still dresses in his Victorian Garb. Where they’re currently living NOT specified, but that’s what I had in mind while writing this.

If you wanna get State Specific, I was thinking Colorado

Izuku��s age is based on the Grigori legends (11-13th centuries) so I headcanon that he just really liked his early-Victorian Clothes.

Yes, I made the girl that turned him Toga and the girl he turned Uraraka

Also yes, I combined the standard Vampire fangs with Supernatural’s mouth full of retractable ones because I just love those but it still seems kinda dumb that they lose the regular fangs.

Part One:

Sorry that this is just planning out Izuku’s backstory, but I wanted to make sure I had at least a slight foundation for Izuku’s character before introducing Katsuki.

Izuku was the sole son of a noble and a merchant’s daughter when his father died his family refused to accept either of them into their family. So while he was the only man alive that held his mother’s strong merchant name, he was rejected by the ones that had true sway in the world they lived in.

His mother had married his father as young as she did- a mere fourteen- because her father was dying and they all knew that while Inko Midoriya knew the ins and outs of all the sales her father had been doing for years no one would take her seriously without a husband doing the negotiations for the business. As the fifth son of a noble family, Hisashi actually stood to gain something by marrying into the Midoriyas and forgoing his noble name.

It had been senseless violence that had turned that on its head a mere two years after they’d met, mere months after Inko had given birth to Izuku. A random killing that happened for no reason other than the fact that the man wanted to do it.

Now without her father, husband, and a baby on her hip, Inko had no chance of keeping the sales moving the way they had been. Izuku grew up learning all he could about his mother’s inheritance, that he could fight to take back once he was of age. But life was still difficult for them. Winters were harsh and Izuku had to convince men at least twice his age to take him seriously.

Rather difficult when he didn’t have much of shouting tone in his voice box, and he was rather unassuming looking. He just wished he was a hidden monster, able to show them that he could prove them wrong.

He wished that for many years.

He got his wish when he was sixteen. But not in the way he wanted.

A man Izuku had never done trade with before showed up at his mother’s business, asking for him specifically.

Something felt strange about but business hadn’t been going well recently with the groups choosing sides and fights breaking out in the streets. They needed this deal if the man was seriously going to give them half the money he was offering.

It all went to hell from there.

He should’ve realized why he felt like he recognized the man’s face far sooner than he did. When he finally figured it out, he was in too deep. This wretched man was a lord, one of the ones who was bringing the fights into the streets. Despite that, he hardly seemed to lose any of his pawns.

Izuku found out why that night. The teeth dug into his throat catching on his trachea, choking him with that, and when blood flowed into his lungs he felt like he was drowning. 

When the teeth let go the last thing he expected was to wake back up.

But he did. His throat was sore, bone dry, and his stomach burned for food.

He had this habit of gnawing on his lower lip but was stunned when he felt a harsh prick in his lip and blood on his tongue.

He came face to face with the one who bit him again, a blonde woman who looked to be about his age, with gold eyes, and sharp canines.

For some reason he hissed at her, feeling his jaw flex in an unfamiliar way. She returned it and he watched stunned as her two sharpened canines, as well as the rest of her teeth were covered by a new row of pointed teeth sharper than even her unnaturally sharp teeth.

Izuku felt his stomach drop as he realized that would explain the strange feeling of his jaw flexing.

Whatever she was, she had turned him into.

She used his paused to pin him to the floor, like the rabid animal he was acting like.

Izuku could hear the clanging of chains from down the hall as clear as if they were in the cell with him. Though once they reached the cell he heard something else.

A strong, loud, fast, pumping and it made his newly acquired teeth ache.

The chains stopped rattling, the pumping remained and Izuku fought the blonde girl for an entirely new reason.

“Try not to kill her, but if you do that’s ok too.” those were the first words she said to him and Izuku didn’t understand what they meant. “Though she’s a bit of a pest, so I hope you do kill her.”

He would not kill. That was a fact and no matter what had happened to him, that would not change.

The blonde kept him pinned by the neck, watching as she let Izuku see what was the source of his new hunger pangs. A girl, brown hair and brown eyes, blush in her cheeks as she struggled against the chains that kept her from going any further than three feet from the eyelet in the floor.

He wanted to eat this girl. His stomach would’ve rolled if it wasn’t so hungry.

When the blonde woman let him up, he didn’t even think, he just moved. Moved so fast he heard her wrists snap at the pull of the chains, the crack of her skull against the stone. Only pausing when he heard the beating her chest slow to what he knew was a dangerous point.

He was killing her. That killed his hunger in an instant. With the hunger no longer clouding his mind, something else kicked in and all he knew was that he was using his teeth, that were currently latched onto the side of her neck, to inject her with something.

Finally, he could take his teeth out of her, looking back at the blonde with horror and confusion in his eyes.

She just smiled, then cheered at the fact that she was still alive. Izuku breathed a little easier at that, only then did she lead him out of the cell and back to the upstairs. Where he met with the man who wanted to pay him again.

The man explained what had happened to Izuku, what he was planning to do now, and that his mother had been told he was dead- since he could no longer act like he was human- and given the entire amount that Izuku had been told they would receive.

It was unsurprising to Izuku that his mother planned to leave. This city had taken away her husband, and to her knowledge, her son. This country had taken her mother and her grandparents. The only thing that eased his heart was that they had lost track of her considering she left so quickly afterward.

It made his refusal to kill and play soldiers easy. Especially considering it had the man more than willing to try and kill him, and when Izuku escaped, he was pursued through the night, but after that, they were willing to just let him die.

Had Izuku not been as inquisitive in the after-death as he was in his true life, he probably would’ve. Yet, he learned that he could survive on the blood of animals, for the most part, and only needed the blood of actual humans once a year.

It took about a decade before he met more like him.

Most of them were in small groups, maxing out at about a dozen.

The man that had planned to use Izuku had hundreds.

It took him until then to realize exactly how much about him had changed, physically. Other than the things he realized on his own.

His ears were pointed now, he did, in fact, have two sets of teeth. His canines were the only parts of his teeth that could possibly give him away without him either feeling threatened, going hungry for long periods of time, or when he was feeding. Sunlight could kill him, though what he had been told was in fact untrue.

It wasn’t direct sunlight that would kill him, he’d just get sunburned easily, it was sunlight through a blessed magnifier. Though magnifier sounded like a stretch since church windows were apparently strong enough to do him in.

His reflection no longer showed in mirrors due to the presence of a holy metal. While it wouldn’t kill him- like their mythical opposite- it did reflect that he no longer had a pure being to be reflected.

He would, in fact, never age again.

That made Izuku ready to go charging back into the monster’s den and kill him, he was constantly underestimated due to his age and now that would never stop.

He wouldn’t call himself nomadic, he had met several small groupings of vampires that were and he didn’t really fit in with them either, instead, he moved along on his own.

Eventually, he ended up in England. At first, the sheer number of vampires worried him. It had been nearly five hundred since he had seen a grouping this large, and he was only lucky that the group had destroyed itself from the inside out before anything too horrendous could happen.

Once he had realized that they were peaceful, and surprisingly scared of him when he said when and where he had been turned, he was less worried.

Though he stayed to keep a close eye on them.

It was also surprising that while they covered a vast portion of a country, these people were strongly connected.

He’d never tell them but it made him feel suffocated.

It came with the upside that he’d been able to see the brunette girl he’d turned all those years ago was still… he couldn’t say alive, perhaps Not Dead worked in this situation?

At least both of them were offended that the only reason they had been called together was the fact that they were turned around the same time in the same area.

Her presence made things feel less suffocating. For awhile. Not to mention she had a life outside of Izuku being this stranger that she just happened to know.

He stayed put for the longest time in his life, but when every single one of their kind in the country knew him by name and face he needed to leave. Now.

Despite the outcry of war.

He’d settled away from where he thought humans would settle but was surprised to find that there were Natives who lived in this area already.

While they were distrusting of him at first, they quickly realized that Izuku couldn’t care less about them if they left him alone.

Sometimes he wished he’d cared more, by the time it was too late. Yet, he stayed largely disconnected from other people, despite how much time continued to pass.

He’d become something of a myth- more than he already was- which he could accept, because it largely kept people away from him. Even if meant that he would have to go a bit further when he actually needed to drink human blood.

Which was why he was stunned to his core when he stumbled across a small blonde child, unconscious in the woods near his property. He may be a myth but he’d been alive for centuries so he had enough money to pay his taxes, unlike some people nowadays. He wondered if that was why the boy had been left in the woods. One too many mouths to feed.

The boy’s heart was loud, possibly too loud and too fast, given his size and apparent age, but Izuku felt something he hadn’t felt since he was truly alive, a pull to another person.

He barely realized he’d already moved by the time he had the blonde boy in his arms. That was when something caught his eye. The boy’s ears weren’t covered by his spiky blonde locks as Izuku had thought, rather they were upon his head, pointy, and covered in equally blonde fur. He also had a tail, from what Izuku could feel. Though it was tucked down his pant leg so Izuku had missed it on his preliminary scan of the boy.

Social recluse, yes. Moron, far from it, he had all new books and hundreds of old ones he’d had his acquaintances in other countries send him when he decided to make this his permanent home.

He still sent letters to most of them, across several countries, and the more studious ones were easy to agree to buy two of all books and send him one. So long as he returned the favor. He’d agreed when one of them had literally come to find him across a wartorn country because he hadn’t sent him a new book.

He just hoped that somewhere in his collection had at least some information to help him with the small boy.

@thepinkjinx, I hope this appeases you until I can finish my next bit.

[lesbian-rob1n]

the waves are crashing down on you and me (i’ll see you on the other side)

A/N: WARNING!!! Spoilers for stranger things season 3. Do not read this if you haven’t seen the whole season. Or do, but don’t whinge to me later. Cross posted to AO3

It’s quiet here, in the endless darkness.

Billy finally feels like he can just rest.

He’s so tired, he doesn’t remember ever being this tired before and he feels his body grow heavy, like he’s going to sink into the ground and stay here forever.

‘Good’ he thinks to himself. It’s the first thought that has been solely his own in over a week. There’s no growling, roaring monster in his head. In his body.

He’s faintly aware of water, he can feel it, lapping around him. He smells the ocean and he feels like he’s floating in the darkness.

He’s about to slip into the easy embrace of sleep when ahead of him in the blackness, a figure materialises. Blonde hair, a white dress with blue and red flowers, yellow sandals covered in sand.

His mom.

He tries to call out to her, but she doesn’t hear him.

He briefly wonders if he’s dead, and if this is purgatory.

It’s comforting, to know that if it is, he wasn’t instantaneously earmarked for hell. He thinks of max, her panicked, tear stained face his last memory.

He almost wishes his last memory was of Steve, but he doubts that would be any less painful.

His eyelids are growing heavy again, and he’s about to slip away.

Then a wave crashes into him and everything changes.

Again.

——————————————

He takes a huge shuddering breath in, or as much of one as he can. His chest hurts.

It’s fucking bright, a stark contrast to the calm easy darkness. Shapes and shadows move hazily above his head and he struggles to focus, to place himself amid the brightness and the flurry of activity that is registering dimly at the edges of his mind.

There’s an obnoxious beeping sound to his right, and something stuck to him. Multiple somethings. He starts trying to disentangle himself, but he doesn’t even get the first thing off before he feels something cold rush into his veins and the world goes blurry again.

———————————————

He doesn’t wake up in the dark place again.

Instead he wakes up in a dimly lit hospital room.

The first thing he’s aware of is how much fucking pain he’s in. It’s somehow worse than all the beatings Neil had ever given him and he goes rigid with the effort of trying not to scream.

