#anyways after this experience Ive decided that I no longer give any fucks because you only live once so Im just gonna do what I want foreve

[safety-pin-punk]

yall Im so fucking tired. This month has been exhausting. I promise Im alive, just barely functional atm.

[versaceviagra]

Thursday 05/16/2024 1:30 AM

This is me now! A quick little update about me, I am now currently single after a long battle of toxicity and abuse (on both ends) from my last relationship with Joseph.

Anyways, I've been on this journey of 'self-healing' and basically trying to regulate my nervous system and trying my best to handle my emotions better.

I no longer smoke a pack (or two) a day which was normal for me last year. Actually, my last bout of smoking was this past January but quit due to the fact that it's really hard to smoke during duty hours of clinicals.

Im about to pass my 2nd year of nursing school and moving forward with 3rd year, how exciting! i will only have one more year to go after that and then its working, im excited to make my own money again and to get away from the hells and holds of my mother who has decided to only give me and Desiree 6k pesos a month (which is absolutely atrocious). Anywho, she will not actually go through with it because she is aware of the surging prices here in the Philippines and its at a small cost to her.

I know i've been real scared about hooking up here in the PH , especially since ive only had one partner but I did hook up with this one guy who is apparently a micro-celebrity or more so an influencer here in the PH and yes, we did have protected sex, and yes, his dick was big. Another experience was this foreigner named Hass (or Huss) and honestly? Did not wanna go through that shit because i only really went for free drinks and he ate me out for like 5 seconds and after that I came to my senses, washed up, and left. Honestly, what is up with foreigners going to a lesser developed country to get some pussy anyways? It never made sense to me and its reeking desperation, its also creepy.

Anywho, right now I'm just in bed and unable to sleep. I think ill be getting my period in the next following days because my cravings are so intense that I had a THIRD supper which consisted of hot milk, loaf bread dunked in, bits and bites of my nephew's spaghetti , and a mug full of Laing and rice.

I just know that when i get back to America, life will flourish for me significantly. I will be able to breathe again and be away from the stressors that I'm not bringing upon myself.

I survived a month of mama and Aya being here last month. Aya was an absolute fucking bitch and a nightmare and she still has to give me my $360.00 . Like. It's my fucking money, yknow? ugly.

I can't think of much else to type.

In my future, I just KNOW im going to be wealthy. Like, private yacht , beach front house that is tall over looking the ocean (wont be my only home), expensive skin care, makeup, purses, and shoes type of wealthy. With the 500+ count egyptian cotton threading that is super soft to the touch and with a tall gorgeous husband who only loves me and has eyes for me. That's going to be my future. Sipping wine by the outside of the restaurant and absolutely just loving the peace, quiet, and love that is pouring in. Of course, with my 2 kids that I love dearly and will have after I've accomplished my career goals and money that I was able to accumulate. Whatever it will be, however it happens, I will get there and I am 100% sure of it.

I think that's all I wanted to share for now :)

I'm happy of the person I am at the moment. Just absolute peace and quiet. I don't have any friends for that matter, but I am okay with it unless I actually want to go out and party.

Thanks for reading this, if you've come across it.

Thank you future Becky for everything you're doing for US and for me right now. I thank you for that. Don't be too hard on yourself because everything will fall into place regardless.

[the-worst-fe-player]

Dimitri for the character ask thing? :)

Sorry this took a while tumblr decided to crash instead of posting it right when I was almost finished sorry

Favourite thing = everything. But for real probely how much he try to do his best even if it isn’t the best thing. Like take the end of azure moon when he was going to spear el only killing her after it was clear there was no saving her and like honestly there was no real reason to save her yes dimitri rembers there childhood but it’s clear at that point el doesn’t and even then she invaded his homeland and is the reason god knows how many people died and had that meet up which was just a big fat yikes across the bored yet he still wanted to save her. the there his supports with flayn ingrid Ashe Mercedes I could go on the further show how amazing of a quality it is and how it will make him an amazing ruler and I think the end of am Murl shows that with him with the children and many others

Least favourite thing = probably the byelth worship but tbh I have that problem with pretty much all house leaders I just don’t get it mabey because I never had to beat real ships with my teachers but yeah

Favourite line = “I am certain I will be hearing them until the day I die. But I will not cover my ears. I will go on living... and their voices will serve as a warning”

I love this line while it’s sadly looked behind a s support it shows dimitris growth as a character the voices with no longer control him yet they will also never go he goes on the live an successful life dispute it all and it’s one of my favourite lines because of that. Also on a personal note while the voices I hear and the delusions I face are nothing like dimitris they still scare me and I often don’t feel like I’m in control of myself sometimes so seeing someone even if it’s a fictional character that’s like me still thrives gives hope you know

Brotp = Claude lol. like no offence to those who do iv just never really seen it but I would love to see them just hang out there personality pre time skip are so different that there could be funny stuff and post time skip seeing them re kindle that friendship and help join almyra and fodeln together meaning claudes dream can come true even in am

Otp = dedue I’m a sucker for prince / most loyal dynamic anyway but I think they would be so cute with each other and the ship dynamic can go from angst to fluff (tho I prefer the fluff lol) tho tbh I kind of ship dimitri with a lot of people like I multi ship a lot of three houses

Notp = I got two el even if you ignore the whole is it incest thing I still wouldn’t like it. (Trigger wanring for sexual mental and physical abuse next bit please skip this part if uncomfortable ) felix. My first introduction to this ship was an untaged abuse fic on a03 that had felix rape and physical assault dimitri in an attempt to save him. And so many of these ha ha felix edgey while in love with dimitri isn’t that funny that he’s saying how much he’s hates everything about his husband and wished he was dead or a better persons posts like it’s straight up verbal and mental abuse like as someone that was mental and slightly sexual (I was pressed into having sex) it makes me fucking sick to see it and because of that iv grown to hate that ship and will only look at it if a muatal that I trust reblogs or make the content because it can be good but it scares me you knao. Like I’m not saying wiring bad things is inherently bad fuck iv written stuff about my own experience in a way to vent and we can’t exactly not write about bad things because that can make good story arch it but there’s a fine line between I’m writing this and it’s clearly a bad thing to isn’t it so romantic I’m not gonna tag any of this so suvours will see this and be reminded about how we see the thing that fucked you up cute

Random headcanon = The sort of guy that can wear shorts and sandles in the snow

Unpopular opinion = the pre time skip hair isn’t that bad yall just mean 😭

Song I Associate with them= Achilles come down it’s my favourite song and just listen plz 

Fav pic = this cipher art



[macklives]

hi. so..... its been a while huh? feels kinda weird making a message on here, after what??? a month of not posting at fucking all??

and idk how to say that im sorry for taking so long, especially with kallie kinda sticking with me pretty much the whole time i was away. so we both kinda went AFK on everybody. and by god, this has also been the longest gap between updates. so yeah... i feel you all are owed an explanation. 

id like to give a short summary of what went down in my life recently. not so much as an excuse for my disappearance, but bearing in mind, i can't just come back suddenly without a notice as to why it took so long, and then start discussing homestuck theories as if nothing happened, that would be ...weird and off putting. im known as one to talk a lot in a post, so i think its expected. buckle up kiddos, this may be a long one, which you dont have to necessarily read, but im simply putting it out there for you all in case any of you may have been worried or confused. 

ALSO, keep in mind im alright with sharing this information because i needed some time to get over it in order to accept it, and being able to say this stuff means im pretty much ready to move on and go back to what it was like before (which for someone who has trouble focussing, can get quite fucking hard). so here's the last few months in a nutshell:

i got my wisdom teeth pulled so i was both in pain and numb for a week and a half after being drugged up with, idk, the IV they use to knock you tf out and that needle to numb your teeth?? and having those bad boys outta my mouth so that was a fun time. fuck that shit.

uhhh on the more upsetting side of things, a friend of mine recently passed away, but i took some time to recover from that. i didnt want to bum everybody out by liveblogging while in that state, nor did i feel like it was right to make jokes at that time (for obvious reasons) so i took some time off. and while i do still care for that person, after a while you have to come to terms that your life can't evolve around grief, and you have to move on eventually. its been a month and im doing way better than i was in the first week. so you dont have to worry really.. i even heard about the messages friends wrote on discord and let me tell you that i appreciate every response, i love all of them, i love all of you guys, but if any of you worry about me as of today, just know im doing perfectly fine and thats behind me now. so yeah, thats the worst of the news..

on less distressing matters, i changed up my job! i used to be a waitress at a restaurant to get that not so mucho money cash flowing, and now i got a full time placement as an intern (sort of full-time. full-time with student conditions). which in hindsight, to some may not sound like its any helpful, but considering im in my final year of college and i have to explore new places to get experience, id rather go where its needed so i reach that specific goal in mind. and you have to start somewhere, so this is where ill start heading. though i do still have to graduate which will take a lot of stress out of me eventually but it hasnt yet caught up lol... yikes to when that fuse blows in the future. 

and finally, the most frustrating part of the month, idk who it was specifically, the company or the landlord, but eh details arent that important, anyways, the landlord and/or its agency messed up with our rental situation and lost a lot of our info so i had to spend a lot of time trying to get that back while also filling out tax returns bc those were finally put out. so yeah, we kinda just have to wait for a notice, though i personally think everything will be fine. we’re considering moving out eventually, but thats probably gonna have to wait a bit longer. while we’re still angry, the landlord respected that it was out of line and apologised while making it up to us, so that was fair enough.

so YEAH, you can pretty much say its been one hell of a fucking month, and i had barely any time to liveblog let alone be in contact with friends that i kinda missed so fucking much????... i basically didnt want to bring anybody down with me (emotionally or mentally), so i decided to at least give you all a warning that i wouldnt be on for a while, hence the last update a few weeks prior, and to take a break for myself to figure out my situation, to rest, and to try and get healthier despite that wisdom fuck week, which nobody warned me wisdom teeth removals were ABSOLUTE HELL

but... im glad to be back, im not sure ill get back into the rhythm of how things used to be, meaning, posting almost every day....that would have to wait a bit unfortunately. however, i think it would be best if i made a sort of schedule for myself. maybe a liveblog twice a week, starting the next. it would help out a lot. i hope to start off with that at least, and not push myself too hard for hours anymore nor the stress of needing to post daily. i loved it, dont get me wrong, but sometimes it took a lot out of me since i know it takes a lot of my time. that being said, i will be on discord, maybe tomorrow? and probably be more active on there from now on, since everything is sorta cleared in my life and there's no more hectic commotion 24/7. the only thing at this rate stopping me from being active is having family over in the next couple weeks. but otherwise, yeah, its good to be back and im again sorry for my absence once more.

yours, 

mackenzie <33

[district7]

A Mockingjay Joniss AU - pt. 1: i’ve made up my mind (i’m never going back)

11.11.19 

A Mockingjay Joniss AU - pt. 1: i’ve made up my mind (i’m never going back) 

A Mockingjay AU WIP where Katniss reevaluates whether her best future is a path she had never considered. After Johanna fails the Block, it occurs to Katniss that her future is not pre-destined, that she’s done enough, and that she doesn’t owe any one, or any cause, a suicide mission. 

A/N: There are no promises of quality assurance. Also, I make no promises about updates. (If I add that sort of pressure on myself about it, I’ll end up loathe to work on it.) This will likely hold a lot of things in common with other Mockingjay Joniss AUs, namely a return to District 7 instead of District 12, and an emphasis on the pair helping each other recover set against a backdrop of quasi-homesteading. I make zero assertions POV and tense will stay consistent across updates. This is an adventure in pantsting with a general goal in mind, rather than something I’m pre-plotting.

Feel free to send me constructive witticisms, requests, asks, comments, trolling, whatever.

_______________________

District 13 - Medical

Johanna’s limbs twitched, body emitting a mix of grunts and whimpers. Katniss guessed she was fighting in her sleep.

Or maybe running. The morphling line in her IV was a rifle with vicious recoil. Awake, it tricked you into believing pain was farther away and anxiety quieter than they actually were. Helpful. Maybe. Asleep, it made it harder to wake from the nightmares.

“Jo...” 

Katniss nudged her shoulder with a knuckle, leaning forward out of her visitor’s chair only far enough to breach the edge of Johanna’s medical bed. Best to keep out of the way of swinging arms, if Johanna woke up fighting. “Johanna, wake up.”

In response, Johanna’s grunts and twitches ratcheted in intensity. 

Katniss guessed at what she was dreaming. Maybe fighting mutts while they tried to pull her under water. What kind of mutts might the Capitol design for that? Giant fish with fiery eyes, men’s arms, and children’s hands?  Eels with multiple tails which encapsulate you while the monsters drag you deeper into the pressing blackness, down until you finally have no choice but to gasp in water and drown yourself?

The Capitol and its mutts. 

Katniss tried again to wake Johanna, but she only rolled in her hospital bed, tangling herself and her IV line in her bleached, too-white sheets while letting out a sleep-garbled plea.

Maybe not Capitol mutts, Katniss thought. This happened in The Block, the Rebellion’s own customizable mini-Arena. So, Rebellion mutts. Coin and her well-oiled machine could squeeze and fracture a person every bit as well as Snow and the Games could a Tribute. Less horrific and premeditated, definitely. Better justified, absolutely. Without the evil intent, hopefully.  But they could still do it, all the same.

What was it Peeta had said in that interview? 

Once you’re in the arena, the rest of the world becomes very distant. All the people and things you loved or cared about almost cease to exist. As bad as it makes you feel, you’re going to have to do some killing, because in the arena, you only get one wish. And it’s very costly. It costs a lot more than your life. To murder innocent people? It costs everything you are. So you hold on to your wish.

His wish had been for Katniss to live. Katniss’ had been for him to. And here they were. Everyone, except for Cinna, who she’d gone into the Quarter Quell caring about was somehow, miraculously, still alive. Prim. Her mother. Gale. Haymitch. Effie. Peeta might still be mentally disordered, but at least with her staying away, he was progressing well enough to decorate a wedding cake. 

A wedding cake. That image made Katniss grunt. Finnick and Annie.

It wasn’t just those she cared about before the Quarter Quell who were still alive, it was also those she newly cared about. Those two. Beetee.

Johanna.

Johanna, for whom Katniss had experienced the impulse to volunteer as roommate. The one she’d sidled up to as a training partner. The one whose nightmares and traumas she’d been ready-fit acquaintances with. And also the one whose crass, doesn’t-give-a-fuck facade had gone from infuriating Katniss, when they’d first met, to actually making her laugh.

She sat on the edge of the bed and made one last, forceful attempt to stir Johanna, managing to cajole her onto her back and into wakefulness enough that she blinked with hazy recognition.

“Shit. Can’t a girl sleep without being molested?” Johanna was mumbling, voice rough.

“You were having a nightmare.”

“I can see your face, so clearly I must still be having it.”

“Funny.”

Johanna’s lids drifted shut.

“Have to be good for at least something, brainless, or else these wonderful District Thirteen people might decide it’s not worth the cost-benefit to feed me.”

“You’re good at lot of things,” Katniss joked. “Or at least that’s what you’re always going on to everyone about.”

Still with eyes closed, Johanna’s face pulled a smirk. “And wouldn’t you be lucky to experience every last one of those things, Everdeen.”

Katniss snorted and rolled her eyes. “You’re incredible.”

“Most wait ‘till after to tell me that.”

“You know what I meant,” Katniss corrected, refusing to fall prey to the attempt at embarrassing her. She started untangling the sheet from around the IV as something else to focus on.

Johanna peeked open one eye to watch, then wiggled the rest of her arm free from the bedding as soon as Katniss was done, purposefully floundering it through the air until she thwacked her palm against Katniss’ cheek. She pushed her face away with token force, punctuated by a complaining groan.

“Go a-way. Your sickening goodness makes my ass itch. How’s a mentally disordered person supposed to sleep?"

Katniss managed to huff like she was offended, but when Johanna’s hand didn’t move away from her face, she pulled it down to her lap and held onto it, frowning.

“They’re re-classifying you as that again?”

Johanna’s hand twitched in Katniss’.

“What? No. It’s nothing.”

“Johanna...”

“I’m fine, leave it.”  She yanked her hand free. “Aren’t you supposed to be prepping for an assassination mission right now anyway? Why are you here?”

Katniss frowned again at the abruptly acerbic tone, but she’d built up some resistance to it over time, and was tired herself, so she chose not walk into the trap. She was about to lay her own, anyway, after a fashion.

“You mean the suicide mission?” Her voice was a whisper, and she said it only after looking away from Johanna and picking her cuticles for a few long moments.

“What?” Johanna shimmied up into a sitting position, eyes wide and body instantly tense. “What are you talking about?”

Boggs’ words from a group meeting with Coin weeks before had been revolving through Katniss’ mind for the previous twenty-four hours.

Even if we’re careful, we can’t guarantee her safety. She’ll be a target for every-

He hadn’t gotten to finish, because Katniss herself had interrupted him. But she could definitely fill in the blank herself.

“Think about, Johanna. Because since the Block, I’ve certainly been thinking about it. At best, it’s a mission doomed to fail. At worst, it’s a death sentence. I think I’ve slept less than you in the last forty-eight hours.”

“You promised.” Johanna and pulled her arms tightly around her shoulders to make herself smaller. Triggered into a minor episode, she shook her head non-stop, as if doing so could change the reality of what Katniss had said. “You promised you’d kill him for me. I need him to be dead!”

