#did i spend approximately 3 and a half hours writing this?? yes

[happyk44]

Here's how it goes. You are five children in tight quarters. Four of you have never known life without another person by your side. The oldest of you remembers and hates it. It is hot and humid. There's a rock. The rock is pretty nice. You were expecting a sixth kid.

Good to see your mom finally learned something.

You play games together. You have dreams about the world outside the darkness and the tiny light of flame from your oldest sister's fingertip. Then you go up and out. Splattered on the ground in ickiness. Your father is is throwing up and some boy holding a gold plate is standing in front of you with wide eyes. Your youngest sister punches him out the way and you run.

You run and run and run and run until there's nowhere left to go. You get clean from a river. The youngest boy soaks in it deliriously. You are all happy for him. He's found what he dreams of - even if only a small version of it. You pull clothes from a clothesline and get dressed. You cut your long messy hair with knives instead of lowering your head into stomach acid and it is quicker than you've ever known.

It is blisteringly bright outside. You are unfamiliar with light, and distrusting of heat, but it's still pleasant. You can see the trees and the sky and the grass.

The light gives proof you are free.

You hide when the darkness comes. The moon is bright, but you are haunted by years of sitting in pitch black. Is he swallowing you up again? Is the darkness his threat? Your oldest brother doesn't mind the darkness, has never truly been bothered by it, and watches you while you sleep. Your oldest sister builds a fire from branches and leave and the flame on her hand.

You know they will protect you. They are more a mother and father than you have ever known.

You awake and regroup. The boy comes back. His hands are raised above his head and he tells you what he knows. He is your brother, the youngest of you all. He was hidden by your mother. Replaced with a rock so he was not swallowed whole. He is the one that freed you from your father's belly. He wants you to join him, to battle your father, your family, to win and truly be free.

Disbelief hits you first. Then jealousy. Why did he get freedom, and you did not? It does not much approach the older two - your mother could not have known. Swallowed one, but surely he wouldn't swallow two. Swallowed two and set a pattern.

He never should've swallowed three.

It takes a while but you agree, following tensely behind this boy. Your mother sees you and cries. She is so happy. You are not. You do not know this woman. The oldest two do not have parents. The younger three only know the oldest girl and the oldest boy. But you all smile and tell her that you missed her too. You did not. You never knew her. All you know is that she handed you over and let him swallow you, one, two, three, four, five.

Still you stay and prepare to fight.

---

You are the oldest of six teens. Your life did not begin with kindness, but still you are kind. You clean your siblings' wounds from battles fought, and make dinner for them. You listen to their fears and pains and hold them close when they are scared. You fight with fire-laden hands meant for warmth and cooking good soup. You yearn for the day you can run across plains, barefoot and happy, to discover new places, instead of to fight.

Loneliness was a bitter thing when you were born. Alone you sat in darkness until the first boy fell. He was tall for his age, and unnaturally quiet. You found solace in him. A companion. He is your closest friend, the first you seek out.

But now he sits in shadows and sinks into dirt. He hears whispers that no one else can, and brings home pulsing orbs he leaves in his room. None of you can touch them. They pass right through your fingers when you try. When you ask, he tells you that they have been calling to him, asking him to take them home. He tells you that they are still asking for home.

"Where is home?" you ask, afraid of the answer.

"Not here," he says. He looks down to his bare feet and curls his toes into the stone floor. "But I think it's down. Deep down."

The deep down is dark and frightening. You remember it, walking to find allies in your imprisoned uncles. It is different from your father's belly, but encompassing all the same. It is not warm. It is not soft. It is not comforting. It is not home.

But you hold back your protests and squeeze his hand. You are scared of loneliness. It is a cold and empty thing. But you love your brother, and he desires the dark. Your middle brother desires the wet of the ocean, which you cannot stand, and the littlest one wants power and a throne. Your youngest sister will stand by him, creating structure and order and perfectly positioned paintings in the aftermath of this war.

Maybe Demeter, the middle sister who digs her hands deep into dirt and talks to trees and dandelions, will come with you. Surely she will want to travel across plains. Discover new nature. Discover new worlds. Meet new people.

Never to be alone again.

--

You are the oldest boy, the second born of six children. You have never known loneliness. Not physically. You have always had someone by your side. But they do not understand you. Even in the darkness you knew you were strange. Your dreams did not line up with theirs, covered in shadows and whispers and confinement.