The second thing he becomes aware of is the mop of red hair, slumped over on the edge of his bed.

Max.

His fingers reach for her, except they don’t quite feel like his own, it’s like they’re disconnected from the rest of his body, or maybe he’s disconnected from the rest of his body. But he manages to clumsily tap her on the head - not quite the gesture he was aiming for but he can only do so much - until she stirs, blinking sleepily at him until a big grin spreads over her face and she launches herself at him, hugging him as best she can while weeping hysterically about how he had died.

Well shit. He thinks as he slowly brings the hand without an IV in it up to rest on her upper back, to feel the hitching gasps of her breath as her tears slide down her cheeks and onto his neck.

Her relief and sadness crashes over him like waves.

It’s something else, learning that you had actually died and been brought back to life - never mind what he thinks now was a near death experience. He takes his own shuddering breath as Max finally pulls away.

He’s alive.

He’s not quite sure what to do with that information, or how to feel about it.

Death had been nice, from what he’d seen. It was peaceful and quiet. His mom had been there. No Neil to beat him to a pulp, no mask of hyper sexuality to keep in place. He’d felt like he was able to let all of that go and just rest for the first time in so long. The loss of it almost makes him want to cry.

A nurse comes in to give him pain killers- her name tag reads Doris- she’s no nonsense, but not unkind as she checks his vitals and shines a light in his eyes, tutting at him when he instinctively squints at the glare. She explains his laundry list of injuries, three broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a head injury, internal bleeding, it goes on and on. They’d kept him sedated for three days, trying to give his body a chance to heal.

He and Max stay silent as she scratches down her notes in his file, he has questions he wants to ask his sister, but he knows better than to ask them now, with anyone else in the room.

Finally Doris leaves, after showing him how to use the call button and asking Max if she’d like anything from the cafeteria and Billy breathes a small sigh of relief.

“Is-“ his voice is hoarse and scratchy from disuse and he has to swallow thickly a few times before he tries again. “Is everyone okay?”

The pained look of sadness on Max’s face is enough to send a chill through him as she shakes her head sadly. “Hopper, he uh, he didn’t make it. The Russians had some kind of generator thing under the mall, trying to open the gate to the upside down, he died shutting it off.”

Billy feels his heart sink and they lapse into silence again as Max sniffles quietly, he knows she was friends with Hopper’s kid. It’s bad enough that Heather and her parents had died at his hands, and he feels the guilt like the teeth of the shadow monster, ripping into his flesh at the knowledge that Hopper has lost his life too.

“Russians?” He asks, when he can bring himself to speak again. “The Upside Down? Is that where that thing came from?”

Max nods like she’s relieved to think and talk about something other than death, and launches into an explanation that he struggles to follow through the haze of pain killers, he’s definitely going to have to ask her to explain it again when he’s not drugged out of his mind.

There’s a gentle knock on the door and Max stops mid sentence as they both look over to see who’s there. It’s Steve, his face a stunning array of black and blue. Billy hopes to god that he didn’t do that, not again. Not to Steve.

“Hey—” Steve says, his eyes as wide as saucers as he takes in Billy’s new found state of consciousness, carding his fingers through his hair.

Max stifles a giggle, and both of their gazes snap to her.

“Max, I’m here to take you home.” Steve says, rolling his eyes as Max opens her mouth to argue with him. “No, it’s raining again and I’m not letting you skate home, and you know you can’t stay here.”

Billy gets the distinct impression that this argument has happened before, as he watches Max gather her things in a huff. She pauses before she leaves, leaning down to hug him again.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Billy.” She whispers as her thin fingers clutch at his hospital gown. And then she’s gone, slipping past Steve with a promise that she’ll be back tomorrow. Steve asks her to wait for him near the elevators.

Steve doesn’t move from the doorway, Billy can feel his gaze lingering, and he meets it as best he can.

“You just gonna stand there, pretty boy?” He drawls, his speech going pain killers slurred. Something blooms in his chest as he watches Steve duck his head, a blush rising on his cheeks as he steps into the room.

“You look like shit.” Steve says with a small smile, as he sits in the same chair Max had been in a moment ago.

Billy snorts and looks at him again. “So do you.”

Then his hand is reaching out, his fingers ghosting over Steve’s cheekbone, skirting the edge of his black eye.

“Did I-?” He can’t bring himself to finish and swallows thickly as Steve’s eyes flutter shut and he just barely leans into his touch.

“No.” Steve murmurs. “It wasn’t you.”

Jesus Christ he’s fucking pretty. Billy thinks to himself as he allows his hand to fully cup Steve’s cheek in a way he would never have done if he were sober and hadn’t had a literal near death experience just days ago.

“You’re fucking pretty, Harrington.” The words flow out of him like the ocean going out with the tide and he looks at Steve with heavy eyes. These drugs must be something else if they’ve got him saying all these things he definitely should not be saying.

But Steve doesn’t seem to mind, he just smiles sad and soft and shakes his head, letting Billy’s hand fall away from his face and back onto the bed, next to his own.

Billy briefly thinks Steve is going to say something, but he doesn’t. And Billy can’t fight the pull of sleep anymore.

Just as he’s about to go under he feels a hand brush his, and a quiet voice echoing what Max had said to him minutes ago.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Billy.”

[less-than-hash]

Holes in the Firmament

Every dev I know has at least one dream game - stuff that they'd love to be able to make some day. The more ambitious these get - the more complex or long - the less likely they are to get made. And in a collaborative medium like games, the more people (and the more money!) involved in a project, the less control any given individual has over it.

This isn't intrinsically bad. (It can also be wildly valuable to a project and rewarding personally.)

But we devs still dream of those games we'd make if we had, say, the resources of a two hundred person studio, the backing of a major publisher, and absolute freedom.

Three of mine are behind the cut.

As a note, none of these reflect upcoming Obsidian projects. Nor are they projects Obsidian would likely ever make. They don't fit the studio's brand. Which is why I'm dreaming about them here, and not pitching them internally. 

So, first up!

A Squad-Based 1st-Person Firefighting Game with a Robust Relationship System and a Branching Narrative

I don't understand why there aren't more games about firefighting - though if I had to guess it's largely because making fire look good in-game is extraordinarily difficult. As is making an environment decay over time (though I suspect there are probably some pretty good, easy solutions for this using dev sleight-of-hand).

There are actually a Iot of interactive sim games about firefighting for training purposes. Much like war and flight, firefighting is something best trained without risking real life and limb.

Firefighting appeals to me as a gameplay space because it's actively protective - it's about limiting destruction and saving lives. But it can very easily be modeled with similar gameplay loops to shooters - ultimately both are about emptying rooms of danger - here it's just with water instead of bullets.

I could be water!

In short, firefighters engage in almost unequivocal good. They're heroic. They’re human. They’re flawed. And they brave dangers every day. But our industry basically ignores them.

Firefighting would give us the opportunity to set games in the modern world with people who, during their off hours, experience much more relatable struggles than your average freedom fighter, super spy, or elite soldier - relationship difficulties, debt, children, and the like.

So what would this game actually look and play like? It would likely be mission-based (calls come in of their own accord, after all), make use of movement and environmental hazards (not unlike a cover-based shooter), and have simple companion-direction mechanics similar to the Mass Effect trilogy or Spec Ops: The Line.

(Alternatively, the action could be dialed down a bit to focus on positioning a la Valkyria Chronicles.)

The gameplay would be focused on keeping your squad alive while saving as many people as possible.

Between missions you hang out at the station, or the bar, or at home - or try to balance all three, a la Catherine. You build relationships, helping your squad perform better together. You never recruit anyone, but your companions, your fellow firefighters, can die in missions, altering the narrative in both tone and content.

tl;dr: Mass Effect 2 meets Rescue Me with some dashes of Catherine

Next!

Narrative-Focused Urban Fantasy RPG/Immersive Sim

How does this not exist yet? Where's our Dresden Files or Hellblazer inspired RPGs? Or even The Magicians or Harry Potter, for that matter?

Where my Chilling Adventures of Sabrina RPG?

There's Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, which, while fantastic, is 13 years old.

While I'm looking forward to Necrobarista, that seems like a pretty tight, focused experience.

We've plenty of games with magicians in fantasy realms or in space - AKA BioWare's entire oeuvre - but few in the AAA space set in the modern world.

Unless you count superhero magicians.

Wait. Did Dr. Strange even get a game? Google suggests no. What’s going on here, videogame industry? Why won’t you suffer a witch to live?!

Honestly, I get to an extent why this is. There's a reason there've been Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse games, but no Mage games, either for Ascension or Awakening. Magic is broad, and often (especially in games) wildly destructive, which can be at odds with a modern setting (or rather what makes a modern setting interesting).

Art by Jason Chan, from Reign of the Exarchs by White Wolf.

But it doesn't have to be.

The flexibility of magic actually allows for a lot of different gameplay styles. You can do straight up first-person action like The Darkness or stealth survival like Last of Us. If I were to adapt Phonogram, a comic I love deeply, you can bet your ass there'd be beatmatch spellcasting.

A lot of gameplay mechanics we take for granted are actually damned-near magical. 

Maps that point you where to go and tell you where your enemies are? 

Dropping from a second story window without difficulty? 

Regenerating health? 

Items that make you smarter, stronger, or more likable? 

Bullet time? 

Rewinding to an earlier point in time to avoid death or a bad decision? 

So that's another question a developer has to answer: if magic comes in so many shades, what color is yours? What are you hoping to accomplish?

For me, the presence of magic in the modern world demands a layer of secrecy that implies other layers of secrets. A modern world in which magic functions immediately deepens. What else lurks out there? Where are the other magicians? How are they using their abilities?

Additionally, magic is surreal. Bend and twist reality, and you're forced to look at it from new angles. If you can tweak people's emotional responses to you, how do you know the relationships around you are real? 

And that's before you realize your dreams literally might come true - especially the nightmares. Is the face in the mirror a reflection, or something sinister and jealous? Is the ghost haunting you your literal past reaching out to reclaim you?

My dream modern magician game is an open-world immersive sim in an urban setting. Drop Prey, Dishonored, or BioShock style gameplay into a sprawling city filled with physics objects ripe for transmutation and NPCs waiting to be enchanted. Add an otherworld accessed by stepping through mirrors (the entire map within is reversed).

It's about what power can accomplish, what justifies its use, and what its limits are.

Populate the world with a few powerful magician NPCs with their own agendas; dozens of NPCs to chat up, learn more about, seduce, and manipulate; and a threat that could consume reality's very soul if someone doesn't step up to deal with it. Shake. Serve.

tl;dr: Dishonored meets Vampyr by way of Hellblazer and Hellboy

And finally!

Friendship Simulator 2019

My favorite parts of the Persona games and Catherine are the things outside of the core gameplay loops. The bits where you're hanging out with your friends, chatting with them, finding out more about them, and guiding and supporting them (or tearing them down).

Or hiding in the toilet to text your significant other.

One of the things I love about Persona 5: Dancing Star Night in Starlight is that the narrative is almost solely in this mode. It's entirely about learning more about your fellow Phantom Thieves.

Lest you think I uncritically and unabashedly love it, P5D has some major narrative problems - it entirely fails to pay off its initial premise, for example, and there's no persistence to the player choices or (player-driven) reactivity within the narrative.

Nor does the way the player "progresses" the narrative make a tremendous amount of sense within the fiction of the world.

Sorry I got distracted.

Point is, from a narrative perspective it's a game about getting to know people better - literally exploring their lives - and then supporting (or undermining, if you're terrible) them.

Similarly, nothing the player says in Persona (or, for the most part, Catherine) has any impact on the game. The player might progress a Social Link more slowly by being an ass to the protagonists' friends, but they'll still increase that Link over time, provided they put time into it.