Katniss sighed loudly and stared up at ceiling, fighting her own frustration as well as Johanna’s. Fighting to keep her voice calm.

“I know. I know I did, Johanna. And he will.“ She put a hand on Johanna’s knee to calm her, only to have Johanna swipe it away. But she went on. “We’ve breached the Capitol. We have forces there. Everyone wants Snow’s head. The Rebellion has come too far to stop, and Coin is going to make sure he ends up dead one way or another. But think about it. I’m not a trained assassin, I’m barely a solider. I don’t have an anonymous face. What chance do I really have? I’m a girl with a rifle and a bow. In the middle of a city decked out with Gamemakers’ traps, thousands of peacekeeper who know my face, and tens of thousands of Capitol citizens ready to raise an alert.” She gave Johanna a grim smile. “Those odds are way higher against than we faced in all of our games combined. And my target? One man on the far side of a war zone, almost certainly sealed away in a well-guarded bomb shelter.”

Katniss gave a weak shrug. “Boggs is right. He didn’t call it a suicide mission out loud, but he knows it is. I’ve been seeing it in his eyes, the hoping that I'd see it for myself.”

“Fuck,” Johanna hissed. “I’m so fucking tired of all this SHIT!”

The sudden screaming brought in the medical staff. Johanna shouted wild curses at them, alarming them all the more, but Katniss eventually talked them into leaving. It took long minutes, but Johanna’s shaking slowly evolved to despondent rocking. And then her chin sank to her chest, followed a moment later by a sniff, and then her dragging an arm across her face to wipe at it. Finally, she gripped her skull and let herself fall back flat onto the bed.

“Jo, I don’t know what kind of a life you want to have when this is over, but I’ve made up my mind. I’m not going back. I’ve done enough. We’ve both done enough. We don’t owe anyone. It’s not selfish: We’ve reached the point where we’re no longer necessary. Coin and the other District Leaders can duke it out; it doesn’t need to be Mockingay business. The only thing I want is to live a quiet life where I know Prim is safe and I can shrink out from under the spotlight. That’s what started this for me. That���s the promise I need to keep. The one I made to her on Reaping Day. That I’d live and come back to her.” She added, “You can’t tell me that at least part of you isn’t interested.”

There was more sniffling, and more face wiping. And a few ragged breaths before there was an exhausted response.

“Do you really believe that’s possible?”

“I think Coin will give it to us. She needs popular Victors around after the Capitol falls like a bear needs bees stinging at its nose when it wants honey. At this stage, my quiet exit might be as tempting for her as it is for me. And face it, from her perspective- If I’m right- if I do go, at best my death makes a good propo, except that it comes at the cost of the Capitol claiming credit for killing me. But if I actually succeeded, she risks me having an even bigger voice in Panem’s future. Considering how we’ve butted heads already, that’s not something she’s likely to want. And that puts not just me, but everyone I care about right back in danger.” Katniss had risked sneaking that train of thought into a whispered conversation with Boggs over that morning’s breakfast.

The look he’d given her had been answer enough.

“For once, I’d like the chance to choose my own fate instead of being manipulated into one.”

Johanna continued to stare up at the ceiling.

“You’re serious about this.”

“I have the bone-chilling feeling I need to be.”

“And so what,” Johanna struggled for the energy to push herself up on her elbows, glaring, “this is you asking my blessing to beg Coin to send you, your family, and lover boy back to Twelve so you can have a guilt-free happily ever after?”

Katniss gave herself time to cycle through a slow breath. Being about to say it aloud made it feel more like killing someone than letting them go. But Johanna was impatient.

“I’m sick of this visit, Katniss. Just say whatever it is and get it over with.”

“Fine.” Katniss sucked in a breath. “Peeta’s a long way from being able to go anywhere without a counselor. Maybe things could be different. In the future, after time passes and he’s better and I don’t feel constantly conflicted over what I should be feeling and how much of that is me over what people keep telling me I feel. And-”

“There goes your self-righteous we-really-love-each-other act, princess.”

“Shut up, Johanna! It’s complicated and you know it. And like I said, maybe things could be different. None of us knows that, though. But what I do know is that neither he or I need that sort of pressure right now, and right now is when I need to make a decision for the people who are still within my reach.”

Johanna relented, begrudgingly.

“If you go back to Twelve, you realize he’ll just end up back there at some point. If you go home, he follows. He won’t be able to help it.”

Katniss hesitated, but then nodded sadly. “I know.”

“Is that what you want?”

Katniss didn’t respond. Instead, after some quiet, she reached over to the nightstand for Johanna’s pine bundle, laying it on the bed. Her fingers lingered on it briefly before withdrawing.

“This was on the floor when I came in. Decided you didn’t like it after all?”

“Probably fell out while I was sleeping.” Johanna picked it up and took a sniff, then kept it at her nose to breathe the scent.

“Had you wanted to go back to Seven when this was all done?”

“I...” Johanna’s shoulders slowly sagged. “I don’t know,” she said simply, expression carefully neutral. “I don’t have anything there. Haven’t for a long time. And I haven’t even been able to picture a world that’s that normal enough to even try thinking about it.”

“Well, do. At this point, the three us of would rather go to Seven with you than back to Twelve.” Johanna narrowed her eyes, surprised. Perhaps suspicious. It didn’t phase Katniss. “Haymitch and Finnick have both agreed to help me make the argument to Coin for us.” And when Johanna only continued to study Katniss, without voicing an objection, Katniss hazarded some levity, "And anyway, you’re practically required to say yes: Prim insists she wants to adopt you into the family.”

“I’m not a fucking pet,” Johanna responded, eventually, but without real heat.

“Whatever you say, lumber-woman.” Katniss chuckled at the dirty face Johanna made at that, before standing to leave. “I think we both know Prim's pretty good at getting what she wants.”

“It should be illegal to be that fucking adorable.”

“Yeah,” Katniss agreed, to be polite. “Okay, well, I’m going to go talk to Haymitch. You aren’t laying a string of profanity down on me, so I’m going to run with it.”

Johanna pulled her knees to her chest, making herself small again.

“What is it?”

Johanna shook her head.

“Come on, Johanna.”

“I... don’t want to get dragged there and then dumped, if you guys don’t like it.” A tear raced down her cheek, then another, which Johanna cursed even as she wiped them away. “I... Fuck, I can’t believe I’m saying this. If you tell anyone, especially that stupid head doctor, that I'm saying this, I’ll rip your spine out.”  The tears were still coming. “But I don’t think I can handle having people and then losing them again.”

Again. The weight of that word settled on Katniss’ shoulders.

She struggled with how to respond, in the end climbing onto the bed and letting Johanna curl into her side.

[spooks-can-write]

The Babysitter

Nestor x Reader

Summary: Emily hires you to babysit Cristobal (this is apart from the actual tv series events) and you and Nestor have some...tension. im bad at summaries ok.

Warnings: no smut just tension lmao. Cursing. Some predatory behavior, nothing beyond that.

Word count: idk tbh its longER tho bc i cant be short im s o r r y.

Hope yall enjoy 💞

The door chimed as you walked into the coffee shop, immediatley seeing Emily beam as she saw you made you loose a tension you didnt know you were holding. After leaving your last job abruptly you had been busy trying to get your shit together and through the struggle you were glad to take a break to see your old babysitter and childhood friend Emily.

"Hey (y/n)!" She stood up, you noted motherhood suited her well. She seemed more at peace now.

"Hey Em!" You looked down to see Cristobal sweetly sleeping in his noteably expensive stroller.

"So..." she seemed eager "I was talking with Miguel and we know you're...well...looking for a new job and place to stay so we thought it'd be perfect if you stayed with us as Cristobals full time nanny."

You were caught off gaurd to say the least "Oh, uh that does sounds great but i dont have any experience really."

"Dont worry well figure it out and ill be there in the beginning till you settle in. Trust me."

You thought you didnt have many other places to go either way and being in a stable enviornment would be good for a change. Fuck it.

"When can i start?"

Nannying was going better than you thought. It helped that Cristobal was more than well behaved but also you kind of had a knack for it. Not to mention the mansion Emily lived in. The only problem from time to time was that asshole with the cornrows. He always blatantly ignored you or just stared at you until you left the room. You thought long and hard about what you did to piss him off and couldnt think of a single thing, so you decided he was just an asshole.

You needed to check with Miguel about taking Cristobal to the park, going to his office you just found Nestor standing next to an empty desk.

"Where is Miguel?"

He didnt respond.

"Where.Is.Miguel?" You ask with more attitude than you meant.

He blinked like he didnt understand.

"Nestor!" You raised your voice

"He stepped out. He'll be back in 10." His calm tone didnt match yours. You instantly felt embaressed to have been rude. Shit.

"Thanks" you walked out wishing you had been more calm

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

When you walked in he looked up, thinking it was miguel, to see you. You were wearing that new top he liked. It hugged your curves. The sun was hitting your face making you glow.

Fuck you were beautiful. He wanted to shove the chair out of the way and grab you and kiss you more than he ever wanted anything he knew he couldnt have.

Shit. You looked mad.

"Nestor!"

He gathered his thoughts

He watched you walk out. His stomach twisted that you seemed mad at him. Fuck.

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

They were supposed to be gone all day so you were walking around the house, bouncing and humming a hymn to Cristobal in your pjs. He slowly fell asleep as you walked around the stairs to the den, you stopped dead.

You were met with the eyes of Miguel, Devante, Nestor, and a fair skinned man with a lot of jewlery and a shit eating grin as his eyes obviosuly roamed your body. You were just wearing a little bit too short of shorts and a tank top that cristobals sleepy hand was tugging down. You felt your stomach twist and cheeks flush.

"Sorry-I I didnt know anyone was home, he was getting fussy so.." you trailed off as Miguel stood up giving you a look you couldnt read. You looked over to Nestor and he looked upset.

"Dont worry mija we were just finishing up." Miguel said, like he meant it.

"Actually" the strange man stood, still undressing you with his eyes. It was starting to piss you off.

"Miguelito i think we should wait till my party next saturday to...finalize this deal huh?" He said with that same grin.

"Por supuesto" miguel said as he ushered the man to the other side of the room, talking to each other in spanish too quiet for you to decipher.

You felt stuck in your place. You focused on Cristobals breath against your chest. Trying to let it calm you. You noted more of the man. He looked dangerous. Emily told you Miguel was a international businessman and you believed her till you came here. You werent stupid enough to ask exactly what he did but you also werent stupid enough to believe he was just a businessman either.

The men came back and stood in front of you for a beat.

"Hey listen im really sorry i thought everyone was gone-" you started

"No worries chiquita, but do you have a passport?" Devante asked, eyebrow raised

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

"Well if im being whored out i mine as well look good right?" You said smoothing down the soft rose gold satin dress as Emily and Dita sang your praises.

"How many times do i have to tell you (y/n) he just told Miguel he wanted to see you at the party, hes not going to do anything and we won't let him anyways." Emily reassured you, doing your hair.

"You're a part of the family now mija, this is our job as the women." You knew that comment was true, you saw it with your own eyes and that made it sting even more.

You were doing it for the sake of Emily and her family you told yourself. Plus you did look amazing in the dress.

You tugged at the zipper of the dress, it wouldn't budge.

"Hey em, can you-" you turned to see nestor at the door.

"I can if you want" his voice was gentle. Not that he was ever callous with you but it felt deliberate.

"Yeah sure" you half whispered, surprised it got caught in your throat.

He walked over. You moved your hair in front as he gently pulled the zipper up. Touching it when he was done. You turned.

"Listo?" He asked

You nodded, following. Feeling a flutter in your chest.

The drive to mexico was beautiful and serene. You mind did wander to Nestor and how sweet he was to you. You wondered if it was a fluke. Maybe he felt sorry for you. You tried not. to feel sorry for yourself.

You arrived to what looked like a castle. It had the guards with machine guns and everything. You found humor in that, as the situation sank in, you weren't scared.

It you were honest with yourself even when Nestor was cold to you, you always felt safe with him.

You all got out of the car, you last, as Nestor helped you onto the uneven stones. It'd been a minute since you wore heels.

"Dont worry." He leaned down to talk close to you, squeezing your hand. You met his smile.

The music was loud as you walked in. People were dancing and the mariachis were amazing. You were thankful to sit next to emily and dita. You felt eyes on you from men and their wives. You tugged your dress up. Definitley not the most revealing at the party but apparently it was enough.

"Its because you are not married" Dita told you, a comforting hand on your shoulder. "They are jealous" She smiled. It didnt make you feel better. You tried to focus on the drink in front of you.

The man from the house yelled joyfully and drunkenly in spanish and started walking toward the table. The men quickly stood up and met him halfway. Ushering him into a private room smoothly. Not before you made eye contact and he winked. You held your shudder.

The night went on and you found yourself almost having fun and forgetting the dangerous people around you.

You went to the bathroom as Devante and Dita danced.

You were looking for the bathroom when you felt a heavy hand on your waist. You jumped and turned. It was the man.

"Hello pretty women" he said with a accent slurred with the smell of strong alcohol that pinched your nose.

You backed up to find yourself against a wall. You started to look for a way out but his hand got harder on your waist, moving to hold your hip.

He leaned in speaking breathy spanish against your ear you couldnt understand on your best day. You took the opportunity to side step, noticing his henchmen about 10 ft away watching, glocks on their hips. The situation sank your stomach. You wouldnt be getting out of here.

"(Y/n) ive been looking everwhere for you." Dita shuffled past the man grabbing your arm and pulling you away. "Miguel needs to talk with you." She said louder than necesarry.

You were at a near jog down the hall. She stopped and turned you when you were safely away but not into the main area.

"Are you okay mija?" She held your hand. You felt tears welling.

"Men like that will ways exist and here, you will find them in abundance. It's important to stay close to us. They prey on the lone wolf okay?" You nodded. She wiped the tear you didnt know you shed.

She stayed with you till you calmed down.

"Brave face mija" she said as you walked back into the room, back to the table. Nestor and miguel were there looking directly at you, worried, trying to read your face. You forced a smile. Understanding what being in this family meant. It wasnt good. It wasnt bad. It was just your life now.

Nestor quickly sat next to you. Emily eyeing you, sympathetically. They were all too smart to not put together what happened. She touched your thigh, you flinched. She removed it. You could see she made a heartbroken face out the corner of your eyr but you couldnt bring yourself to meet her eyes.

"Im okay i promise. Just..shook up" you were honest. She nodded. You knew she felt terrible.

The night continued. Nestor wanted to kill him and he knew how he would do it. He shared looks with Miguel. He shook his head. Not yet. The second you walked out, holding ditas arm like it was the only thing keeping you up his stomach twisted. Rage ran down his back.

When he didnt see that bastard Diego and didnt see you, his mind raced and he was about to go down the hall to kill that fuck when Dita grabbed him.

"You can't. It has to be me." She didnt have to explain. He knew why. It killed him to turn around and walk away from the situation as his mind let dark thoughts in of what he was doing to you.

He kept looking at you, he could see you trying to be brave but under the table your leg was shaking and you were fidgeting with your hands.

"Come outside with me baby" he leaned over so only you could hear him.

You looked over at him standing with his hand out. You were thankful. Did he just call you baby? It sounded good coming out of his mouth.

You took his hand. It was calloused and strong. It calmed you down almost instantly as he led you outside. When people saw him coming they almost fell over themselves to move out of your way.

The cool air felt good on your flushed cheeks. He let go of your hand and led you to the balcony. You leaned on it, embracing the night air.

"Its really beautiful out here, all things considered." You chuckled.

He looked worringly at you, "Thank you Nestor." You grabbed his arm.

Fuck, his name sounded so good in your mouth.

"You're welcome." He watched as you leaned against the balcony. He wanted to touch you, tell you, youre beautiful but after what happened thats not what you needed and he knew it.

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

You stayed like that for awhile, in each other's silence. The muffled sound of the mariachis relaxing you.

You felt your eyes getting heavy.

"Dont get tired now its not even 1am yet." You looked over, surprised he noticed.

"Maybe we can just stay out here all night then." You smiled at him.

Fuck he would do just about anything you asked. Crawl on glass in the snow, change your oil, anything as long as you kept smiling at him like that.

"But it's probably best to go inside right?" You sighed.

"I think so."

You grabbed his arm as you walked in, holding onto him and keeping your eyes on the table.

Time passed and you struggled to stay awake, you leaned on Nestor's shoulder without thinking, you froze. He moved over to make you more comfortable, moving his arm around you but not too much. You snuggled in. Damn he smelled good too. You closed your eyes, feeling people looking. Fuck em.

You were stirred up by Nestor rubbing your upper arm "hey, hey, time to go."

You stirred, never really falling asleep but not present for the end. Everyone was filing out slowly.

Nestor was looking over to Miguel and Diego. He shook Miguel's hand. He didn't look away as he put his coat over your shoulders and walked you all out.

You noticed Emily smirking at you, making eyes at Nestor's jacket around you.

You tried to open your mouth

"-Ah." She cut you off. "You don't need to tell me anything." She smiled.

You smiled back, happily getting in the warm car and doozing on and off on the way home, catching Nestor look at you in the rearview mirror made you blush.

You all made your way inside as you felt the emotional fatigue of the day in your legs.

Nestor was waiting by the front door. Not for you it seemed. Just taking a moment.