Your older sister holds your hand and you smile, thinking of how she will not come with you to where you must go. It calls to you. It always has. These people that roam may not know about you yet, still worshipping the old gods, the ones who have faded away, but when they fall, it is you they call to. Of course they do. Your predecessor isn't around to take them in anymore.

You have not know quiet in all your years. The sounds of dying and dead never ends. In the night, you go and find them. You bring them back to a quiet hutch and set them down. You are not ready for your post yet - the battle has not been won. But it sits waiting, far beneath your feet.

It is a secret you will tell no one, save for a young girl with flowers in her hair and smile brighter than the stars. You will tell her because she will understand what it meant to be given a name that is not yours. Your mother named you in hope and awe, yet when your sister whispered, "Who are you?", you did not answer. You waited in silence.

And quietly and suddenly, you knew. With brilliant clarity, you knew.

"Hades," you said, and years later, people, both the ones who worship the old gods and the ones who your youngest brother has made out of dirt and clay to know nothing but the six of you and your victories - they will confess to one another, "I am scared of Hades", and they will mean both man and home.

Your family fears the darkness. You oldest sister and the following three knew nothing but the pitch black. They still do not trust it. And your youngest brother shines brightly static yellow light. He gazes upwards to the sky. You gaze down to the depths.

They will not follow you.

But you have a duty to follow, the calls to answer. You are not afraid of the dark, and when the war is over, you will descend and finally feel alive.

--

You are the third-born of six children, the second girl, the one who should never have been swallowed. You remember the pity on your older siblings' faces when they held you close in the darkness, only illuminated by the flames of your oldest sister's fingertips. The pretty light calmed your crying and fear.

You remember how it felt to escape the castle. To feel the earth beneath your sticky feet. It swells with you. Everything breaths. You talk to plants and they do not answer, although your family thinks they do. But you talk because they are alive. Because they respond. You can feel it in your veins.

Your oldest brother understands. Your second brother does too. But they are so different from you. You don't know how, but you can just tell. Something is different.

People call you Gaea, the earth, and you think, No, that's wrong. You are the earth, but you are not the earth. You are Demeter.

And you are unsure.

You fight militantly. Distance is your friend. You can feel the enemy patter against the ground, feel the way the trees sway and move. When you pull back your bow, your uncle isn't even in your sight. But the arrow lands dead center and he falls.

The arrow splits and wood crests and grows. Roots drag him down. Spilt blood is drank, water consumed. The very air in his lungs his stolen from his chest as he is devoured by your nature. Every nutrient in his body is taken as the roots spread within him and the tree grows.

You are not the earth. No, the earth fuels itself. You are a separate creation. Like your sisters, you think. Your brothers are different. They are limitless. But you, your sisters - you follow rules. A plant needs water and air to grow. You could not force it to grow without it.

It is in your victory do you consider what you will be. Your garden is not pretty. It is practical, important. Each row of plant exists within structure. Too close and one may steal from the other. Too far and they cannot share. Include certain herbs to deter bugs. Till the soil to renew the earth. Do not overwater.

Bury your uncle and let the grain feast.

--

You are the fourth of six kids. The second boy. The middle child.

Like the ocean, your moods are everchanging. Your oldest brother is the only one who can always quell them. Your youngest brother riles you up too much. It's his fault, you think, when they yell about your fighting. Look at the wind on the sea, how it builds the waves to fight.

You love your oldest sister. Of all your sisters, she is your favourite. She opposes you, warm and calm to your wet and wild, but still she sits with you and soothes your wounds.

Sometimes you worry something is wrong with you. You do not feel pain the way they do. And you are needy. Even more so than the oldest, who was alone for so long until your brother came along. You have known people all your life. Even freed of your father's belly, they have not left your side. And yet you cling. You hold on. They struggle to escape, but you hold them tighter and tighter.

Your older sisters are tactile, but they do not cling the way you do. They do not pull the others in and demand they stay.

Years later you will sit on the rocks and watch as a riptide drags a poor child down and you will understand why you cling.

Your siblings are more elegant than you, more firm, and steady. You run across the earth and struggle to stay upright. It's like your feet were not made for the ground. They fight sharp and deliberate. Each strike is pointed.

You do not fight.

You play.