And I don't want to be dismissive here. Time management is one of the major ways in which the player engages with the Persona games. Outside of combat and maybe monster-training, it's probably the most important mechanic at play. Taking longer to max out a Social Link means you're missing other content and missing opportunities to increase your stats. Or maybe the Social Link doesn't get completed at all. (Sorry, Haru.) Or maybe you’re not powerful enough to overcome the next Shadow in time and your game ends. Those are non-trivial consequences.

But the story of the Social Link, or the story of the game, will never change based on (the vast majority of) the player's interactions with their buddies.

Despite that, the games give the player a lot of freedom as to when (or whether!) they approach those relationships.

On the other end of the spectrum, Life is Strange (and Before the Storm) does a fantastic job of letting the player get to know the characters around Max (and Chloe) and responding logically to the player's choices.

The kid who has a crush on Max (Warren, I think?) remembers what the player promises him and then responds to whether or not the player follows through on it.

If Chloe plays A Game That Absolutely Involves Neither Dungeons Nor Dragons with her friends, they'll refer to it excitedly later and ask her to join in another round.

The TellTale games are also pretty good at this, especially Wolf Among Us, but that'll take me a bit far afield.

What Life is Strange does not provide the player is any control at all over the flow of the narrative. When the player completes a narrative beat within a scene, they're rushed along to the next scene, which is never one of their choosing. There's plenty of flexibility within the relationships (and within many of the smaller subplots), but little within the game's larger structure.

Ultimately, Persona provides little variability, while Life is Strange provides little narrative control.

I want to make a game that grabs the strong aspects of both of these while jettisoning their weaknesses.

(Far, far easier written than done!)

Basically, I want to make a game focused on the exploration of relationships. Where the personalities are the mysteries to unravel, and the interpersonal relationships between characters the dungeons to be navigated. Where the inner demons are the beasts in need of slaying - not through mystically entering the subconscious and doing battle with the Shadow, but through conversation.

I want a game about building a community, a family, and helping it come to support itself.

I think that one essential change that would make this significantly more doable is discarding the larger threats to the characters, especially those supernatural in nature. The relationships among the cast of Persona 4 are propping for the story of the Midnight Channel Murders. Arcadia Bay's pending apocalypse distracts from the relationships that seem to be the actual core story of Life is Strange.

(I find Before the Storm a stronger narrative than the original Life is Strange in large part because it's not being torn in multiple directions.)

Which isn't to say that there can't be threats, obstacles, and dangers. The world presents all manner of difficulties. Most of them requiring far more challenging and interesting solutions than "stick a sword in it."

That's a lot of abstraction, so what would this game actually look and play like?

Well, as I mentioned above, I think the Persona games, esp. Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 already do a fantastic job of providing the player the framework for exploring a space and approaching relationships at their own pace.

Add into this characters that the player can engage with in order to learn more about them (not unlike Vampyr), help with their problems, and build (or break!) relationships with them or others, and you have something of an open-world interpersonal relationship game. 

The narrative of these relationships would change based on the player's actions (both in regard to how they interact with the character and how they deal with (or fail to deal with) the character's problems). So would the player's reputation, which impacts their interactions with other characters.

(The reputation system is actually one of my favorite ideas in Pillars, but I think we sometimes fail to use it to its full potential. I certainly know I do.)

Side note: in this dream game, the relationships I'm describing are not expressed in a systemic way. They're not ranked like Social Links, and they don't have reputation bars like in Dragon Age or Tyranny. It's much more akin to Life is Strange here, with each character containing their own narrative(s) to be navigated.

Over time, you bring some of these characters closer to your protagonist, recruiting a tight-knit circle that helps you face the game's primary conflict. These relationships bounce off of one another. You can never make everyone happy, after all, and some people will never get along. Late game play requires that the player balance these relationships and help forge friendships or avoid catastrophic fallings out.

Yeah, but what is that primary conflict? 

Potentially anything the world could throw at a person. A lot of television shows have provided us a framework we can borrow from. Veronica Mars comes immediately to mind. (Or one of my favorite films, Brick.) Then there's Lost, which is overtly about building communities and relationships in order to survive. The Wire is another possibility. (Imagine playing as a Stringer Bell type trying to build a crew while maintaining relationships with rival crews.)

My point being that we already know what these kinds of stories look like. We just have to be brave enough to make a game that's focused around understanding other people rather than shooting them.

tl;dr: Life is Strange meets Persona, minus the strange and the personas

And that’s three glimpses into my brain. Into my dreams.

You may have noticed a few through lines. I'm pretty clearly interested in making games:

Set in the modern day

That tackle modern, realistic (and I use that term extremely loosely) concerns

That are largely non-violent

With non-linear narratives

That involve exploring the lives and feelings of non-player characters

And give those interpersonal relationships systemic narrative bite

Obviously, the projects I've been involved in recently don't check off every one of those boxes on my wishlist. That's generally how it is, if you're making games with other people.

But if you're very, very lucky, you get the opportunity to work on projects that scratch at least one or two of those itches.

I've been very, very lucky.

Cheers, <3 <3 <#

[tehawkwardpotato-blog]

GTA 5 Easy Money Guide

GGTA 5 Cheats

Grand Theft Auto On the web is a persistent, open globe online multiplayer video game created by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. When you begin off in GTA Online the very first vehicle you steal will turn out to be your permanent ride, at least until you've got a bit more cash to throw at buying and storing cars, so it pays to pick wisely. You do not have to be concerned about discovering the tricks or spotting the right heist to make money now. http://www.silentviper.net/

As soon as you have entered your username select Submit, if you username is accepted you will be redirected to our package choice web page where you will have a decision of Four GTA 5 money packages. Furthermore, this glitch only works on the unpatched version of Grand Theft Auto five.

GTA five HACK TOOL: The hack tool offered on this web site is supported over all different platforms and browsers. GTA 5 Income Hack: Users searching for additional GTA cash, this is the ideal internet site to pay a visit to for the identical. Exposing little ones to violent game titles as part cheat for gta five ps3 money online gta five funds cheats of a investigation experiment is, of course, out from the query.

Our hack makes use of encryption technology on our super-quickly servers meaning almost everything is accomplished anonymously and in additional swift time. The GTA five on-line hack is reviewed by numerous individuals that can be checked online as well how they have helped them in their game. http://www.silentviper.net/gta-5-cheats-xbox-360/

When your company gets into flow, you can get your hands on unbelievable quantity of cash. Though it might appear a reasonably trivial matter to keep law and order in an on-line globe, some of the sums accumulated by gamers who ‘mod' or illegally tweak their game could be worth millions in genuine income.

Entry to GTA V On the web is no expense with copies of Grand Theft Auto V. As scheduled, presently, October 1, there is a little update to get on PlayStation Network and Xbox Are living. All you need to access this generator is your e mail id or your user name that you use for playing the game in your console. http://www.silentviper.net/free-gta-5-shark-cards/

Just keep in mind to be prepared to run when you have the income in your hands simply because the police somewhat respond more rapidly to convenient store robberies! Save the game (just to be secure), then invest all your income in Beta Pharmaceuticals on BAWSAQ. You can use it from everywhere as the tool is on-line site based, access it correct here on our web site and be the best player in GTA V game.

Thank you,this has helped me get Money and RP when my mom didn't buy me any.THANKS! GTA Funds - GTA Income is the only way which supply user liability to freely take pleasure in the globe of GTA. But the code is on the money, as such, the game does not exist, besides the cheats will automatically be disabled as quickly as you commence the mission, and will not work if you activate them throughout the mission.

This is related to the scene where Josh Brolin's character finds a case complete of funds in the film No Nation For Old Men. The importance of funds increases a little the player can again buy properties and build the assets from them into what ever type of company they desire.

For those who are not so aware, these are straightforward and effortless to use tools that will aid you get unlimited money and unlimited Reputation Points (RP) in your GTA game account. The auto you in fact want to duplicate need to be in the tenth slot and it need to be maxed out in mods so that it sells for as significantly income as feasible. http://www.silentviper.net/gta-5-cheats/

The easiest way is to merely click your telephone, then click the tab relating to funds and click the third option which should be Maze Bank. There are different combinations of keys which assists one particular to collect cheats for playing the game. The GTA V on-line generator does not just credit you with unlimited money but it also tends to make gaming easier with each step.

Go to the Friends” tab in the GTA On-line menu and click on the friend helping you out and click on Spectate Player (BETA)”. You can use an exploit detailed in our Infinite Cash Guide to get the best out of these hidden packages. IFruit, the game's new telephone, can be utilised to snap pictures and upload them to Rockstar Games Social Club to share with the GTA neighborhood. http://www.silentviper.net/gta-5-cheats-xbox-one/

The ideal way to keep your hands on unlimited access to the game funds is by employing a GTA v hacks tool. I Hoped You Appreciated By performing this Of Creating revenue Quickly in GTA five On-line read my first post ! You can hack the GTA five Cash or Reputation for your friends account as well if you know their username.

Read our Producing Income in GTA On-line web page and you'll quickly be swimming in a sea of luxury and decadence. It will give you the income to really open up this game and aid you find out its true potential. That was the car driven by the Zaibatsu Corporation in GTA two, and a luxury automobile in GTA 3. http://www.silentviper.net/gta-5-cheats-ps4/

Following profitable completion of the offer, the cash and RP will be added to your account in just handful of minutes. It's genuinely basic to select the quantity of money that you want to add in your GTA 5 on the internet account. Be certain to wait till you've got all the cash from the initial register prior to shooting to keep away from alerting bystanders with the sound of the gunshot.

The second way to make cash legitimately in GTA five On the web is to, you know, in fact play the game. You might even be fortunate sufficient to catch the security guards bringing the funds to the armored truck beforehand, in which case the job is that a lot less complicated. http://www.silentviper.net/gta-5-cheats-ps3/

With patience, you can simply gather up to $two million in 30 minutes just on the glitch alone! Street crimes such as performing retailer hold-ups will nonetheless award players with tiny amounts of cash like before. Please make confident you selected your device exactly where you playiing Grand Theft Auto five.

No a single can commence GTA V On the world wide web and basically devote a lot of dollars from the beginning to go 1 distinct phase in advance. It demands a tiny effort to set items up, but when you have got both your characters in the right place, you can earn your self as significantly cash as you have patience.

The distinction between the two markets is that the LCN is straight related to the factors you do in the game, generating it a certain-fire way to make income. It worked perfectly for me, I generated a lot of cash to my account in such a quick time. Even when GTA Online players learn a Job that's relatively effortless to run and provides high GTA$ payouts, Rockstar appears to often uncover the method and neuter it.

Just like the true planet markets even though, you'll struggle to make cash out of these systems until you have a fair bit of cash to throw at them. This may well guarantee a three-starred wanted level, as it is essential for players to make the glitch function. Disclaimer: To make the most income feasible from Assassinations, execute the first and ignore the rest till right after you've completed story mode.

[thecoroutfitters]

Written by R. Ann Parris on The Prepper Journal.

Three Sisters, Elders, or Iroquois mounds are one of the most common and oldest examples of companion planting to be found. Corn, beans and squash are grown in close association, with each plant filling another’s needs. It’s a proven winner large or small, throughout history, including modern university studies on yields and post-harvest soil.

Succotash gardens are also billed as a survival and a storage all-in-one gardens – pretty fair assessments.

The first in is corn. Pole beans are planted after a delay, and use the corn as a trellis. They also stabilize the corn, removing the need to hill it – which is good, because you’re not going to wiggle a hoe through a thriving Three Sisters mound. The beans also replace some or all of the nitrogen used by the corn and, in trinity plantings, their third sister: squash. The squash helps shade the soil, preserving moisture.

