#but with a few video tutorials... how bad could it possibly be

[txmxkis]

about to cut my own hair fr

[fumiliar]

random headcanons - jjk

contains: gojo, toji, megumi, choso

satoru gojo:

satoru would bring an extra sweet in case you wanted one (he'd end up eating it most of the time). in his head, a bad mood can always be fixed by a sweet treat.

satoru who has one of the best styles among all the jjk men. he spends his money on buying timeless wardrobe pieces. he is an outfit repeater, he knows what looks good on him, so he sticks to those. maybe a mix of match of colours, but they're usually in the same format, but hey, what's worse, an outfit repeater or an outfit rememberer?

satoru who changed his perfume to a less pungent one in case you'd get dizzy. he wants to be near you constantly, he doesn't want his smell getting in the way.

satoru would squeeze your butt in public places, not in a sexual way, but in a "your butt is my stressball" way. you'd always be embarrassed, especially when he does it in front of his friends, but once you scolded him, he stopped doing in as often in public.

toji fushiguro:

toji usually has a hard time sleeping, his job not allowing him to rest easy, making him carry a burden on his shoulder at all times. but when he's with you, he sleeps so easily. you're like a pill of melatonin. you always complain, every time you meet him, he'll always fall asleep. but he can't help it, you're just so...comforting

toji is a man who loves back rubs. he didn't know he liked receiving them until you offered to rub his back because he kept complaining of having muscle pains. now, he constantly complains of back pains. it might be because he's old, but a little feeling in you knows, he doesn't need it, he just loves it.

toji has to be touching you at all times. like, he has to have at least one part of his body touching yours. his job requires him to be gone for a few days at a time, this makes him appreciate the little time he has with you before he has to scurry to his next job. he uses this time by being very touchy.

toji would make dad jokes all year long. never missing any opportunity to crack one. it's his favourite activity.

megumi fushiguro:

megumi gossips. every time you find out something juicy, he's all up in your face asking what you heard. he's the nosiest man you've met in all your years of living. he enjoys gossip sessions, some days he wishes your friends would adopt him as apart of the girls just so he gets the news as quickly as possible.

megumi is the most nonchalant chalant guy. he doesn't care for most stuff, he's only like that to you and his closest friends.

megumi knows weirdly alot about flowers. when he bought you your first flowers, it took him an hour of contemplating. he created an intricate bouquet with flowers signifying his feelings, keeping it as aesthetic as possible. he loves getting you flowers because it's his two favourite things combined into one, flower picking and you.

choso kamo:

choso would watch youtube videos on tutorials how to cook just because he wants to surprise you with your favourite meal. after he's surprised you with your fav meal, he realised that he quite enjoys cooking, now making it apart of his day to learn how to cook — still hiding it from you

choso lets you style his hair however you want. pigtails? sure. space buns? sure. he does not care, as long as you made it, he does not care if yuuji laughs at his face after seeing his hair shaped into cat ears. he could not give a fuck

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for asking my partner not to interrupt me while I'm streaming?

Asking on here because she has Reddit and I don't want to upset her further while I ask for an outside consensus.

I stream video game content as a profession. Playthroughs, mods, tutorials, reviews, ect. I found streaming to be more profitable than pre-filmed video content. I'd say on average I can "work" for 10 - 30 hours a week.

She works on an alternating schedule where she does a week of full time hours then a week of part time hours. All in all, we work pretty reasonable hours between us, I feel, and we are agreeably not lacking in spending time together.

We routinely go on dates, we more often than not have dinner together, and I typically don't stream for more than 2-4 hours consecutively, so its not as if I'm locked up in my office for the majority of the time.

However over the last few months my partner has developed the habit of simply walking in whenever I'm streaming and starting up random conversations with me, playing her own games loudly in the background, constantly interrupting me to read out chat comments or ask questions about the game, ect.

Sometimes it isn't so bad, but generally its pretty disruptive. I wouldn't mind if it was just occasionally or if she just popped in now and then, but its grown to the point where its almost every single stream and I've noticed I've lost a handful of frequent viewers over it.

It came to an unpleasant confrontation over the weekend, when I was streaming a highly requested tutorial walkthrough for a recently released game and she decided to come in, try to sit on my lap and start a conversation about a client's dogs she met today.

I was trying to figure out a polite way to ask her to give me another 40 minutes so I could finish the quest line and shut it down for the day when two people in the chat began to make jokes about how she never leaves me alone and said it 'gave cam check vibes.'

I pretended not to notice, but she did, and clearly it hurt her feelings and she mumbled about having some things to do and left. I felt awful that her feelings were hurt so I closed the stream early and went to find her.

She was pretty upset about the comments and tried to get me to validate that she wasn't disruptive or unwelcome. I assured her that I don't mind the occasional visit or if she wants to play her own games in the background on mute/low volume/with earphones in, but that I have actually been meaning to ask her to give me a little more curtesy when I'm streaming because its hard to have dynamic engagement when I can't actually talk to anyone because she's talking non-stop or her own game volume is distorting the sound.

I tried to say it as gently as possible but it was clear that the more we discussed it, the more upsetting it was for her. She called time on the conversation by abruptly saying she'll just 'never so much as walk past the door' when I'm streaming, and that she didn't want to talk about it anymore.

She was only working a half-day today and I was streaming between mid-day and the early afternoon. When I said goodbye to her this morning she made sure to somewhat sarcastically assure me that she wouldn't dare interrupt my stream today, and she hoped it went well.

She refused to discuss it further when she came home, or over dinner, and since dinner she's shut herself in the conservatory and has been on the phone to a friend.

I'd like to discuss it further because I'm discontent with her being upset about it, but I'm also not particularly agreeable with me being in the wrong here. Streaming is my job. We pay equal expenses, so its not as if this is just a silly little fake job or hobby for me while she foots the bills. I rely on viewers to get paid, and when quite a few of them leave because I've had to stop playing for 20 minutes to listen to her chat, it could negatively impact my ability to bring home a reasonable contribution.

Ordinarily we can resolve any conflicts or disagreements quickly and fairly. We've never been the sort of couple to spend days being passive aggressive or refusing to talk.

With her being so resolute in being upset and not communicating, I'm at a loss for if I'm actually in the wrong or not for asking her to be more mindful of interrupting me and causing disruptions while I'm working.

What are these acronyms?

[preciadosbass]

11/8/24 [PARAGRAPH 3 & 4!!! — draft from sunday. key & significant photo/s at end]

woke up at 10:20 and made myself breakfast. i ate it outside with boris in the sun and tried my best to be productive while being on my phone [e.g, make a fursona/oc/journal entry etc.] but failed miserably. i just scrolled on tiktok and saved a few videos i could use for outfit inspiration. i went back inside after 30+ minutes, got dressed [skinless shirt, dark cargo jorts + matching bracelets consisting of spiked cuffs and band bracelets, motorbike socks] and looked up a couple can tab bracelet tutorials. i know that i don’t have enough for the particular design i want to make, but i’m getting there. my dad’s sister, my aunt, has multiple pepsis a day and has been collecting can tabs for me.

i went back next door with my sister after giving up on the bracelet for the moment and saying goodbye to boris. when i arrived i just sat on my own while my sister went on the swings. a group of girls my age walked past and laughed at me and after a few minutes i got called over with the other kids to make a keyring. i honestly much preferred that but i think the staff thought i was a part of the actual camp anyways so i don’t think i had much choice either way. i picked out a star shaped template and a blue floral sticker to go on it. i stuck it on, but couldn’t cut around the star completely — so i put it in my bag for another time at home where i can use one of those tiny knives to carve all the imperfections out.

once id done i went back over to the bouncy castle. this time round, only 8 people were allowed on it at a time and this younger girl was being really bratty about it, as in acting like she owned the place, which was odd, because yesterday it was fine and nothing bad happened. but kids are just like that. she kept on going around to people and launching herself onto them, she also decided to boot me over and over again on my bruised shin which was fun 😭. i tried telling her we don’t even know eachother and ive just been sitting there but she didn’t care. she kicked me and almost everyone else off using her sister that was my age so i got off and just sat beside it while people watching.

the same member of staff from the keyrings sat next to me and just exclaimed ‘panic! at the disco?’ — reffering to my panic! band bracelet. i nodded and she started speaking about liking that type of music too. more when she was younger, but she’s still into it, she said. she took out her phone and started asking me if i’ve been to see any live bands. i told her about me seeing the mcr + fall out boy tributes, pierce the veil, cavalera conspiracy, and my upcoming concerts. [slipknot, falling in reverse, possibly the tributes again but idk was its the day before fir]. she started speaking about how she has family in scotland and therefor goes to festivals there a lot and then casually says she’s seen fall out boy 4+ TIMES??? i literally could’ve curled up and died right there and then after hearing that come out of her mouth.

she also spoke to me about seeing slipknot 20 years ago, and then she showed me one of her friends instagram pages. then she came out with that that friend, has another friend, who is the sibling of someone from PIERCE THE VEIL?? WHAT THE FUCK. i was so taken aback but she unfortunately couldn’t remember what their name was because they were told years ago now — and she couldn’t find pictures of them together despite trying as the friend is a concert photographer and it’s importable to sort through the thousands of photos.

i out of interest asked if she’d seen linkin park and she said she did at milton keynes in 2008?? with jayZ?? RAAA. i got told that everyone was leaving in 30 minutes so i stayed speaking to her until people started loading themselves onto their coach and i set off for home. it was really cool speaking to that woman and its a shame i’ll probably never see her again or get to know any more info. although it was awesome meeting someone like me that was quite a lot older. when i got home i fussed boris on the driveway and had a 20 minute nap before leaving for my other aunts house [6pm]. i said goodbye to boris, and on the way to the car, my dad showed me this injured butterfly. it was a shame because it looked so young. i held it and then placed it onto a bush before leaving. [photo at end]

since the concert, i’ve been listening to the setlist on repeat. so i obviously did even more on the way to my aunts, although the drive is really short. once i got there i stayed in the living room for a bit and greeted the family of mine that was there. there was only my grandad, his fiancé, my aunt + uncle, and one of my cousins girlfriends there. that cousin in question is on holiday, the other moved out, and the other also moved out. i didn’t really know what to speak about and my parents sparked a conversation between the others anyway so i went to see what my sister was up to. she was playing fnaf security breach so i watched her.

i had my phone out ready to record her getting jumpscared and i caught a video of her doing exactly that over moondrop. i’m surprised that i’ve never watched anyone play security breach before even though i was really excited when it came out. i don’t usually watch my sister play stuff unless it’s the last of us/the evil within/silent hill at 8:30 i stopped watching jay and went for a walk with my mum, dad, aunt, + grandads fiancé. [+ archie and my aunts dog, charlie.] we couldn’t be too long because charlie has bad diabetes and can’t do much now. we came across one of my aunts friends on our way, she accidentally called me he and didn’t correct herself which made me feel SO euphoric considering i’m not out.

she spoke about lifeguarding or something and once done, we went round to this field i used to always play in as a kid. i went in the park to spark some nostalgia and my dad pushed me on a swing for the first time since i was like 7. we walked for about 40 minutes. once i got back to my aunts i went on pinterest to look at some diys. i saved a photo example of how to make a can tab bracelet, a cardboard minecraft sword, a cardboard coffin shelf, a little fairy/elf house thing made up of pebbles, a cardboard direction sign, a bottlecap tortoise, and a number of other things i dont know how to explain. after i couldnt seem to find anything else, i watched my sister play fnaf a bit more. we had to leave so i stopped and got ready for home at 12.

i don’t really remember what i did when i got home, but it would’ve been the same as always. maybe a small nap, then obviously questions about boris, then i say goodnight to boris. i went to sleep at 3.

🗝️ — boris/my cat, archie/my family’s dog

have a good day/night O_o

[popsicle-parfait]

Unfortunately I ended up losing interest in this draft and with the drama that keeps happening at Nijisanji I also lost the same likability in the streamers I once did. So if anyone wants to pick this up or just read it I'm going to leave it here.

It's a reader x Ike Eveland.

You have been playing video games for a couple of years now, and while you're not the best at them you do have a lot of fun while doing so. You've gone from gaming noob to posting professional tutorials for others like you on your blog. If you can't play a game you'll just watch streamers and analyze it so you can at least be aware of certain mechanics if you do end up buying said unobtainable game. The streamer you've spent the most money on was probably Ike Eveland, you weren't too interested in vtubers but something about his eloquence and how he engaged with his audience caught your eye. 