It's all a game, the whim of the tides. Despite your stocky shape, you are fluid and flexible. Let them run then drag them back. Let them breathe then let them drown. Or spear them viciously. Rip them to shreds. Make them watch the others die in terror, knowing their time will soon come and you do not care how much they beg.

It's your laughter they hear last, booming loud like the crash of the waves in a storm. It's not your fault. You don't know what pity is. You cannot understand it. The ocean does not give life to those who live outside of it. The ocean is salty impure heaviness. Survival must be fought for in the cold and wet.

In the time that comes, when the war is over, you will feel languid and calm for the first time in your life. You all have won. There is no pious uncles, no bitter father to destroy. But soon your oldest brother, the only one who can calm your destructive moods, disappears into shadows and darkness. It appears open and endless to the eye, but you felt the confining walls the day you stepped in.

You do not like confinement.

But the others are still here in the house you've made a home, so you remain a lapping tide. But your littlest brother and sister leave to the mountains and the skies and you cannot follow them that high. Your earthern sister who came just before you leaves for the inland. For pure water wells and settled dirt and people willing to learn. You try to follow but she bats you away in horror and disgust.

You don't know how to handle this. This isn't what is supposed to happen. They are not supposed to leave. You cling to them, and they stay. Their skin grows heavy with your weight and they stop fighting.

They don't leave.

All you have left is the oldest of you all, and you follow her diligently. She tries to still your shifting moods, but it's hard. People get hurt and you cannot care. But she does. She cares so much and you do not understand why. One day you wake up and she is gone. The fire is out, and the people you were with have vanished too. You call out for her and she does not respond.

You scream, angered, that those who were yours have left. They have escaped your wet hands and dried your dew off their skin. They have vanished to places you cannot follow.

They have abandoned you.

You sink into the deep and dark and free and build a new life. Your uncle, a crochety man who did not fight on his brother's side, will tell you it is your time, that the age of Titans has ended, long live the age of the Gods. He will crown you king. The kingdom stands before you, a rule you have never wanted, but now crave. These people belong to the ocean, to you. The water holds them down, gives them life.

They can never leave.

--

You are the youngest sister, the fifth born. People call you strict and cruel. However, your oceanic brother adores your vengeful nature and watches eagerly as you fight. Blood hits your clothes and you grimace. You prefer when things are clean and neat. Tidiness is important.

Your siblings are all entrenched in nature - fire, death, earth, ocean and sky. But you do not see nature. It is a pretty thing in the background of the picture. Today you are violent, but in the future, you will have more meaning.

Women are not well seen in this world, often ignored unless desired, dismissed and put to the side, unless important. Your brothers stand out too much, and your sisters are too entranced by their nature - the oldest to comfort and give warmth, the second to nature and grain. So you are the one who ventures out to the villages that your enemies peruse. You are the one who blends in with the castle staff, who listens in on war plans, and steals secrets.

You are the one who leads your brother to your father.

You are the one who watches him die.

You know that when the war is over and your time has come, you will be much more than a quiet face ducked down and scurrying across halls. You will do much more than drag men to their knees in the thick of night and make them bleed across your knuckles for disgracing the name of family with their lecherous ways.

In the years that come, you will have a warring son and people will laugh at his bloody ways, assuming he comes from his father, the man who won the war. But you know that he comes from you, blood across your knuckles and carrying battered women safely home.

--

You are the youngest of six. When you are but a babe, your mother holds you on her knee and tells you of your siblings. In the darkness of your father's belly, you know that they wait for you to rescue you them. You think of them often. You wonder if they know of you. You imagine how grateful they will when you save them.

When you take your first steps your mother hands you a sword. It is bigger than you are and your fist is small and chubby. Still you learn. You train every day. You learn every weapon you can. Your mother visits and reminds you of your duty - save your siblings, destroy your father, inherit the world.

You rarely leave home. It's dangerous, the nymphs say. Be careful, your mother whispers. Tell no one of your truth, the Kouretes demand.

Fear comes crawling in swift and unbearable. Your mother leaves you with texts for your future, so you may be a good and honorable king. The nymphs tell you of your father's nature, so you will not make his mistakes. Every day you train, every day you learn, and every night you stare empty at the cavern ceiling, terror building a home in your head.