There are now about as many ways to arrange them as there are to use the produce, which we’ll touch on later. We’ll also look at ways we can modify it for the crops commonly grown in today’s backyards, tubs, and big plots, compared to the traditional versions.

Clarification – N

The beans are not boosting the nitrogen for this year’s crop. By the end of the season, the beans will have started producing excess nitrogen if the proper bacteria is present, but it’s toward the end of the season. They’re replacing nitrogen used by their companions, which means less amendment is needed in subsequent plantings.

Sunflowers – Skip It

Subbing sunflowers for corn in Elders mounds regularly pops up. It’s more than possible that somebody’s managed successfully, but nobody I know and I’ve yet to find good results/yield data or late-season and harvest images posted by those who claim it works.

When we hear after-action reports on this experiment, it’s usually “well boogers” or excited growers who have not yet established an on-their-own baseline yield for their squash and bean varieties.

Mostly, like many things, we just don’t hear back on it – which is sad, because some of those gardeners who are just getting started or just branching out are likely embarrassed, and think it’s them.

First: Failures are part of any learning curve. “No” is an option on troubleshooting and decision-making flow charts for a reason. “Well that didn’t work” is part of the feedback loop for everything from permaculture to scientific method.

Share failures. We get more feedback yet, which lets us make better adjustments than we would on our own.

Secondly, don’t believe everything you read online – especially start-off suggestions without final results presented. That’s something we’ll touch on with the planting suggestions, too.

I do grow some of my beans with sunflowers, but I expect the major productivity drop versus a corn planting and I do so knowing that bean production is already lower in corn-companionship stands.

(It’s the total productivity of the space that’s a wowser, versus the same area with a single crop, and usually corn gets a pretty significant boost.)

So let’s understand sunflowers. There is a wide, wide range of sunflowers beyond production types. I plant some of them for tiny bird seed. Plus, well, look how cute!

In production conversations, we’re typically looking at two types. Black Oil Sunflower Seeds (BOSS) are used for oils and most animal/bird feed, and are usually 4-6’ tall. The big 8’ and 12’ “stripeys” (professionals say “confection”) are the human-snack and in some animal feeds.

Both are greedy. Like, way greedy. They just don’t share well. There are weed-suppressing groundcovers that work, but whatever you stick near a sunflower is likely to end up stunted. That’s not great for the yields from companions.

Sunflowers seem like they’d sub in for corn without problems, but in the long run, especially for survival gardens, it’s not effective. You’ll need to plant 3-5x the beans you would to meet your normal harvest baselines from corn-bean mounds or single-crop stands, and if you go for a trinity planting, squash just isn’t going to fair well at all.

*Bonus Tidbit: All sunflower stalks are suitable for drying, burning or chipping, and spreading as potent fertilizer elsewhere because they’re so greedy. They’re particularly potassium-hungry, which makes them a fabulous source of potash for other crops.

Back to Corn…

Natives mostly grew dry corn. Today, backyard and small-market growers are mostly after sweet corn. Thing is, sweet corn is ready 20-60 days before most popcorn or field corn varieties – and most dry pole beans.

This becomes super significant when planning a succotash garden.

If you use a big, multi-vined pole bean, it’s tough to get in there to harvest sweet corn without snagging the drying bean vines. Sweet corn is usually more loosely branched, so you may be able to wiggle harvests out from around lighter, single-vine pole beans, but there is regularly damage to vines.

One solution is to use the pole beans mostly for green beans. We can dedicate lower pods to going to seed for us, limiting the potential damages are limited to veggies with less time invested and faster regrowth.

Another option is to use bush, semi-vining or semi-runner beans with sweet corn, so their max height is lower than the upper ears. At most you might damage tips at 3-4’ harvesting the bottom ear. We can also just declare the bottom ears to be our future seed stock, or let them dry for popcorn/milling so we don’t have to disturb even those shorter vines.

If we’re growing dwarf, compact, bantam, and container corn, shorter-vined and bush beans are definitely superior choices as companions.

Bush Beans

There’s some drawbacks to bush beans, but there’s also benefits. A bush bean won’t typically yield as much as a pole bean, either by the plant or by square-foot.

We have place them carefully, especially with field/dry corn varieties that have denser leafing than sweet corn, or they’ll get shaded out. They’re also a little more likely to be overrun by large squash varieties if we go with a three-species “trinity” mound, so we may have to use bush-type summer squashes.

However, they’re pretty easy to step over for maintenance, and they’re fast-growing and fast-yielding. Packing low-growing bush beans in tightly lets us reap some weed and soil-evaporation suppression from them as well as squashes – or if our squash is in separate rows and mounds.

Bush beans won’t anchor our corn for us – although some bush types will send out a few 6-18” tendrils, particularly the “southern pea” types.

Especially if we’re after sweet corn or working with a bantam, or if we’re working in more limited space, bush beans may be the best option. Instead of traditional beans, we can also consider vining English peas or crowder peas for early and compact corn.

If you really want an old-school, native pairing for corn and don’t have to worry about too much rain, give Bawi a try – https://www.nativeseeds.org/learn/nss-blog/341-celebration-of-tepary-beans-part-1. It’s a prostrate bush type, although it’s a whole different species than the beans most of us know today.

Squash

Historically, a near-pumpkin squash, gourd-like squashes, and small true pumpkins were planted as the third sister in elders gardens. We can use anything we want. Melons, trailing-vine squashes, or compact bush types, and even cucumbers offer pretty similar benefits.

Those options have the added advantage of those spiky vines surrounding the mound, which anecdotally deter pests and critters, but we can even use eggplant. It will do the same soil-shading job as the squashes.

Planting Guides

There are a lot of planting plans out there for Three Sisters now. Some combine all three sisters in a trinity planting per mound, while many have squash on a separate mound. Some use 18” mounds, some suggests 3-5’.

One involves working inside a bucket-sized ring (roughly 12”). If you use that one, consider going easy on densities and fertilize heavily – that’s a lot of biomass in a very small space.

I also give my squash way more than 4-6”, my beans go more than 3” from my corn, and my mounds are usually more than 2-3’ on center, more similar to Wampanoag plantings.

Wampanoag systems also have an arc of sunflowers to the north with separate squash mounds and corn-bean mounds filling in a circle. Others suggest similar, but arrange the beans-corn mounds differently.

In a bed system versus mounds, I tend to max corn and beans through the center and stick whichever squash varieties I want on the ends of short beds, or create breaks with double or triple squash plants every 10-12’ on long beds. Others break up hilled rows and beds in smaller repeating patterns.

Mechanizing is as easy as setting up hoppers with different seed, and a third hopper or a second pass for a much-decreased squash planting 18-36” offset from them, or alternating rows of corn-and-beans with rows of squash.

If we’re using narrow beds/rows or containers, we can easily set up multiple pairs – a few bush beans with that squash, or a squash and a pole bean or two that are going to go up one trellis, and another with our corn and another few beans.

We don’t have to limit our squash to containers or beds – trailing them out to the side or letting small-fruiting varieties drape off a table, bench, or rail is fine (if we can get around them). We do want to make sure the squash isn’t vulnerable to breaking in winds or from fruit weight, though. Those big ol’ stalks are hollow and a little bit fragile.

Three Sisters gardening has a lot to balance just because we do have sooo many options these days. What planting styles work best for us will depend on preexisting soil fertility and the varieties we choose, with our climate and space available playing into cultivar selection. There’s a modification that works for pretty much everybody, though.

It’s a storied, proven winner, regardless of scale, for both beginners and those looking to up their yields or decrease inputs. Tractor- or hand-tended, acreage to balcony, it’s definitely a planting scheme to consider.

 Follow The Prepper Journal on Facebook!

  The post Companion Planting – Planting & Modifying the Three Sisters appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

from The Prepper Journal Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

[laughawayeternity]

billy williams options trading course Louisiana Whether it is long calls, covered calls, bear spreads, or selling naked index options, each has its own trading system model.

Key Principles

billy williams options trading course Louisiana Invariably, the one that has the ability to remain as detached from his losing trades as well as his winning trades while maintaining the discipline to follow the system's rules no matter the trading result will emerge the greatest winner in the end.

the best swing trading advisory services foe options Louisiana Start small, one or two contracts, and keep detailed records of your transactions.

options trading book Louisiana Trade - Once you have defined the basics of your strategy, it is time to trade.

best online course to learn options trading Louisiana And it's also nice you can make great gains in five days to four weeks on average so time decay issues become less of a worry.

best online options trading service Louisiana I was shocked to find that there was barely anything posted on the subject.

options trading advice Louisiana Flexibility - Nearly all options traders will tell you that options allow for flexibility in your trading.

trading options greeks Louisiana It takes time and experience to build a successful option trading system that can return one hundred percent or more in consistently profitable trades.

what does trading options mean Louisiana " A trading system is simply an organized approach that takes advantage of a repeated pattern or event that brings net profits.

billy williams options trading course Louisiana And if you're really feeling crazy you can sell 'naked' options (just better use a stop loss or you'll end up like one of my old trading buddies who ran an account to $20 million then gave it all back selling naked options.

Buying calls and puts is the easiest way to get started. As you learn and experience more about how prices move, you can add new strategies to your trading to enhance your system. Adding covered calls and protective puts to long equity positions is a logical next step and can supercharge your account by generating monthly or weekly cash flow. Trade - Once you have defined the basics of your strategy, it is time to trade. Start small, one or two contracts, and keep detailed records of your transactions. Be sure to include what the underlying stock price was at the time of your option purchase or sale. Your records will help you analyze how you are doing and where you can improve. When you add new trading criteria to your system, you should be able to see an improvement to your statistics. If you do not, it is time to reassess your defined criteria. Evaluate - Evaluate your successes and failures. The frequency of your analysis will depend on how much you are trading.

Key Approaches:

exotic options trading Louisiana

options trading newsletter reviews Louisiana

options trading school franchise in india Louisiana

options trading companies Louisiana

options trading signals Louisiana This means your trading system must be based around actual stock price movement.

Develop an options trading system that trades three to six month trends. This is where the big money is. Trading the large trends is where many are able to place larger sums of money to develop their net worth. Develop an options trading system that trades pivot points. Pivot point trading is arguably the best way to trade options, because price action usually is explosive, and happens quickly in our direction when a trade works. This is good because you can use shorter-term options and leverage yourself a little better.

investment advisor trading options Louisiana Nor would you buy an option with less that 30 days till expiration as time decay would erode the value of option so quickly that even if the option's underlying stock movement moved favorably to you the time decay would prevent you from realizing a gain in the option itself.