You've been watching him for a few months now so you can properly say you're a part of the quildren, as the fans put it. Apparently a new game came out and it was on everybody's wish list, but luckily you pre ordered it a long time ago, all that was left to do was boot it up and start playing. It was a classic mmo game and like the person you were, you decided to pick the female avatar since they have more cosmetic choices. You were a mage class so you'd have an easier time grinding and upgrading your skills compared to other classes, plus who doesn't like to buff yourself every now and again? 

You were in the middle of farming for a new armor set when someone sent you a group invite, who could this be? Their username was "TheNovelist" and they already seemed to be 5x higher than you in levels, so what could they possibly want with you? You decided to bite the bullet and clicked join, there were three people already active; one of them being the party owner in question. 

You took a quick look at their character profiles and the other two party members were a gunslinger called "Lionsgate" and a healer named "PotassiumFighter12", only one of those made your sweat drop. TheNovelist looked to be a swordsman, carrying a heavy greatsword and what looks to be a really OP armor set that got released. You all typed your hellos in chat before the forsaken conversation of 'Why' began to circle. 

Bellflower: Wow! You guys are stacked, are you about to do a raid? 

Lionsgate: Hell yeah! We're gonna defeat the newest mini boss! ∩( ✧Д✧)∩

PotassiumFight… : Unfortunately, we don't have enough potions to cover our stats so we asked our friend here to find someone who'll help

TheNovelist: It's ok if you're not a high level, we'll share the exp anyway! (^_^♪)

Bellflower: Oh alright! If you need anything from me just yell, my attention span is kinda bad lol

Lionsgate: Don't you worry your head Milady! We'll go in guns blazing! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

TheNovelist: Starting now

Honestly you've never been carried so hard in your entire life, but you can't deny the princess treatment isn't nice every now and again. The milady comment was odd considering you were sure you placed your gender as male in your profile but you'll take what you can get. After a few waves of monsters and drops to last you a few days, you were actually really enjoying yourself. The guys were funny and they all had such different personalities from what you could tell, plus they all seemed to know each other irl since the inside jokes were a bit odd. What the heck is a Shubert anyway? 

You were a bit confused but overall these guys really warmed your heart up! Afterwards you all parted ways and not even an hour later, you got a friend request from TheNovelist! The next day you decided to take a break for a bit since your hands were cramping and opened up YouTube to watch Ike's daily stream. It looks like he was playing that game you downloaded yesterday too, which you guess is pretty expected considering it was new and all.

[hollownoire]

God I want to make a video game so bad. At this point I'd devote myself to any project I could get my hands on.

Alas I know absolutely nothing about coding and it feels like there's absolutely not enough time in the day to chase all of my goals/projects/dreams at once.

I want to practice art, I want to make art, learn it. I want to make games, learn how to make games...

Hell, I've been debating making a YouTube channel for years now. But again, there's like...4 or 5 steps towards that end I'd have to see through.

What video editing software do I use? Is the way I record optimal and enjoyable to view? What about my mic? What do I even record? I've thought of doing speed paints, drawing tutorials, video games...like I wanna do a mixed bag of things that interest me and are fun to make. I had this fun idea to have a speed paint of the thumbnail I made for the video at the end, kind of merge art into whatever other creative process I'm working with. Especially video games, I currently have a chunk of Lethal Company footage sitting in a dusty corner of my computer that I've just been staring at timidly.

But with recording things and possibly even dropping my voice into the internet for random people to hear, I'm horribly self-concious about how my voice sounds. I don't have the money to drop on getting proper voice training and finding time in my already packed schedule to practice solo is frustrating enough to make me wanna fucking eat chalk.

Still need to make an "about page/intro" page to pin to my blog, alongside cleaning up the formatting and just making it look nicer.

I have multiple art projects planned...a few commissions that I need to do...oh yeah, I still need to make comm price sheet to post/pin/link as well...

The cherry on top is paypal has my dead name plastered on it 🤢

I'm so goddamn tired.

[iamthecomet]

I have some ghoulette crochet headcanons for you that have been tormenting me for a while now (in the best way possible)

(Also this is pre Aurora and Aeon, so not leaving her out)

Just read and reply when you feel better/whenever you feel like it!

What if Cumulus loves to crochet?

I recently started crocheting a top for myself and I had SEVERELY underestimated my cup size and got so very frustrated at some point.

So what if Cumulus only crochets for Cirrus and Sunshine, because she gets way to frustrated making pieces for herself because it takes longer? (For her it feels like it takes “fucking ages“?)

And Sunshine notices that after a while, and decides that she wants to crochet something for her. Because she too deserves those nice pieces of clothing. Because she‘s worth putting the time and effort into, even if she herself seems to not think so.

But the problem is, she doesn’t know how to do it. She never crocheted before.

And also, probably due to her ADHD, she gets soo frustrated by every YouTube tutorial she‘s trying to watch. At some point she just stared skipping videos, hoping for someone to get to the point immediately and explain it as quickly as possible, but she just can‘t find a good video.

She‘s sitting in Cirrus‘ room (the one she shares with Cumulus who seems to be occupied by something, probably Dewdrop) and just hides her face behind her knees and starts to cry quietly because she’s so damn frustrated.

Like, she wants to do something nice for Cumulus. Looked up how much she would need and then got beautiful light blue yarn and a fitting hook (the lady in the store had been so nice explaining the sizes to her). But now she’s getting frustrated over not knowing how to crochet and YouTube videos being too slow and annoying.

Cirrus finds her like this, and after a bit of coaxing, she tells her everything. About her plan, about how she’s getting annoyed now and how she wishes she could just ask Cumulus go teach her but how it wouldn’t be a real surprise then.

And Cirrus tells her that they actually learned it together, and while she hasn’t done it in quite a while, she should be able to remember how to do it if she just tries it for a few minutes.

It takes about 5 minutes of the air ghoulette fiddling with the yarn before she feels like she knows what she‘s doing again.

So she explains it to Sunshine, and then shows her everything.

Cirrus feels bad for not thinking of it herself. But she also figures that being mad at herself isn’t going to help at all, so she quickly tries to get over it and tries to be as helpful as possible.

She turns about to be a fantastic help by knowing what clothes fit Cumulus just the right side of tight, so Sunny will know which size to make it exactly.

(And, Cirrus has Cumulus‘ measurements written down, because she simply loves gifting lingerie to her absolute goddess of a girlfriend (she’ll fight anyone telling her that they‘re all a pack and don‘t need to call each other such names, because she loves calling her dear Cumulus her girlfriend. ))

It only takes a few days to make because Cirrus encourages (forces) Sunny to take breaks whenever her hands hurt too much. And also, sometimes it‘s hard to work on something one of the ghoulettes in who’s room she live isn’t allowed to see (even tho the other ghoulette is helping her hide it)

At the end of it, Sunshine holds a beautiful light blue top in her hands that is just the right side of soft.

She puts it in a cute little box and gives it to her while she’s sitting on the common room couch and Cirrus covers her eyes. Then she lets go and Cumulus opens it. She opens it and lifts the top up, immediately praising the color and style.

“Where did you get this?“

“I made it. For you. Because I think you’re worth the time and effort put into crochet pieces. Because you put that effort into pieces for us, but not for you.“

“Sunny- I- thank you“

She holds her arms open and immediately Sunshine crashes into her, pushes herself onto Cumulus‘ lap and kisses her.

After a bit, Lus pauses to ask her something.

“Did you know how to crochet or-“

“I learned it for you. Cirrus helped.“

Cumulus looks over at her mate and she smiles softly. “Come, now go put that on, I’m dying to see you in it!“ she encourages, and she can’t help but agree.

When Cumulus returns to the common room, even the other ghouls in it are stunned to silence.

It hugs her breasts so incredibly nicely and doesn‘t even quite cover her ribcage. Also, Sunny was right about the live contrast.

She looks GORGEOUS in it.

And I believe that Cumulus cried a little during all of this. Whether it was of happiness or overwhelmingly strong emotions of deep love and caring for her ghoulettes, nobody will ever know.

(Yeah, well. I thought writing down my headcanons would be way quicker and shorter than writing a fic xD)

(Also, I’m very tempted to draw Cumulus wearing the top)

- @owlishanon

ASDFJAKSDF My brain is alive again this morning (temporarily I suspect, but I'm not going to question it) so I can finally respond to this as it DESERVES. (Which is honestly, mostly just incoherant screaming and crying because it's so fucking cute and sweet and I LOVE THEM and WOMEN). I'm thinking about how Sunshine bought the yarn. She couldn't go with Cumulus, obviously. Most likely, it happened during free time on tour. Wandering around a city, only hours after suddenly deciding she needed to make Cumulus a top too. She's googling yarn shops, trying to ditch Cumulus and Cirrus while she makes her way there. She definitely drags one of the ghouls along with her, makes up an excuse about why Cumulus doesn't need to come along, and then spends way too long staring at all the different yarns, touching them. Making Dew (we all know it's Dew she drags with her) touch them and tell her which ones he thinks Lus would like best. And then after the lady helps her pick out the right hook, and she gets it back to the bus she shoves it deep into her luggage. She wants to start right now. But she can't risk Cumulus catching her trying to learn crochet online, so she squirrels it away. Waits until they get home. I'm obsessed with Sunshine's determination. That she knows even though it's hard she's got to figure it out. That she has to do this for Cumulus because she deserves it and someone should take care of her for once, god dammit. And of course Cumulus cries. Quietly at first until Sunshine snuggles up to her and then she sobs just a little, looking at Sunshine through tear blurry eyes. Speechless over the idea that someone took all of this time just to make something for her. Sunshine didn't know a single thing about crochet, but now she does all because of Cumulus. Because she thought Cumulus deserved to feel as pretty as she and Cirrus did every time she made them something. And now, when she goes yarn shopping, Sunshine goes with her and makes Cumulus pick out some yarn for herself so that Sunshine can make her more things. Because Cumulus might not have the patience to make things for herself, but Sunshine can't get enough of making clothes for her Lus.

[dreamboundedstar]

Low-Fli Ship Questions are finally here!

PRE-RELATIONSHIP

How did they first meet? Willow was out looking for a date for a bratty family member’s wedding so she doesn’t look pathetic not having a plus one. She’s really bad at starting conversations with random people though. So she almost considers paying a stripper at Pickles to be a temporary, pretend date. The Belcher kids and Linda spot her before she could build up the courage to go through with her terrible plan. Linda immediately decides to (force) help Willow to build her confidence in asking people out. After a few failed attempts at the mall and one anxiety cool down in the bathroom later, Linda decides to do a mini speed dating session for Willow at Bob’s Burgers. That way Linda can pick out the options and take some of the stress off of Willow when trying to start conversations. When Linda dragged Willow out of the mall, they passed Flips Whitefudge. Flips did a double take while walking when he first laid his eyes on Willow. He was distracted by the beauty of her backside and what little of her side profile he was able to glance at. He tried to find the Belchers and Willow to show her some of his dance moves as if he were a bird of paradise doing a courtship dance ritual. Unfortunately, he lost sight of them in the mall crowd. Not wanting to dwell on feeling blue of not being able to show off some dance moves to a cute girl, he moved on and continued to what he was originally doing. The speed dating idea at Bob’s Burgers did not go well for Willow. After she spent so many hours with failed attempt after failed attempt, she had become jaded and gave up. It was just a stupid wedding for a person she didn’t even like that much anyway. She decided she was just not fit for dating and she would go to the wedding alone. So the next day she decided to look up some waltz tutorial videos just in case maybe a cousin would want to dance with her or something. Unfortunately, the internet was down at the worst possible time in her apartment. So, against her better judgment and her roommate’s suggestion, she goes to the “I Want to Dance with My Body” studio to do waltz lessons before the event. She yet again had hit another hurdle when the studio still hadn’t found a new dancing teacher for waltzing. Willow was going to leave depressed until Flips slides on the counter to Willow immediately telling her he can help her out. Shocked at some random guy that slid his booty on a counter and almost crashed into her, she had several questions. The most important one being, how was this 90s kidz bop reject going to teach her waltz? Flips told her not to let looks deceive her and reassured her that he knew more about dancing than just hip-hop. He was lying through his braces. Willow was very suspicious, she was desperate though and had taken what she could get. Flips had told her to come back later when it was less busy and then he spent all his free time watching waltz videos so he could make what he said less of a lie. With bare minimum knowledge and the dance steps drawn on the back of his hands, he was ready. Ready to crash and burn! Willow had noticed the pen marks on the back of his hand immediately and Flips admitted to her his intentions. Willow was touched and surprised by the reason why Flips had done what he had done. No guy had put this much effort to get to know her before and to her surprise, it made her want to stay. To even more her surprise, she asked him to be her wedding date on a whim. Surprised, be excitedly he accepts the offer. So together, they both watch waltz videos and continue practicing. However, Willow made it clear not to add any hip-hop. She didn’t want to stand out and doing hip-hop at a wedding would do exactly that. Willow was very lucky that Flips found her cute.