What if you fail? What if you cannot win? What if your siblings do not think you should be king? What if you do something wrong and you are overpowered like your father? You reassure yourself every morning. Of course, you will win. Of course, your siblings will believe you to be king. You will be a good and honorable king. Your people will love you. No one will wish to knock you off your throne.

But still every night you fear.

You meet your father in person for the first time, dressed as a lowly cupbearer. He is not as fearsome as you once imagined. He looks normal. Part of you is distressed by this. Your fear eats it up.

Still, confident and sure, you hold out his goblet and watch as he drinks. Your siblings come up, unclothed and covered in grime. They are all pale and horribly thin. Their hair is matted and unclean, chopped strangely at the ends, as if burnt instead of cut.

You prepare to speak, to usher them to safety as your father still vomits behind them. But the tallest girl, taller than you, throws a fist you were not suspecting, and down you go, and off they run.

Chaos ensues. Evasion is easy but still takes time. By the time you are free of the castle and your father's roaring rage, the sun has set. You climb to the top of the mountain you've lived your entire life under and call out to Selene. She rides her chariot across the sky and returns with helpful news.

Your siblings do not trust you. You don't understand. This is nothing like how you planned it to be. The plan was simple: you tell them of yourself, they are grateful and come with you, you prepare them as you have been prepared, and the battle commences. They obey your every word and listen thoughtfully to your plans.

They understand that you are a great leader, and will be a good and honourable king.

But they are not doing what they are supposed to. They are whispering amongst themselves, while the shortest girl hold fire in her hands and the tallest boy keeps a steady eye on you. They are not coming with you. They are not following the plan.

They are not listening.

It takes too much time for them to agree. They meet your mother and seem... strange. Surely, they should be more excited. She has told you about them in deep detail, from every hair on their head to the specific colour of their eyes, to the way they looked when they fell, and the horror she felt for being unable to protect them. She loves them dearly. Why are they standing so stiff in her hold?

Your siblings are nothing like you expected. Every day they continue to ruin the carefully crafted dream you put together. Your brothers are strange and different from you. They don't feel the sky in their lungs, or appreciate the birds. The oldest is too silent and unsettling. He is stronger than you expected, and makes enemies fall to dust beneath his fingertips.

His capabilities terrify you. Your fear eats it up. What if he desires the throne? it whispers. He is the eldest.

I will be the one to kill our father, you argue. I will inherit the throne.

Surely he would be more fit to kill your father, your fear laughs. He is entrenched in death and darkness. You are bright and loud. He will see you coming, but your bother will be a surprise.

Luckily, the oldest seems uninterested in ruling. But the others listen to him in a way they do not listen to you, and it angers you. What if they tell him to take the throne? Would he do it? Would he demand it?

Would he kill you for it?

Your other brother is a nuisance. He doesn't stay within the lines. He is wild and wicked and never listens. You repeat your plans over and over again. Everyone agrees. Then he runs forward, laughing loud and giving away your position each time.

He is vicious and angers easily. A simple disagreement turns into a bloody fight in a minute. Then he laughs it off, easygoing and calm, before clinging to your back like an octopus. It is baffling and bizarre. The others shrug and tell you he has always been like this. You cannot understand.

Your sisters are better. Although the youngest argues with you on everything. When your plans fail, she cuts in and creates a new one. Days pass, plans fail, and suddenly she stands tall and demanding, telling you that you are wrong. Her plans work. It makes you bitter.

You have planned and plotted for this war since the day you could walk. You know that your plans can win this battle. It is not your fault that your siblings do not listen.

But you grit your teeth and accept her assistance. She's rigid and off-putting sometimes. But she's pretty in the early moonlight. Fascinating when she's focused. Sometimes you feel you are the same - order, neatness, structure.

Justice.

You follow her once and watch her threaten a wealthy man for forcing his young wife to acknowledge his concubine's children as proper heirs and care for them as her own. You do not know which upsets her more - the concubine or the husband's actions. But you feel warm when she drops him to his knees and threatens to return if he does not make it right.

Truthfully you don't understand what she sees so wrong about the situation. But the fire in her voice and the fearful trembling of her victim invigorates you nonetheless.

The second-born sister is better behaved, albeit more stubborn. Still you get along fairly well. You do not understand her fascination with bread. You understand she starved for many years, but... it's just bread.