Try to focus on percentage gains versus dollar amount gains in your trading. It requires a fundamental shift in conventional thinking, but it is crucial to managing a successful trading system. Objectivity - A good options trading system is based on measurable criteria that trigger buy and sell signals. It takes the subjectivity and second guessing out of your trading so you can focus on preset factors that make for an explosive trade. Flexibility - Nearly all options traders will tell you that options allow for flexibility in your trading. Opportunities in the options market make it incredibly easy to profit from short-term positions. With earnings events and weekly options, you can build strategies for overnight gains with clearly defined risk. There are a several ways to profit in any kind of market condition from trending to range bound. Protection - An options trading system based on the appropriate strategy for prevailing market conditions can act as a hedge against other investments. Protective puts are commonly used this way. Risk - A good options trading system limits risk in two important ways. The first way is cost. The price of options is very low compared to buying the same amount of stock. The second way is related to stops. A good system will cut losses quickly and keep them small. Any Option Trader Can Develop an Options Trading SystemAs a trader, it is important build a system that utilizes different types of option strategies-iron condors, broken wing butterflies, calendar spreads, back ratios, straddles, strangles, and collars. It might sound like a foreign language right now, but work on the vocabulary one lesson at a time. Break it down piece by piece and make it your own. Each term has a specific application for yielding profits under certain market conditions. Learn them all at your own pace to enhance upon and build your options trading system. The more tools that are in your toolbox, the more prepared you will be for changing market conditions. If the market were to behave in the same way every day, then trading would be child's play. In order to get started in developing your options trading system, you have to create a trading plan or blueprint to guide you in the right direction. Begin with a basic system and tweak it to define your trading criteria and hone your system. It takes time and experience to build a successful option trading system that can return one hundred percent or more in consistently profitable trades. When you are satisfied with the parameters of your system, you can look into having your own software made for automated trading. Five Steps to Get Started With an Options Trading SystemPick a strategy - You can pick any strategy to start building a system. Buying calls and puts is the easiest way to get started. As you learn and experience more about how prices move, you can add new strategies to your trading to enhance your system. Adding covered calls and protective puts to long equity positions is a logical next step and can supercharge your account by generating monthly or weekly cash flow. Trade - Once you have defined the basics of your strategy, it is time to trade.

professional options trading course options ironshell torrent Louisiana This means you can trade price behavior patterns on price charts such as: traditional chart patterns, trends, swings, pivot points, boxes etc.

The third thing to profitable option trading is understanding the relation of volatility between the market, the underlying stock that underlies the stock option, and the effect is has on the value of the option itself.

options trading how to Louisiana There are hundreds of websites, brokerage firms, and trading services that want to sell you their system.

Most swing trading systems are based on daily bars on the stock price chart. Swing trade the Intra Day Bars! Their other fantastic systems based on intraday charts that pin point swing trading entries. Develop an options trading system that trades three to six month trends. This is where the big money is. Trading the large trends is where many are able to place larger sums of money to develop their net worth. Develop an options trading system that trades pivot points. Pivot point trading is arguably the best way to trade options, because price action usually is explosive, and happens quickly in our direction when a trade works. This is good because you can use shorter-term options and leverage yourself a little better. And it's also nice you can make great gains in five days to four weeks on average so time decay issues become less of a worry. There are many different directional trading methods you could use to trade options. You need to pick one, work it, and never use more than 10% options position size per trade on small accounts 1% to 5 % max position size on larger accounts. This methodical way of money management trading options is the fastest way to potentially rapid account growth, helping you avoid needless set backs. Options Trading System - 5 Steps To Better Options TradingWhat is an Options Trading System?Before sitting down to write this post, I thought I would search the Internet to see what information existed on options trading systems. I was shocked to find that there was barely anything posted on the subject. Seriously! There are hundreds of websites, brokerage firms, and trading services that want to sell you their system. The reality is that very few are able to describe what an options trading system actually is. At its core, an options trading system is a method of generating buy and sell signals through a tested method of stock analysis. The system can be based on any type of option strategy and includes both fundamental and technical analysis. Options trading systems might focus on changes in underlying stock price, volatility, time decay, unusual buy/sell activity, or a combination of these elements. Essentially, it is a checklist of criteria that must be met before trades are entered. When all conditions are met, a signal to buy or sell is generated. The criteria are different for each type of option trading strategy. Whether it is long calls, covered calls, bear spreads, or selling naked index options, each has its own trading system model. An option trading system that is worth its salt will help you weed out false signals and build your confidence in entries and exits. How Important is an Options Trading System?The options market is very complex. Trading options without a system is like building a house without a blueprint. Volatility, time and stock movement can all affect your profitability. You need to be cognizant of each of these variables. It is easy to be swayed by emotion when the market is moving. Having a system helps to control your reaction to those very natural and normal emotions. How often have you sat and watched a trade lose money the instant your buy order filled? Or, have you ever watched a stock skyrocket in price while you are pondering over whether or not to buy it? Having a structured plan in place is crucial to make sound and objective trading decisions.

I was shocked to find that there was barely anything posted on the subject. Seriously! There are hundreds of websites, brokerage firms, and trading services that want to sell you their system. The reality is that very few are able to describe what an options trading system actually is. At its core, an options trading system is a method of generating buy and sell signals through a tested method of stock analysis. The system can be based on any type of option strategy and includes both fundamental and technical analysis. Options trading systems might focus on changes in underlying stock price, volatility, time decay, unusual buy/sell activity, or a combination of these elements. Essentially, it is a checklist of criteria that must be met before trades are entered. When all conditions are met, a signal to buy or sell is generated. The criteria are different for each type of option trading strategy. Whether it is long calls, covered calls, bear spreads, or selling naked index options, each has its own trading system model. An option trading system that is worth its salt will help you weed out false signals and build your confidence in entries and exits.

qqq options trading Louisiana It sounds so simple, but it requires perseverance and discipline.

By understanding time decay, factoring an option's time into your trading method, how volatility impacts a stock option's value, what defines a reliable stock option trading methodology, and your own trading psychology you now have a foundation to develop into a winning stock option trader. Finding Or Creating Your Own Options Trading System That WorksStock Options are wonderful! This clever derivative of the equities market has to be one of the most ingenious inventions of modern times. For the trader who can learn how to win at trading options there are many luxuries in life that can be experienced. Success in options trading requires a consistent approach for long-term success. This statement is not meant to be grandiose, idealistic comment made by some 'trading theorist', rather, it is a statement born out of the hard knocks and success experiences of the author and many other long-term, successful trader contemporaries. This "consistent approach" to options trading can also be called a "trading system", or an "options trading system" in this case. The term "trading system" is not necessarily confined to a series of computerized "black box" trading signals. A trading system could be something as simple as "buy an option on a stock in an uptrend that breaks the high of the previous bar after at least two days of pull back down movement that make lower lows. " A trading system is simply an organized approach that takes advantage of a repeated pattern or event that brings net profits. Since an Option is a "Derivative" of the stock you must derive your options trading system from a stock trading system. This means your trading system must be based around actual stock price movement.

trading options at expiration pdf Louisiana Be sure to include what the underlying stock price was at the time of your option purchase or sale.

For the trader who can learn how to win at trading options there are many luxuries in life that can be experienced.

where to get personal advice on trading dollar sign spx options Louisiana An option trading system that is worth its salt will help you weed out false signals and build your confidence in entries and exits.

Nor would you buy an option with less that 30 days till expiration as time decay would erode the value of option so quickly that even if the option's underlying stock movement moved favorably to you the time decay would prevent you from realizing a gain in the option itself. The third thing to profitable option trading is understanding the relation of volatility between the market, the underlying stock that underlies the stock option, and the effect is has on the value of the option itself. When the general stock market as an index goes through periods of volatility or low trading ranges the stocks that make up the market tend to follow overall trend and also begin to experience periods of low overall volatility which in turn can cause derivative like stock options to become cheap or low premiums. But if the market's volatility rises it is likely that individual stocks will follow the trend causing stock option premiums to increase in value given that the market moves in the trader's favor. The next key in how to trade stock options successfully is having a stock option trading method that takes these key factors into consideration while giving clear entry signals, clear exit signals, a defined system of trade management, and a profit factor greater than your average loss over a series of trades. Knowing the ins and outs of various trade setups is useless if you don't have a trading methodology that guides you in every step of the trade process. A solid trading method holds you by the hand and defines each step while leading you to being a consistent winner in the markets and a profitable trader when all is said and done. Finally, the fifth and final key to successfully trading stock options is yourself, particularly your trading psychology. Human beings and there mental makeup are extremely complex so it is extremely important that stock option traders not only have a sound stock option trading methodology but the discipline to follow their trading methods. You can give two people the same exact winning trading system but it is very common for them to have different results. Invariably, the one that has the ability to remain as detached from his losing trades as well as his winning trades while maintaining the discipline to follow the system's rules no matter the trading result will emerge the greatest winner in the end.

Unique Approaches:

investopedia options trading course Louisiana

machine learning options trading Louisiana

billy williams options trading course Louisiana

options trading seminars Louisiana

[anywhereconsulting]

Distributed Series - How to master remote team communication

This article is part of the Distributed series.

Work is a form of project management where we manage a project through communication and collaboration and track the results of our work. 

It is the very same in the case of distributed teams and businesses but with some special situations where you need to manage, track and collaborate through time zones with multiple locations. Thanks to the modern internet, we have all the tools we need to pull this off.

Communication as a top priority

People stick to their communication habits. There are two dimensions to this: asynchronous and synchronous communication.

Asynchronous communication is the relay of information with a time lag. Email, chat, or shared docs are good examples of how asynchronous communication is employed in a remote setting. Synchronous means:  working together at the same time. Phone calls, video conferences, or meetings can be listed here. The rule of thumb that we follow is that the more emotional the topic is, the more synchronous the channel should be.

Specific channels make sense, no matter if you like them or not. It helps everyone on the team to spread the work more efficiently throughout the different channels. So, how do you know whether or not a video meeting is necessary? The answer is simple: if you can’t say it in a few sentences, then it’s probably time to hop on a video call. 

So, you have a big virtual team where the members are spread in different locations all around the world. So you somehow have to find a way of working together harmoniously and productively. Now, this can be very difficult especially when you’re working in a team where most members don’t meet very often. As a leader, you have to find a way of making the team here, making sure that when you have your meetings, everybody speaks, everybody gets involved, and that you build the sense of team identity. Of course, it’s not easy even when you are face-to-face with people.

What you’ve got to do in these situations is make communication your top priority. So if we’re thinking about communication, it’s how you structure your messages, it’s how you stick to the main point, it’s how you speak concisely, clearly, energetically, it’s how to keep the team engaged, and it’s thinking about your different audience members as well. Finally, throw the vast subject of cultural difference into the mix.

One of the challenges of working with a virtual global team is that you might have people coming from completely different directions but working on the same thing. So sometimes those differences are harder to spot and harder to appreciate. However, during a video call, it is easier to see the differences. They are visible.

One thing to keep in mind is that written text lacks the subtle cues of in-person conversation. With chat, you do need to be careful about how your words might be interpreted and possibly misunderstood. That’s why there’s an abundance of emoticons and gifs in our everyday chats — they’re useful in conveying the right nuances.

  How to have efficient video calls

 You want to have everyone being productive from any location they want. That’s the idea. It’s all about focusing on the collaborative infrastructure of the company, like how people work together, or how they collaborate.

If you want to ensure maximum impact and efficiency during your video calls, I reckon these few tips will get you to a good start:

A rock-solid internet connection. The faster, the better. However, the connections speed is only a part of the whole picture. Connection stability can be even more critical. However, keep in mind that many remote employees like to travel to places where fast internet isn’t always guaranteed, and Wi-Fi might be spotty and unpredictable.

Mind your background. Remember that the camera is not just focused on your face but shows parts of the room you’re in. Pre-check the frame before starting the video call and if your kids are at home, make sure they know when they can’t disturb you.

The perfect angle. Another piece of the puzzle would be to adjust the positioning of your webcam. Weird camera angles can be very distracting. Keep it along the same line of sight as your eye level. It is generally the best possible angle that feels the most natural––and looks the best.

Look into the lens. It is also essential to make sure that you are looking into the camera lens directly and not on your computer screen. When your eyes are off access with the webcam, it is much less compelling.

Out of the dark. When using a webcam, remember that the human eye sees a lot more than a video camera. Just because you can see everything clearly with a little bit of natural light, doesn’t mean that on video it will look good. It is why you should always try to add additional light when using a webcam. You’ll be surprised at how much eliminating shadows can add to your video’s overall look and feel.