What was their first impression of each other?

He was allured at first sight to Willow’s beauty (not full-on love yet). Willow was surprised to find an adult more cringe fail than her, that’s saying a lot with her social anxiety.

Did any of their friends or family want them to get together? Shelly was super supportive of Flips’ feelings for Willow as soon as she saw him desperately do whatever it took to get to know Willow more. Sam and Bridget strongly believe Willow can do better than Flips, but are okay with him as long as Willow is happy. Flips is embarrassing as all heck, but at least he’s not a deadbeat or abusive. That’s what Willow’s parents tell themselves at least. Willow's roommate, Anna didn’t care who Willow dated as long as they did their “business” when she was not around, didn’t steal anything, or trash the place.

Who felt romantic feelings first?

Flips, he fell for Willow the moment she did an arm wave during their waltz to signal to him that he has permission to be himself. Thus they perform a hip-hop waltz fusion dance at Willow’s bratty family member’s wedding.

Did either of them try to resist their feelings?

Willow did initially. She didn’t want to admit to herself that she could fall for someone that has such a one-track mind like Flips. She wasn’t the biggest fan of hip hop and thought she would go insane if she heard about “hip hop this” and “hip hop that” every single day for the rest of her life. He was just supposed to be her wedding date and then they would never speak to each other again. However, after they left the reception, Willow laments how sweet Flips had been and wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him. Flips stayed the night at Willow’s apartment. Nothing happens between them except them holding each other to sleep on the couch. Willow realized how pretentious to Flips she had been in her mind and she was disgusted with herself. She’s spent years never being in a real relationship all because of her vitiligo and social anxiety. Here comes a sweet guy who genuinely likes her and she’s judging him just because he loves hip-hop and is not ashamed of how it makes him look. She’s no better than the people that judged or bullied her and she doesn’t want to be that way. So she officially stops seeing herself as above Flips and admitted to herself that he finds him very sexy in a suit and even likes his stupid haircut. No matter what happened next, she wanted to see this relationship through.

If you had told one of them that the other would be their soulmate, what would they think?

Flips: *wolf whistles* woo, damn! I gotta find my boom box.

Willow: Figures, 7.888 billion people in the world and I get the one with saggy jeans. I guess it’s better than being boring, I suppose.

What would their lives be like if they had never met?

For Willow, life would be boring and lonely. For Flips, life would be aimless. He would be content where he is but he would have no long-term goals to strive for.

GENERAL

Who initiated the relationship, and how did it go?

Technically Flips is the one that got the ball rolling. Willow was the first to ask him out for just one date when she saw all the effort he put in just to spend time with her. She was desperate at the time and figured might as well go with the guy that seemed to really like her. It went better than expected after a metaphorical fiery exit from the wedding reception. Flips did everything he could to make Willow feel better after she was trying to hide her triggered feelings of being called an old, mean name from her childhood (birch and cow for example). Willow realizes how much she actually values Flips’ company and doesn’t want him to leave yet. So she set aside her original plan and decided to see where the relationship will take her.

Did they have an official first date? If so, what was it like?

Flips and Willow both agreed to not count the wedding date as their official, first date and decided to go on a real one asap. On their official, first date they just go around the city taking pictures of graffiti before it gets cleaned off, eat at Bob’s Burgers, back to the apartment for a private dance session (not an innuendo people!), and watch a bit of anime while cuddling together on the couch.

What was their first kiss like?

The kiss was a very heat-of-the-moment type of thing that Willow felt guilty about rushing after the fact. She deeply needed to feel like she was wanted and not alone after being called an old, mean name she hasn’t been called in years. Willow felt like she used Flips for self-gratification when she never intended for them to go past a kiss. She never realized how selfish and manipulative she was and she didn’t like that. Even so, Flips didn’t let the first kiss stop at one in that moment and Willow didn’t push him away. After they took a breather, Willow admits to him that she was not ready to say goodbye. So Flips stayed over at Willow’s apartment to hold each other and talked until they both fell asleep on the couch. They didn’t continue kissing at that moment because Willow lamented how she treated Flips. Meanwhile, Flips just sort of had a feeling something was up with her, something they could discuss in the morning. They work it out in the morning and Willow is reassured by Flips that she’s too hard on herself and they are cool.

Were they each other’s first anything (kiss, relationship, etc.)?

Flips and Willow kissed other people before they kissed each other. However Flips is Willow’s first, real relationship and everything else. Flips has had more dating experience than Willow but never anything long-term. He definitely gives me talks a big game but still virgin boy vibes (nothing wrong with being a virgin but still) so I don’t think he ever got all the way with any of his dates whenever he miraculously landed them with his “mad dance skills”.

What’s their height difference? Age difference?

Flips is 5’9” and 29 going on 30 soon. Willow is 28 and 5’6”.

What’s their relationship with each other’s families? Do they share a friend group?

Shelly adores Willow and thinks she’s the most precious thing to ever grace her and Flips’ life. Willow is flattered by Shelly’s affection but it can be a bit much for her at times given her introverted nature.

Sam and Bridget don’t hate Flips. They’re glad he and their daughter are happy together. They just really don’t know what to make of him, mostly Sam. Sam doesn’t know whether to laugh or feel offended by the persona Flips’ presents himself as. They both know he’s harmless though and the world’s least threatening gangsta. Both Sam and Bridget are both introverts and find Flips’ extroverted personality very exhausting to be around. So they’re content with just seeing him on holidays and special events.

Willow doesn’t really have that many friends. She’s not close to the people she works with at Wagstaff and can’t really stand some of them. Even the roommate she’s known for 4 years she’s not close with because they just never really thought to be more than people that just help each other pay expensive rent. Though, through Flips’ natural extroversion, Willow and Anna eventually decided to hang out more because it’s kind of weird that they didn’t in the first place.

The closest thing Willow has to a friend is Linda when she forced her help onto her. Flips hang around people that also love the culture of hip-hop. Despite being great at starting conversations with random people and being unapologetically himself, he doesn’t really have any steady friends. The people he tried to hang out with think he’s a joke and pretty much ditch him when they can. Not until Willow and Anna does he have an official steady friend group.

Who takes the lead in social situations?

Flips being the more extroverted of the two generally is the one to start conversations first. It gives mixed results, especially when they are at a more serious event. Oh well, at least it’s never boring.

Who gets jealous easier?

The two are pretty neutral levels of jealousy. Honestly, Willow is probably more jealous of Flips being able to become friends with her roommate faster than her than him getting with her roommate. She’s known Anna for 4 years and she’s still just Anna’s acquaintance that peacefully co-exists with her and sometimes uses her as a guinea pig for food recipes she needs reviews on for her internet video cooking/ukulele song cover series.

Once Flips realizes Willow has probably seen tons of live, nude models for her art education, he becomes more insecure than actually jealous. It immediately gets dropped though when Willow points out that some of the hip-hop music videos he’s seen are way more sexualized than her drawings of nude models she had no interest in.

Who whispers inappropriate things in the other’s ear?

Flips, especially since his boo’s name is Willow. It’s practically gift-wrapped for him. Dirty jokes aren’t really Willow’s thing so it can be a bit annoying sometimes. Though, when she’s feeling particularly flirty she responds with a meow or purr just to see Flips be caught off guard.

LOVE

Who said “I love you” first? Flips. It was out of the blue, way too soon, and Willow was not ready for it.

What are their primary love languages?

Quality time, physical, and words of affirmation.

Who uses cheesy pick-up lines?

Flips, to no one’s surprise. Willow loves cheese though.

How often do they cuddle/engage in PDA?

Flips’ most common form of PDA for Willow is to rub her back as if it was a record on a turntable or hold her hand just in case for whenever he gets excited and wants to twirl her around or pull her close to dance. Willow’s cuddling is usually reserved for the privacy of her apartment or just anywhere where no one can gawk at them.

When they are alone it gets more intimate such as Flips kissing specifically on her vitiligo patterns. For Willow it’s either lots of hugging, rubbing back while hugging, kissing cheeks, and most intimately, her fingers playfully circling around Flips’ Adam’s apple slowly.

Who initiates kisses? Despite Willow being the one to start it, Flips is the one that initiates the majority of the kisses.

Who’s the big and little spoon? Flips is the big spoon and Willow is the little spoon. Though they switch up every once in a while for funsies.

What are their favorite things to do together?

Since Flips is an extrovert and Willow is an introvert, it can be a balancing act for them to figure out what to do together that won’t drain them too quickly. Flips loves anything involved with the hip-hop culture and Willow loves anything involving some form of art and people expressing different types of creativity. So they do a lot of compromising and try to do a mix of both of those things. Some of the examples are watching rap/dance battles (and watching Flips participate in them), checking out new graffiti, going to dinner theater, check out new, off-Broadway musicals.

Flips would go to more nightclubs with Willow if he had it completely his way while Willow wishes they would go to Art Crawl or art museums in general more.

Though, when they just stay home they enjoy playing some videos games/board games/cards (sometimes with Anna), binging some shows or anime, freestyle song-making sessions with Anna (once Willow and she finally decided to actually hang out more), Flips being her model as she practices her 5/10/30 minute sketches, and making out. (XD)

Who’s better at comforting the other?

I think they both equally do well at comforting each other but Flips would say Willow just to make her feel good because of her originally wanting to be an art therapist.

Who’s more protective?

Depending on the situation, they can be equally protective of each other. Though Flips slightly more so because of him being on “The streets” more.

Do they prefer verbal or physical affection?

Even though at the start, Willow was very touch-starved she actually values verbal affection a little more. Flips is all about physical affection but would never turn down some verbal affection.

What are some songs that apply to their relationship, in-universe or otherwise?

I have a whole playlist dedicated to them XD!

What kind of nicknames do they call each other?

Flips calls her boo, bae, babe, Willz, Low-fi, and his abstract beauty. It’s an uphill battle for Willow to come up with nicknames for Flips Whitefudge, so she mostly just calls him Flips. Though the best attempts she tried to make were Flip, Flip Flop, Flying Flips, and probably the best one, her snickety snack.

Who remembers the little things?

Willow tries her best to because getting to see the look on Flips’ face when he receives a gift from her that is only possible because she remembered offhand things Flips said brings her joy. She values her quality time with Flips and tries to show it by remembering the small things.

Flips tries to as well, but he isn’t as good at it as Willow.

DOMESTIC LIFE

If they get married, who proposes?

Flips moves in with Willow and Anna for a bit before Willow and he gets married. Flips is the first to propose, but it went badly because he did it post-sex and no ring (or at least anything to symbolize one). Thankfully, it didn’t end the relationship and Willow just wanted more effort for next time. Anna gave Flips a lot of ribbing for his blunder. He did better on the second attempt and Willow said yes. The second attempt took so long that Willow was the one that almost proposed to him.

What’s the wedding like? Who attends?

Small wedding with just close friends and family. Anna and her family and the Belchers duel cater it. However, Anna’s family has a bit more responsibilities (which is fine for the Belchers given the last wedding they catered to). Shelly and Willow’s parents are of course there.

The only thing I’m not sure about is whether I want a surprise guest appearance from Flips' estranged dad for the wedding or not, you know for the angsty drama. I’m honestly still debating on whether I want Flips’ dad to be dead or just a deadbeat that left him and Shelly when he was 11 ½.

How many kids do they have, if any? What are they like?

They want kids eventually but aren’t in a rush to have them. They are mostly waiting until they have their own place and not needing to room with Anna anymore. I’m not sure how many yet when they do have them though. I’m thinking either one or twins (one for hip and one for hop XD).

Do they have any pets?

No pets are allowed in the apartment they live with Anna. Flips joked about getting a cat before (because of Willow’s name), he never committed to it though. They eventually get an American fuzzy lop rabbit named Disco and a Lionhead rabbit named Snoopy.

Who’s the stricter parent?

Willow, she’s an art teacher so she has to have some strictness in her.

Who worries the most?

Definitely, Willow is more outwardly a worrywart.

Who kills the bugs in the house?

When they live with Anna, it’s Anna. When they get their own place, Flips takes the job, sees the size of the bug, and immediately calls his mom to deal with it. Only for the really big ones though! XD

How do they celebrate holidays?

They mostly visit in-laws for the holidays. Shelly and Flips usually go singing hip-hop versions of Christmas carols to their neighbors around Christmas time while Willow is dragged along too. It’s mostly traditional at the Hughes residence during the holidays. Big holiday dinners, watching holiday specials, catching up on everything with each other, and playing holiday-based trivia games.