The oldest of you all is most soothing. But when she stills the fights that break out, she does not default to your opinion. She wants to hear everyone, both sides of the argument and witnesses. Even when the nautical one is involved, despite the fight nearly always being his fault. It is not your fault he doesn't listen and must be corrected every time.

She tries to relax you in your frustrations, but you do not understand her conviction to hear everyone out. And you do not understand it when she tells you you were wrong.

You do not understand many things about your siblings.

You begin to fear you do not understand many things about the world.

Still you win. Your father is defeated by your very hands. You cut him into pieces and box them up to bury across the plains of Tartarus. Even if he escapes, he will have many long years to piece himself back together. And even if he manages that, he will have no chance of escaping Tartarus.

You retire to the home you have made with your siblings in these last few years of war and it is strange. There is nothing on the horizon, no impeding responsibility to look towards. Your destiny has ended. The crown on your head feels too heavy. You hold it in your hands and stare at the glistening metal. Your reflection is warped and distorted.

You don't know what to think.

Is this how your father felt, you wonder. Did he destroy his father and take his crown only to find it felt too heavy and he could not see his face in the glistening metal? Did he feel hollow and strange inside? Did he not understand the world either? Is that what made him cruel?

You place the crown aside and dispell those thoughts. You are not your father. You are better than him, greater than him. His defeat by your hand proves that.

Careful, your fear laughs at the back of your mind. Your father likely thought that too.

[weasleypogues]

jealousy is a two way street

request: Hi could I request a young Sirius black imagine where reader and Sirius have a argument blow up infront of the rest of the marauders in the dorm with lots of shouting because they are both to stubborn to admit either of them are wrong. Lots of snide remarks and sarcastic comments (also reader and Sirius are already dating) I love your writing 

thanks so much!! hope u enjoy xxx

finally trying to get back into the groove of writing!! requests are open <3 

masterlist.

“Fuck, Marry, Kill: (Y/N), Emma Cooper, and Allison Wood.” James called off names as the Marauders, Lily, and you sat in a circle in the common room. It was approximately 2:45 AM and after a stop at HoneyDukes, needless to say no one was falling asleep till later or at all for that matter.

“Kill Emma, Fuck Allison and Marry (Y/N) for sure.” Sirius answered without even hesitating. You slightly clenched your jaw and looked at the ground.

“Course.” You muttered under your breath and looked in the opposite direction of Sirius immediately. You mentally cursed James for even bringing up Allison and cured Sirius even more for choosing her. In the past you two had arguments because of Allison whether it be that she was getting too touchy with Sirius and he wasn’t stopping it or constantly talking about her when you two were alone. But why couldn’t he just choose Emma? Was he completely oblivious to the months of constant arguing?

Sirius Black knew how to get under your skin. As much as you loved him as your boyfriend, he could be a dick from time to time and found it hot when you would get frustrated after he would push your buttons. But this time he’d gone a little too far.

“What was that?” Sirius inquired, raising his eyebrows at you. 

“I said ‘Of course”. Of course you would pick Allison instead of the sweet Emma. I knew this game would make me jealous but your dumb fucking answers are making me infuriated.” You replied, feeling like your whole body was on fire.

“Babe, we’ve been over this. She means nothing to me, I’d rather spend the rest of my life with you than be with Allison.”

“First of all, don’t babe me. Second of all, we endured months and months of conflicts because of her. She hates me! I hate her! It’s a two way street and you seem to stick yourself in the middle of it instead of choosing a side. You know how jealous I got when she would put her hand on your leg or on your arm. Run her hand through your hair. Or on date nights when instead of a nice and loving conversation it’s ‘Guess what Alli did today?’ or ‘Alli is actually too funny’.” You said, not taking a breath until the end. All of this anger and emotions that have been bubbling up inside of you were finally released and you didn’t feel any remorse at all.

He opened his mouth to say something but chuckled darkly and shook his head. “I’m not even going to say it.”

“No, say it. Please do. I’m sure we would all love to hear what you have to say.” You spat back, crossing your arms. 

“For months on fucking months during our fights you know who you would constantly go to? James. My best fucking mate. My fucking brother. At points, I felt like you liked him better than you liked me. It made me feel like shit to see you two always having a good fucking laugh. You could have came to me! Yes, there was tension between us but never on earth would I turn you away. We could’ve figured this out a lot quicker and calmer if I didn’t believe you were out shagging my best friend.” Sirius admitted, his face beet red and hair wild. Your jaw dropped and you were at a loss for words. What you were feeling was exactly what he was feeling?