"Can i be out here with you for awhile?" You asked, ready for him to say anything.

"Yeah."

"Thanks for tonight, for taking care of me."

"I know you can take care of yourself (y/n). I just didn't want you to feel alone out there." He spoke softly, sitting next to you.

You stared at his face for the first time it seemed. He was beautiful. You dared to glance down at his lips.

He followed your eyes. He wouldn't move qn inch on you tonight. He didnt want to chance pushing you but fuck did he want you so bad.

You weren't used to initiating, you could see he wanted you but wouldnt move. You closed the distance, stopping just short to see if he'd react.

His head just barely titled up towards you, you took it and kissed him, you being the one to take control felt good. You wondered if he was usually like this.

He was gentle and sweet and you found yourself appreciating it tonight. You grabbed his face and you deepened the kiss.

You felt brave and stood up and sat down to straddle him. He grunted in the back of his throat as you grabbed his braid he moved his hands to hold your thigh and ass.

The kiss slowed down and he smiled into it. You laughed, dropping your head into his shoulder, touching your lips.

"Wow uh-" you got off him, laughing with him.

"Yeah" he laughed, grabbing your hand. "Let's go inside."

He dropped you off at your room which felt cute and a little ridiculous. It was fitting.

Words failed you and it seemed to him, as well.

"Goodnight." He said softly again.

"Good night Nestor." You replied closing your door, silently congratulating yourself for not dragging him into your room.

Whatever, give it a week. You smiled.

[whumpernickel]

so, i finally actually wrote something. i already posted this on ao3, but i was too nervous to share it here until id also finished this other fic i was writing, cuz i like that one a lot better than this one. and since i finished that second one, i figured id share both!

so heres the first work ive shared probably since i was thirteen: some needlessly angsty and sappy post episode-6 witcher fanfic because i have no shame (thats a lie) and zero self-control

Jaskier and Geralt had gone for much longer than this without seeing each other, but this had somehow felt like their longest time spent apart ever. He'd been anxious to see Jaskier – eager, almost. But... their greeting had been awkward, tense, brief- nothing Jaskier ever said was brief -and Geralt felt no small amount of fear at what any of this meant. It made the hairs at the back of his neck rise like a stalked animal's.

It was wrong.

There was so much unspoken, unaddressed, and hanging in the air over them, Geralt could feel it nearly tangible. For once, Geralt broke the silence first.

"What I said... before," he began, noting the way Jaskier tensed. "I know it was wrong."

Jaskier cleared his throat uncomfortably. "No. No, it uh..." he swallowed, "it wasn't."

"It was-"

"No," he insisted more firmly. "Trust me, I've had a lot of time and space to reflect on this, and you weren't wrong – I was stupidly selfish. With the djinn, with the betrothal celebration, with Yen, with... just everything, every one of those times. I was acting only for myself, and no one else, and bad things happened to good people for it. You wouldn't be in such a horrific fucking mess right now if not for- if I had just thought first, for one fucking second in my life. I never think, and..." He took a measured, steadying breath. "Well, I can't imagine I could ever deserve your forgiveness, but, at the very least, you deserve my apology." He met Geralt's eyes now. "And I am sorry. I truly am, Geralt."

Geralt expected to feel some kind of relief at the eye-contact, at the sound of his name spoken once again in his friend's voice, a blessed familiarity after months without it. And it was still there, that vague feeling of home in each other when neither of them really had much of a home otherwise, but it was tainted. The burdened remorse in Jaskier's words turned any sweetness Geralt might have found in them sour. He frowned.

"You... Jaskier, you don't deserve my forgiveness."

Jaskier winced and turned his attention purposefully to the floorboards.</p>

"I know-"

"No, I don't think you do know." Geralt grabbed Jaskier by the shoulders and ducked his head to intercept the man's averted gaze. "You've done nothing that warrants apology."

Jaskier gave an uncomfortable laugh and fidgeted under the attention. "...Okay, I think we both know that's not true – There are reasons- and some admittedly valid ones -that I'm banned from certain taverns, villages, kingdoms- I mean, no amount of lute-playing-"

"You know what I mean."

"Well, yes, but I don't understand it."

Jaskier met his eyes evenly, now, as if daring Geralt to try to rationalize it to him and certain he was placing a bet he couldn't lose.

Geralt felt his chest ache – guilt, confusion; worst of all, pity. He hated seeing pity thrown his way, and so he hated pitying others, especially anyone that meant something. But he couldn't help the twinge of pain at the realization that some part of Jaskier had believed Geralt up on that mountain all those months ago. Geralt knew better than anyone that the only way you could so comfortably and unquestioningly accept the poison fed to you by others was if you were already drinking the same poison from your own hand and calling it "water." He couldn't bear to imagine his so-spirited, so-confident friend doing this, but the evidence was there.

"I shouldn't have said the things I said," Geralt asserted. "They're not true."

Jaskier's eyes widened, almost imperceptibly, and he started to shake his head.

"Jaskier, I'm sor-"

"Please don't."

It was fragile and small, and Geralt almost questioned if it had actually been spoken aloud at all.

"Jas-"

"No, you- you can't take it back now," Jaskier said more audibly, shoving at Geralt's arms in a weak attempt to force some distance between them, "I was just starting to get over y- to... to get over what happened. And, if you take it back, now, then- then... Just don't take it back."

"I can't do this without..."

"Yes, actually, you can." Jaskier's face lit up hopefully, desperately. "You have."

"I don't want to."

"Then find someone."

Someone.

Geralt hadn't just meant he couldn't do this alone. Though he couldn't, of course – but that didn't matter, because he wasn't alone, anymore. Yet, even as not-alone as he was, he still didn't feel whole.

A huff of frustration forced its way out of his nose. How was he supposed to say any of that?

"Who?" Geralt intended it to be rhetorical, but Jaskier took the question at face-value and barreled on.

"Yennefer!- What about Yennefer?" he offered eagerly, "Of Vengerberg?" as if there were any question as to which Yennefer he meant, "Surely you two have made up by now, I mean even I'll admit you're somewhat of a power couple – but, y'know, extra emphasis on 'power.' Or- Or if not, then Téa? You seemed to like her and her man-killing prowess, yes?- I mean, I sure did, her and Véa, whoo, they are... terrifying. I'm sure they must take some time off from Borch-guarding, no? No, you're right, probably not. Then how about the child surprise- they are your destiny, after all, you're welcome for that – Or, if you're looking for a bard, specifically, there are plenty of others – not as good as me of course, but decent enough- I know a guy who-"

"Jaskier."

"What? No good? I mean, I suppose you could always put out an ad-"

"Jask."

Jaskier's nervous rambling died off in a shaky breath that sounded like it was meant to be a laugh, and he turned his full attention back to Geralt cautiously. His forced smile wavered at the soft sobriety in Geralt's expression.

Geralt dropped his hands from Jaskier's arms and took half a step back, ignoring his fear at giving the man enough space to walk away again.

"If you really mean it," Geralt stressed, "then I will leave you alone." A selfish something inside of him twisted at hearing the words out loud, but he let them hang in the air anyway, committed to respecting whatever answer Jaskier gave next.

"...Alright."

"Do you mean it?"

The silence that followed was more stifling than any yet that Geralt had had to endure in the bard's absence. Heavy and air-stealing.

Despite the uncertain pause, there was a sudden sureness on Jaskier's face that scared Geralt, and he instinctively braced himself as Jaskier opened his mouth to answer.

"No."

Geralt exhaled in silent relief. He hadn't noticed the breath caught in his chest until the moment he released it. He composed himself quickly; a show of weakness could probably help his case dramatically in winning back Jaskier's companionship, but it was tough enough showing as much vulnerability as he already had. Unlearning such a habit as ingrained into him as this one was like tearing a security blanket away from a homesick toddler, and the homesick toddler in Geralt was already veering dangerously into tantrum territory.

Despite the vulnerability of all this, he felt a noticeable lightness in his chest. Jaskier didn't hate him enough to never want to see him again – that was something. He'd take what he could get and he'd take it gladly.

He was trying to figure out what to say next – Geralt felt cursed, sometimes, with only being lightning-quick with his response if it was a wounding insult or a wordless grunt – but Jaskier figured it out before he did.

"Did you mean it?" he turned Geralt's question back on him.

Geralt blinked. "Did...?"

Jaskier looked at him pointedly.

"Oh."

Geralt felt shame and regret draw his shoulders up toward his ears, and he looked away.

"I... I thought I did," he admitted.

"I thought you did, too."

"I'm... sorry, Jaskier, I... You..." The words still wouldn't come to him.

Geralt didn't do words, but even he could see that there weren't many he could use to fix something that clearly went deeper than just some hurtful accusations thrown carelessly about on a godsforsaken mountaintop somewhere.

He shut his mouth, frowned.

Caring was so much more complicated than he always feared it would be. It wasn't just kill the monster, claim the reward, and go on pretending it didn't matter to him what happened after he left, anymore. The stakes were higher, more personal. This kind of care wasn't the kind that was a whole town of faces where none grabbed his attention long enough to be committed to memory, it was individual faces that he knew and recognized, faces that meant something – and this face was Jaskier's, one of the faces that meant the most. He wanted to reach out and erase the worried furrow between his brows, the tired shadows under his eyes, the modest handful of scars he'd amassed over the years traveling with Geralt.

But he'd leave the crow's feet – those held mostly happy memories.

Jaskier was one of those few people he so desperately wanted in his life, but wished didn't have to experience the hurt of it all.

"Jaskier, you..."

The concept Geralt was still trying ever valiantly to skirt around was family. And his was so very small and fragile, he couldn't bear to lose one piece of it, not for anything...

"You should really meet Ciri," he decided.

Jaskier brightened at this, a small smile crinkling his eyes. "You found her," he said.

Geralt nodded, a smile of his own taking shape.

"Alright. Lead the way."

[shinidamachu]

Holding On And Letting Go - Chapter III

Summary: Chapter I | Chapter II | Chapter III | Chapter IV

Word Count: 1060  Genre: angst  Fandom: InuYasha  Pairing: Inukag Format: multichapter  AO3 Link: 🌹  Fanfic.Net Link: 🌹

Life was but a palid echo of what used to be, now that her presence was no longer there to color it, and as it moved forward, only one thought chanted through his mind with each lonely conversation by the well, threatening to stifle his hopes to death. 

Maybe I shouldn’t come here anymore.

His survival instincts joined frustration and sorrow in that chorus, adding with a mighty screaming that, of all times, he certainly shouldn’t be there that night.

Because the moon wasn’t shining and he felt desperately weak and none of it mattered when he was entirely sure that five hundred years from then, Kagome was sitting at the very same spot, at that exact moment.

And she would always be worth the risk.

Looking back, InuYasha couldn’t remember a single new moon night since they met in which Kagome wasn’t there for him. Even when he would tell her not to, even when he lied he was fine, even when he didn’t deserve her to stay at all.

Ever since she was gone, InuYasha had settled into a routine of coming to the well every three days. Regardless, he always went there in the new moons and — call him crazy — it was when he could feel her the best.

So in the end, it wasn’t much of a choice and even if it was, he knew what his would be.

He would choose her. For all those times he couldn’t. Day after day. He would choose her and he would keep on choosing her until he took his last breath on this world, hoping that would be enough somehow.

Smiling at the thought of her obstinate face on the many occasions she had decided to stay up with him, InuYasha gave her the same answer. 

“Go to sleep, Kagome.”

She could never sleep on those nights.

They were too dark.

Not the good kind of dark, like the bright tone his hair must be displaying at that very moment. No. It was the worst kind. The one that suffocated her courage, that left her lost and lonely, wary of anything that might jump on her as soon as she let her guard down. The one that kept her from seeing the stars.

Of course, spending new moons awake wasn’t something she was a stranger to. Since Kagome was fifteen, once a month, she had stayed up with InuYasha until the first rays of sunshine brought back what night had stolen. It was a marvellous experience every time.

She still remembered how vulnerable he could get — both physically and emotionally — when he was a human and how much he hated it, but she also recalled the gentle drop of his voice and the way his touch used to get sweeter, tempting her to delve into that mysterious part of who he was.

“Back then you acted like it didn’t happen, but the more I think about it, the more I’m sure you remember saying I smelled nice, that one night.” Kagome cherished that memory to this day, even though enough time had passed to make her feel like it belonged to someone else. Without realizing and yet so efficiently, he had swept her off her feet for the first of what turned out to be countless occasions.

When the fear that she might never find out whether or not her suspicions were true stared her in the face, Kagome pulled the blanket even closer around her.

Now, with the well sealed, her heart was heavy with concern. Being apart from InuYasha in the moments she knew he needed her the most contradicted each cell of her body.

And so, she had settled for the next best thing.

Every new moon after their fateful separation, without fail, she waited for the dawn beside the Honekui no Ido and recited the same prayer, over and over again.

“Please, be okay. Please, please, please be okay.”

“Sonuvabitch!” That had to be the third or so root he had tripped on. Trying to catch his balance, InuYasha resumed the staggering walk into the clearing, where the Honekui no Ido stood imposing.

Spinning the way it was, the old thing seemed to mock him. Why wouldn’t it? After taking Kagome away without giving him so much as a chance to fight for her, it was only fitting that his impotence got ridiculed.

From afar, InuYasha gazed the well with narrowed eyes, as if it was a viper ready to attack — not that it could kill him or anything, it just brought a lot of pain and it was a fucking nuisance. Differently from the Bone Eater, though, the viper he could slay, at least.

InuYasha took a sip from the sake on his hand, suddenly remembering why he was there. 

“Sooooooo sorry to interrupt K’gome. No no no I know ya too busy not bein’ here. I just got a few things I’d like to say.” He took a step closer, wiping the liquid from his lips with the back of his hand. InuYasha cleared his throat in an act of drunk courage. “I love ya.”

He let the words sink in, proud of finally being able to say it out loud. She would never hear it, but stil...

“I’ve loved ya so long and I know ’s too late and I know you’d think I’m drunk but ‘s no true. Y’know what’s true? This think taste like piss ‘n none of it matter ‘cause ya no comin’ back are ya? ‘N I’ll spend the rest of my life talkin’ to a fuckin’ well!”

InuYasha threw the jug as hard and far as he could, its crashing fleeing the animals deep into the forest’s shadows and intoxicating the air with the suffocating smell of alcohol. He paid no mind to it.

Finally reaching the wooden walls, InuYasha let himself lean against it. 

“Ain’t that just fuckin’ funny?” He asked, his eyes closing.

Kagome wasn’t going to cry. Not this time. 

After so long, her tears turned into dry fury.

In the course of her life, rage had been a capricious emotion — it slammed in uninvited, a supernova of screams and storming off that exploded whenever her temper got the best of her.

To say she had been angry before was an understatement. 

Kagome had been angry countless times. With her friends, when they got too pushy. With Sota, because as much as they loved each other, they were siblings and it was physically impossible not to. With Sesshoumaru, Kikyo, Naraku and each complication the later created along the way. Even with her father, for dying — although she never admitted out loud. With herself, every now and then, and Math and InuYasha both had chapters all of their own in this department.

Sometimes she could be unfair or overreact, which would come to her attention after the fire had extinguished, making her apologise when an apology was due.

The feeling she experienced now, glaring down the empty darkness of the well, was nothing like it.

She had only felt that anger in rare moments. It creeps in through an open door, burning cold and silent.

“What was the point of it all, then?” Kagome wasn’t sure who or what she was talking to, but for the first time, it wasn’t InuYasha. “I was living my life and I could spend the rest of it just fine thinking Grandpa’s stories were only that. But you sucked me into that mess because you needed me there. And I played my part, I played it pretty well.” Her low, iced voice carried a hint of danger that could make men twice her size shiver. “You used me for my powers and now that you don’t need me anymore, it’s all over? Just like that?” She shook her head, eyes burning with the tears she refused to let drop, making the situation even more infuriating. “That’s not how it works. You can’t toy with people’s feelings like that. The least you can do is let me get back. Let me get back!”

Her breath quickened uncontrollably and she could swear the walls were closing around her.

“Kagome.”

The sweet sound caught her off guard, making her unclench her teeth and free the wooden edges from her grip. As soon as she turned to met those eyes, the wrath inside melted to a sobbing crying. They ran to each other and before she knew it, Kagome fell apart into the embrace of the woman who had been her rock through it all.

“Mama...” Kagome clung to her, feeling like a child and not caring in the slightest. She didn’t know how much her mom had listened, but the woman simply stood there, petting her hair and letting Kagome soak her shoulder.

“I know, honey. I know.”

‘Tomorrow I am not going to cry’, she promised to herself, ‘not tomorrow’.

A/N: Thank you guys for deciding to read this.

Don't know what you'll think of drunk InuYasha. It was just a scene that came to my mind when I thought of writing this story. I didn't get into details but he jumped into that Master of Potions guy and decided to give it a try because he misses her too much and it couldn't get any worse, anyway (it could since he woke up with a major hangover). Oh, and Kagome feeling used is a personal headcanon of mine I mean... homegirl fixed everything and now that the mission is done she is quicked out and doesn't get her happy ending? Bullshit!

Anyway, let me know what you guys think!

Hey @simply_zerah, this chapter is for you! Thank you for all the kind reviews! I don't deserve you!