When they don’t visit the in-laws, they keep it casual, order some pizza instead of having a big holiday meal, watch holiday specials, play some games, and sing hip-hop versions of holiday songs (though thankfully, no forcing Willow to sing them outside in the cold).

Who’s more likely to convince the other to come back to sleep in the morning?

Probably Willow because it doesn’t take too much to convince Flips to stay in bed. Meanwhile, it takes more convincing for Willow to stay, though not by much because they both are very bad at resisting more sleep.

Who’s the better cook?

They both are pretty average at cooking and would rather have anyone else cook for them instead. Though Willow takes longer in the kitchen than Flips does for his food because she really values the presentation of her food as an artist, even if it’s still mid in the end.

Who likes to dance?

Do I really need to say it, you all know who this answer is for?!

As for Willow, she was never much of a dancer before Flips. After Flips, she’s still not as active of a dancer as Flips, but she’s gotten more comfortable with how she looks when dancing and does her best no matter how bad she is at it. Her favorite dance move is to be twirled around. Spinny dance moves are just really fun to her.

[ailendolin]

Grace - Chapter 8/10

Title: Grace [AO3]

Characters: Thomas, Alison, Mike, Baby Cooper, the Ghosts, the Plague Ghosts

Summary: “Mike and I are going to have a baby.”

Baby Cooper’s arrival at Button Houses changes many things, and all for the better - at least at first. Or as Mary once said: babies can see ghosts sometimes but usually only up until they can walk.

Chapters: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8

————

Grace

Chapter 8: The Birthday

Alison wakes up the next morning to a gentle tap on her shoulder. She swats at the hand and turns onto her side, intent on going back to sleep. Quiet laughter rings out behind her before Mike presses a kiss onto the tip of her ear and whispers, “Come on, Ali. We need to get the kitchen ready.”

Alison groans but forces her eyes open. They had actually planned to decorate the kitchen the night before but since Grace refused to settle down once again, they’d ultimately decided to just do it in the morning. Alison regrets that now. She squints up at Mike and is pretty sure he does so too despite the amusement twinkling in his eyes. They share a tired smile before they roll out of bed and, still in their pyjamas, quietly tip-toe past the still sleeping birthday girl.

Once downstairs, Mike gets started on the balloons while Alison goes to grab the presents. She arranges them together with the cake and lots of paper streamers on the kitchen table before they join forces to hang up the Happy Birthday banner and decorate it with the balloons. Alison can’t help but laugh when Mike tries to turn one of the elongated ones into a dog and ends up with something that looks more like an octopus than man’s best friend.

“Maybe you should have watched a YouTube tutorial first,” she can’t help but tease.

Mike frowns at her. “I have – two, actually! This looked a lot easier in the videos.”

Alison bites her lip but doesn’t say anything when he tries again and somehow manages to create a dinosaur this time.

Once everything is ready and hung up, octopus and dinosaur included, they take a step back and admire their work.

“Not bad for a first birthday, eh?” Mike says and pulls her close.

Alison nods and wraps her arms around him. “If only she could still see the ghosts.”

Mike drops a kiss onto her hair. “Yeah, I know. But we’ll make the most of it. We’ll make her happy.”

He sounds so confident that Alison can’t help but look up at him and smile. “Of course we will. I just wish we could do the same for the ghosts, you know?”

Mike contemplates that for a moment before he says with the same confidence, “We’ll think of something.”

He has never met these people, has not talked to them or laughed with them and yet Alison knows Mike means every word he said: he will think of something because he cares, and because he knows their ghostly housemates mean the world to both her and their daughter. Nothing she could say could possibly hope to convey how much that means to her, so Alison simply leans up to kiss him, long and gentle and lingering.

“What was that for?” Mike asks with a besotted grin after they pull apart.

Alison shrugs and kisses him again; a quick peck on the lips this time. “Nothing. I’m just glad to have you in my life.”

He looks a little confused but also pleased. “Right back at you.”

They meet for another kiss when the clock chimes, Fanny screams and Grace begins to cry. It’s not the desperate, grieving crying they’ve gotten used to over the last few days but her old, grumpy Why am I awake? crying, and it makes Alison smile.

“I can’t believe she’s a year old already,” she says with a shake of her head as she steps out of Mike’s arms.

“Remember how tiny she was when we brought her home?” Mike asks, holding out his hands to indicate Grace’s size back then. He errs a little on the small side but Alison doesn’t correct him.

“She’ll be grown before we know it,” she says instead, her tone just a little wistful.

Mike hushes her. “Don’t remind me. She’ll be bringing boys home in no time.” He pauses, thinks. “Or girls, I suppose. God, can you imagine? Our little girl, all grown up?”

Alison takes his hand and gently pulls him out of the kitchen. “Let’s celebrate her first birthday first before we start panicking about her kissing someone behind the barn.”

They ascend the stairs together and Alison’s heart melts when they enter their bedroom and find Grace standing up in her crib with her tiny fists wrapped around the railing and hiccupping as she looks up at them.

“Where’s my birthday girl?” Mike asks with the biggest grin Alison has ever seen. He reaches down and swoops Grace up into his arms, turning the hiccups into giggles. “There she is!”

He hands her over and Alison hugs her daughter close for a moment. “Happy birthday, sweetheart.”

While Mike dresses Grace in a pretty light green dress for the occasion, Alison gets dressed herself. Out of the corner of her eye she can see Mike holding up one of his fingers while patiently explaining to their daughter that she is one year old today. Alison is not sure Grace is able to grasp the concept of birthdays yet but she does mimic Mike by holding up her own finger just like he does. Mike, proud as any father would be, beams down at her, his heart overflowing with love. “Yes, that’s right! One!”

Grace repeats the word and happily claps her hands when Mike praises her.

“Well done, Grace!” Alison cuts in, taking over so Mike can get dressed as well. She holds up her own finger to show Grace how old she is. “You’re one year old!”

Outside the bedroom, she can hear the ghosts excitedly making their way downstairs to the kitchen. It’s the happiest she has heard them since Grace has started walking and everything went to hell. Their hushed whispers – completely unnecessary now that Grace can no longer see or hear them –make her smile. Grace, clever girl that she is, picks up on it immediately and covers her eyes with her hands. “Boo?”

Alison briefly wonders if moments like this will ever not feel bittersweet.

“The ghosts have just gone downstairs to the kitchen,” she tells Grace, willing her smile not to wobble. “And you know what? I think they have some presents for you!”

Grace’s eyes grow wide even though she understands the concept of presents about as much as she understands birthdays. It’s quite adorable how easily excitable she is, though, and Alison fiercely hopes she’ll never lose that, no matter how many candles sit on top of her birthday cake.

With that thought, she picks Grace up and reaches for Mike’s hand. “Let’s get this party started.”

Grace happily waves at Humphrey’s portrait as they pass it on their way downstairs, and Alison absentmindedly wonders if Thomas, true to his word, will be there when they enter the kitchen. She hopes he will be but at the same time would never hold it against him if he chose not to. She knows she asked a lot of him yesterday when she brought up Grace’s birthday; asked, perhaps, too much.

Before her thoughts can spiral, they reach the kitchen and Mike, along with the ghosts, shouts, “Surprise!”

Grace’s eyes widen in awe as she takes in the colourful balloons, paper streamers, presents and, finally, the cake Mike made for her the day before. She’s clearly delighted by all the colours and glitter – and so are Robin and Kitty, Alison notices as her eyes stray to the ghosts. They’re all there, every single one of them, even young Jemima. And there, standing by the stove with Humphrey’s head in his hands, is Thomas, flanked by Lady Button and Julian. The moment his eyes fall on Grace – the first time since that fateful evening – his tense smile begins to waver. Longing like Alison has never seen before washes over his face for a brief second before he visibly reins it in to keep smiling even though Grace can’t see him.

It breaks Alison’s heart, and when Mike lights the single candle on the cake and begins to sing Happy Birthday, she knows deep down in her heart that it was wrong of her to ask Thomas to be here today. Guilt churns in her stomach but since there’s nothing she can do about it now, she pushes it down as far as it will go and joins in on the song. It doesn’t take long for Mick’s unmistakable voice to rise above everyone else’s, much to Lady Button’s chagrin, and if she listens closely, Alison thinks she can also make out Thomas’s voice. It’s so quiet it’s barely noticeable; small and fragile like a wind chime made of glass. He always had a lovely voice but today he sounds brittle, like he’s been stretched too thin or tasked to carry a burden he can’t bear. If Grace could see him right now, Alison is sure her daughter would stretch out her tiny hands towards him in an attempt to comfort him. She’s always done that whenever Thomas got that far away look in his eyes around her, and it has never failed to put a smile on his face.

“You make it so easy to forget my worries, Lady Cooper,” he used to tell her before he stuck out his tongue and made silly noises to make her laugh.

As they sing the chorus one last time, it suddenly hits Alison that Grace will probably not remember this day; that she’ll forget the ghosts who have doted on her and watched over her for the first year of her life. She will forget Thomas’s stories, playing peek-a-boo with Kitty and the Captain, and the funny faces Lady Button liked to pull for her (and still firmly denies ever doing). The ghosts will quite literally become just that for her – ghosts. Faint memories she will never be able to fully grasp and which will grow ever fainter as time goes on. Alison will do her best to keep them alive for her – of course she will – but no amount of stories or paintings or retellings will be able to capture the soft look in Thomas’s eyes when he made her smile or the spring in Mary’s step when Grace said her name for the first time.

None of it will let Grace ever hear them sing Happy Birthday to her.

The song fades into silence, and as Alison blinks hard against the sudden tears in her eyes, Grace claps her hands excitedly and points at the corner where Jemima is standing, hugging her beloved doll close to her chest. “’mima!”

And just like that Alison feels like laughing rather than crying.

Of course, she thinks as Jemima’s lips twitch into a small but happy smile and mentally slaps her forehead. Of course she can hear her sing!

And so can Mike.

“I swear, this will never not be creepy,” he mutters under his breath.

Alison flashes him an admonishing look before she tells Grace that Jemima is waving at her. Grace giggles and waves back at the corner. It’s moments like these that remind her that not all is lost and that the ghosts can still be a part of their daughter’s life.

Just not all of them.

“All right, time to blow out the candle!” Mike declares and together with him, Alison leans forward so they can help Grace should she struggle. In the end, after three tries (and a slightly disgusting amount of spit splattering all over the cake) Grace manages to blow the candle out all on her own and the room erupts into cheers – along with a sad, “Aw,” from Robin who is mourning the loss of the flame.

“Well done,” Alison says proudly and presses a kiss to Grace’s cheek that makes her squeal in delight. She shares a look with Mike. “Cake first or presents?”

“Presents, of course,” Mike says.

He’s looking deeply affronted, and so does Pat. “You can’t keep her waiting, Alison! She’s just a child!”

Alison holds up her hands in defeat. “Pat says you’re right so presents it is.”

“Pa?” Grace asks curiously, looking around.

Alison bites her lip, silently hoping she hasn’t just ruined the birthday morning by mentioning one of the ghosts Grace can no longer interact with. “Yeah, Pat’s right there. And so are the others! They’re wishing you a very happy birthday!”

Grace blinks at the empty air around her for a moment.

“Pa,” she declares happily. Then she looks up at Alison, her young face way too serious for her age. “’omas?”

She sounds so hopeful that Alison is glad that this time, she can actually tell her, “Yeah, Thomas is here, too. He’s right there.”

She points at the stove where Thomas is standing and Grace, bless her, shrieks and waves her tiny hands excitedly in its direction. “’omas!”

Happy to see her daughter not bursting into tears for once at the mere mention of Thomas’s name, Alison looks up and smiles at Thomas, expecting to see him smiling too. He isn’t, though. His eyes are full of heartbreak and even though he’s biting his lip so hard he would probably draw blood if he were still alive, the next ragged breath he sucks in catches in his throat and turns into a broken sob.

Oh no, Alison thinks, feeling the smile slip from her face. Thomas ducks his head when the others turn towards him and seems to shrink under the unwanted attention.

“I’m sorry,” he manages to choke out before he turns and presses Humphrey’s head into the Captain’s hands. “I thought I could do this but I can’t.”

With that, he pushes past the Captain and runs from the room.

Alison wants to follow him, wants to fix this mess she made, but Grace is still happily babbling away next to her and hasn’t even opened any of her presents yet. She can’t go after Thomas, not now. Her daughter has to come first, no matter how much it breaks her heart right now.

“I will go after him,” the Captain suddenly states, and Alison has never been more grateful that he’s a man of action than in that moment. Knowing that Thomas won’t be alone – won’t vanish without trace again – make the guilt she feels a little easier to bear. 