“Sirius I had no-” You started but were soon cut off.

“No idea, yeah I know. If you haven’t noticed I’m an expert at keeping my feelings hidden.” He grumbled. “You know what. I’m done. I gotta go.” And with that he stood up and left the room, walking up the stairs to the dormitory. You immediately stood up and was about to take your first step until a hand held you back.

“Give him some time to cool down. If you speak to him any more he’s only going to get more heated and it won’t help anyone.” Remus spoke softly and gave you a sympathetic smile. 

“Fuck that, I’m going to talk to him.” James bursted out and shoved himself off of the ground and walked up the same stairs Sirius had moments ago.

“I really fucked up this time. If I had just kept my mouth shut.” You mumbled and ran your hand over your face and let that run through your hair. 

“You didn’t fuck up. You were angry and there were still some unspoken feelings between you two. This will get resolved. Sirius is so whipped for you that he wouldn’t do anything to lose you. Trust me.” Lily state simply and gave you a reassuring smile. You let out a shaky breath and nodded before getting up and walking to your dorms. 

“I’ll just let us both sleep on it.” You responded, though you were not completely sure of that.

“Give him a couple of minutes for he and James to sort this out between them. But you don’t want to go to bed angry, that’s not going to work.” Lily said, looking extremely sympathetic. You groaned loudly and let your head roll to the back of the couch.

“Why must you always be right, Lily?” She laughed in response.

“It’s just in my DNA.”

You waited downstairs for another half hour, fiddling with your thumbs and going through mini arguments in your head on what to say to him to clear this up. You heard the creak of the boys dormitory door open and looked up immediately to only see James walking out with his hands in his pockets, looking quite sheepish.

“I told him I’d send you up there.” James stated, taking a seat on the couch next to you. 

“How’d it go with you?” You asked, worry written all over your face.

“Not that badly. He just needs a pair of ears. He may be dramatic but he isn’t the type to want to start yelling at you.” You nodded and with that, lifted from the couch and made your way up the stairs. You chose not to knock but just walk right in to see Sirius sitting on his bed and looking out the window that was next to it. He had his hands folded in his lap and was quiet.

“Sirius...” You said, hoping not to spook him, but in reality you just wanted to soflty grab his attention. Sirius moved his head slightly but still didn’t look directly at you.

“I’m sorry about, you know, everything. I never put myself in your shoes to take in what you must have been feeling when all of that was going down. It’s just that James knows you the best so I thought that he could give me guidance on how to make things right but I never realized how it must’ve looked to you. I really do apologize for that.” You said, still feet away from him, standing with your fingers interlocked with themselves. Sirius finally looked in your direction and gave you a small smile.

“Thank you, (Y/N/N). But really I should be apologizing. I shouldn’t have blown up on you down there. I just got jealous and didn’t want to admit I was wrong considering you going to James for advice is way different than Allison heavily flirting with me all the time. It’s hard for me to take blame where it’s deserved and I let my pride get the best of me. But I want to assure you that you’re the only girl I ever want to be with. Allison is Allison and that’s it. You mean the world to me and absolutely no one could ever get in the way of that. Not even my pride.” Sirius responded, worry etched in his furrowed eyebrows and glossy eyes as he slowly made his way towards you and grabbed your interlocked hands. 

You subtly smiled, realizing if you showed anymore emotion that the overwhelming amount of emotions you were feeling right now might make you start crying. You instinctively let your body nuzzle right into his chest and you wrapped your arms around his torso, taking in his warmth and scent. He didn’t hesistate to wrap his arms around you and kiss the top of your head a couple of times. 

Pulling your head away but keeping your arms around his body, you looked up at him and smiled. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Sirius responded with, not hesitating whatsoever. You leaned in for a long kiss and were in each others arms for a few moments longer.

[rigelmejo]

Articles on Learning Languages by Reading

Learn Language Through Reading: https://linguapath.com/learn-language-through-reading/

Love this article. It includes info from Paul Nation’s research.