And a big thanks to @keichanz for letting me use her new moon headcanon (she is Da Best). It was love at first sigh!

[ca1e70-deactivated]

a list of my entirely way too niche headcanons ive actually implemented for everyones imagination:

name options ive used and refuse to retire: david elizabeth strider (sometimes i dont feel like being a douche to others and saying thats not his name), harley davidson strider, and david james strider for the sake of simplicity

im not gonna tell yall the like. oc exes ive given him bc thatll take eighteen years. 

i dont rlly have an explanation on the ghost thing besides the fact he just can? ive occasionally pulled from family ghost stories and experiences bc i somehow got landed with family members who lived in a haunted house for a decade and enjoy scaring me with all the stories (including the time my cousin literally died on the kitchen floor from a bronchial spasm and one of the friends that was over asked my aunt later what was up with the old man she saw in the corner of the room that night - my cousin is fine btw shes just a huge bitch and a third grade teacher and i dont like her)

whether or not hes done drugs is based on absolutely nothing besides how im feeling in that moment. either hes the designated driver and sober friend forever or he got fired from his job after doing a line at work during graveyard with some random customers theres no inbetween (this absolutely happened @ waho. if dave works at waho hes a mess of a person and thats on the diner itself.)

ok look i hc dave w/schizophrenia besides when i was 14 i had a hyperfixation with learning about it and then at 16 was prescribed a medication and had side effects so wack my therapist genuinely thought 14 yr old me was onto something and its a weird way to cope with the idea that lady put in my head that i might “develop it in my twenties” which i turn 20 this year and i havent been able to stop obsessing and panicking over the prospect so PLEASE dont come in my inbox calling me ableist im not out here all harley quinn in suicide squad with the voices ok hes medicated, he goes to therapy, the hard fast delusion that lil cal was nearly sentient and informed bro of every single thing dave did no matter how asinine it was is no longer a debilitatingly affecting him ANYWAYS

i actually use the chicken/egg farming family pretty often just because its hilarious to me to give dave like. an actual mom and dad. hes literally an uncle to like three different kids he just never visits because they make fun of his skinny jeans and he hates one of his (incredibly bare-bones ocs all of them) brothers who threatened to bash his head in with a little league bat after dave broke his star wars lego set apart on accident (but not rlly) so their parents were like “why dont you stay with your brother in the big city for a lil while champ” and then they just never picked him back up? and thats on favoritism 

the other one is that his name is actually david reed and hes the middle child of a family of three who literally live the standard golden retriever white middle class life only they went to disney land or something equally as dumb one year when dave was like 6 and he wandered off so bro literally just went “huh free game” because frankly he was an idiot who thought maybe i should take this kid home because its real dangerous in parking lots and then it was too late to NOT have it seem like a kidnapping and thats why daves never had a summer job, seen his birth certificate, or gone to school. but vaguely remembers what kindergarten was like and having a pet dog and calling someone mom as a kid. 

im not making a bullet point about his sex life headcanons just use your imagination and acknowledge the fact bro essentially worked within the sex industry and i enjoy putting dave through trauma as a catharsis 

i stopped doing this one usually but if he did go to school hes been in percussion since fifth grade and played the drums in his high schools jazz band as well as various edgy teenager garage bands he likes to pretend dont have a youtube presence and that hes absolutely never been shirtless in front of plenty of his classmates because he wore a hoodie to a show like an idiot. idk occasionally ill put him in an actual band he doesnt hate but keeps separate from his lil turntechGodhead internet persona (which i will ALSO touch upon in a sec) until they wind up getting looped into a tour with some bigger named band that has a show in *insert beta kid here*’s city and hes gotta come clean solely so he can visit his online friend. sorry derseasterous thats the one time weve ever run into each other and i made him have a crush on one of his bandmates i was in my anti-daverose phase where i made dave a hoe and also didnt want to admit i still loved the ship all these years later 

i hate it so much but you know the whole vr loli trap voice shit that was popular a while ago? hes fucking baller at it for some reason. he did it as a joke while talking to bro and they both about shat their pants. if im feeling real ambitious, hes got a separate soundcloud solely dedicated to doing dumbass rap covers or making his own but in the voice under the pseudonym elizabeth “beth” davids that he will never admit is his. well, he will, but hes gonna be really fucking embarrassed about it. irony or not.

talking abt seperate soundclouds and stuff ive always had it where turntechGodhead was his like. essentially internet fucking persona facade shit he used because we all had that phase where we wanted memorable urls and stuff but also didnt want to totally ignore the nagging fear of people finding you in real life, until it turned into real life ppl finding you on the internet. so he also has basically an adjacent set of social media under the same name but its just a boring username i havent decided on so everyone he knows irl doesnt mix up with what hes made for himself as TG and the people he knows as TG dont know what highschool he goes to. (this occasionally comes with the territory of ppl on parp being pissed that daves “lying” or “hiding things” from his friends as if he was doing it out of spite instead of just keeping embarrassing tagged photos and videos from football games or when he ate shit at the skatepark from fucking with his “rap career”)

every once in a while i get on a kick where hes just german. like, i just replace houston texas with hamburg germany and have him apply to a university in whatever state is applicable for whoever im chatting with and it goes from there? sometimes he moved when he was little and went through the whole visa thing, sometimes he didnt go through the visa thing, sometimes hes a dual citizen because of family and shit, its all dependent on what suits the situation best. 

one that ive been fucking with for a while but hardly break out (until recently with like 5 roses in the span of one day hell yeah) is that he has a neighbor at the end of the hall who is like a thousand year old witch lady that hes basically adopted as his mother figure in lieu of not having one and shes totally cool with it, especially bc when she kicks the bucket she fully plans on giving dave all her occult stuff so her figure-skating coach and realtor daughter doesnt sell it at a garage sale and lets it all go to waste. she also once brought rose up by name in a conversation without any prompting of her existence which dave didnt realize for days, and then one time cryptically stopped and stared at an empty space in the wall, went “she has potential, you know.” then looked at him sitting on her kitchen counter with a smile “lots of it” and hes thought about that weekly ever since. (it is important to note one of the occult items he leaves her is literally her own personal book of shadows shes been filling out for decades its like a 600 page leatherbound book dave has no idea what its used for but the sheer amount of homemade spells and etc in it is like. gonna murder rose the second this chick gets her hands on it i promise you.)

theres the standard strife shit? im not rlly gonna get into those theyre all basically cookie cutter bullshit. its just standard bro and dave abuse talk. i like to inclulde the whole 24hr live cam up in the apartment that definitely watches dave in every room besides his own and the bathroom, but that quickly delves into the prospect of middle-aged men stalking him online and basically sexually harassing him in his own god damn home by talking about how they can see him just trying to take his shoes off in the living room after getting home and frankly? its not one of my best takes! but once you throw it into the headcanon bin, its there forever. 

he actually really does do something with his photography but not enough to warrant anything exciting, but he has his own branding for it and regularly takes pictures of his friends or anything else he thinks is moderately interesting enough to take pictures of, but those are just thrown into shoeboxes under his bed in favor of posting genuine shots because he wants to keep his image intact and blurry photos of jade smiling in the tree they climbed up together while bec paws at the base of it while whining isnt exactly something he wants the whole world to see.

i also pretty often but him into either paleontology OR i put him down as trying to become a mortician because he thinks handing roadkill once he graduated from museum giftshop specimens to doing his own taxidermy on the side has prepared him enough to perform an occasional autopsy and start embalming real human corpses. (sometimes i put my own desires in and make them his bc i have to project at some point and put him through the same EMT course i dropped out of bc it was one semester and he already has pretty decent first aid skills, but he definitely didnt expect it to be as fucking wild at times as it is, but whats he gonna do? get a job back at waffle house? the company hes working for just offered to pay like half his associates in paramedicine tuition and hes already got all his pre-recs done when he started for paleo. at least its a stable job and hes got the ability to be compassionate in the moment) 

im running out of things that ive done to the poor kid. OH 

hes not a virgin he had a girlfriend all four years of high school (shes also one of his optional and designated exes plz keep up) and their relationship ends in one of two ways: she dies in a car accident a week before their high school graduation, or she stops talking to him entirely a week after their high school graduation until a couple years later she gets into (guess what) a car accident with her current wife/girlfriend and dies which leaves behind their daughter. who just so happens to also be daves daughter. her name is hannah and i love her like my own but no one ever likes her and thats on the conditioning of dirk. does dave end up taking her in? yes. shes awesome and the first time he takes her to the park to like run off some fucking steam she disappears for two minutes and dave is moderately terrified until she comes back holding a dead baby squirrel and thats the moment he realizes huh maybe things really do be genetic.

ok at the bottom of the list im gonna add the couple of times hes been a camboy which usually coincides with the live apartment cam thing and the amount of people in his dms calling him hot or whatever, but typically its more of a started the day he turned 18 and basically dipped around 20 in favor of showing up randomly with no warning to complain about a video game dick in hand because it gives him an outlet that wont annoy his friends bc this is the fifteenth time hes had a lot to say this week about a certain boss battle and also the comments fuel his ego and daddy issues.

the last one wasnt the bottom but literally unless its explicitly proven otherwise every time anyone rps with me there is the underlying fact dave strider was a goalie on his high school lacrosse teams all four years and (shocker another one) definitely had the hots for one of his teammates like major hots like first gay experience hots. like it was painfully obvious that teammate also liked him back hots. like one night at a team sleepover one of the other guys was like can yall just makeout and get it over with were fucking tired and dave really had the balls to be offended and ask what the fuck they were talking about while literally sitting halfway in the mans lap bc for some reason they had to share the same chair. 

he is also guilty until proven innocent of being the worlds biggest loner outside of that sports team and even though hes literally a jock he still opts to eat his lunch alone in the hallway or something like that and has a tendency to leave girls on read, but bc hes got an in with the rest of the jocks hes basically drug around to plenty of parties and since hes conventionally attractive enough and popular in the aloof way that he is, hes got plenty of tagged insta posts and twitter directs and snapchat streaks going. 

THESE WERE ALL NO GAME AND DONT INVOLVE SHIPS BC I LIKE TO KEEP MY OPTIONS OPEN AND THEYRE LITERALLY ALL BASED OFF RPS IVE DONE I HOPE YALL JUDGE ME ACCORDINGLY

[bladekindeyewear]

Boots Reads Homestuck Epilogue(s) Part 10 - Candy Part 1 again

I was told that finishing the epilogue MAY make me feel better by some with opinions, with some vague hints that the ridiculous start of Candy may have underlying reasons, so now that I’m awake again (though my stomach is roiling a bit again) I’m gonna take another crack at it.

Alright, so I was also hinted that this Candy part ends with a different cliffhanger, so maybe those two will cancel out?  That’s my hope anyway.

Reading page 1 again since I didn’t finish the very tail end of it... alright, so WHY IS ROXY CRYING again????  Was she just PRETENDING that she didn’t know it might turn out bad for John if he went at the end of the last one?  Was there some weird mind-rewriting going on?  Is the crying a symptom of this whole thing potentially being an our!Callie fanfic and she knows what’s being dodged??  Don’t know.

Alright, let’s have him save Gamzee and... is Vriska going to get saved in this version?  Or is that descent into the black hole without seeing what happens her well-deserved comeuppance while only the ghost version of Vriska truly figured out how to be happy?

==>

Dirk acknowledges him when he zaps back, but it’s YOUNG Dirk so hopefully there isn’t any stupid Meat stuff going on.

...Yeah, Gamzee immediately being repentant is weird as shit.  Maybe he Chucklevoodoo’d Callie into escaping him into this whole candied mess so he could start shit, I dunno.  That or this isn’t really Gamzee or someone’s manipulating him or etc etc etc.  The hint I got earlier was that if I thought Calliope wanting to bring Gamzee back and everyone just rolling with it was a little out of character, there are “reasons”, so I’m just going through all of this under the assumption that some emotion-manipulating weirdness is going on regardless.

Oh shit, Gamzee’s going to start recounting his character reasons for doing bad stuff in a surface-hope of justification and understanding.  All the characters immediately recognize how painfully groanworthy this is going to be.

GAMZEE: AnD sUcH iS wHy I’m GrAbBiNg HoLd Of My RePeNtAnCe As FiRm AnD sErIoUs As I wOuLd A wHoRe’S tItTy!

Yeah, that really encapsulates how “serious” all of this is.  And of course, John’s not having any of it.

Yeah, Terezi wouldn’t have any of it either, remotely.

Something feels different, but he can’t put his finger on it.

Hm.  The aforementioned manipulation-weirdness?

==>

Okay, so it’s kind of Dirk who notices something different and is cancelling his stupid villain plans, got it.

Volatility of causality, huh?

(I’m going to be going through these parts a little faster than the Meat section, unsurprisingly.)

==>

Okay, Rose and Kanaya, are we gonna cure her substance abuse or--

With all the distance between them lately,

God damnit, have Dirk’s manipulations extended that far OFFSCREEN or is this legitimate character distancing???? Because either is BAD.  >:(

Right, now that the plot and “relevance” has been sidelined over to a different timeline, Rose can now breathe easy free of her condition.  And whichever parts of her condition were, perhaps, IMPOSED on her.  Fuck.

I’m going to try my fucking best to cling to this, hope I can carry on a memory after this is over that DOESN’T imagine Rose trapped in a fucking existential dying villain coma with a hard fucking cutoff that promises nothing is ever coming to resolve it ever.  (Or Jade in a somewhat-similar sidelined situation, or Jane doomed to fuck herself over and everyone else too, or...)

What’s slipping away instead is the feeling that any of it mattered at all. Was she insane to be so consumed by such lofty concerns, and is she only beginning to experience clarity today, for the first time in ages?

Yeah, you’re no longer in a timeline of Light and relevance.  And that’s not so bad, which is something you never expected to be true given your derision of the concept.  Void is pretty goddamn alright.

--Oh right, the illness and substance abuse probably caused plenty of distance between them.

KANAYA: There Was A Feeling I Couldnt Shake That Something Terrible Was Going To Happen To Us KANAYA: Something That Neither Of Us Could Stop KANAYA: A Powerful Outside Force That Would Take You Away From Me KANAYA: And I Couldnt Stop Myself From Thinking That Maybe KANAYA: Maybe That It Would Be For The Best ROSE: Kanaya... KANAYA: I Can Now See That This Is Completely Ridiculous

For some reason, this doesn’t settle my stomach much?  It’s clear Andrew wove this in here so that if you read Meat first, you’d be able to acknowledge readily how this diverged in a way the characters kind of recognize, and... I’m not sure what I’m even saying.  It’s like there’s hope that this is TRYING to take the bad taste out of my mouth, but I don’t believe it overly much.

ROSE: What a relief, considering that we are both going to be young and magically fit literally forever.

Wait, so they DID find a way to extend their non-ascended friends’ lifespans to practical immortality?  Jane’s Life powers?  Something else?

==>

yay jade.  more extended dave metaphors.  calm down stomach.

JADE: i never thought id be thinking of you as my weird nerd friend by the time we were in our twenties

Heheheh.

DAVE: yeah well i never thought youd be like the premiere woo girl on the planet

Had to look up what a “woo girl” was.

Yes Jade go flirt them to death

What she’s planning isn’t a seduction. It’s a public service.

Pff

(And yeah, she’s being pushy but at least she doesn’t go DIRK FAR about it.)

DAVE: its incredible hes driven at least ten people off the site by creating thinly veiled parody accounts of their usernames

Oh my gosh, Karkat’s good enough to ANDREW HUSSIE them?!???  :D

That’s incredible.

Karkat knows damned well what a husband is. He’s been force-fed enough bad movies from Dave to pick up any human euphemism you could name. He still plays dumb sometimes, for comedic effect, to irritate his friends, or simply to avoid a topic of conversation altogether.

Yeah, it was always pretty clear that about HALF of the trolls pretended not to understand something human that they knew about just for comedic effect and they knew it.  :)

It would be pretty easy to mistake his reaction for arousal, so it’s understandable that Jade is extremely surprised when Karkat snaps his jaw shut and chomps down on her hand.

PFFFFHahahahah :D

And yep, Jane cancelled her run at Dirk’s direction.

DAVE: lets all just thank whichever christ was responsible for making whatever decision resulted in her deciding not to do that

*nod nod*

JADE: well i hope she gets a better hobby JADE: there are a lot of less ominous things she could do with her time KARKAT: WHAT, LIKE FUCKING HER WAY THROUGH HALF THE POPULATION OF EARTH C?

Jade pinches his ear and twists hard, smiling pleasantly.

JADE: get fucked karkat

Yeah, this is about the level of violence/threat I’d expect from Jade when anyone slut-shames her for perfectly acceptable behavior.

==>

There is almost no crime on Earth C, and so almost no one locks their door.

Huh.  I guess post-scarcity might do that.

Alright, we get to see Jane being less of a fuckass.

Dirk was the one person on Earth C who took the state of the locksmith industry with the seriousness it deserved.

Pffff

JAKE: Thats my theory at least. Maybe its tommyrot but i have faith that dirk will be back. After all where is he going to go?

Good question that wasn’t answered in Meat, so of course Jake says it here obliviously.

JAKE: I must admit i am rather half rats at the moment. JANE: You’re what? JAKE: Haha sorry that was a pretty obtuse way of putting it wasnt it. JAKE: What i mean to say is that ive been powdering my hair quite a bit today.