“Take me with you, will you?” Humphrey asks before the Captain gets the chance to pass on his head to Julian. “You’ll probably need reinforcements.”

“Very well,” the Captain says before he clears his throat and, with a nod to Alison, marches out of the room.

For a brief moment, Alison allows herself to close her eyes. A tug on her shirt makes her look up into Mike’s concerned face.

“What happened?” he whispers so as not to alert Grace who is currently trying her best to reach the cake with her short arms.

Alison shakes her head and mouths, “Later,” before she takes a deep breath, puts on a smile and ignores the heavy silence from the ghosts around her. “All right, Grace, are you ready to open your presents?”

The fake excitement in her voice is enough to make Grace giggle but not enough to stop the ghosts from glancing at the door Thomas has vanished through. Still, they shuffle forward a little to watch the unwrapping. After all, most of the presents are from them.

Weeks ago, Alison had gone around and asked each of them if they wanted to get Grace something for her birthday. They’d all said yes – of course they had – so now the majority of the presents on the table are from them. Alison had been forced to intervene with some of the suggestions – because no matter what Julian says, Baywatch Barbie is not a suitable present for a one-year-old – but overall, her and Mike’s idea to include the ghosts had been a huge success.

Grace for her part seems to be enjoying tearing off the brightly coloured wrapping paper immensely. In the end, three of the presents capture her attention the most. There’s the little doll that’s made of fabric rather than plastic and was Jemima’s idea (“It will always make her feel safe.”). Then there’s the plush moon Robin chose (“Moonah always watching over her.”) and last but not least, the musical book Thomas selected after carefully browsing through the options in the online shop for an hour – which had felt more like two at the time, Alison has to admit. It plays different melodies, depending on which symbols get pushed, and it delights Grace to no end. Alison isn’t really surprised by it – the book is from Thomas, after all. That alone makes it special, especially now.

And speaking of special – when Mike hands Grace the painting and helps her unwrap it, Alison gets out her phone and starts filming. She wants to capture this moment – not just for Grace but for Thomas as well. The portrait is as much a present from him as it is from her and Mike, and she wants Thomas to be able to see how happy it made Grace, whenever he is ready. So she does her best to hold her phone steady while her daughter’s tiny fingers struggle adorably with the wrapping paper. With Mike’s help and gentle encouragement, Grace eventually manages to unwrap one corner of her present.

“Oh?” she makes, clearly intrigued, before she proceeds to tear the rest of the paper away with little finesse but boundless enthusiasm. Alison swears she can hear Grace’s breath catch in her throat when she finally unveils Thomas’s waistcoat and cravat. “’omas!”

She giggles excitedly and then, more carefully than before, pushes away the remaining wrapping paper to reveal Thomas’s face. A smile so bright and beautiful Alison feels her throat close up lights up Grace’s eyes and she touches the contours of Thomas’s face even more reverently than she’s touched the Ghost Chart the day before.

Alison looks up and catches Nigel’s gaze. He nods at her with soft eyes, approvingly.

“Well done,” he mouths. The others murmur in agreement and watch, bemused, as Grace stretches out her little arms, clearly wanting to hold the painting.

“I think that’s a bit too big for you to hold, sweetheart,” Mike says but holds it out for her anyway. Grace presses her face against it and closes her eyes, causing everyone’s hearts to melt instantly. “Aw.”

She looks like she wants to crawl into the picture and it gives Alison an idea. She files it away for later and stops recording to press a kiss on the top of her daughter’s head. “Happy birthday, Grace. Do you like your presents from the ghosts?”

Grace smiles toothily up at her and nods.

It takes a bit of convincing to get her to let go of the painting but in the end, Mike’s persuasive arguments – the promise of cake, mainly – win out and Grace relinquishes her hold. Alison props it up on the cupboard along with all the other presents so Grace can see it while she eats, and as she passes behind Mike she whispers, “I’m going to check up on Thomas, all right?”

He gives her a worried look. “Too much too soon?”

“Yeah,” Alison sighs guiltily.

Mike nods. “Go. I’ve got breakfast handled.”

“You’re the best.”

She slips out of the kitchen without Grace noticing and doesn’t have to go far to find Thomas. He’s sitting on the lowest step of the grand staircase with his head in his hands while Humphrey’s head is propped up against the step above him. The Captain is sitting on his other side, and one of his hands is resting on his shoulder in comfort.

“I let her down,” Alison hears Thomas murmur against his palms, and her heart goes out to him. She has no idea if he’s talking about Grace or her – perhaps both of them – but she knows she’s the reason he’s blaming himself right now. She added this guilt to his pain and made an already difficult situation even worse for him – all because she wanted to celebrate Grace’s first birthday with all the ghosts and pretend for five minutes that everything is normal.

It’s not an unreasonable thing to want, Alison knows, but it’s a terribly selfish one.

“You didn’t let anyone down,” she says softly as she approaches the staircase, guilt weighing down every one of her steps. “I did.”

Thomas drops his hands and looks up at her. His eyes are dry but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been crying. Alison gives him a sad smile and sits down next to him. “I shouldn’t have asked you to come today.”

“Oh,” Thomas says. He sounds small, and he looks that way too when he glances down at his hands. “My deepest apologies for ruining the party.”

His voice breaks on the last word and something inside Alison breaks with it.

“Oh Thomas, no, that’s not– that’s not what I meant at all. You didn’t ruin anything,” she says softly and desperately wishes she could reach out to him and take his hand in hers to emphasise her words. “I wanted you to be part of Grace’s birthday so much that I didn’t stop to think what you wanted, what you needed, and I’m sorry about that. I should have given you more time.”

The Captain gives her a curt nod of approval before he glances over at Thomas who is still staring down at his hands. His fingers are restlessly fiddling with the cuff of his sleeves, a nervous habit that’s as much a part of him as his dimples or poetry are.

“A week ago,” he begins quietly, “I was so excited for today. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything in the world. Now I can barely look at her without feeling my heart break.” He takes a shuddering breath and finally meets Alison’s eyes. “But I don’t regret being there. It … it was good to see her happy.”

He offers her a wobbly smile that Alison knows is meant to put her at ease but has the opposite effect. It only lasts a few seconds. Then it fades away like sunlight on a winter afternoon and Thomas lets out a very long sigh. “I just wish love didn’t always have to be mingled with grief.”

He wraps his arms around himself and looks away again. The Captain regards him quietly for a moment. There is an old pain in his eyes that death has not yet managed to soften. Alison has often wondered what had caused it and certainly had her suspicions but she’s never asked him, knowing the Captain isn’t ready to talk about it yet. If only she had extended that same kind of patience towards Thomas yesterday. “Sometimes, that’s just how it is and all we can do is make the best of it.”

“Or fade away,” Thomas murmurs.

Alison’s heart misses a beat. She exchanges an alarmed look with Humphrey and the Captain before she scoots closer to Thomas, as close as she can without touching him, and says in a low voice, “Don’t you dare, Thomas Thorne. Don’t you dare put us through that again. We searched for you for three days, day and night. And do you know why?” Thomas sniffs and shakes his head. “Because we love you. You’re family, Thomas, and I … I can’t lose you again. I just can’t.”

She’s breathing hard by the time she’s finished and her eyes are burning with tears she thought herself no longer capable of crying. But at the same time it feels good to finally let it all out; cathartic.

“I’m sorry,” Thomas whispers miserably. He looks like a kicked puppy with his hunched shoulders and cast down eyes. “I did not think–”

“That we’d miss you?” Humphrey asks softly. “Of course we would, mate. We’ve already lost Grace. We don’t want to lose you too.”

The Captain nods. “Who’d bore us with terrible poetry if you weren’t around, hm?”

Alison winces at the Captain’s clumsy attempt at a light-hearted joke but, surprisingly, it seems to work. Thomas lets out a soft laugh and in a moment of rare vulnerability and trust, rests his head on the Captain’s shoulder and lets him bear his weight for a moment. “I’ll have you know my poetry is not terrible. You’re just not sophisticated enough to understand it.”

“Sure. Whatever you say,” the Captain says fondly and reaches around him to pat his arm.

Thomas sighs and closes his eyes. “Grace lovedmy poems and stories.”

“She sure did, mate,” Humphrey says.

“Do you think she’ll remember them? Remember us?” Thomas asks, very softly.

Oh Thomas, Alison thinks.

“Of course she will,” she says, leaving no room for doubt. “I’ll make sure of that.”

Thomas opens his eyes and looks over at her. “Even if it will cause her pain?”

Behind them, Humphrey chuckles. “Trust me: the look on her face when she unwrapped your painting was as far from pain as it gets.”

“Young Grace is more resilient than you give her credit for,” the Captain adds. “She’s already finding new ways to hold onto us. Granted, it won’t be like before but – well, we’ll still be a part of her life, and she of ours, so to speak. So no more talk of getting sucked off, all right?”

Alison mentally cringes at the expression the ghosts insist on using despite her many attempts to get them to call it moving on. The Captain has a point, though and Thomas – Thomas slowly nods.

“All right,” he whispers. “I’ll … I’ll try.”

“That’s the spirit,” the Captain smiles and gives his arm another pat. “Now, are you ready to re-join the celebrations or would you rather retire to your room?”

Thomas sits up and flashes Alison an apologetic look.

“My room – but there’s no need to accompany me,” he hurriedly adds when the Captain reaches for Humphrey’s head and starts to get up. “Really, I’ll be fine on my own.”

Feeling an irrational fear claw its way up her throat, Alison exchanges a pleading look with Humphrey and the Captain. Please go with him.

“I’d be happy to stay with you,” Humphrey says easily, answering her silent prayers.

“And miss Grace’s birthday?” Thomas shakes his head. “No, she needs you more than I do.”

Alison’s stomach plummets. “Thomas–“

“I won’t run again,” he says quietly, earnestly, and holds her eyes as he places his hand, the one that has bloodstains all over the cuff, over his heart.

It feels like they’re having a whole conversation without saying a single word and in the end, Alison swallows around her fear and gives in. “Promise?”

Thomas bows his head. “Promise.”

“Okay,” Alison whispers. “See you later.”

With a last, grateful nod to her, Humphrey and the Captain, Thomas pushes himself to his feet and ascends the stairs. There is no spring in his step, not like there used to be, but he holds his head up high as he goes. Alison desperately hopes it’s not just for show. She can’t bear the thought of him hiding from them again.

“Don’t worry,” the Captain says, pushing himself to his feet. His knees crack. “He won’t go MIA under my watch – not again.”

“Thanks, Captain,” Alison smiles and tears her eyes away from the upper landing. “I hope you’re right.”

“Thomas is many things,” Humphrey says as they walk back to the kitchen. “But a liar is not one of them. If he’s saying he won’t run, he won’t run.”

The certainty in his tone puts Alison’s frayed nerves at ease, at least a little. She knows she’s overreacting but after the week she’s had, she doesn’t think anyone can blame her for that. Letting go of her worry is hard but when she sees Mike and Grace covered in bits and pieces of cake, she feels a laugh bubbling up her throat and leans down to kiss their sugary sweet cheeks. 

————

Thomas, just like Humphrey said, keeps his promise.

He’s in his room when Alison looks in on him after lunch, and to her surprise he’s not alone: Jemima is with him. She’s sitting next to him with her legs dangling from the bed, and before Alison can make her presence known she hears her say in that quiet, subdued voice of hers, “I’ve been thinking – if you’d like, I could sing one of your poems to Grace. I know it’s not the same but … she’d still get to hear it that way.”

Jemima’s dark eyes are full of anticipation and hope when she looks up at Thomas, and Alison holds her breath as they wait for his reaction.

“You’d do that for me?” Thomas asks, very quietly. He sounds surprised, and deeply moved.

Jemima shrugs one of her shoulders. “I like singing to her, and I like your poetry.”

Thomas blinks. “You do?”

“I don’t really understand it,” Jemima admits, nervously looking down at her doll. “But it sounds nice.”

Something shifts in Thomas’s face, gentles the laugh lines around his eyes. “Maybe we could select a poem and compose a melody together?”

He sounds a little unsure but when Jemima nods with the barest smile on her face and earnestly says, “I’d like that,” he relaxes.

“Yeah, me too.”

Alison decides to leave them be. Thomas is okay – well, as okay as he can be – and most importantly, in very good hands. He doesn’t need her right now and knowing that makes it a little easier for her to enjoy the rest of the day without that constant feeling of worry nagging at her.

She returns to his room later, though, after Grace has been put to bed for the night. Thomas is alone this time so Alison pokes her head around the door and gives him a little wave. “Hey. Can I come in?”