Make yourself heard. If you are using a webcam, you need to pay attention to how you capture audio. The first step is to avoid having your speakers on when talking or your audio will come through with an echo and a harsh reverb tone to your voice that makes you hard to understand. I recommend you to use some external microphone connected to your computer or laptop, and be sure to place that microphone as close to your mouth as possible. By moving the mic close, you lose much environmental noise and get a crisp, clear audio track that helps to keep people listening.

As you can see, virtual meetings don’t have to be labeled as a waste of time. They can be more valuable than traditional face-to-face meetings. These video calls are the best way to create concrete weekly goals for workers and set your business up for success. However, avoid constant emergency or ad-hoc meetings, as these can break flow during an employee’s regular day.

When setting up your meeting, you need to keep in mind that not everyone can make the time that suits you. No one likes having a meeting at 6 am or 10 pm when they have commitments to family or other interests outside of work – like sleeping.

Also, after your meeting, you’ll want to follow-up to ensure that everyone is on the same page. Considering that it is more difficult to communicate as a remote team in comparison with in-person groups, your follow-up note should be as clear and actionable as possible to avoid time-consuming email threads that are inevitable if there’s a misunderstanding.

As I’ve already mentioned, communication is the backbone of a well-functioning distributed business model. Remote teams must have excellent communication strategies to survive and thrive. Just as there are different types of groups, there are several different reasons for groups to engage in video calls. Let me show you the most popular formats for meetings.

  How to master distributed meetings

There are several types of meetings you can have with your distributed team. Here is a handful of these and how to master them.

The daily stand-up. Running virtual daily stand-up meetings is a great way to make sure your entire team is communicating and on the same page. Each person spends a very brief amount of time (5-10 minutes max) saying what they did yesterday, what they’re doing today and what’s in their way. These meetings can help you identify roadblocks or obstacles that are preventing a team member from doing their optimal work.

The regularly scheduled one-to-one meeting is one of the most powerful tools that any manager can use to improve team productivity. A one-to-one session is a regular meeting that occurs at the same time each week (or less frequently, depending on your preference). It’s the place where you and one of your employees meet and no one else. It’s the place where you can communicate with each other and follow-up with each other on the things unique to your working relationship. The one-to-one meeting is a place where both parties should feel respected and valued, and it’s the place where you can ask each other questions openly. I don't say you won't have occasional emergencies or problems that need to be dealt with outside of this meeting. However, when you have a recurring schedule, you’ll find that you can wait to ask those questions until the recurring meeting – freeing both of your time, increasing your productivity, and reducing the stress of workdays.

Pairing is the practice of giving two teammates the opportunity to work together on solving a problem. Qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests that when employees work in pairs, they work much faster and make fewer mistakes. Additionally, when people are paired up, they learn to communicate more efficiently and often, and to share (rather than hide) problems and solutions — all of which increases overall information flow and team alignment. As a leader, one of your tasks is to help your team create a shared vision, build team identity, and bring your employees closer together. Virtual teams with a strong character are more capable of coordinating, performing and overcoming conflicts, irrespective of locational, cultural, or individual challenges.

Weekly sessions are the form of a meeting where you generate ideas and solve problems. However, sometimes the extroverts dominate, and shier team members can have trouble being heard. Some people also have difficulty staying focused, maintaining their enthusiasm or confused why they’re in the session. To overcome these barriers and run an excellent brainstorming meeting, always make sure to send out the brief 24 hours beforehand so that everyone can prepare. The brief should outline what the challenge is, why it is crucial, and why each person has been asked to take part in the brainstorming. Ask everyone to come along with three ideas: one general idea, one idea that is different, and a radical one. If your distributed team is diverse enough, you can count on a range of perspectives and experiences. Encourage your employees to be bold and imaginative.

You can hold a weekly group chat session with your distributed team to reflect on the progress, issues, and actions. These meetings should have an agenda communicated in advance. A standard agenda for regular team meetings also helps set consistent expectations for types of information the session will cover. The goal should be a meeting of no longer than one hour to quickly review where the project is, highlight issues, look ahead to looming milestones, and make sure everyone has what they need. Meeting frequency depends on several factors: the size of the team, the priority of the project in question, an.

You are free to use many tools or platforms, but I suggest you give each communication channel a specific purpose. For example, use Zoom for live calls or crucial conversations, and Slack for messages that aren’t pressing, with a designated water cooler channel for fun or informal conversations. When your employees have a plan for how to best get in touch with teammates for each situation, everyone can avoid wasted time, frustration, and missed connections.

This article is part of the Distributed series.

My name is Peter Benei, founder of Anywhere Consulting. We solve problems for growing businesses with specialized marketing solutions. To read our case studies & learn more about our work, click here. Connect with me on LinkedIn or book an appointment here.

Liked this post? Share it:

[iesika]

This is a companion post for my Hannibal fic What The Water Gave Me which is, as far as I know, the only fanfic ever to need a companion post about flood hydrology. On Saturday, May 14, 2011, while Hannibal was shopping in the French Market, the Corps of Engineers opened one quarter of the gates on the Morganza Spillway and flooded about 4,600 square miles of south Louisiana. In places the flooding reached 25 feet. This was in addition to the previous opening of the Bonnet Carré spillway Sgt. Germaine Grant mentioned in chapter 2, which flooded a stretch of land between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain near New Orleans. You might even remember Sgt. Grant telling Jack and Hannibal that they were in a record breaking drought at the time. How, you may be asking. Why? You should be asking. It's insane. The Why is such a big deal it might have actually started the Great Depression, reversed the main political parties of the US, reshaped the racial demographics of America's cities and created a musical genre.

This is the watershed of the Mississippi River. Every bit of water that flows from every bright spot on that map, from rain, drains, toilets, crop irrigation, whatever, eventually makes its way, like the world's grossest funnel, down, more or less, to a single point at Red River Landing, Louisiana, where the Red River meets the rest. Not too south from there, the Atchafalaya river splits away from the Mississippi. Over the last few hundred million years, the Atchafalaya and the Mississippi have wiggled all over the place, as rivers do, and at any given time, which one was the major outlet to the sea has changed. Rivers do a lot of predictable but unpredictable things, but the most predictable thing they do is seek the lowest ground and the easiest path. If there isn't an easy path the river will make one.

In 1927, due to heavy rains all over the watershed, the Mississippi River flooded 27,000 square miles up to 30 feet and displaced well over 600,000 people, mostly in Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. Monetary damages were equivalent to about one third of the entire Federal Budget at the time, or, in modern dollars, over a trillion dollars. Crop failures were huge, driving up food prices nationwide. Let me repeat that. 630,000 internally displaced refugees within the US, within the last century. Did you learn about that in school? I took 2 Louisiana History at two different schools, then took three American History classes at a college in the flood zone, and I learned about this because I googled a Randy Newman song in 2005.

200,000 of the displaced people were poor black people from mostly rural areas, most of them one generation removed from slavery. Most of these folks had little to nothing to use to relocate or to live on, so they were herded into refugee camps where they were stuck with nowhere to go and minimal supplies until the water started to recede months later. Racial tensions were sky high, and the racial disparity in aid, rescue and support was extremely clear. As soon as the water was low enough, tens of thousands of displaced black families joined what we now call The Great Migration - they didn't have a home to go back to, so they went to the big cities, both in the south and, for the first time, up north. Anybody you can think of from the classic Chicago blues scene? Probably ended up there after being displaced by this one event. Mahalia Jackson, who I spotlit last chapter, moved to Chicago at this time as a victim of The Great Betrayal (man, the 1920s were Great, huh?)

President Coolidge put Herbert Hoover in charge of managing the camps, where he made a whole lot of promises and ended up president. When he didn’t fulfill any of his promises to the black refugees, the entire black voting block swung, more or less permanently, to the Democrats. Huey P. Long rose to power in Louisiana on a wave of socialist populism and probably would have been president a decade later if he hadn’t been assassinated in the middle of the capitol building. If you don’t know about the Kingfish, look him up, because holy fuck our country was almost really, really different. As for the Great Betrayal I mentioned?

Wealthy (white) businessmen in New Orleans arranged to dynamite a levee in Caernarvon, Louisiana, flooding areas of St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parish where tens of thousands of (poorer) people lived and worked. Reconstructions have shown this was pointless and New Orleans would have been fine, because so many levees had already breached in other locations. Basically no one was ever consulted or  compensated for loss of property and livelihood. So it's no wonder that, during and after Hurricane Katrina, there was widespread belief that the flood protections had actually been deliberately sabotaged to flood the lower 9th ward and save downtown. People remember when you fuck them over and they never trust you again. Every school I've ever attended would have been underwater during the 1927 flood, but I never  learned anything about this, or about how we've stopped that from ever happening again. Sit tight, it's nuts. Prior to 1927 levees were local projects and they were largely homemade by non-engineers. Surely one big pile of dirt is the same as another, right? But levee construction is an art and a science. Alluvial dirt wants to settle; the ground is wet and it wants to move. After the shitshow of the Great Floods, the federal government created the world's largest flood control project. This is what federal governments are for. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, those unsung superheroes, planned and built a carefully planned and, one hopes, carefully maintained series of interconnected levees, dams, floodgates, spillways, canals and wetlands stretching across that whole area in the top image, but mostly along the Missouri, Ohio, Red, and Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers. It's known as the Mississippi River and Tributaries Project (MR&T) The Lower Mississippi and the Atchafalaya Basin in particular got a complete makeover.

We'll start at the very bottom, because it's simplest. The Bonnet Carré spillway was built 12 miles west of New Orleans to divert the Mississippi around the city in case of very high water. This spillway controls what was a natural flood route for as long as we've been keeping records and is opened on a fairly regular basis - every decade or so. This was one of the first parts of the MR&T completed, just four years after the flood. It's a mile and a half long and runs alongside of the river. When it opens, a channel about six miles long is flooded, dumping the river directly into Lake Pontchartrain and the surrounding marshlands to save the more populated areas. Lake Pontchartrain is huge (home of the longest bridge in the world!) and it has a wide opening to the Gulf of Mexico, so it can basically absorb as much water as we could possibly throw at it.  Upriver a bit, things are a little more complicated. I'm not going to go super in-depth. There are numerous control structures connecting the Atchafalaya and Mississippi. The biggest and the one most relevant to our story is the Morganza Spillway, located in Pointe Coupee Parish, upriver from Baton Rouge. If the water gets too high, it will overtop and undermine levees, and the force of moving water becomes so great that it would just shred the other existing control structures, even if they are wide open to let the most possible water through. There needs to be another emergency safety valve to take pressure off the system. The Morganza Spillway is about a mile long, and when it's wide open it lets 600,000 cubic feet of water through per second. That's about half the flow of the entire Mississsippi river at moderate flood stage, passing through one man-made structure, under the control of a handful of human beings.

So in the worst possible flooding scenarios, as happened in 1927, in 1973, and in 2011, the ACoE opens a little gap in the weir. They've never opened it all the way - max capacity has never been tested. This is a projection map from 2011 for what the flooding would look like with the system running at one quarter of total capacity (which is the scenario that ended up happening). Because yeah, people live in those areas! The area's also farmed for timber and drilled for oil. There isn't much commercial fishing - that mostly happens in the Gulf - but there's fish farming, including crawfish ponds. Mostly it's protected or semi-protected wetlands occasionally dotted with camps. I'm not sure if that word is in common usage with the same meaning elsewhere, so just in case, a camp is a (usually but not always cheap or rustic) house or structure not intended for full-time residence, where one can stay for access to water or hunting. You actually have to get a lot of surveying and permissions to build anything anywhere on any body of water in south Louisiana, because the balance of flood control and wetland preservation is so important and precarious, so most of the places in this area will have been grandfathered in rather than freshly built. The Morganza Spillway has been opened twice, once in the 70s and once during this fic. There is a huge, eight parish long and wide river moving over land that's been dry or swampy and only sparsely inhabited for 45 years. Think of all the things it might pick up on the way to sea?