Andrew is SO good at making Jake sound completely incomprehensible.

...Ouch, Jane, don’t drink so hard! D:

The “morbs”??

JAKE: Dirk has that manner about him does he not? JAKE: A way about him that makes you feel like whatever you do as long as it does not involve him it doesnt count for dick.

Yeah, fuck Dirk.

Hm... is the absence of relevance affecting them, or some other manipulation? It’s not just the LACK of Dirk’s manipulation.

JAKE: Except of course for that time when you were under mind control and had me trussed up in your lair as you pontificated villainously about using me as a breeding stud to create a blood lineage for your incumbent corporate space empire.

A fate Dirk seems to agree with, judging by Meat.  Let’s sidestep that fucking entirely, thank you.

...yeah, I didn’t expect Jake’s response to be any less oblivious than exactly that.

==>

So why DID Callie bring Gamzee back, anyway?  Is there some secret use for him in mind?  Was she manipulated into it?  Maybe BY Gamzee?  Hm.

...alright, priestly with followings.  That ain’t good.  Is he aiming for Clown President MK2?

Everything Callie and Roxy have done and said in this Candy section so far seems creepily contrived, possibly by design.

...okay did they have some kind of weird agreement? Like, “okay John is gonna make his choice, and if he chooses to stay i try dating him instead of you, Callie”???  That’s... no that can’t be it.  Roxy’s NEVER acted THIS oblivious before.  What’s she playing at?

GAMZEE: mY fUcKiN *gUy*. :o) JOHN: ... GAMZEE: My DuDe AnD mY nInJa AlIkE. GAMZEE: mY *hOrN* dOoOoG. JOHN: ... GAMZEE: mY hOrN tO tHa MoThErFuCkIn DoG. ;o) JOHN: waiter! help!

I’m imagining Gamzee now as a sweaty and homeless, unkempt Guy Fieri.

Yeah, this doesn’t look like it’ll be fun.

==>

...Swifer Eggmop.  ¬_¬”

There’s a third member of their social group who definitely hasn’t arrived at the conclusion that his power and influence should be meted out responsibly either. Neither of them speak his name, however. For some reason, it feels like a shadow passing over the sun. A brief spike of pain flickers through Rose’s head, a bolt that strikes between her eyes and splinters out. There is color and light behind it. A vision that tears through the material reality in front of her and gives her a brief glimpse into a parallel reality where things are very different.

Yeah, fuck Dirk.

...Pff. Yeah, Rose WOULD mimic the record-scratch gesture.

Don’t invoke “never seeing Vriska again” like that, you’re really tempting fate.

Heh, Rose is finding some Light in the darkness, wanting to do something that’s meaningful on an expressive level with this Vriskgrub business.

Hm... why is my stomach a little less uneasy?

I sure hope it stays that way.

==>

KARKAT: OH MY GOD, ARE THE MECHANICAL GLUTES ON THAT BILLBOARD ACTUALLY PADDED WITH PLUSH TO MAKE THEM MORE LIFELIKE?

Heck Yes

...Yes, touch the butt, Karkat.

Jade, pouting a bit, glides in between them and uses her Space powers to teleport Dave’s phone out from the center of his traumatized palm and into the pocket of her sweater.

Hm!  So she still has teleportation abilities over a limited range even without her Green Sun boost, that’s nice.  :D

After all, where would these two pitiful beta boys be without her?

Oh my fucking god stop being Dirk, Jade.  And never use that narrative language again, even in your head.  Heck, even if Dirk’s the one WRITING this still, don’t even think CLOSE enough to think those words.

...yeah this sounds like an Active player class taking things slightly too far.

Thank you, Karkat, for drawing the consent-line in the sand.  Looks like Jade’s backing off a little.

--hold on, wait, Dave kissed him? He did, so why is-- let me read back up--

Dave doesn’t answer. She answers for him by leaning down and planting a dry, affectionate kiss on Karkat’s cheek.

Okay I misread this line earlier.  Jade kissed Karkat when neither of them were looking and is BLAMING Dave.  Hmm.

Alright, Dave ollies outie.  Karkat tumbles down some hillstairs.

Jade could probably catch him. Actually, she could easily do it, but it doesn’t seem like the kind of favor you should do in a fledgling kismesissitude.

Thaaaat’s a little presumptuous??

JADE: well i guess im eating grub spaghetti alone JADE: *again*!!!

:C

I’d be sadder if you didn’t bring it down hard upon yourself but

:C

==>

Yeah, John, better clear up this Callie business because it’s muddy as heck why Roxy would just drop everything to try things out with you.

Ah, we’re bringing up the gender identity thing on this side too, hm?

More serious talk, this is good, reading reading...

The glasses clink together clumsily, and water gets all over the complimentary breadsticks.

Oh no.  This had better not be Olive Garden.

ROXY: no one else has ever made me feel like this

--not Calliope???

What the heck is even going on.

Dave’s coming for some bro help it looks like.

==>

It’s hilarious how much Dave is freaking out about this, and how completely in-character it is.

JOHN: holy fucking shit. JOHN: there’s a gay snooze button? DAVE: yeah man theres a gay snooze button JOHN: wow.

I love these two’s conversations

......wait, Dave’s been holding off on kissing Karkat because of what he thinks JADE might think???? D:

JOHN: i almost managed to forget that she was trying to fuck you and karkat.

Pfffffffff  :D

Yep.  I love it being put so bluntly.

Reading on... yeah, for some reason I also always figured that the end result of a nice three-way relationship between those three people would be Jade and Dave essentially both just glomming onto Karkat more than each other?  Hm.

JOHN: i mean... it doesn’t sound... JOHN: *canon*?

...I hope you’re just talking about his coin flip explanation and not DaveKatJade.  >:(

John wonders when talking to Dirk has fixed anything for anyone.

Nod nod.

She grins up at John with shimmering, adoring eyes. They’re reflecting every star in the sky, all for him.

Seriously, what the hell.  Is Roxy hypnotized?  Putting on an act?  A voidy act??

I’m not doubting that Roxy COULD feel that way about John, I’m doubting the suddenness and the way Calliope is being deliberately ignored in the situation, which is so goddamn obvious that JOHN is uncomfortable about it.  There’s something seriously strange going on.

It itches at the back of his head, the idea that he might have just fucked up Dave’s entire life.

D:

Alright next post after a bit of breakfast.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

@thecicadasong yeah i havent actually had like, Anons trying to get fresh w/ me about what i Should be drawing (i think ive gotten anon hate like, twice? once for passing along a tweet abt respecting homeless people, another time i have No idea why they were trying to roast me but they were also...weirdly bad at it) but the very rare occasions someone’s tried to tell me i should be drawing different stuff for whatever reason Stick With Me b/c i’m often still steamed abt shit that mightve happened years back but it was THAT annoying lmfao & i reaaally hate when ppl get patronizing &/or when i can tell they’re acting like whatever angle they’re taking is going over my head or they think i’m clueless & i can’t even tell they see me that way lol and i’m like, oh my god i mean it doesn’t make me concerned if i Only Appreciate Boys b/c they’re mostly who i draw b/c yknow......my drawing corner is some rando over here just entertaining myself & Xpressing myself. and a real limited amt of my Interests = the ones im able/interested enough in to draw, & then i tend to wanna draw them a million times lmao....it’s not necessarily the One Unfiltered Reflection of all my interests and all the characters i like, cuz it’s not the only way i think abt shit and express things, & if somebody thinks that my Portfolio not being >50% Girls means that it’s b/c i’ve totally hated girls all along.....that’d be their prerogative i guess. also good lord but that’d be a bad litmus test anyways like.......alllll the misogynist dude artists who draw plenty of ~female characters~ like Yikes City ahhhhh god thats such a fucking cursed realm like. the people so sexist they should be banned from depicting girls and women in any medium. and banned in general God Anyways And Yeah like. the terrible relationships thing too.........like really, this is what you think is appealing???? its too clear sometimes when some man writing this kind of stuff has NO real idea how to think of a woman as an actual person and if they’re trying to write from that perspective it’s like “oh, let’s throw in a ‘smh boys are so stupid and sexist’ thought to realistically depict what it must be like to experience misogyny” and “something about a bra idk” and then call it a day, and if they’re trying to write Romance it’s just like....this Incredible Love that’s truly out of nowhere and they never bother explaining what sustains this, or they decide that the reason bitches liked pride & prejudice is totally because she thought he was a jerk and they fought but then it was like wait nvm we’re in love, right?? and they make that into like, some dude being able to be a total asshole and a really detrimental force in some girl’s life and somehow this Intensity can just be translated into Romantic Intensity no problem, it’s fine that like, they’re not even friends and who knows how to believe they can just get along in regular life and the guy is probably super disrespectful and diminishes her but whatever its fine All Of This And More.....there are so many terrible and annoying ways they do m/f relationships and it’s Really easy to just make it decently written!!! i mean of course sometimes there’s m/f ships that i think are tolerably written and i don’t hate it but also don’t particularly care one way or another but a small / hetero-leaning fandom will like Never Shut Up About It and it’s like ok please shut up about it......i mean really i definitely don’t ever go into any new piece of media expecting to give a shit about any Guy Girl couple. it was a pleasant but total surprise that i really like jeremy/christine (which is not me disavowing the nb lesbian jeremy hc by any means lol) and it was NOT complicated why!!! really in fact a couple of the biggest reasons i found it Especially Good is like, ten seconds in total lmao and it’s “jeremy and christine cracking up by squawking at each other on the couch” and “jeremy doing that Ecstatic Stimming Twirl after kissing christine for 0.003 seconds” lmao.....like!!!! consider showing that the characters can actually have genuine fun interacting with each other for longer than five seconds!!!! give us a single reason why they’d be drawn to each other As People!!! it’s notttt thaaaat harrrrrd aaaaaaaaaA THE WEIRD CHARACTERS yeah i love a true Quirky character and not in the like.....bad clichéd quirky way but like. just someone who’s weird!! the nerdy awkward guys who manifest this by like....maybe being a tiny bit socially clumsy are like, boring and whatever a dime a dozen. but when people are funky and in a sort of fun way and it’s genuinely part of how they interact with others....it’s real relatable lmao i don’t have any very Weird Persona at this point but back in the day i did a bit moreso b/c like, firstly interacting w ppl tended to make me Nervous so it’s like ah hell i’ll do a bit. and then also there’s the classic “well i have this Weirdness abt me that i can’t turn off that ppl seem to dislike, so i’ll put on this extra layer of weirdness that i can try to be vaguely entertaining with.” and then you aren’t popular at all still lol but at least you’ve got your niche amongst whoever does actually like you.....Weird Quirky Guys characters are fun and like, it’s funny that nato of the black suits is Like That in terms of being a lil weirdo who just kind of does his thing in his corner and might Say Something About Anything Apropos Of Nothing as his conversational style and he’s apparently that superlative student type but doesnt seem to actually give a shit and just has his specific interest and depression.......it’s like oh jeez!!! relatable lmao!!! everyone who has a kind of Veneer of communicating a bit erratically and maybe just always throwing out random shit when interacting with others to hope something sticks......but also the strangeness doesn’t even have to be at all performative b/c it’s rarer but super fun when there’s characters who do have that kind of more inherent weirdness that they can’t turn off that really puts people off despite like....them not really doing anything lol....now THAT’S what i call A Timeless Mood it’s funny lmao like i totally have clear Character Types and i always go for those ppl on the same general wavelength as me but it can be a bit Unpredictable and nuanced which ones will actually be adopted into the faves category......like naturally i go for the un-cool passionate excitable types but if someone’s real like, mad energetic or demanding/loud im like oops you lost me. i like people who like to / want to Socialize / have relationships but sometimes if they’re too outgoing / have that natural success at it all / are obv free of anxiety im like, again, you’ve lost me. you truly never know!! only the Most relatable can survive!! one that might seem like they should be a fave on paper might super annoy me lol or just generate Zero interest.......it’s nice to be surprised by which characters really strike a chord lol

[agrestenoir]

Five Times Gabriel Agreste Caught Ladybug in His Son’s Bedroom (and the One Time He Caught Chat Noir)

Title: Five Times Gabriel Agreste Caught Ladybug in His Son’s Bedroom (and the One Time He Caught Chat Noir) Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug Pairings/Characters: Gabriel, Adrien/Ladybug Rating: Teen Notes: mentions of sex

“Adrien, your photoshoot has been moved.” Gabriel pushes open the door to his son’s bedroom, eyes scanning the tablet in front of him. “Nathalie will send you your new schedule for—”

His gaze flickers up, locking on the blonde sitting on the edge of his bed as well as the red- and black-spotted heroine crouched in front of him. Her hands on his knees, spreading his legs wide, face mere inches from his crotch, her blue eyes are wide with fright. A bright red has stained Adrien’s face, from the tops of his ears to the nape of his neck. Neither make an effort to correct their precarious positions.

There’s a stillness that follows his arrival, and all occupants freeze as they realize the predicament they’ve found themselves in. Gabriel’s mouth drops open, questions he’s not sure he even wants answers to on the tip of his tongue, but he still feels the need to ask.

“Adrien,” he begins, “Why is there a superhero in your room?”

“N-Nice to meet you, Mr. Agreste.” Ladybug flashes him a warm but shaky smile, hands slipping from Adrien’s knees to his inner thighs. “I was just passing by.”

The uncomfortable silence hangs heavy in the space between them. “Is there a reason you’re looking at my son’s genitalia?”

Adrien lets out a low groan, falling back on the bed with a muffled thump, and Gabriel double-checks that Ladybug’s hands haven’t moved. Grabbing a pillow, Adrien drapes it over his face to hide from his friend and father, refusing to come out for air.

There’s a quiet rustle as Ladybug pushes herself to her feet, giving Adrien a hearty pat on the meat of his thigh. “Well, Adrien, I’m happy to say you didn’t split your pants when you fell down the stairs.”

“Thanks, Ladybug,” squeaked Adrien from beneath his pillow.

The superheroine jumps onto the edge of the window she’d obviously climbed through and sends them both a small wave of farewell as she pulls back her arm and flings her yo-yo out into the city. With a zip, she’s gone, vanishing over the gate that borders the Agreste mansion. Gabriel reminds himself to change the locks on his son’s window.

Speaking of his son…

“Adrien,” Gabriel begins, but he’s not actually sure what you’re supposed to say when you’ve stumbled into a room with your son and your archenemy. For some reason, the Parenting Handbook didn’t cover this section.

“Please,” Adrien begs, finally relenting in his attempt to suffocate himself. “I fell down the stairs at school. I was just lucky Ladybug was swinging by and helped me home.”

Okay, he tells himself, it’s better than I thought. A superhero who is worried for her citizens is something he can accept, but the possible alternatives that could be occur still frighten him. For good measure, he tells himself to make sure that Nathalie has the Superhero and Sex Talk™ with Adrien later on.

“Next time,” he tells his son, “Have her drop you off at the front door.”

 *

  After the akuma that recently ravaged central Paris, Gabriel hightails it to his son’s bedroom because the akumas as of late have a tendency to seek out Adrien for some odd reason. (Honestly though, it’s cutting too close to home, and he worries that his secret might be found out, and then what is he supposed to do?) he last place he’d seen Adrien was buried under a stack of books in the top corner of his bedroom, reading about some subject for a school report, before the akuma had slipped in through a top window.

He’s serious about changing those locks now.

As soon as his hand touches the knob, the voices filtering out from behind the maple wood door are crisp and crystal clear. It leaves him shivering in his Florsheim Castellano Wing-Tipped shoes.

“—you could have died, you know.”

There’s a huff that follows. “I can take care of myself, Ladybug.”

“Seriously,” the superheroine says as Gabriel slowly pushes open the door, peering into the room with a curious eye. “The akuma had a bow and arrow. You know, a sharp thing. You’re gonna be a kabob one of these days if you don’t stay out of the way.”

Ladybug is sitting on the window sill, hands curled around the edges to keep herself balanced. Adrien, on the other hand, stands in front of her, arms crossed against his chest as he stares up at her with a wry smile. Both are too engaged with one another, lost between the words and quiet stares, that Gabriel steps into the room unnoticed.

“I can help you,” Adrien tells her in a serious tone, “Sometimes Chat Noir isn’t there, and you can’t do it alone.”

“You don’t have powers!” Ladybug says.

“I-I’m learning to… parkour!” Adrien snaps back.

“Use the front door,” Gabriel sighs.

Heads whip towards him at the sound of his voice, eyes wide with fright. Gabriel, meanwhile, side-eyes the climbing wall and skateboard ramp above him; perhaps he should have those uninstalled and smother Adrien’s superhero dreams before they can spark to life. It’s what every responsible supervillain father should do. He’s sure of it.

“S-Sorry, Sir,” stammers a blushing Ladybug. “He was in the middle of an akuma attack, Sir, and I wanted to make sure he got home safe.”

“Yes,” Gabriel says matter-of-factly. “You have a habit of saving the day.”

He’s sick of it.

“She’s just doing her job, Father,” Adrien interjects, as if he has to come to her rescue, and Gabriel really has to break him of that before he gets hurt. Even if he hates her, he admits that Ladybug has a point. Adrien needs to stay out of the way.

“Well I’m glad your safe, Adrien,” he announces before nodding to the window. “Ladybug, I don’t believe your services are necessary any longer.”