“Of course,” Thomas says, offering her a place on the bed.

Alison smiles and closes the door behind her before she joins him. After a moment of silently debating what to say, she finally settles on, “Grace is asleep.”

Thomas frowns. “But – I didn’t hear her cry.”

Alison allows herself to smile. “That’s because she didn’t. We placed your portrait on the dresser where she could see it and she fell asleep gazing at it. No fussing, no crying.”

“Oh,” Thomas breathes. He glances down at his hands. “That’s … that’s good. Really good.”

“Yeah,” Alison agrees. “It honestly never even crossed my mind that the painting might help her sleep but it worked like a charm.”

“To be as easily soothed as a child,” Thomas muses sadly.

They are both quiet for a moment, revelling in the silence that has settled over the house after days of distress. It almost feels normal, Alison thinks, and even as the thought fills her with hope for the future, she knows that Thomas, out of all of them, will find it the hardest to embrace.

“Is there anything I can do to make things a little easier for you?” she asks softly.

Thomas opens his mouth only to close it again. He shakes his head.

“No, I – I think I just need time.” He pauses to look at her. “Is that okay?”

Alison’s face softens. “Of course it is. Take as long as you need. We’ll be here when you’re ready, and I promise: no more pushing.”

“Thank you,” Thomas says, heartfelt.

He sounds as if a huge weight has just been lifted off his chest and there’s a hint of a spark in his eyes again, a glimmer of optimism that hasn’t been there since the day Grace started walking. It’s that spark that prompts Alison to ask, “Want to watch the sunrise with me tomorrow?”

She knows she’s probably going to regret this when her alarm goes off the next morning but seeing the surprise in Thomas’s eyes, followed by a shy but genuine smile – the first one in days – makes losing an hour of sleep more than worth it. “I’d love that very much.”

Alison smiles. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

With that, she leans over to kiss his cheek, just like she’d done that first Christmas she and Mike had celebrated in Button House, so many years ago, when neither of them had any idea yet what life and death would hold in store for them.

“Goodnight, Thomas,” she says softly.

Thomas, startled by the ghost of her touch, raises his hand to his cheek. His eyes soften. “Goodnight, Alison.”

[scorpiongrassfield]

Video Games Should Be A Good Distraction

Start | Prev

But first… 

“I should text Pat and tell them I’ll be a while,” you say. 

Theo nods. “We wouldn’t want them to worry,” he agrees. 

You take out your phone and pull up your chat history with Pat. 

[I’m going to be out for longer than I thought.]

It takes a few minutes for Pat to text back. 

{is the lead playing hard to get? Smug Emoji}

What? 

After a moment of puzzling, you remember that you’d said you were ‘chasing down a lead’. Alright then. 

[No] 

[I freaked out when I tried to order the pizza and I want to calm down before I try driving again]

{oh.} 

{i was kinda hoping that the amnesia had cured your social anxiety. since you didn’t seem scared of theo at all.} 

[So this is normal for me?]

{panicking when i try to get you to talk to strangers? yeah.}

{getting chummy with someone you just met, to the point of visiting their House Emoji without me? not so much.}

[oh] 

{yeah. chalk it up to another thing that’s weird about the guy. or maybe you just have a lot in common.}

[like what?] 

You can’t help but ask. Pat always seems to know more about everyone than they do. 

{two nerdy trans men with memory issues, anxiety, and a mysterious past involving an incident of violence? idk kid what could you possibly have in common}

{maybe try talking to him about it?}

{go easy on him though, don’t break him}

{go easy on yourself too. we’ll talk more when you get back}

{ps i’m not mad or disappointed that you couldn’t order the Pizza Emoji}

You’re really not sure how to feel about that conversation. You think Pat is trying to be supportive? 

While you have your phone out you look through your contacts again. You want to try texting the other people you used to know, so you send out a very innocuous [Hi] to Angie and Ghost Emoji. 

No one responds immediately, so you put your phone away. 

“Um. The guy on your lock screen looks familiar. What anime is he from?” Theo asks. He’s sitting on the beanbag next to yours. Concrete is sitting on his lap, eyes closed like it’s sleeping. 

“I don’t remember.” 

“Ah. Right.” 

Theo fidgets a little. 

“Well. I don’t suppose you remember what kind of games you like to play?” he asks. 

You shake your head. “You can pick.” 

Theo nods. “Okay. If you like anime… Wait no. That’s a single player. What about…? Oh, wait. I know. Let’s try this one,” he says, leaning over to pull a game off the shelf. 

Concrete “mrrp”s indignantly at having it’s nap spot disturbed. It stretches and stalks off over to its playground. It skitters up into a hidey hole and stays there. 

While you were watching Concrete, Theo was getting the game set up. 

He hands you a controller. 

“So… Do you want to try a tutorial or just jump in?” he asks. 

“I’ll wing it.” You’re pretty good at that, you think. 

Theo nods. “Okay. First let’s choose our characters, then.” 

There are a lot of choices on the screen. Some of them look kind of silly. There’s a bubblegum pink puffball thing, a blocky square guy, and a giant black and red cat thing. 

You settle on a guy with longer blond hair, pointed ears, and a turquoise outfit. He’s holding a sword and a shield, which you think will be practical if this is a fighting game. 

Theo picks a guy with blue hair, blue armor, and a blue cape. His character only has a sword, no shield. 

You smile to yourself. You’ve already secured an advantage. 

The game starts. 

It’s actually pretty fun, though your shield doesn't give you the advantages you expected.

You’re not too bad at it. But Theo does seem to be better. 

You imagine he’s had more practice. 

As you play, the two of you talk. 

You ask Theo about Concrete, since he seems very fond of it. 

Theo tells you about how he obtained Concrete. Apparently, Theo obtained the cat from an acquaintance as a kitten. The acquaintance in question hadn’t realized how much work raising a kitten would be. 

Theo admits, pointedly looking only at the screen, that he had been in a very dark place mentally before Concrete came into his life. 

“He gave me a reason to wake up in the morning. Classes would continue without me, my friends could all find someone else to hang out with, my family certainly wouldn’t miss me. But. If I didn’t get myself out of bed, there would be no one to feed him. If I didn’t come home at night, there would be no one to pet him and make sure he was well loved,” he explains. 

You think this might be the most he’s said without pausing or um’ing since you’ve met him. 

It strikes a chord in you. 

Who would miss you if you disappeared tomorrow. 

Only Pat, you’re pretty sure. Maybe Theo, on the off chance he continued to remember that you exist. 

And you aren’t sure Pat would miss you so much as they’d be mad at themself for letting something bad happen to you under their watch. 

You think if it was the other way around, if Pat disappeared, there would probably be a lot of people that would miss them. They seem like someone with a lot of friends. 

You’re not sure you would be able to survive on your own if Pat disappeared though. 

Does that make you the Concrete in this scenario? 

You frown at that. 

Theo knocks your character off the platform and it dies. 

“I’m glad you have Concrete now. And that you continue to wake up in the morning,” you say, instead of letting yourself drown in your newfound fears. 

“Thank you.” 

After this round, you start a new game. 

This one is a racing game. 

You choose to play as a giant spikey turtle man, while Theo chooses a human man with a green hat that wears overalls. 

This game is more your speed, it turns out. 

As you play, you’re still thinking. 

“You know, Pat said something that makes me think I got kicked out before I started working with them. So I don’t think my family would miss me either,” you admit. 

Theo hums thoughtfully. 

“Thats… not too uncommon. For people like us. Unfortunately,” he says, looking a little pale. 

The round ends, and the next one hasn’t started yet. 

Theo lifts his glasses up to rub at his eyes. 

Now that he’s drawn your attention to them, you realize those glasses are kind of familiar. 

“Can we take a break? I think this is straining my eyes,” you say. You’re picking up Pat’s habit of lying to get what you want. 

“Oh. Sure. My eyes are a little tired too,” he says. 

He stretches after setting the controller down. 

“Um. Were you planning on heading back to Pat now? Or. Did you maybe want to finish our tour?” Theo asks. 

He seems to not want you to leave. 

That suits you fine, because you Do want some answers to a few questions. 

“I wouldn’t mind finishing the tour,” you say. 

Theo beams. 

“Alright, let’s go then.” 

Next

[iatrophilosophos]

Y'all remember when DIY tutorials were like....good?

When I was like a tween you could find a forum or YouTube video or personal website from some super unpolished random usually-also-teen who figured out how to do the exact weird thing you wanted to do. Or if you figured out something cool you would find somewhere to post it and like DIY tutorial posts would get tens of thousands of notes on Tumblr, a good chunk of those notes just people who were like "oh, cool, this isn't my thing, but I should share this in case it's useful to someone!"

There were huge YouTube channels from really dedicated people who like, focused on making really cheap, really creative stuff with as few specialized tools as possible. And then they became...this

And now like, it's all polished shit from extremely rich people and like there definitely are still alcoves of crafting and DIY but they're Very small. Ravelry is the last active, upkept, reasonably-sized old-internet-style crafting space and it's run by a small handful of people who are like, having kind of a bad time it sounds like with a ton of really aggressive focus for shit like the trump ban, Cassidy Forbes being a trans woman, the fact that they allow tagged NSFW content...

Idk I'm just. Sad.

[itsdetachable]

what's it like wearing a fursuit? is there some kind of standard that the person who creates it is expected to hold up to? i remember as a kid watching a yt video of someone in a quad Epona costume walk around a convention on all fours/stilts and always wondered how it was possible.

Fursuits have an absolutely fantastic history! The first fursuits were acts of absolute love towards the characters they represented - made of really whatever ppl could get easily. Faux fur, upholstery foam, mascot suit materials. Over the decades fursuit makers have been making HUGE advancements, and these days fursuits come in a variety of materials and styles. It's wild.

One of the oldest fursuit resources on the internet is Matrices.net and Matrices has been in the Fandom since 1998ish. There's tutorials on the site that show various methods of making fursuits. I'm talking about this bc it's important since you're asking what it's like.

There are some basics to making the suits. Faux fur, of course, and you want better quality fur. Minky or fleece for pawpads and claws and tongues etc. For the head, bases can be made from plastic canvas mesh (though the plastic eventually becomes brittle), upholstery foam (pretty standard), or a resin base (these started popping up a decade? Maybe a little more ago and are pricier). There are also various styles, such as realistic, cartoons, stylized (like my suit, Asher, the suitmaker has a unique style), kemono (Japanese inspired, animated huge eyes with small cute muzzles) and oftentimes how comfortable a suit is is a combination of material and style.

A resin based, toony style head is going to be more breathable than one that is made of foam most of the time, because often the resin form allows for more room in the head for a person's head. Realistic style heads can be stuffer and slightly less comfortable, resin or foam, because the only air holes in the head are the tear duct viewing holes and the mouth. Kemono heads are notoriously stuffy because they often have little air flow (they have huge eyes, but the eyes often have plastic coverings to make them shiny).

Are fursuit makers held to a certain standard? Yes, I mean not like legally I suppose? But the furry Fandom does hold makers to a standard. If your suits are uncomfortable, you'll hear about it. If your service is bad, you'll get bad reviews. If you use poor materials or half ass the construction of your suits, you WILL be called out on it. There are, of course, popular makers that have avoided being dragged for things they should have been, but in general if you're doing a bad job and your suits are shoddy, people will not buy them and will also tell others about it. Sites like FursuitReview allow ppl to submit reviews for makers in one place making it easier to see if the maker you're thinking of is a good choice or not.

Now, sorry this is very long winded, for my suit Asher, it's decently comfy though stuffy. I did a bad job measuring my head before ordering and the fit is very snug. Not uncomfortable but stuffy. The eyes are a decent enough size to see through, and the mouth is open enough to breathe ok, so overall it's a nice time. The only thing is that, since the head is foam with a faux fur covering, it gets WARM. And there is SWEATING. So Much Sweating. That's par the course for a fursuit, so taking frequent breaks and drinking plenty of fluids is a must. I wore Asher for almost three hours today, took a few breaks and drank water on them.

I'm sorry this was so long. D:

[rapfinancial]

8 Tips for Those Who Have Been Procrastinating on Tax Preparation NJ

If you’re still procrastinating on filing your taxes this year, the good news is that you can still get most of the refund you’re owed (assuming you qualify). The bad news is that there are penalties involved if you wait too long, so it’s best to file as soon as possible if you want to benefit from your refund. Here are eight tips that might help if you’ve been putting off tax preparationin NJ this year.