[wesleybates]

Successful Web Creation Tips for Non-Designers

Are you a small business owner in need of web creation tips? Whether it’s an e-commerce, informational, or social media page, it’s important to make sure your website looks good and runs smoothly. A lot of people don’t realize that web development is like an onion with many layers to it. The reason why small business owners opt for hiring professionals is because web development often involves back end and front end coding.

Back end coding focuses on the server side of web development. Think of it as the machine of a website. Whereas front end coding focuses on the actual web design. This is the part that users see and interact with. Both are equally time consuming and quite difficult tasks to take on as a non-designer. No need to worry though, there are websites that solve technical challenges such as these.

Sites such as WordPress will be your guardian angel when it comes to web designing. WordPress stands at the most popular web publishing platform for websites and blogs. About 30% of businesses use WordPress, including major brands such as Facebook, Disney, and PlayStation.

What makes WordPress great?

WordPress is a content managing system (CMS) built for non-designers to change the appearance of their website, minus the coding. It has tons of templates and plugins to choose from to make your site look amazing. What’s even better is that the software is easy to install and free!

Now that you are aware of some benefits of WordPress, the only challenge you have to face is how to design your website. It’s important that your website is aesthetically pleasing and has a smooth interface. In other words, user experience is vital.

When designing your website, put yourself in your user’s shoes. Build it with the intent on creating a top notch experience for them. Even though you’re a beginner, these web creation tips will help you design a site just like a professional.

Web Design Tips for Beginners

Think of your website as a canvas. There’s a lot of art and creativity that goes into it. You want your site to portray what your brand represents. You want your message to resonate with users. As a beginner, these web creation and design tips will leave your users impressed.

Choose the Right Theme

WordPress has thousands of themes to choose from. Although, choosing the right theme can be an overwhelming experience. A mantra for web creation tips is to choose a minimalist, clean, and smooth theme. Even though WordPress offers tons of free themes, your best bet is to go with the premium ones. The quality of a premium theme tends to go a long way as developers put more work into them. Another great thing about having a premium theme is that they tend to have better code structure. Leaving you with a better functioning site.

Choose the Right Font

Another vital tip for beginners when it comes to web designing is to choose the right fonts. This can be one of the tricky parts when creating a website because typography is another art in itself. The best way to go about this is to choose one that resembles your brand and fits your design.

If your brand already has a set font, that’s perfect! You can pretty much disregard this short tutorial on typography. Otherwise, you can learn more about choosing the right font.

Pick the Best Color Palette

Remember your magic number for the use of fonts is two. If you need to add more, three is the max, but it’s best to not go over.

If your brand already has its own palette, then your job as a non-designer just got easier. If not, no need to panic! Choosing a palette not only feeds your creative side but gives you the chance to give your brand an identity.

Besides an identity, colors can help bring your website to life. Whether it’s to make your users feel a certain emotion or bring attention to a specific element, colors are your friend. Adobe has a great free tool that can help you select complementary colors.

Use the Least Amount of Plugins

This includes removing the bad or unused ones. Plugins are tools that you can use to make your website perform specific actions. They can often be used to replace having to write code that may perform the same function.

Image Optimization

Images that are too big can take up a site’s bandwidth. Google offers guidelines on optimizing your images correctly. A good rule of thumb is to have your images by no larger than 800 pixels to load quickly. Use an outside host for videos though. There is no doubt that videos add quality to a site, but also acts as a culprit for slowing it down. Most people don’t realize that uploading a video directly to their page also uses up bandwidth. The best way to resolve this is to use a video hosting platform such as YouTube or Vimeo.

Keep Important Information Accessible

A user being able to easily navigate your site is another important aspect of user experience. You want your design to work for its users. Whether it’s an address, phone number, or download button; keeping it in plain sight and in reach will make your users happy.

Choose Your Message Before You Start Designing

Another helpful web creation tip is to decide how you want to communicate your brand’s message before styling it. Not only do you want your web design to be visually appealing, but to also resonate with your audience.

Copywriting plays a huge role in how your message is delivered. Great copy has the power to induce emotions in an audience and prompt them to action. That’s why planning on what you want to convey, before focusing on appearances, can go a long way. The 60-30-10 ratio can be applied when trying to achieve a harmonious blend.

Pay Attention to Hierarchy and Proximity

A fundamental tip for web creation is organizing your information effectively. In other words, using hierarchy and proximity. Hierarchy refers to how a website’s elements are prioritized and in order. You want your user’s attention to be drawn to the most important thing to the least. This can be achieved through different sizes, proportions, colors, alignment, and contrast. Your hierarchy of elements should flow with your design and give users a feel for your brand.

Proximity refers to the way your elements are organized, based on how they’re related to each other. If elements are near each other, this tells users that they belong together. However, if elements are further away from each other, this gives the impression that they are different types of information. Proximity is the best way to group visual information together and organize it in an effective way for your users.

Do Not Avoid White Space

A rookie mistake for most non-designers is putting too much content on their site. This leaves a website saturated and its design less enjoyable for users.

A space refers to where elements are placed on a website. Any space that is left blank is called a white space. Usually when a site has very little white space, it is seen as unprofessional.

Big brand websites, such as Apple, utilize white space in the right amount. The benefits of this is that it reduces saturation, organizes information better, and gives a more open design to a site.

Page speed plays a big role in user experience. A page that is overloaded with plugins and multimedia can not only slow it down, but also frustrate your users. In fact, 74% of users will not return to a website if it takes 5 seconds or more to load. This can heavily affect your site traffic.

Content Can Drive Design

One thing to keep in mind with these web creation tips is the format of web design. In other words, an e-commerce site, informational site, and social media page are all different from one another.

It’s important to format your web design to the type of site you want to build. Each type can have different hierarchy standards for their web design format. Once again, WordPress can save the day when it comes to simplifying the task of designing a website.

Non-Designer Tips

WordPress is an outstanding platform that can be used to create great websites. It is not the easiest of all of the platforms to use. However, learning how to use WordPress and using its benefits will make your website look great in the end. WordPress actually offers a great number of tutorials that can help you if you get stuck. Whichever platform you choose, follow these tips and your site will look fantastic. If you still have any doubt or query don’t be shy to connect with Web Designers in Thornton, CO.

[met4n0i4]

The final nail in the coughing. Maximum power!!

I know it's a little too soon to make another post. But prompts are prompts and one must follow them. So here goes another piece of information that some of you have probably been summoning out of me. Most people won't like to hear this. I myself hated and thus disregarded this information for a very long time. But it is important for the manifestation process and in some cases even essential.

This is definitely not my favorite part to teach to others, either. I generally get a lot of backlash for it. There are just some things that people don't want to hear. But, see... I didn't create this game or its rules. I did not decide the way things work. I did not make humans, their bodies or their minds. And I definitely did not intend for thoughts to be creative. That's just how things are. If you want to complain to someone about this, that someone ain't me.

All I did was try to understand the process through which I could create a life I enjoyed to the max. More specifically, I looked for a way to hack the system. But to hack a system there has to be a system in place. And you have to understand how it works. I did not create the system, nor did you. This system was put upon us. Where we asked about it? Was it forced upon us? I don't know. I just know there's a system in place in this 3d reality. And that The System can be understood in order to be hacked and used in our favor.

So let's understand the system, alright? We've already talked about it in previous posts and comments. But I'll get way deeper into it in this last post. So let's begin.

Everything is energy. Yes, you and the stars are made of the same thing. Energy. Atoms, protons, electrons and quartz moving, changing, shaping things into existence. Some people think energy is something intangible. But it isn't always. Your body, your computer, your phone, your clothes, the plants out in your garden, the birds and pretty much everything that surrounds you was created with energy and of energy.

Then of course exists this energy that hasn't been materialized but can easily be perceived. Light and sound aren't completely material. And yet, we can appreciate them. But there are still some lesser dense energies. What some people call *vibes*. People and places have *vibes*. They aren't material. They can't be seen, touched, heard, smelled or tasted. But we can perceive them somehow. That's not something metaphysical or out of this world. It's just energy.

We can move and shape energy. Most of us only understand this in a physical level. When we push a rock we are using energy (pushing movement) to move the rock (a mass of energy). When we bake a cake, we mix different ingredients (different energy arrangements) and apply some more energy (stirring, mixing, heating) to turn them into something new. We also are aware of how we can manipulate, move and shape light and sound. There's music and movies which are created out of light and sound.

But what most people miss is the less dense energies, the *moods* or the *vibes*. We don't know how to move them, shape them, mix them. And it's easy to miss them cause they are almost intangible. It's just like the states of water. An ice cube that is denser can be easily perceived, while water vapor that is way less dense can easily be missed. It's harder to see, to touch, to smell, to taste. But that doesn't mean vapor is not there. And it also does not mean that it can't materialize! It can become denser into water or even denser into ice. Plain physics.

Well, **thought** is one of those less dense energies that we usually miss and thus give less importance to. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist and it definitely does not mean that it doesn't materialize. As a matter of fact thoughts have immediate effects over our bodies. I'm no scientist but I know that thoughts immediately trigger chain reactions in our bodies that include electric impulses, neurochemical secretions and even movement.

&#x200B;

Just thinking of being attacked by a predator or being fired from our jobs can immediately trigger:

\- Secretion of cortisol in our bloodstream

\- Blood flow leaving our digestive system and going to our extremities

\- Chills up our spines

\- Increased heart rate

\- Rapid breathing

\- Acute attention (alertness)

&#x200B;

So thoughts basically materialize through our bodies first. This is one of the reasons I so many times write about our bodies being super reactive to our every thought. About how changing our thoughts will lead first and foremost to changes in our body. How changing our bodies is the easiest part. How healing, losing weight, reversing hair loss are usually the first things that happen when we fix our thoughts. And why we experience detox symptoms (energy cleansing) while doing it.

But I very few times have said that our bodies are like musical instruments. Once our bodies react to our thoughts, they *also* vibrate and emit energy to our surroundings just like musical notes. Electromagnetic fields, the aura? We normally just address those emissions as *the vibes*! Vibes are just a form of energy coming out of a us into the atmosphere. They are denser than our thoughts but less dense than light or sound. That's why it's not so easy to perceive them. Although, I would say that most people do perceive them. I just think people disregard them for not being dense enough, aka important enough.

And the vibes are energy that we cast out there for the whole world to perceive. That's the reason your ex only calls when you are already dating someone else. Those bastards can feel the changes on your vibe at a distance! It's like radio waves. Anyone who tunes in can sense them. And that's why changing our vibes gets us more job interviews, more clients, more dates, more followers on Instagram, or more invites to parties. People asking about attracting an ex, please pay special attention to this last paragraph.

So I might be going a little too deep for your taste, but I want you to understand that thoughts are SUPER important. They actually are the corner stones that set everything in motion. Thoughts are the most important thing ever. They shape our whole reality. That's why on my first ever post I told you the first basic principle of things.

&#x200B;

>**All our thoughts are creative.**

&#x200B;

And that's what most people already understand. That's also the reason why most people jump straight into creative mode. They all understand that thoughts create their reality and immediately try to engage in thought exercises that help create what they want. Some of those techniques can be scripting, visualizations, SATS, imagining yourself in the end, acting as if, or any other exercise that uses your imaginative capacity to create new things.