The superhero wastes no time taking her leave.

Adrien buries his face in his hands.

(Gabriel really needs to get those locks fixed.)

In effort to destroy Adrien’s dreams of being a superhero, he lays off the akumas for a week.

Paris throws a parade.

 *

 iii.

 Ladybug’s wide eyes greet him the moment he opens Adrien’s door.

The smack of Gabriel’s hand smacking his forehead is audible in the silence that follows. This typical routine is getting too much for him, and he figures he’d have better luck if he created akumas to bodyguard Adrien versus the current plan of them wrecking havoc on the city. Ladybug seems to spend everyday in his son’s vicinity anyway.

“Is there a reason you’re in my son’s bedroom?” he asks her, too afraid of her answer.

“Physics homework,” is the only answer she offers though.

“I’m tutoring her,” Adrien supplies.

It takes him a moment to spot the textbooks strewn across the floor, the papers piled up around the pair as they pour over equations and theories. Both smile innocently as if they have nothing to hide, but Gabriel remembers being a teenager. He remembers what happens when they think they’re alone, when they develop things called relationships and try to hide them from parents.

Back in his day, physics really meant chemistry, and they studied the spring constant of mattresses (again and again and again).

“Ladybug,” Gabriel says politely, “Go home.”

“Father, she’s going to fail.” Adrien was very concerned.

Too bad, so sad. Gabriel always fails to steal the Miraculous when Ladybug and Chat Noir foil his plans, then at least he can return the favor with Ladybug’s physics grade. And protect his son’s chemistry grade.

After Ladybug has vacated the premises, Gabriel turns on his son with a stern expression. “Adrien,” he says, “No studying, sex, or saving superheroes.”

He doesn’t give him time argue.

He sends Nathalie an outline of his pre-approved Sex Talk to share with Adrien.

She emails it back with a note to “tell him yourself.”

It’s a traumatic experience for both father and son.

 *

iv.

This time there are dark circles under Adrien’s eyes as he stares at the ground, refusing to meet Ladybug’s icy glare. He fingers the silver ring on his hand, the one Gabriel still can’t remember gifting his son with, the one that tugs on the corner of his mind, alerting him to some grand revelation he has yet to discover. Ladybug, on the other hand, stands across from him with hands on her hips and lips pursed in a thin line.

“Ladybug,” he announces, startling both from their showdown. “I see you still haven’t managed to learn how to use a front door.”

The glare Ladybug flashes him is full of frost and fear. It startles him somewhat, and it’s enough to freeze him in his tracks. “Don’t worry, Mr. Agreste, I was just leaving.”

To Adrien, she says, “If you knew, you should’ve told me.”

“You didn’t want to know.”

“This… This I would’ve.”

She disappears out of the unlocked window, and Gabriel changed the locks, and now he’s going to have an aneurysm. Adrien collapses in on himself again, and it’s clear he’s hurting but not in any way that can fixed with bandages or medicine. That much is clear. Gabriel wonders what he should do as he never learned the proper protocol for comforting a broken teenager.

Siri, how do I hug a fifteen-year-old?

He pats Adrien a few times on the shoulder. “There, there.”

Adrien cringes away from them.

Gabriel reads a parenting book for teenagers that night. It doesn’t help.

He makes sure to send Ladybug extra vicious akumas the next few days.

It’s the least he can do.

*

v.

There’s a crash that pulls him to Adrien’s room a few days later. He is prepared to yell at his son for trying to parkour or whatever the fuck he’s decided on as his current hobby, but the sight that greets him is something he should have really seen coming. Ladybug and Adrien are against the wall, Adrien pinned under the superhero’s hands, as they kiss each other breathless.

Gabriel is not drunk enough to deal with this.

He slams the door clos as quickly as he opened it, still catching a glimpse of their startled faces and Adrien’s rushed, “You didn’t say no dating!” over his shoulder, and wishes that there was something he could do to stop his son from dating a superhero. Despite going against his wishes, he really hadn’t forbade him from dating a superhero, so honestly… his hands are tied.

Admit defeat when you’re wrong, the parenting handbook had said.

Gabriel decides to take one for the team.

He still buys Adrien a box of condoms and puts them on his bed for the next time Ladybug inevitably sneaks in through the window.

He could hear his son’s scream from across the house.

*

+1.

He opens the door to find Chat Noir perched on the top window of Adrien’s bedroom, one leg hitched over the sill as if he’s attempting to break in or out. From the bathroom, there’s the sound of the shower. Both superhero and father track the trail from the shower, to the open box of condoms on the bed, and to the leather-clad superhero sneaking into the bedroom.

“I-I can explain,” Chat Noir says.

“Please don’t,” Gabriel begs.

Chat Noir leaves.

The next day, Gabriel makes a sizeable donation to a local LGBT+ organization.

He has more parenting books to buy.

[itskierstenrenee-blog]

Week 1: Beaches to Peaches

Hey guys! 

Thanks for joining me. This is gonna be a crazy ride and you get to witness all of it. You get to see behind the scenes of a small-town girl chasing a big city dream. 

Alrighty, here’s the sitch: 

I just moved to Atlanta. Like, just moved. August 1st. I moved here from a cute little beach town in Florida where life was perfect and grand, simple and…beachy. Now this place was special to me. I really created a version of myself that I grew to love. It was hard as fuck, and I went through some intense shit to find that love, but I found it. And that is EXACTLY what I moved to Florida to do. I needed to find myself. I was going through a lot being right out of college, having that rough transition of not living with your friends anymore and the harsh reality check of “oh shit..they don’t actually teach you how to adult in college..? Or did they and I missed that class because I was too hungover to function in society?” So, I decided to move to Florida. Pretty spontaneous too..like I knew I wanted to leave and I knew I wasn’t meant to be in Missouri…and there was no way I could afford to pack up and move to Hollywood like I WANTED to do. So I didn’t. I just moved to Florida.

Now don’t get me wrong, I had great people in Missouri and it was hard to let them go (physically of course..I still talk to them; I’m not an asshole. But you know, it’s different after you move away). But anyways, I met lifelong friends in college, my family lives in Missouri, and all of my childhood memories were there. But, once I graduated college, I knew there were better things out there for me.  

At the time, I wasn’t scared. I was SO excited. My cousin lived there for a few years with her family and I wanted to be around them. At the time I was just supposed to live there for the summer after college and then I was moving to Los Angeles to chase my movie star dreams. But PLOT TWIST: I stayed much longer than anticipated. 

I had no idea that this would end up happening, obviously, but my cousin and her family became my second family. I never would have imagined the huge impact they would have on my life and heart. Weird, right, they were already family but then they became so much more than that. I didn’t want to leave. So I kept pushing off my move date and three months became six, six became ten, and ten became 14 months in Florida. My whole life I wanted to live in Cali but throughout my time in Florida, my path became more apparent. I was meant to go to Atlanta, Georgia. SOOOOO here I am. 

Now how does your mind just change from literally growing up craving that California lifestyle and then suddenly, within the course of 14 months, do you just decide Atlanta is where your supposed to be? Well..I wish I had that answer. Im still asking myself that same question. 

While I believe my decision was based on the fact that the film industry is currently so much better in Atlanta than in Los Angeles, I think there is more to it. I don’t know what yet, but I hope it was meant to be. Because moving to a city you don’t know a single person in is the scariest shit I have been through in my life. Why do I constantly have to leave familiar faces and have the constant feeling of “missing” someone/everyone? 

Moral of the story, I’m starting this blog for you to follow along this journey with me. I want everyone to be able to see the heartache, the fun, the fear, the adrenaline, and then rewards that come from chasing your dreams. I am so so fortunate to have an amazing family that is supporting my every move in this huge phase of my life. It’s overwhelming, to be honest. And all of my friends constantly call/text to tell me they are my biggest fans already and they are rooting for me. Everyone needs that support system for ANY dream. 

I will be completely raw and open about it all. I want everyone to see what I am going through to make my dreams come true because it sure as hell will NOT be easy. Ive only been on my own here for 5 days as I write this and I am here to say, as hard as all of the goodbyes and see ya laters were, that was the easy stuff. This career is cut throat, but I want to be as kind and fair as I can. 

So there is the backbone of this blog. I wanted to give you a little story about how I ended up here. I am so glad I did because I know my dreams are right around the corner, and now you get to experience it with me. 

Thanks for the support and love, homies. 

Kiersten

[kosmicdream]

hey!!! i just read to the most recent update of ffak (my favorite webcomic ive ever read tbh) and i kinda wanna try making my own. did you have the whole story planned out before you started or is it an ongoing thing? also how did you make the website for it? thank you for making such a cool comic!

Thank you so much!! And let me try to figure out a way to answer this properly. My process is a bit complicated to explain because it is very organic. Its almost like I am never done writing it, because I am always letting it grow/stretch and explore as I think about ffak every day, and every night before sleeping I’ll try to brainstorm things I havent thought of. So spending that much mental energy on something, you never really get ‘done’ with writing a story. Even when i eventually finish ffak, im sure i will be still working on it (or things I would have wanted to do.)

However!! Before i started working on ffak, when it was just called HELP! i established many things narratively that I stuck to and have not changed about the story. So I think the process of this comic, in a simple way, could have been broken down like this in.. stages?

1) I laid down the basic framework of the world, such as the functions of king worms specifically, the aiguille family, helpers, several characters (some havent even appeared in the comic yet!), king leadman, as well as antony/rome’s narrative arc/dynamic. that way their character arc was already figured out before the comic started and I knew it would be the central ‘root’ of the story. I knew how i wanted Rome to be introduced, and how he would meet canary, not knowing the connection between canary and his brother. I had a rough idea, even from here, how their character arc would come to a point (and basically what sorts of things the story would likely eventually close on) I also knew the general setting was on moons and how the humans got there, and how advanced society was, and what the red lights “really" were and what they meant..i figured out what ‘vein’ was here.. ect.. many worldbuilding things!!!It might sound intimidating, but this process happened very quickly. I basically figured this out in the.. day? before i started working. I have had a lot of experience with roleplaying so i think that helps with me making quick decisions. I knew i had enough to work with that I didn’t feel intimidated to start actually drawing it out-- especially because i had the rome/antony thing already set down. 2) Then when I actually started to work, things started to develop very quickly. I knew basically all i needed to for Hekatons before i got to introduce knife (their origins, history, involvement in present day politics) and before ch6 i also wrote all of the “supporting cast” (at the time) which included dylan, fork/spoon/knife, paper/scissor/rock. So i ws able to write Thumb and Heel, and set up the overall dynamic of what the world was like in the present day. (also Spoon/Scissor’s connection.) Cash was actually written in the first batch of characters oops, but her design really became more detailed during this stage because of scissor. 3) then things got more complicated as i dug deeper into the past, and wanted to include crimson. So!! I fleshed out the origin and true history of this world. basically as soon as crimson appeared I had everything in place and felt comfortable enough to include crimson, who borrowed many things narratively from a character i roleplayed for years. Anyway, i figured out all of the deep past of the world and decided to draw it out since it was so interesting in ch 9/10. I think this was around in the 2nd chapter when i figured this out, but my memory is fuzzy. I know by the time i did the flash forward scene in ch2 i had decided many things and so all i had to do was get to them in the comic to cement it in. 4) I forget when exactly (maybe around in chapter 5 or 6) , but i decided to bring in a very old story i wrote in 2009 for good leadman’s origin story-- as i thought it would be cool to make good leadman the protagonist for this old comic i wanted to do, and that helped make the background for heel and thumb more “believable” to me because they were already symbolizing this old story i had written the entire thing of. Oh that’s something else to mention, because that world was part of a collection of stories- i was able to develop DMTIA that way because i already had this cast and just decided to merge the stories into the FFAK setting. I think when i did this, it pretty much was the final big thing to make me understand everything i needed to know about this world. All the story arcs felt pretty realized and I could see how the ending could go at this point.

I guess to summarize, is that i let things grow but also had things planned from the start and once i commit to an idea, it doesnt change. Even if it might appear somewhat frustrating to work with, i like to use them to make my next decision. sometimes that means i dont get to do all i want to do, but i still have a lot of flexibility in this setting like i wanted to have from the beginning.

Even now when i feel like pretty confident that I’ve explored every nook and cranny, I’ll decide to revisit a older storyline or facet of the world and strengthen or build on that. That’s why i ended up with so many fucking side characters because I’ll brainstorm for them for a day or two and suddenly have a lot of material i know wont even “technically” go into the story even though its there. (like, Spot for example was not meant to be so interesting, but i wrote a huge fucking story for him that obviously wont get really any attention.)

So.. its ongoing and it is also not ongoing and hasnt been for quite a long time now? (after two years of constant work it felt.. really complete and done in a lot of ways. we are now currently on year three, moving to year four!) I think the best thing to do is to keep in mind what kinds of methods for writing make you feel comfortable and is your natural brain-pace. I like working with an aspect of fluidity and room for growth and flexibility because i don’t like being boxed in or “outgrowing” my project too fast. So keeping that in mind, i designed ffak to be a comic where it could grow with me and change. that’s pretty much why i decided worms would be a great subject and theme to work with because they are characters that naturally, evolve and change based on what they eat and absorb. plus the themes in ffak just are so fun to work with i will never be bored of it. structuring a project with these things in mind for when i run into walls or feel unmotivated have kept me engaged. I think that is part of why i cannot let it go because I still feel really excited to write and contribute ideas to it.

However, Chapter 12 really feels like I’m settling back down to my original plans and taking my time and patience to communicating all the structured planning ive put into it. I’m not letting it grow the same way anymore because it doesnt need to. I feel comfortable with understanding its voice/style and pacing and im no longer recovering from the uhh.. shock of it existing? I promise that once you actually start making a comic, its a wholly different experience than just it being in your head. and it will sound, look, and feel different than what you thought it would be-- that in itself has influenced a lot of change in ffak because honestly at first i was not expecting to draw it so explicit. that was difficult to get used to but im happy to have embraced that aspect of my work.

So HMM.. I made a strong spine or foundational backbone in the beginning before i started, then fleshed it out as i was in the process of making it, and i always continue to leave room for it to grow. just not grow in EVERY aspect anymore. i also dont chop down branches, but i try to hone in on specific things to make them more clear. i think chopping stuff down and removing things is generally not the best to do because its easier to build up and work with what you have than make big retcons after youve already started or established. also the challenge of working with limitations makes you feel that needed bit of pressure to really commit to your work in the moment of making it and i feel like its helped make me more serious and confident about what i write about. I never feel lost on what to do because if I cover and figure out something, that’s how it is. I make it work regardless! 

everything is done with careful consciousness to the overall balance and product of the story, while also not suffocating it in a box of limitations of what it could be. i treat it like a living thing in my mind and heart and that means i work to have thoughtful conversations with it and myself about what its needs are, what my needs are, what i want to do with it and what it wants to be.. ect. its almost a spiritual thing really. i feel like its important to always reflect and engage with your art and art process to feel a stronger connection and purpose behind what you are deciding to do and what it means to you. i am probably repeating myself a little here but!!!!!! its worth saying!!!!!!!!! 

I also really think it adds to the interesting and fun “layers” to the story, as there has been different stages to its development and it brings in different feelings with each layer. But then the older or more ‘’foundational’’ ones pop in and they seem to give off a different atmosphere (antony and rome) vrs some of the newer additions (like jacket) who are more for shallow, fun decoration or an interesting potential to explore in the future. Like, Jacket is not a character that has a lot of foundational plot connected to him, but he’s an interesting development in terms of the potential of a worm and symbolizes that early-ffak-mindset of growth and experimentation. so i think it makes him a really unique and fun character because he embodies a lot of new and old aspects of ffak’s narrative and my journey with working on the comic.

I could go on and on, but I hope this sort of gives some insight to my process and how I write/work. because in a lot of ways, it isn’t linear. just like how my comic is! sometimes this makes ffak very disorienting for people to read, but if you keep in mind that ffak is very organic and personally tailored to my mannerisms  and with that in mind, it makes a lot more sense why it is how it is and the patterns in it become much more apparent. Anyway! thank you for reading and good luck working on your own stories! it can be challenging but i think it is absolutely worth the effort. 

Also i did not make the website, my good friend Tegan did. :3 i do not know anything about websites.

[rjcauthor]

How to Make a Living as an Indie Author

[Author Note: Originally published on my website in 2014. The basics remain the same.]

I thought about titling this post, "My Advice to Writers 2014 - 150,000 Books Later," [2018 Update - 1,000,000+ sold and counting] but it'd be disingenuous. I'm not speaking to all writers here. There are plenty of advice guides/blog posts for basic writers, for the hobbyist, for the person who wants to get their book queried and submitted, etc, etc.

I'm not really an expert in any of those fields, so why spend my day off writing a blog post about it? (Why spend my day off writing a blog post at all, honestly? Fuck if I know. I should be on the couch partaking of the last day of the Titanfall beta or rewatching a few of the Harry Potter movies on Blu-ray. Instead, I'm doing this. I must be mental.) Anyway, I'm writing this because I want to speak to a certain segment of the writing population, and that's the person who wants to make a living as an indie author.