Early Is Better

If you’re concerned about receiving a tax refund or owing money, you may want to file your taxes early. Filing early allows you to check whether you might be eligible for any credits or deductions that could result in more money in your pocket. If something happened late last year and resulted in a change to your financial situation, filing early also gives you time to change your return before it is officially submitted. However, there are a few things to keep in mind when filing early. For example, you will need to estimate your tax liability as accurately as possible and pay any balance due with an e-file. Additionally, some states require estimated tax payments throughout the year; if you live in one of these states and make an estimated payment during tax season but don’t pay enough during those months (or at all), there’s a chance you’ll receive a bill from your state after submitting your federal return.

Don't Overwhelm Yourself

It’s never too late to get started. Take it one step at a time, and don’t try to do everything at once. Tackle the biggest challenges first and then move to more manageable things. You might be surprised at how easy it is to get back on track if you take things one day or even one hour at a time. And don’t forget about all of those resources available online—you’ll find tax preparation software as well as video tutorials that can make preparing your return less stressful and more rewarding, no matter how little you’ve done so far. Whether you’re trying to learn how to file an amended tax return or figuring out what documents are needed when filing taxes, there are plenty of resources available right here in New Jersey that can help you succeed with ease.

Know What Information You Need

It’s not always easy to know what information you need to file your taxes, especially if you’re a first-time filer. If you don’t have all of your receipts and financial records, it’s okay; there are other ways to gather some of that data. For example, if you own a business or drive for Uber or Lyft, all of your earnings should be recorded and available online; call your bank and credit card companies and request copies of last year’s statements. Try making a list—even an incomplete one—of all sources of income, as well as expenses such as mortgage payments, childcare costs, and charitable donations. These steps will help give you an idea of how much tax you might owe or even whether it makes sense to complete your return at all.

How Long Will This Take?

Although there is a time limit for getting your tax return filed, you may have some wiggle room. There’s no need to panic if you’re still working on things a few days before April 15th. Still, it’s better to do it sooner rather than later so that you can avoid penalties or interest charges. Don’t leave filing to chance—organize your paperwork now and get started as soon as possible.

Don't Wait Until the Last Minute to File

If you’ve been putting off filing your tax return, don’t wait until April 15th to do it. The IRS won’t accept any paper returns before January 28th and depending on how complicated your taxes are, you may need more time than that to file. Even if you pay someone else to prepare your taxes, it’s best to give them as much time as possible so they can provide you with all of the information and documents you need. If you know what documents are needed ahead of time (e.g., W-2 or 1099 forms from your employer or investment manager), try asking for them in December so that when it comes time to file taxes, things move more quickly and smoothly.

Make Time for Accounting Software

For many people, tax preparation involves a mad scramble to get all their information together. One mistake that can be made when you’re working under a tight deadline is using an Excel spreadsheet or piece of paper to manage your tax information. While these methods may work in certain situations, it’s important to know that if your situation is more complex, you should probably use accounting software—not only will it help you file in time, but there are specific functions that are designed specifically for tax management. No matter what method you choose to use, having one set way of filing taxes will make life easier come next April.

Do Your Taxes or Hire Someone?

Tax laws are complex, and it’s easy to make mistakes if you’re doing your taxes yourself. Many of us know enough about tax preparation to get by, but that can be dangerous: In fact, in 2014 more than 5.6 million Americans filed their returns incorrectly (which led to a big refund delay) or didn’t file at all because they made a mistake and then got stumped when they couldn’t figure out how to fix it. If you’ve been procrastinating on filing your tax return because you don’t understand something, now is a good time to ask for help from someone who does—either an accountant or a friend/family member who has helped with taxes before.

Ask For Help If You Need It

If you’re struggling to prepare your tax return by yourself, don’t be afraid to ask someone else to help. A tax professional can help you avoid simple mistakes and make sure that everything is done correctly. If you prefer to do it yourself, some tax software programs are very easy to use. You should take extra care when inputting data into a tax program, however, as doing so incorrectly could lead to a delay in getting your refund or additional penalties from the IRS. Ask friends and family if they’d be willing to look over your work; it’s never too late to learn something new!

Contact Us:

Address - 115 W. 2nd Ave Unit 1A Roselle, NJ 07203

Email - info@rapfinancial.com

Website - RAP Financial Services

Blog - 8 Tips for Those Who Have Been Procrastinating on Tax Preparation NJ 

[jcmarchi]

How Client Requests Can Undermine Web Performance & Accessibility – Speckyboy

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/how-client-requests-can-undermine-web-performance-accessibility-speckyboy/

How Client Requests Can Undermine Web Performance & Accessibility – Speckyboy

We know the importance of website performance and accessibility. Or at least we should. There’s no shortage of content dedicated to these subjects.

That creates awareness. Hopefully, awareness leads to learning. And learning leads to implementing best practices. There, we’ve made the web a better place!

Not so fast. There’s one factor the tutorials didn’t warn us about – clients. Yes, a client can lay waste to our plans for a fast and accessible site.

The question is: why? Why would a website owner get in the way of progress? Why would they insist on features that diminish the user experience?

There are a few possibilities. Let’s look at some common conflicts and ways to resolve them.

Unlimited Downloads for Web Designers

Starting at just $16.50 per month, download 1,000s of HTML, Bootstrap, and Tailwind CSS, as well as WordPress themes and plugins with Envato Elements. You will also get unlimited access to millions of design assets, photos, video files, fonts, presets, addons, and much more.

A Desire to Impress Users

First, let’s state the obvious. Our clients’ hearts are in the right place. They want a successful outcome as much as we do.

Clients also want to impress users. Sometimes, this puts them at odds with best practices.

The use of massive images is one example. Full-screen photos can be attractive. However, they also bog down page loads. An HD or (gasp!) 4k image is like strapping an anvil to a slow internet connection.

Sliders can produce even worse results. Sure, let’s add a few hundred kilobytes of JavaScript. What could go wrong?

People think that these features will promote conversions. The page will be so attractive that users can’t help but click that call to action. Websites used Flash intros for the same purpose back in the day.

They have good intentions. They may be looking in the wrong place, though.

The Belief That Competitors & Peers Are Right

Competition is a great motivator. So is the status of one’s peers. Both make us want to keep pace with those around us.

It’s a common theme when building a website. Web designers can fall for it as much as clients. You see something shiny and want to replicate it.

Perhaps the company across town uses a video background on every page. It may look cool. But is it the right thing to do?

Clients don’t want to be outclassed by someone in the same industry. They may not consider the consequences of adding such a feature.

A client may also fear that they’ll look bad to potential customers. As in:

“Company A has this feature on their website. They’re clearly superior to Company B.”

The reality may be different. The web’s novelty wore off many years ago. Looks are important. But so is usability. And what good is a video background for someone using assistive technology or a cheap mobile device?

That Their Preferences Are All That Matters

As the saying goes, “The heart wants what it wants.” We can say the same thing about our clients.

A client can become an immovable object when it comes to design. They’ll insist on an inaccessible color scheme. Or a font that is difficult to read.

Some won’t sign off on a design unless it includes all their demands. They’re the customer, after all. And they’re always right.

This thinking also impacts existing websites. A client might want to change a hero section. The reason? They’re sick of looking at the same thing every day.

It may make sense to them. However, they’re once again ignoring users. You know, the people they’re trying to serve.

Change for the sake of change could be a negative. It could confuse visitors and lower conversion rates.

Not everyone can see the bigger picture.

How to Help Your Clients See the Light

Yes, all of the above can be frustrating. There’s no need to lose all hope, though. A good conversation or two can make a difference.

Here are a few pointers for discussing performance and accessibility concerns.

Give an Honest Assessment of Your Concerns

The first step is to provide an honest assessment. Point out the potential problems you foresee.

From there, it’s about explaining each item of concern. Lay out the benefits and drawbacks. Give examples of how a feature impacts users.

For example, a slider could make site navigation more difficult for a visually impaired person. Your client may not have considered this possibility.

Clients will most often do the right thing in these situations. Being informed could be all it takes.

Offer Better Alternatives

It’s one thing to argue against a client’s idea. But what should they be doing instead?

Our job isn’t to merely dismiss a feature. We should also offer an alternative or two. Things that provide a similar effect – but without the hit to performance and accessibility.

We could suggest a hero area instead of a slider. It will grab a user’s attention while reducing load times. Perhaps it features a background pattern or a photograph that’s optimized. It stays on brand but doesn’t hinder usability.

It’s one way to guide a client toward better solutions. The idea is to improve the product and strengthen communication.

Be Patient

Clients aren’t always receptive to our ideas. We can warn them about the impact of a feature. But they sometimes need to see the results for themselves.

They might notice an issue when the feature launches. Or they may get complaints from other users. The shortcomings will become apparent either way. Or not.

We’ll need to be patient and bide our time. We can hold out hope that they’ll see things our way, eventually.

Educate & Encourage Good Choices

There will always be some give and take when working with clients. That’s part of the design and build processes. Web designers must balance client preferences with user needs.

Accessibility should be non-negotiable. It’s worth fighting tooth and nail for. If a client insists on something that goes against this pillar – the consequences are on them.

Performance offers more wiggle room. Odds are the result won’t be perfect. However, it’s our job to make the best of any situation.

Education is a valuable tool for web designers, though. We can help clients understand why these subjects are worth their investment. That can lead them to make better choices.

The benefits of performance and accessibility aren’t apparent to everyone. Thankfully, we have the power to change that.

Related Topics

Top

[crest-of-gautier]

MORE PQ TIME!!! i'm determined to make good progress on it!! i played for around 4.5 hours today, and got around 52% of the 4th floor done. we have a total of 31 hours in the game and most of my main party is at like level 30/31, i think!

i'm feeling pretty content with my mechanics/persona fusions... there are ways i feel that this operates differently from mainline persona (the way petrification is a status that carries over between battles surprised me!), but i feel like i've really gotten into the groove with the boost system (and i have enjoyed using status ailments more than ever).

i'll probably be getting to see destined partner stuff soon... like as early as next session... i'm very interested in it :3

this time i don't actually have anything to say about the scenes i saw today. there were a few times i was 🔪 at atlus choosing to focus on certain traits for some characters (akihiko with protein and making teddie... very... teddie) but idc to talk about that bc everyone's beat a dead horse abt it. actually wait. i have one thing to say and it's about zen (under the cut)

so when we started spot 4 there's this... scripted battle after you open the door immediately after the staircase- where you get to face the golden hands.

i thought it was interesting to have a forced encounter with them (when it's possible that you might've run into them before) at this stage. game design wise i thought it was nice because it lets the players experiment on their own and come to their own conclusion on how to handle these evasive fucks who are the pain of my existence (i find golden hand movement to be entrancing, actually).

and if you didn't figure out that you could agility bind/panic (via tentarafroo or other means). after the battle, regardless of the outcome (i defeated them), zen just... spells it out for you, tells you directly what strategy you could use.

and i just found that... so very interesting? like yeah, to some people they may look at this and go, "yeah, forced tutorial moment." and i can see that (not that i felt that this instance was a bad thing!).

the point that i'm trying to get at is that i'm particularly interested in how zen knows this. like... to know an innate weakness and countermeasure to them... and when the vr attendants very early on discussed that you shouldn't be able to find living humans in the culture festival, and if you do, they're probably tied to persona/shadow-like entities. i'm like. zen are you pulling this out of your ass because you were a shadow once. i'm shaking him back and forth like a tree in animal crossing!! rah!! tell me your secrets!!!

or of course. the game could just have chosen zen to be a vehicle to give this information to the player and i'm looking way too much into things. i don't think persona should give me another amnesiac character again. i will go crazy over trying to dissect them and see if they challenge the norm of amnesiac persona characters or not. i probably sound like im beating a dead horse but GUYS IM ONTO SOMETHING I THINK.

in any case, i feel the game has had really nice ways of emphasizing the importance of status ailments. way back earlier near the start of the 2nd labryinth, the quest legendary medicine required you to agility bind some lust snakes, and i feel like this kinda alluded to the importance of certain status effects over others? idk. i just think its neat to see how certain quests and monsters can teach you things, y'know? video games...! 🥺💛

i'm reallly looking forward to playing more! while i'd like to finish the group date cafe who knows how sidetracked i'll get... but the floor feels pretty straightforward lol so. we shall see!

[ayishar34]

Ayisha’s Discography

The process

We originally wanted to make a podcast as well as videos on youtube that have some gameplay with music we created in the background. However, we couldn’t book out the podcast room and found it hard to book anywhere else out as the studios were heavily booked out and when we did manage to get a room, we ended up running into some problems with things not working and us not having the space we wanted. We ended up deciding that we would make a YouTube series, instead of a podcast, that way we won’t be disappointed with the quality of the podcast since we couldn’t get the room or equipment we wanted for it. It also meant that we could actually complete the project as I feel like we were wanting to do a lot and we didn’t have the time to do everything we wanted. If we were to do everything we originally planned, we would have to make it a whole year project, if not an ongoing thing, as we wanted a lot of gameplay and wanted long episodes of the podcast.