Also, most fail to understand that some of their past thoughts are already materialized in some shape or form. And that they can't just put new energy over those creations and experience something different. Some creations have to be dismantled and rebuilt. See, you can't just put an energetic bandaid over a cancerous tumor. You have to transform the energy of that tumor into something else, something better.

That's why from the beginning, I encouraged you to transmute your every day negative thoughts and turn them into positives. That's also the reason why I encouraged you to keep monitoring every single one of your thoughts. See, this way we are addressing two things. Thoughts that are already manifested are being transformed into better things. And at the same time we keep creating new things. We do all this by using our inner guidance that prompts us into doing one thing or the other.

Now, we're already getting to the good part. But first I'd like to sum up the whole creative process in two modes.

1. The creative mode.

2. The corrective mode.

Some people are more prone to the creative mode, like I already mentioned. But there's also people who are more prone to get into the corrective mode. People who are aware of the need to correct energy usually engage in practices such as dieting, fasting, exercising, meditating, praying, confessing, and any other technique that has the intention of correcting and rebalancing energy.

The problem is that usually people engage only in one mode or the other. When both are absolutely necessary in order to successfully manifest anything. Someone who creates over an already created mess will barely notice positive changes. And someone who focuses on healing but doesn't replace the corrected energy with new better things, will also fail in their attempts. I once did both.

And as you can imagine. It was not until I started using both modes that I started to see actual results. And I finally learned that a real wizard has to learn those two things. How to create and how to correct. And in order to do those two things in full capacity, one must actually learn *three* different things.

&#x200B;

1. How to master your every thought.

2. How to transmute negative energy forms.

3. How to create new positive energy forms.

My first few posts suggested a technique where the three steps where addressed. But, to be completely honest, the point that I was making emphasize upon was the first one. My intention was to make you accountable of your every thought. And thus, that first exercise helps us train ourselves into mastering our mind. This first step is necessary in order to stop negative creating in the first place. After we learn how to stop negative creating by mastering our thoughts, then we can get even better at the other two things.

Yesterday I made a post on transmuting negative and stuck energy. That one technique is meant to be stronger than just flipping negative thoughts into positives. See, I don't know why but **feeling loved** is the most powerful energy in the world for healing and transmutation. I guess we all know that intuitively. But some things need to be said out loud to make sense out of them.

And that's the reason why I had to pinpoint for you some techniques that make use of a loving healing power to transmute. I once developed a technique that I called 'Loverdose' (Love Overdose) or ♥OD for short. That practice was based on a lot of endocrinological information. And it became a corner stone into my understanding on how to manifest. But just understand that feeling loved (not feeling love for someone else) is the best way to forgive and correct your past creations.

But that's something I addressed in the past post. That one key was mean to potentialize your transmutation power. And finally, this one thing I'm going to address is the master key meant to potentialize your creative power. See, just like feeling loved is the key to transmuting, the **conservation of sexual energy** is the key to harnessing more creative power.

Fuuuuu, finally the bomb has dropped. I said it. I'm sorry. I didn't made this up. I don't control the system or how things work. I know this one is a hard bone to swallow but it is absolutely true. Sexual abstinence makes you more powerful to create new thought forms and eventually more 3d things. I told you you wouldn't like it. I didn't like it either.

But see, most people who learn how to manifest talk about this. Napoleon Hill in his book 'Think and grow rich' addresses sexual purity as an essential element to the whole process. Saint Germain also writes about how people waste the most powerful creative energy through sex. The Bible has this figure that loses all his strength when tempted by lust, Samson. And then of course we have the Virgin Mary as the figure from which Jesus was born. So being a virgin probably is a big deal.

See, there's a lot of references to the conservation of sexual energy for creation. Gnosis is a spiritual teaching completely centered on this whole thing. Sex magic does not talk about sexual energy preservation but recognizes the power of sexual energy in some way. And Jesus does invite fornicators not to 'sin' again.

Now that the cat is out of the bag, let me tell you this. I tried No Fap or Semen Retention like a decade ago, before it was a huge movement on social media. I went 5 straight months without any sexual emissions and I can attest that preserving sexual energy does invigorate the body. I felt more energy in general and muscle growth without doing any exercises. I had a sharper mind too. But then of course my testimony might not be much. That's why I invite you to read a few testimonies on r/NoFap or r/SemenRetention.

Sexual preservation is a thing and has actual results. Just think in terms of energy. Why do men get so tired after releasing? Maybe because they spend a lot of energy through sex. Just think about it, sex is the activity through which a new life form is CREATED. So sexual energy must be some kind of really powerful energy, don't you think?

Well, I'm not gonna convince you. All you need to know is that preserving your sexual energy does increase your power to create! And some people by listening to their inner guidance will naturally come to this conclusion. But some people also get mad at me for not telling them this from the beginning. But hey, listen me out.

You first have to learn to master your mind before you harness 10x more power through sexual energy! See, people on NoFap and all those places will have two kind of experiences, either really awesome, or really really awful. Why? Well, imagine having 10x more creative power but still having only negative thoughts. Yikes, right?? Not cool. But people who do it and have beautiful thoughts... yaaay!

Most of you are now masters of your minds, so now harnessing this huge energy makes total sense. And I know that some of you are really committed to becoming a wizard, a god, a powerful creator. So some might not even complain upon learning this information. Maybe those will be more worried cause they know it's not easy to master sexual impulses. And here's where things get interesting. For anyone who does want to harness more creative power and understands that this is the final piece of the puzzle, here's my advice.

Whenever you get a sexual urge, you don't suppress that energy or ignore it. That's the wrong way to go cause you know that energy will just accumulate and come back to you eventually with a vengeance. What you have to do is transmute that energy! You have to apply the violet flame or any other love-powered technique to transform that energy into neutral or positive energy. That transmuted energy will then become available for casting new and wonderful spells.

See? We're going to use all that energy into our spells, and you'll see what happens then. Spells ten times more powerful, that's what happens. Now, it's a vicious cycle cause transmuting sexual energy makes you more powerful. And being more powerful makes it easier to transmute energy and create new things. And transmuting energy makes you even more powerful. And being more powerful makes it easier to transmute more energy and create new things. And... you get the point. Things get better and better and better.

Mastering your thoughts. Transmuting energy through love. And harnessing your sexual energy. That's the three things a master has to learn. You learn those three things and you are set for life. There's not much now that I can teach after this. There's a few little details that I can share. There's a few spells I've gathered along the way that might get you going. A few testimonies I can give. But if you've read all my posts up to this one, now you have all the tools to make it on your own. All you have to do is use them, of course.

I will not disappear since I know there are still a lot of questions out there and some of you need some form of external motivation to keep you going. So I'll keep answering to questions posted on the comments. I am answering less and less to private messages now though, so try to make public questions for everyone to benefit from them and not just you.

I'll also be doing something new. See, I never expected people being interested in this information through Reddit. And I was definitely not expecting people reading all the questions and answers in the comments section. I also didn't expect people practicing what I teach with such eagerness. It makes me really happy to get messages from people getting already some degree of success out of this practices. But with my previous post and this new one, things are about to get 7 times better for the ones using them.

So I've decided to start a closed sub. It will be invite only and will be meant to help a very small group of people who are really working on this teachings. I want to help them get all the way. See, I love doing this posts and people's feedback, but I don't want it to be just a cute philosophy some crazy cat posted on Reddit. I want at least one person to become a full on magician. I'd really rather have one person understand, practice and master all this stuff, than a whole bunch of people reading and not getting anywhere.

The way I see it, if I help three, four, five or six people master this shit, then those six people can go out there and teach another 6 people, and then this thing will actually grow. It'll stop being some interesting read on a blog and will become a real movement. At least that's what I've been feeling lately. So I'll proceed with the secret fraternity kinda thingy.

I don't know yet how I'll pick the people who'll get invited to that private sub. Most likely through the comments you post, since it's the only signal I get from you about how much you've been doing this, how much you've come to understand it and how much interest you really have in becoming a wizard, Harry!

I already have some people in mind. So if you've been around and commenting, keep an eye on your inbox. I'll be sending invitations probably some day next week. I'll probably make another post about this closed group. But for now, keep me updated on your progress and questions in the comments.

There should be some really specific physical symptoms that I haven't mentioned in any of my posts, that should be appearing by now on some of you. Those two specific symptoms are the true sign of someone who is becoming a magician. And I'll be paying a very close eye on anyone who starts experiencing them. As for now, I'll leave you with your thoughts, and hope there's still people trying this after the bomb dropped on this post.

I hope this helps, Gato.

[storyofmylifeessay903]

writing help

About me

The 10 Best Essay Writing Sites In 2020

The 10 Best Essay Writing Sites In 2020 SameDayEssay com also ranks a hundred and first among Essay Writing sites. The most common issues with SameDayEssay com are round customer support, which is not so good as anticipated by some prospects. Content mills require everybody on each events to create a consumer account. You will use this account to access the platform and the companies it has to offer. And if you’re finished, go back and edit it till it’s “good” based on your teacher’s requirements. Every once in a while, I would write a very good essay, however principally I skated by with B’s and A-minuses. They have been with me the entire semester plus they carried out three of my papers I'm maxed out on points on each last one of them. I may say I can look ahead to next semester and feeling myself far more environment friendly. I should say that I am totally satisfied with the Quality of work that was accomplished. It’s higher to find that you’ve still got time left over than to expire of time and end up dashing issues off with a looming deadline. If you’re writing for grades and want a good one, you want a really good essay. Don’t start writing it the day earlier than you have to hand it in. Try and get your first draft down no less than a day or two earlier than you have to submit your work. Read your essay aloud to your self, since this will assist you to pick up any careless errors you wouldn’t in any other case spot. To do that, a name and e mail tackle might be required. Therefore, use the paper as a mannequin to re-write one other paper. It is worth noting that even if such papers usually are not flagged by Turnitin, they can be flagged by different plagiarism detection tools like SafeAssign. Read our suggestions to make use of SafeAssign well and escape any unhealthy similarity scores on this device by Blackboard. Others should read with extra attention, and even re-learn a chunk a number of instances to extract the information we need. Having good reading and comprehension abilities makes writing much quicker because you’re in a position to “get” the information quicker and manage them better. Now you understand why you had to take action many studying comprehension exams at college. Use tip #4 and write 5 authentic sentences that could be was an essay. Check to see if your data flows logically from one point to the subsequent and just be sure you’ve introduced your information clearly. Some of us can just skim a chunk and pick up all the salient factors. My pal who recommended those guys ordered nursing papers from here. Available across the clock and delivers quality project persistently. Samedayessay customer service is incredible, by no means left a dilemma unanswered. You actually took in to myi situation and advised a less expensive priced solution that match my needs and saved me cash. SameDayEssay com has a client rating of four.01 stars from 138 reviews indicating that almost all consumers are generally happy with their purchases. You can read my ten greatest suggestions for having enjoyable whereas writing an essay that earns you the highest grade, or checkout this presentation designed by our pals at Canva Presentations. Stop attempting to write an excellent essay (or even a “good-sufficient” essay). Instead, write aninterestingessay, write an essay you suppose is fascinating. That signifies that the best essays are about shock, “You in all probability suppose it’s a technique, however in actuality, you must consider it this other method.” See tip #three for extra on this. Every story is about conflict and alter, and the truth is that essays are about battle and change, too! The difference is that in an essay, the battle is between completely different ideas, the change is in the way in which we must always perceive those ideas. You don’t have to stay in a single place and write from starting to finish. Give your self the freedom to write as should you’re circling round your topic quite than making a single, easy argument. Then, when you edit, you can make certain every thing lines up accurately. As you analysis your essay subject, search for this story of surprise, and don’t start writing until you can find it.