I've written advice posts before, and a lot of them were filled with caveats that were designed to protect people's feelings and avoid controversy, and also protect my ass from anyone who might get upset. Let me get those out of the way ahead of time: I'm assuming if you're going to read further you're:

a) Looking to make a living as an indie author, and are unwilling to accept any other means of making a living long-term.

b) Are smart enough to decide after reading my advice if the methods I describe are a fit for you.

c) Are willing to work for 100 hours per week for a sustained period of time if that's what it takes.  

d) Are smart enough to know that I'm too busy to personally mentor anyone beyond this post. You're going to need to figure out the rest for yourself. Find some author friends, some like minded people you can talk to. It'll help a lot.  

(As an aside, my harsh words here in this post are going to be the least of the slings and arrows you'll have to deal with if you go down this road, so maybe take it as a warning to look for surer footing elsewhere.)

Some quick background:

In March of 2011 I had been in financial services for seven years. It wasn't going terribly well, and I was spending all my free time working on a story idea that was absolutely haunting me. It kept me up at night writing, and I was having my friends read it and waiting anxiously for their feedback. I loved it - loved writing it, loved hearing what they had to say about it, loved every part of it enough that I was forgoing all my other hobbies just to write.

That was a unique experience for me. I'd gotten a degree in Creative Writing with the intent of becoming a novelist, but gave up on that dream by the time graduation had rolled around. I hated writing after getting my degree, my love of it all ground out of me by years of being forced to write about subjects I did not give two fucks and a shit about. I'd started half a hundred novels from the time I was in fourth grade until college; after college I didn't write anything for eight years.

I had started writing again in the summer of 2010. I kept writing for a few months during that summer, in spite of everything that was going on - work demands, a toddler running around the house, a pregnant wife, a house that we were doing a ton of work on to sell, selling said house, moving in with my in-laws, and a hell of a lot more.

I wrote in spite of all of this. I wrote DURING all of this. I kept coming up with ideas to advance my plot, ideas for interactions between my characters, ideas, ideas and more ideas. I'd sit at work and write ideas down during meetings - whole chunks of scenes and dialogue. I was a financial services salesperson and trainer; I was supposed to be paying attention.

It got bad. I didn't care about my financial services business anymore, all I cared about was writing. So I started trying to figure out how to become a full-time writer, and looked into traditional publishing (which was the only game I had heard of back then). It wasn't a happy answer I came back with. The short version: Good fucking luck, kid, and don't quit your day job.

A little depressed, I put aside my writing for a few months and redoubled my efforts in financial services in preparation for the upcoming baby. By the time January rolled around, I was twice as frustrated, and I was back on the writing again. I looked for answers to the question of, "How do I become a full-time author?" again, and this time I found something different.

Self-publishing. Amanda Hocking. Joe Konrath. They told tales of copious sales, of massive amounts of money, and of working hard, but being in charge of your own destiny. I found a few other names like David Dalglish and B.V. Larson, and I started studying up to figure out how I could do just a fraction of what they were doing. It took me about a month or so to figure it all out, but I came up with a plan, and on March 5, 2011, I told my wife I wanted to quit financial services and stay home with the baby so I could write in every available moment.

I'll spare you the argument and say that eventually she went for it. So I stayed home with our youngest and wrote obsessively during naps and after bedtime, defraying daycare expenditures for the first year and releasing two books with a third finished by the end of the year. After that, we put both kids in daycare all-day, every-day and I started writing full-time as of January 1st, 2012. I was making a living by the end of September, just after my sixth book came out.

And here's what it took to do it.

1. Be calculating

Whenever I talk about what I do/did as an indie author, I inevitably hear people in the background say, "Ehh, he just got lucky, that's all."

To them I say: I planned for both failure and success, understanding that as long as I did not yield, I could work until some level of success was inevitable. Luck may have vaulted me to way above what I'd planned for, but I didn't count on it and it wasn't required to be able to making a living, which is what I wanted - and what I planned for.

I worked my ever-loving ass off in ways that no one ever saw, spent most of my off-hours in analysis, took mighty risks, gambled a lot of money, time and basically my entire future on my own success, and then watched things work ALMOST EXACTLY LIKE I PLANNED FOR IT TO BEFORE I EVEN FINISHED MY FIRST NOVEL.

You need to constantly assess the landscape by reading about your industry. You need to know about what's going on in the world of publishing, the world of craft, everything about your industry that you  can soak up. Even if it sounds stupid, even if you violently disagree with it, the time you spend learning these things can all weigh in the formulation of your game plan.

Watch the people who are doing it, and try to distill the common denominators of their success. I heard some motivational coach say, "Success leaves clues." No successful author is doing it exactly the same way, but a lot of them are doing similar things.  

A lot of people speak of planning like it's something you do once and forget about.

Are you fucking kidding me? Planning is an ongoing process. Like Sun-Tzu said, your plan ain't gonna survive contact with the enemy (pretty much everything is your enemy, btw, this publishing environment is like Australia) so you have to revise it constantly. Throw out what isn't working, make new plans, revise old ones. My overarching plan (strategy) was this:

i) Write a shitload of books

ii) Get them in people's hands somehow

iii) ?????*

iv) PROFIT!

*(Step iii is actually, "Get them to pay for the next ones.")

It's the little plans (the tactics) - how to get those steps done - that needed changing. And you must assess where you are CONSTANTLY. And it cannot get in the way of your writing. (Starting to see why obsession - #5 - is important?)

I had this basic strategy/plan when I came to my wife on that day in March, and frankly, the strategy hasn't changed in the (nearly) three years since. What has changed are the tactics - the little ways I carried out said plan. Back then the way you carried out ii was through 99 cent pricing. That no longer works the way it once did, so now it's permafree or box sets (or the nuclear option, permafree box sets). (See points #2 and #7).

Caveats/Pitfalls for Point #1:

a) You will need to spend your off hours studying this business the way a horny teenage boy studies every line of the pretty girl in front of him's body while he's bored in math class. (See point #5, re:obsession.) You will need to read articles, journals, blogs, books and possible advice scrawled on rest area bathroom walls. (Jenny - 867-5309 and other assorted bathroom stall wisdom is probably not going to help you, but collect it anyway. Better to have it than not.)

b) If you have no experience running a business of any kind, things will be more difficult for you. I don't know how much. I spent eight years running a business in financial services before taking on this responsibility, and it was like an internship that prepared me for being an indie author. I learned to manage my time, I learned about marketing and sales, about loss leaders, and about picking up the shovel and doing unpleasant work I didn't want to do in the name of staving off working for someone else. I hate the thought of working for someone else. It's a powerful motivator for me. If you don't have motivation to drive yourself, this is going to be tough for you.

2. Write fast

Ingredient number one in the souffle of success is hard work. But simple hard work is not enough; results are key here.

In fact, this is probably the biggest caveat to the whole equation, because if you can't write fast (and a lot of people can't, no shame in that) it might not work for you like it worked for me. I wrote 140,000 words of fiction in my evenings over the course of a couple months while I was still running my financial services business because I was so obsessed with the story I had to tell.  

Some things that *might* help you write faster - writing sprints of 15-60 minutes, reinforced by taking your laptop computer somewhere that has no internet/distractions or using an internet blocking program like Anti-Social or Freedom. Still, if you can't write fast enough to get out four books per year...again, this might not be the plan for you. I'm not dogging on you, I just know what it took for me to get to my present level of success, and I'm not sure what it will take below that level of output. Is it still possible? I'm sure it is. I just didn't plan that way so I can't really advise you.

Additional caveats/pitfalls of fast writing -

a) Make sure you have an error correction process in place. Spellcheck alone is not going to do it. Professional editing would be a great idea.You have to decide what your Quality Assurance process will be, but you need to have SOMETHING in place. Not every reader is turned off by tons of errors in a manuscript, but a lot of them are. These errors take away from your story. They're a distraction. You're fighting the wind instead of using it. Don't get me wrong, there's such a thing as TOO MUCH when it comes to time spent on error correction, but you need to find this balance for yourself.

b) You can write crap to get the words out, but you damned sure better edit/rewrite it until it's professional-grade. I can fix words on a page that suck, but I can't edit a blank page. Make sure your stories are good (See point #4), that they're engaging, that they keep the reader moving through. Get beta reader feedback to tell you where people are putting your books down and try to figure out WHY they're doing it. HINT: They may not know the reason why, exactly. Study craft to narrow it down.

3. Learn business

There's a lot of bullshit out there. Tons of it. Enough to fertilize the entire world. In your opinion, maybe this post is filled with it. It doesn't really bother me if that's what you think, because once I write this post, I'm done with it. I'm not an advice guru, I'm a full-time independent author who derives all his income from selling books, not writing advice posts. So if you don't like the material herein and think it's bullshit, you know what to do with it - fertilize something.

What does this have to do with business? Everything. If you're going to be a full-time independent author, you have to fill your time with things an indie author would do. You also have to develop a really exceptional bullshit filter. You need to seek WISDOM (publishing information) from a variety of sources and develop the DISCRETION (bullshit filter) to decide what to apply and what not to. Some of the things you decide not to apply may not be bullshit; they just may not be a fit for the direction you want to take your career.

For example, discounting. Lots of people run sales on books, run specials on books. I haven't done hardly any of this, with a couple recent exceptions. This particular strategy is NOT bullshit, it just doesn't fit for the direction I want to go with my career. It's a perfectly reasonable business plan that works, just not one I want to employ.

Another thing about business - if you're not able to understand basics of profit and loss, contracts and how they affect you, the concept and application of loss leaders, basics of time management - okay, this is going to be a problem. The indie authoring industry is a place of shifting sands, where things are changing rapidly and what worked yesterday isn't necessarily going to work tomorrow.

What else goes into the business end of things? Tracking sales, choosing vendors, figuring out your budget, figuring out how to grow top-line sales while improving the bottom line by controlling costs, and dealing with the ten thousand assorted land mines that could crop up on a daily basis. Other business activities could include trawling through the data on your bit.ly or smartURL links to determine where you sales are coming from, figuring out which the best venues are for adbuys (I have no comment on this) or networking with other writers and talking shop.

Caveats/Pitfalls:

a) This is probably the least clearly delineated subject in this post. The reason why is because I don't really know how fast you can learn what you need to know. Maybe you've already got all the business  experience you need to start with the basics. Maybe you have no business experience and are starting from scratch. I'm not even sure what all I've learned along the way from my previous career and how much it helped me, at least not in quantifiable terms. I just know it's helped a TON.

b) If you don't know anything about business, that doesn't mean it's GAME OVER, MAN. You can learn. I highly recommend constantly trying to assess your weaknesses and figuring out how to shore those up. A couple areas I think authors struggle with - Time Management/Procrastination and Self-Discipline. If you've got those areas down, good for you. A few books I think might help if you feel out of control or unsure are Kris Rusch's Freelancer's Survival Guide and Brian Tracy's Eat that Frog!  (which is a time management/priority setting book). Actually, I've read a lot of books by Brian Tracy and they've all helped. The Freelancer's Guide is a good starting point, though, for general business basics.

4. Learn your craft

I'm not talking about grammar and spelling. Spellcheck can save you in one of these regards. You do need some basic knowledge of sentence structure, syntax, etc, but a good editor can help you if you're close on that. Grammar and spelling aren't really elements of craft.

Here I'm talking about descriptions, narrative voice, all the components that allow you to take the reader from beginning to end without losing them. There are a LOT of pieces to this particular puzzle, and you'll spend a lifetime working on this if you're serious about it because there's always something new to learn. Still, some fundamentals:

a) Openings

b) Cliffhangers

c) Pacing

d) Character Voice and Setting

Classes on all these topics (and more) can be found online. Make sure you use your bullshit filter to determine whether the person you’re learning from is actually worth learning from.

If you can't afford classes, let me suggest you at least read heavily in these and other areas of craft. There are tons of books on craft from experts out there. I'll try and compile a list to place at the bottom of this post in the comments, but I don't have time for it right now.

Be deliberate, as Joe Konrath would say, considering how best to improve and giving all due thought to how you can employ what you've learned in your next work to make your writing better.  

All craft exercises boil down to one purpose and one alone: HOOK YOUR READER FROM THE FIRST WORD AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT FUCKING LET THEM GO UNTIL YOU'RE DONE.

Everything you learn in craft, from characterization to plotting to whatever is essentially boiled down to the essential storytelling skill of keeping them interested in what you're saying. Find the obstacles in your writing that are knocking people out of your work and shave the rough edges off them as fast as your peppy little fingers can figure out which keys to punch to do so.  

Some things that can help you build your audience - write in a series. Same characters when possible (not EXACTLY possible in romance to keep the same main characters book after book, but in mystery, sci-fi, fantasy, etc, you should do this). Can you build a career writing standalone novels? Yeah, but I don't know how to do it so go find someone who can instruct you in this manner. (see point #7 for more on the benefits of writing in a series.)

Caveats/Pitfalls:

a) Your first million words is (probably) going to suck. I had an advantage here in that I've been writing books since grade school so I expelled a lot of these crappy words during my teens/early twenties the way White Castle hamburgers are expelled from your digestive tract - violently and messily, with much disgust from anyone who witnesses this spectacle.

b) Taken alongside the first caveat, realize that sometimes you're better off jumping series as your craft/ability to hold the reader improves. My first series did not take off the way my second series has (probably because the first book isn't as strongly written/well-crafted with hooks in the first as the second). It doesn't mean I abandoned my first series (in fact it's doing quite well now) but I did put it on the back-burner for the last couple years as I focused on the one that was paying my bills. The first book of my first series was...my first book. Ever. I was still learning to write a damned novel. My craft got stronger and my second series did much better.

5. Be obsessed

To quote Bree Bridges (half of the Kit Rocha writing duo of hilarity and awesomeness), "When I say it's possible to make money in publishing, I'm assuming you've tried the easier things like digging for pirate treasure."

This does not mean it's impossible. It does not mean you can't do it. It just means that if you're just looking to make a living, it's easier to get a job that works you 40 hours a week that allows you to shut off your brain afterward.

You CANNOT do that in self-publishing and expect to have it work. You will need to think about it all the time. Wanting to make your living telling stories has to be the thing you get up for in the morning and the thing you go to sleep at night thinking about.

I wanted to spend the rest of my life telling stories and getting paid for it. I wanted no boss, no schedule but that I set for myself, and I was willing to work 100 hours per week for myself so I didn't have to work 40 for someone else (thanks to L.T. Ryan for that quote).

6. Market

Lots of people have different definitions for this. I have only one - help people who are looking for a book like yours to find your damned book. You can call it visibility, you can call it discoverability, you can call it the gorram hillbilly rock for all the fucks I give on the subject.

How did I market? One way, and one way only, pretty much. I wrote in a series that had an overarching story, and I set my first book in said series to free. Permanently. That's right, you can read the first book in my two series for absolutely nothing in e-reader formats. (More on this in point #7.)

But wait, you say! It's now 2017 and that doesn't work anymore. Amazon has come along and killed the permafrees to death using an algorithm attached to a death ray.

Fine. What's the lowest possible price you can get as many of your books to? Do that and see how many copies you can give away. No, I don't care if you've got a ten book series and you're selling 9 for 99 cents in order to collect full price for that last one. If that's what it takes to move some fucking books, you'll find me there doing it, too. I will race you to the damned bottom, and I feel confident that I can whip the ass off most of the other people there because I'm obsessed, I'm a fast writer, and I have no problem with discounting ridiculous amounts of my backlist in order to get people to TRY - JUST TRY - my writing. I dare you not to read on.

And really, this is all marketing is. I'm trying to expose the readers who will LOVE my books to...MY BOOKS. Some will merely like them, but keep reading. Some readers will get caught up along the way and only somewhat enjoy my books. Maybe they'll read more, maybe not. A certain percentage will dislike my books. A certain percentage (hopefully small, if I've done my craft job correctly) will absolutely DESPISE my books and want to flame them in perpetuity with bad reviews and bad word of mouth. This number is baked into the cake of success, so get used to it. I want AS MANY OF THOSE HATERS to read my book as possible, because if they're reading it, so are the people who will love it.

Marketing is just finding ways to get those people exposed to your books. I don't do interviews, blog tours, (or blog posts, really), Twitter spamming, etc. I did it my way - permafree and having enough reviews to get the big sites like Pixel of Ink, E-reader News Today, Bookbub, Indie Book Bargains in the UK - to give me some signal boost so my books could go up the freebie charts. Kobo has given me a helping hand before as well, getting visibility on their site. I didn't ask for it, they just gave (and I'm grateful for it). Ultimately, though, none of these things would help me if I hadn't set the damned books free and gotten enough positive exposure to push them up to where people could find them.

Exposure. That's the magic word. And I don't mean the kind that gets you sent to jail for indecency, so put your pants back on. (Until you're a full-time writer, then pants are optional.)

7. Don't be afraid to give your work away for free

Between 11 April 2012 when I released my book Alone: The Girl in the Box, Book 1 and when I set it free in September 2012 some five months later, I sold 42 copies of it through all channels. In August I released books 2 and 3 in that series, ended up making four figures that month for the first time, five figures in November, and I've never even come close to a four-figure month since.

Would that have happened if I hadn't set Alone to permanently free? I doubt it. Sales weren't even moving in the right direction on it before I set it free to boost its exposure. The month before it went free it sold 3 copies. Since then it's been downloaded some 320,000 times for free and generated some 100,000+ paid sales for the rest of the series (almost all at $4.99 or the foreign equivalent).  