To film and record the series, we used a computer in a computer room within the university and used OBS. The room was empty for the first two episodes, however when we came in to film the rest we had a few people come in. We did put a sign on the door but these people chose to ignore it and even when explaining to them we were recording, they explained why they were there and we asked them to be quiet if they really needed to be in the same room as us. They didn’t but they chose to stay there and chose to make quite a bit of noise as well as talk to each other and disrupt our filming. Luckily, we would wait for them to finish talking or ask them to be quiet and continue but the rest we had to cut out. There are times in the recording that you can hear them making noise, but it’s not too bad. If we were to do this again we would try to get an induction to the podcast rooms and record in there. It wasn’t possible for us to get an induction at this time of year as it was heavily booked out and the people we contacted told us to try contacting a student on a journalism course to book the room for us and help us use it. Unfortunately, we didn’t know any students on these courses and knew if the rooms were heavily booked out that we’d have little success in getting a room.

OBS is a free software that allows you to record your screen as well as allowing you to film yourself. It’s used for streaming and making videos. I’ve used this software before, so I knew a bit about it. However, I did need to watch tutorials on YouTube to help me with setting up a few things.

Videos I watched:

https://youtu.be/9idPREZzWpE

https://youtu.be/iPMERkQEmlU

https://youtu.be/KhX7lj6CDvo

I made sure I had it all set up with the game audio, the mic audio, the video of us, as well as the video of the game screen. I had to change the layout, which was quite confusing at first, I wasn’t completely sure on how to get the layout of the screen that we wanted, even after watching a few tutorials, but found a layout where both screens (one of us and one of the gameplay) could be seen and decided to go with that layout.

We used the camera on the mac to film us, and used a Neumann mic with a pop shield to record us speaking (which we plugged into the scarlett audio interface). This mic needs phantom power. We chose this mic as it is a condenser and so it would pick both of our voices up with better detail to the sound than a dynamic mic would. We placed this mic in between us. There were a few times that we would accidentally knock the mic stand or wire which made a noise within the recording, if we do this again we should find a way of reducing this from happening. The pop shield helps with plosives, although we weren’t right in front of the mic, talking directly into it, so I think we would’ve probably been fine without one, but we had one just in case. I do think next time we should both have a mic each, as the recording was quite quiet, even though when setting levels I set the gain quite high but didn’t want to do it too much as we would get white noise and the times that it peaked would have been really loud, and it would make footage unusable.

I brought my switch in, which was the console we used to play the games on, as it is a little console that is easy to set up and easy to transport. We had to buy a HDMI video capture so that we could display the switch screen on the computer and record it.

We played two games; Nintendo Sports and Minecraft. We split both recordings into 2 parts as they were really long and I didn’t have many games on the switch that we could record in time as the stories to the other games are really long and would take probably months to finish. For Nintendo Sports, we played 2 different games of bowling; one being normal bowling and the other being bowling with obstacles. This is a fun game that we wanted to film as it is a game for all ages and all kinds of people. For Minecraft, I showed Ayisha and the viewers my two worlds and what me and my friends have created. We wanted to film minecraft as it is a popular game and is suitable for ages 7+. With Minecraft, we had a few problems as the game audio was louder than us talking, so there are times within the video that it can be quite hard to hear what we are saying. When editing for this, we tried adding a limiter so that the peaks would be reduced so that it wasn’t as loud. We also added noise reduction and a compressor to try to solve the issue, but found that we could only reduce the issue, not completely get rid of it. I also added some EQ to try and get the sound quality better (cutting the low end so there is no rumble and boosting the frequencies that our voices lie in).

Images of trying to reduce peaks & EQing:

To edit we used DaVinci as it has a free version that seems pretty good and simple to use. I watched videos on the best free editing softwares and DaVinci was highly talked about. I then talked to my friend about it, who is doing a film degree, and she said a lot of people use DaVinci for their own editing as it’s easy to use and one of the best. With the research I did and what my friend told me, I decided to use DaVinci to edit our videos. I did have to search a few things up as we are new to editing videos and knew very little about it.

Videos I watched for editing:

https://youtu.be/BqTt7Qh-aeU

https://youtu.be/ebSTdCWZoVU

https://youtu.be/MDUKsutd8Kc

https://youtu.be/5wdyfifNX3s

The free version is limited to what you can do and add. Since this is our first time editing, with only YouTube tutorials on how to edit, we only managed to do a basic edit of our 5 episodes.

I tried to download it on my laptop first, however I was unsuccessful so I managed to download it on my boyfriend’s computer and use that when he wasn’t on it.

These are the photos of the issues I had with my laptop:

I cut most pauses out and made sure that the flow was good. For the minecraft episodes, there were times where the game audio was too loud and so you couldn’t hear what we were saying, even after trying to reduce the sound, so we decided to cut some of the footage out as it wasn’t really usable. This did mean we missed quite a few things, but luckily the minecraft episodes were long enough anyway. I made sure to put crossfades between the audio when cutting so that there aren’t any pops or clicks and so that the audio runs smoothly. I also added our logo for the intro and outro of each episode and added a video transition so it flowed more and looked better. I added text on some of the videos to say “part 2” if it was split into 2 and to apologise for the game audio being too loud. I added the music to the right episodes and made sure our theme tune was in the intro and outro of each episode. I put a fade on the music so that it would slowly fade and go into us talking or fade out for the end of the video. I had to make sure the music was at the right volume so you can still hear it, but so it’s not so loud that you can’t hear us.

Image of fades:

Episode 1 has a section where Ayisha walks off for a moment, we both wanted a censor beep and the screen to go blank after she walks off as we thought this would be funny. To do this, I searched for a no copyright free censor sound and downloaded it and added it into the part we wanted it in. DaVinci has different generators that you can add in and they have the SMPTE colour bar that tends to be used when people add a censor beep or when they show bloopers, so I added that in for that section of the video.

DaVinci did crash quite a few times while I was editing but I just had to re-open the software to continue. Even though this kept on happening throughout all of the editing, I dealt with it as I didn’t want to have to download a different software and learn how to use that instead, since I was getting used to the way DaVinci worked. Throughout the editing process, I did most of the editing so I had to keep showing Ayisha what I had done with the videos so she could give me input and to make sure the videos were what she wanted them to look like as well what I wanted them to look like. I do think if I was to continue making these kinds of videos, I would like to look into buying an editing software that has more options, and one that preferably doesn’t keep crashing.  

Here are some photos of the editing process:

At the very end we had issues rendering the videos. I had the videos ready to render but had to wait on the music that Ayisha had to send over. However, she had problems on her end with the music not bouncing properly and losing some music in the process. I got the music and added it to the videos (placing them in the right places and fading) and then went to render the videos. Unfortunately, the videos were having issues with rendering, which meant we had no videos to upload onto YouTube. This delayed a lot of things for us as we spent our time trying to solve the issue. I did manage to render the 5th (final) episode and that was the only video we had.

These are the issues we were having:

I tried searching ways around this and tried to solve the problem, however nothing was working. I then got my boyfriend to have a look at it and see if he could solve it, but again nothing worked. With this I emailed helpzone and IT & Library with the photos attached to see if they could help. Unfortunately, everyone I emailed didn’t have any solutions and didn’t help us with our problem. This meant it was left to us to try and find a solution. This also meant that we had passed the submission time. After emailing helpzone and IT and having no luck, I emailed our lecturer for this module, he gave us advice on the next steps we should take, however no solution was given on solving our issue. We were really stuck on what to do and we were really stressed due to no one giving us any help. I was convinced that I would have to use a different editing software and edit all over again but that would have taken too much time that we didn’t have. Luckily, we came up with an idea (after a bit of time) and decided to screen record the videos in the editing software with OBS. This took a long time as the videos had to play out and each video is just under 20 mins, apart from episode 3 which is just over 30 mins. Luckily, we didn’t have to screen record the 5th episode as it did render. After screen recording the videos, I had to trim the edges so that the videos didn’t include me changing the windows from OBS to DaVinci. After trimming the videos, I then had to export the videos, which took really long. After many hours of exporting, when playing the videos, I realised we had lost quite a bit of quality due to having to screen record and to export the videos again after trimming. This meant that the audio was a little out of time with the image, but it was the best we could make it. We then had to upload these videos to YouTube, which I tried doing at the same time the other videos were exporting to save time. The videos took quite a bit of time to upload onto YouTube as well. I added a description to all the videos explaining what the videos were and our username to instagram.

Once a video was uploaded onto YouTube I would add to my blog page and instagram.

For our instagram, I used an image of a part in the video and used hashtags that are relevant to the posts and to help the post get seen. I also made a post explaining we had some technical issues and so the videos were going to be uploaded late. I did this as the previous post to this was saying that the videos were going to be uploaded soon and for people to keep an eye out for them.

Our Logo, we made a powerpoint on the logo explaining in depth the process. We used a few websites to get ideas and then used a website that generated logos. We found one we liked the best and changed the colours so that the colours were traffic light colours, so that it would go with our name ‘Ready Steady Game’ as if you’re about to start a race.

We then added this logo to our instagram account and YouTube account.

It was quite hard to fit the logo into the circle profile picture as at first the image was too big and it was cutting into half of the logo. To prevent this from happening I opened the logo on a smaller window and had a black background behind it and then took a screenshot. This allowed me to get the right size however, there is a line near the bottom of the logo that you can see which is annoying but the best we could do.

This image shows our description for our YouTube channel:

This image also shows when we created the channel but also the other channel we made (that is shown in the links section). This was when we first started with the original idea of wanting to do a podcast. We made separate channels as we wanted it to be easier for our audience/viewers to find the podcast and the gaming videos. It’s better to keep them separate. Even though we decided to just post YouTube videos and not do a proper podcast, we kept the channel in case we want to do an actual podcast in the future.

Before I started writing the music I decided to do some research beforehand. I google certain words and phrases and then Youtube it. Things such as ‘introduction music for gaming videos’, or ‘Minecraft’, ‘Ninetendo switch’ etc. Then I selected a few and watched them, in order to ascertain what type of sounds were used or the common connection with certain consoles. Then, having narrowed them to just a couple within each game.

We both helped to make the music and Daisy did a lot of the editing. Firstly I Youtubed various videos of inspiring game music and then scaled them down to a few. With ‘Minecraft’ I listened to some of their previous videos online and from this an interpretation was made. I tried to recreate this by using harp sounds and also harmonies. When creating Zelda tracks it wasn’t intentional but using synth sounds as well as laying it a few times helped to make the track sound full and complete. When writing the introduction, I was thinking that I wanted something that had energy, vivaciousness to it and a lovely beat. I wrote two versions for the introduction and we decided to select the second version as it was more ‘catchy’. I feel that this is the first time that I have had the opportunity to make my own interpretation on something that is very popular, so it was challenging. Unfortunately, because my keyboard had been broken and I had no time to repay it, I had to use the typing keyboard. As a piano composer this not only limited what I could do but also I had to use a lot of creativity as well as trying to play less mechanically. At times this proved hard, especially when trying to create drum beat sounds. Although I did use a metronome and recorded to a clicking track the drum beats which I wanted to be off beat, sometimes were not executed how I would have preferred. I feel that due to not having the equipment slowed the process down considerably and prevented Daisy from editing in advance.

In the end we made 5 episodes, 2 for Nintendo Switch (bowling), part 1 and part 2 Minecraft, part 1 and part 2 and then lastly a review. However I wrote a lot more for the other potential episodes that we wanted to make (initially we wanted to make 10 tracks). So I made a track for Ops, which is a zombie game. A few for Nintendo Switch, a few for Zelda, Crash Bandicoot and Chess. Unfortunately we did not have the time to complete the videos as there were many days that we were not able to use rooms or they were fully booked. Also having done this podcast we have decided that this is something that we would like to continue as a separate project. When explaining our project to some friends and family they wanted to know where they could view and were also suggesting things such as would they be able to Email in suggestions of games we could play, or if we could play games recorded and send it in. They also suggested playing live whilst ‘streaming’. I listened and thanked them for the feedback. We know that it is not a straightforward process and you would need quiet, great lighting and no background noises. Therefore I have looked into other software programs which will aid us in the process of creating it and making it easier. Also booking rooms in advance even if by 2 weeks and playing more games. This will be the only way that this podcast will continue in the -future, is by being ‘ready, steady game’.  

#MD5325