There are two ways to look at those numbers - the first is to say, MY GOD, YOU MISSED OUT ON 320,000 SALES, ARE YOU MAD?! The answer is no, not really, because I've probably only missed out on the 3 sales a month I'd have generated without the additional visibility brought on by Alone being free, and I traded it for a boatload of money in the form of subsequent sales. That's not even counting all the people who finish reading the Girl in the Box series and move on to the other books I've written, because there are those people, too. (And I love them. My truest fans.)

That's the second way to look at it. The thought that follows is, "if only I could give away MORE copies for free, I'd be able to push that paid number to 200k+ or 300k+." (Which I'm working on).

Let's talk about the emotion of this for a moment. It hurts to set your beloved book free. It's painful to drop it to a low price. But a recent survey of successful indie authors found that something like 85% of those making over $500k per year had at least one permafree. Look for commonalities, right?  

Whatever promotion hurts you the most will be most appealing to your readers. (That's according to one of the most awesome gurus of the indie movement, Edward W. Robertson.) I agree with that statement wholeheartedly, which is why this morning I started the process of setting my two biggest sellers - Untouched and Soulless, books 2 and 3 in my Girl in the Box series - to FREE. Why would I do that? Because I'm thinking even if I go from 3:1 freebie to sale ratio, if I could give away a million of those free (because of the added appeal of 3 BOOKS FOR FREE OMG DEAL) and it drops to a 5:1, I've still sold 200,000 more books. Boom.

It hurt when I set my first two books free, but it gets easier every time. And yes, it even hurt when I was selling a couple books a month, because I put blood, sweat and tears into those books, making them as good as I possibly could. However, their true value is not in the price on their cover; it's in how much money they're making for the author. After all, I'm not in this to make $10 per book; I'm in this to make a living. Free is just another tool in the toolbox for making that happen.

Caveats/Pitfalls:

a) Maybe your book isn't appealing to readers (NOTE: I DID NOT SAY YOUR BOOK SUCKS. Though it may. I don't rule that out, having not read your book. It may be sucking the balls of every donkey in the shire, for all I know. But maybe not.)

If this is the case, a few things will happen - once you get to about thirty reviews, you'll probablyknow it it's not appealing to readers because your review average will be low. What's low? If you're below 3.5 on 30 reviews on Amazon.com, it's not a good sign. (Caveat to the caveat: Whatever you do, don't read the reviews for your work on Goodreads. This will not be helpful to your career - or your mental health, in all probability. And definitely don't base any judgments about what to do in your career on Goodreads reviews. Goodreads reviews skew much lower than Amazon, and as far as I'm concerned, anything above 0.1 on Goodreads means I'm doing aight.)

Again, just to be plain, for bad reviews - does it mean your book SUCKS? No, not necessarily. It means that for whatever reason, it's not CONNECTING WITH READERS. Which is the name of the game to make a living. Creating pure and beautiful art is the province of people who don't have any outside concerns (and don't write genre fiction). Us lesser mortals (aka Genre writers) have to get by on the time, energy and money we have.

I would never tell you to base your career decisions on one or two reviews, but if you've got 30 reviews on Amazon and half of them are 1-stars...you're going to have a hell of time getting even a permafree enough exposure. It may be time to jump ship to another series, and possibly another pen name depending on how bad it looks.

Writers are terrible judges of their own work, and the authors who most need to be told their work sucks would still think it's awesome even if they're running a 1-star average on 5000 reviews while an author who writes amazing work tends to bash their own brains in because they got their first 1-star after 9 5-stars in a row. (Another point, which I'm going to say only once here - In the words of Troy McClure, "Get confident, stupid.")

b) Maybe you're in a genre that's not selling. Maybe it's awesome, but it's in a genre that Bookbub is ignoring. (Sorry, Bria!) That can happen. If you can, pick a popular genre. I'm not telling you to defile  your art (or whatever), but I was fortunate in that the stories I wanted to tell more or less fit into a reasonably decent-selling genre (Fantasy). If you write second-person POV octopus mysteries, your mileage won't just vary - it will suck. Even if your book is awesome.

8. Never stop learning

Things change rapidly.  If you're not constantly paying attention and reading industry blogs/keeping up with the goings on through some form of peer group with its ear to the ground, you will miss opportunities. You will miss landscape changes. These can be subtle (the slow death of Amazon Select - actually, know what what? That wasn't all that subtle) or obvious (I dunno. The caffeine is wearing off. Find an example on your own.) Either way, you'll lose out.

I had my plan, I had my basic strategy, and I started to make money in September 2012. I could have coasted, thinking I had my shit together. Instead, around October or November, I made an enormous change, one that felt like a pain in the ass to implement, but that has made enormous difference in my career.

I implemented a mailing list with links in the back of my books.

I didn't fully finish implementing this until February 2013 (and I kick myself for failing to do so) but HOLY CRAP does it make a different. If you're wondering what I'm talking about with a mailing list, go read THIS POST on Kboards by my friend SM Reine. I'll wait for you here until you get back. Make sure you read her follow-up posts as well, down the thread.

This single change is revolutionary. If you're waiting for your audience to come find you every time you release a book, you're basically throwing your baby into the waiting wolves of the Amazon algorithms. Want to make a bigger splash? Want to "game" the system? Get your damned fans to all buy your book at once. It'll make a bigger splash. If you have half a dozen cherry bombs and you light them one at a time, it's like launching a book with only social media to inform your audience. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop!

Get a mailing list together and send that puppy while you're informing your Facebook and Twitter, and it's like wrapping those cherry bombs together to create a stick of dynamite. It can help you push your new release up the genre list and garner you exposure for your entire series. "Oh, look, book #9 of this series looks interesting. I should go back and read book #1." Boom, you hooked a new reader. And best of all, once they sign up for your mailing list, they're added to the dynamite for future launches.

If you're going to go to the hard work of writing and releasing books for a living while you're trying to build an audience, don't be yutz by skipping the last steps to success. Find a way to make it easier for readers to hand you money. Make it simple for them to know you've got a new book out.

Don't get stuck in marketing like it's 2009 and you can just format a warm turd into a .mobi, price it at 99 cents and have an Amazon Bestseller. ( #1in the Fiction -> Fantasy -> Turds & Burglars category! Oops, sorry, they eliminated that category in the great 2013 category shuffle. Which you would know if you were paying attention.)

Never stop learning. Or you'll get your ass beaten by someone who's figured out something you haven't.

Caveats/Pitfalls:

a) Honestly, no matter how much you're learning, you're going to get caught flatfooted by big changes every now and again. Try and limit how often this happens by keeping your fingers on the pulse of the indie author world (and off other places - you will go blind, dammit, STOP THAT).

b) You're probably going to get your ass beaten by people anyway, so you might as well be a good sport about it. Be honest: from where you're sitting right now, if you were suddenly selling a million books per month at $2.99, would you be happy? What if you were selling that many but you were still #1,987 on your category's Author Ranking?

Put another way, who cares what your peers are doing if you're meeting your goals? Focus on you, because you can't control what others are doing, you can only learn from it and apply it to your own career if it fits.

9. Don't be afraid to fail BIG - and find a way to use it as a stepping stone for future success

My first year as an indie author (2011) I made $12.25. I actually earned more than that, but because of the limitations on how big your earnings need to be before they cut a check, that's all I made. I never cashed that check, and it's still sitting on my desk right now (which is how I knew the specific amount).

That's kind of a big failure, isn't it? Would you be happy earning that much for your year's labor? Whatever your answer (please say no), realize that I was expecting that, so I didn't get disappointed when it happened. The game I was playing was long term, and I was aiming more for growth than anything. I was excited when I went up to 25 sales in a month, and I didn't get all bummed out and pissed off and demotivated when I sagged the next month. New releases and promotions help push you up, but there's a natural sag given time.

Another "failure": I launched a book last month, a collection of short stories in my Sanctuary Series. Thus far it's sold 468 copies, and at a lower price than I usually price my work. Whoops. I wrote a short story collection in my lesser-selling series and it bombed. This isn't a huge surprise or anything, but it's a failure. I'm not going to go crying over it, but you can bet I'll think long and hard before I spend my time writing another short story collection.

Of course, here's the biggest one of all: Every month before I started making a living was a failure, really. It was a calculated failure, but it was a failure nonetheless. We were sinking money into daycare costs, losing time for me to go get a degree in something that would pay me (with an English degree and financial services experience, I don't have a great resume). I was willing to accept as many of those failures as it took to cross through to success. My wife, however, was not going to wait forever.

Every month (even now) I do an autopsy on my calendar. What did I do right this month? What did I do wrong? What can I improve? (I also track my wordcount, sales, and number of books presently for sale.) My entire career in finance ended up as a failure, but that doesn't mean I didn't take away a ton of salvage for use in this one.

Comb through your fuckups. Often times you'll learn more from those than your successes.

Caveats/Pitfalls:

a) When you start to see some success, don't be a fucking idiot and stop working. Work twice as hard, because now you know your strategy is doable. I worked even more in 2013 than I did in 2012 because now I was 100% sure I was on the right track. I'm going to see if I can beat what I did in 2013 this year.

b) I think this probably goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway in case any of you are morons): don't go into something TRYING to fail. Unless it's low risk/low loss. Assess the amount of time/energy/money you're going to sink into something before you commit to it if it's got a high failure rate. Don't waste your time doing stuff you're almost certain is doomed unless it's like five seconds of your time. And don't get bummed when it goes to shit, expect that in advance and be pleasantly surprised if you get anything out of it.

10. Keep writing

I think I'm exhausted and the caffeine is wearing off, so I'm going to make this as quick as I can. If you're the type of person who's easily discouraged, this is going to be tough on you. If you're the type of person who flits from job to job always looking for the "better deal" or the "next thing"...you're probably not going to have much success here, either. If you're not okay with spending ten hours per day hammering at your writing career on various fronts for a while without much of a vacation or break...I don't think I can help you. If you're not bursting with excitement at the stories you have inside that SIMPLY MUST BE TOLD, I'm not sure this career thing is going to be the right fit.

But if you're dedicated beyond the capacities of most humans, if you're obsessed, and you're smart, and you're willing to learn and do whatever it takes (on this side of the legal and ethical bounds please, you Frank Underwood, you) to build a backlist and get your books in front of people, you can make a living as an indie author. Will it be huge? Maybe. Will it be minimal? Maybe. I don't know. There's some definite variance in mileage between writers, but I've seen enough of them MAKE A LIVING to know it's possible if you approach it correctly and you're willing to work hard enough to make a one-armed paperhanger look idle.

Once you've got all these other points down, it's really down to you to keep writing. Keep putting books on your bookshelf. Take the hits that will come and do not stop tapping keys on that keyboard. I don't know how long it will take you to get there, I honestly don't. Personally, I didn't care how long it took. The eighteen months it took for me passed like nothing because I was having the time of my life.

This isn't the lottery; there's not just one winning ticket. There's really no luck involved either, just an obscene number of things that are outside your direct control. There are so many things you can do to  influence these events, though, and I've outlined as many of them for you as I could here. I probably missed some; I'm kinda tired by now, and it's my day off.

The bottom line is that if you *really* want to be a full-time indie author, I think you can do it. Will it be easy? FUCK NO. If you're looking for easy, scroll back to that paragraph with Jenny's phone number. This will be a lot of "nose to the grindstone."

But will it be worth it?

In every year of my financial services career, I interviewed people looking to hire them. I'd listen to their stories, hear them talk about their work lives. Every day I did that, I put myself in their shoes and imagined what my life would be like if I had their career. Sometimes I'd shudder, sometimes I'd wonder what it'd be like if I'd made the choice to do what they did. Sometimes I'd wish I had. A lot of times I wished I had. Especially when things got bad.

Since the day I started to write full-time, I have never once imagined myself as anything other than a writer. I have never wanted anyone else's life or job for my own, and I have never wanted to be anyone but me. I've maybe wanted to have other authors sales numbers if they're doing better than me, but I've never wanted to swap anything else.

I don't want to do anything else but what I'm doing. I love this gig. It's the best job I've ever had. Last year I went to England for a week to research a novel and meet some fans. Had one of the best times of my life. In January, it got damned cold here so I picked up and took the kids to Florida for a week to hang out with my parents and go to Disney. Sure, they just went last October, but you only live once, right? (I also wrote something like 12,000 words on a book while I was on "vacation" so...)

For me, it was worth it. It was everything I'd ever wanted and when I got here, it was everything I'd dreamed of plus more. I guess what I'm saying is, if you're the kind of person who wants it that badly, who's willing to do what it takes to do it, I hope this helps you.

Keep writing. That's the last key. Through the bad times, and the good - hopefully it'll mostly be good, but you better plan for the other. If you want it bad enough that you're willing to put in effort in these areas, you can do it. If you're hating every day of it, though, then it's probably not for you, and there's no shame in that.

What being a full-time indie author basically boils down to is that you keep writing, because you love it so much you can't stop. No caveats. No pitfalls. Just a love of writing that won't ever let you quit.

(Editor's Note: There is no editor and I'm sure this post is riddled with errors. Fuck off and go write, okay? I'm going to go play Titanfall.)

[aarotta]

sorry to bother you with this but ive recently started to try come out as transguy, and mostly everyone who knows has either left or laughed at me, even the ones lgbt. I'm so scared i feel physically sick all the time. I don't know what to do.. I guess u sent this since your blog somehow comforts me

that fucking sucks, I’m so sorry! coming out is stressful enough without people reacting like dickheads. I’m glad you reached out, I know it can be hard but it’s so vital in situations like this.

the shittiest thing first: obviously since I don’t know the specifics of the situation I can’t really give proper advice (not that I could even if I did bc wtf do I know), but if the people who laughed are/used to be important to you - they just might need a little time. I know how frustrating that is to hear, trust me, and I definitely hold my opinion of them having reacted like dickheads, but I know I have people in my life who didn’t take me seriously when I first came out but who are fine and supportive of it now. trans stuff can be, and often is, uncomfortable to people, even to LGB, even T, people. but of course it’s up to you to scope out the situation and decide for yourself who you want to keep in your life and who can fuck right off, and not let anyone think it’s okay to dismiss this part of you. the whole trans thing can get lonely, but being around people who don’t accept you just makes it worse. whatever you decide to do, I do wanna stress that them reacting by laughing at you or leaving was a childish dick thing to do, and it’s only a reflection of their issues and not of anything wrong with you.

I wish I had some resources to give, but I’m not really a general peer support person and have little experience on any, and support lines/groups are pretty specific to different countries/areas anyway - but there’s plenty out there, blogs and twitter accounts and all that, where you can stay anonymous if you’ll feel safer that way. Google’s your buddy. if there are any LGBT organizations active where you live, they’ll usually have resources on their website - relevant helplines or support groups, anyone who can tell you you’re not alone, and that there are people who are actively supportive of you who are. (I know this is likely something you know already, but sometimes it helps to hear it directly from someone.) for me something that’s helped my trans anxieties (tranxities, if you will) has been following Jamie MacDonald, this Finnish-Canadian? comedian, who’s also trans, who also isn’t straight, and who’s been fairly successful with standup, even in Finland. (his stuff is in English, so you can look him up on Facebook if you’re interested!) the first time I saw him he did a bit about how he didn’t realize he was trans for so long because he thought him being attracted to men meant he couldn’t be, and I Lost My Goddamn Mind. if comedy isn’t your thing, I hope you can find your own Jamie MacDonald - a transmasc athlete, politician, vlogger, and those are the only professions I know.

remember to take care of yourself, be it in a bubblebath or by calling helplines. know and don’t forget that you have the right to be a lil bit fragile right now, because this is difficult shit. I know it took me a Long time after coming out to realize the reason I felt so shitty about myself was because I was trying to deal with all of my confusion and newfound insecurities and tiredness by pushing it down as deep as possible and only letting it out on strange cis-looking dudes when I was drunk. turns out that’s not the doctor-recommended way of dealing with... well, I mean, anything. try to remember what you enjoy, especially things that don’t take much out of you - your favourite music, TV shows, podcasts, what have you. keep those a part of your life as much as you can. take every bit of enjoyment and joy that comes at you right now, and let yourself feel it, even if the fear and anxiety have a habit of trying to crush it all down when they want to.

and do things - reaching out, changing your appearance or talking to doctors if that’s part of it for you - at your own pace, however slow or brisk it might be. I’m the most impatient person in the whole goddamn world, and for the last couple years I thought I could just will time to go quicker so that my process would get to where I wanted it to go, and it damn near burned me out a good few times. check in with yourself every now and then - are you happy with how you’re living, is there anything you could change, is there an area you should be gentler with yourself in? ‘breathe’ is about as useful and innovative advice as ‘have you tried turning it on and off again’, but it really is what most of this boils down to. you’re not the first person going through this. unfortunately, you won’t be the last. people feel this, and have to fight, and it gets overwhelming sometimes, but they survive! you’re going to, too. you’re trans, that’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with you, you have the right to feel hurt over the people in your life not supporting you for it. remember that you deserve and have the right for help and support, and keep going forward.

I wish I had a neater and more enlightening answer, but the truth is that this is all pretty complicated. it’s probably always going to be at least a little bit complicated, but the longer you live with it, the more you find ways first to cope and then to feel at ease with it. and I hope there’s at least one helpful sentence in this epic of an answer. if nothing else, I hope I rambled on for so long you got too annoyed to feel shitty anymore.