I refer to Paul Nation’s 2014 corpus-based study, in which he calculated the amount of input necessary to learn the most frequent 9000 words.1 Here are his findings:

Let’s imagine that you already know the first 2000 most frequent words. In this case, you would have to read just about 300 000 words (or 3 books) to pick up another thousand words at the 3000-level.2

For a rough estimate: 120,000 words is roughly 240 pages in english. this will equal one “token” from the table above.

For comparison (see this article https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1685/for-magazines-or-books-how-much-does-text-volume-differ-when-comparing-chines) “An average result will be that 1,000 Chinese characters can be translated into about 600-700 English words, or 1,000 English words can be translated into about 1,500-1,700 Chinese characters, varying depending on the natures of the source contents and target writing styles. “ (this is what they referenced https://www.actranslation.com/chinese/chinese-wordcount.htm).

So 120,000(.7)=84,000 chinese words per ‘token.’ 

Or “or each 1000 English words will be translated into about 1500-1700 Chinese characters“ (https://www.actranslation.com/chinese/chinese-wordcount.htm).  So 120,000 english words, will mean 120,000*1.6= 192,000 chinese characters per ‘token.’

So, if I know the word count or character count of a novel, I can estimate how many novels/characters it will take to get to X level. 

---

(I’ve read 69, 315 characters of guardian so far, that’s the length of first arc)

163,913 characters as of sundial arc.

53 chapters of guardian is ~191,000 characters.

54 chapters of guardian is ~195,000 characters. One chapter on average about ~3600 characters.

So since guardian is about twice that amount of chapters (106 plus extras), the whole novel would be ‘2 tokens’ and count as that much.

So I would estimate, at least in priest’s novel length, every 53-54 or so would count as 1 token on the table above.

For future reference, that’s about 20-21 pages per chapter in Pleco for on average ~3600 characters.

I’d guess a 10 page chapter in pleco to be half that number of characters, 1800 characters. So for those ‘shorter’ chaptered novels, I would need 106 chapters to reach ‘1 token.’ (192,000/1800).

---

Out of curiosity, I’ve read 66 chapters of hanshe at 10 pleco pages each, 66*1800= 118,800 characters. 

Plus how much I’ve read of Guardian, 69,315+118,800= 188,115

Plus Xiao Wangzi, and the chapters of Tamendegushi I’ve read,  14,718 （小王子）19*1800=34,200（他们的故事)

188115+14718+34200= 237,033 is at least how many chinese characters I’ve read so far (I’ve also read a few chapters of various things but didn’t count them well).

237,033/192,000= ~1.23 ‘tokens.’ 

And, if I want to go easy on myself? I literally re-read the sundial arc a second and third time ToT (because I really love Guardian).

So I may well be at: Read sundial arc twice: 188115+14718+34200+69315= 306,348 or 1.59 tokens. Read sundial arc three times: 188115+14718+34200+(69315*2)=375,663 or 1.96 tokens.

***So I might be in the ‘learning the 3000 most common words’ section that is going to take 576,000 more characters to get through. which is 160 more priest-novel 20-pleco-page chapters, or 320 more 10-pleco-page chapters. 

Qi Ye ~79 chapters (~284,400 characters, 1.48 tokens) , Tian Ya Ke ~81 chapters (~291,600 characters, 1.51 tokens), Mo Du ~185 chapters (~ 666,000 characters, 3.46 tokens).

So: Qi Ye + Tian Ya Ke = finishing 3000-level (or just Reading Mo Du on its own).

---

From the article, it summarizes that to learn all 9000 common words in a language from reading: This equals to something like 92 books. With the reading speed of 200 words per minutes (which is comfortable enough: I tend to read English at 295 wpm, and English is far from being my native language), it would take you 150 minutes a day (2.5 hours) to process all this beauty in a year.

So I am guessing, if I read 150-200 (unfortunately - but I read a lot of much shorter books when I push into extensive reading), at 30 min to 1.5 hours a day on average, I may get to that point in idk 3 years? 

Also from the article:

Any activity you do in your target language will contribute to that cherished number of 11 million tokens you need to upload to your brain. You may listen to podcasts, watch movies and YouTube, talk to strangers, read magazines, play games… When it comes to vocabulary acquisition, anything goes, seriously.

Diversify your input, and you won’t ever feel bored. But keep in mind that spoken input is often way slower than written. Read a book for two hours and you will process approximately 24 000 words. Spend the same two hours watching a movie and you will get just about 10 000 words3With a typical speech rate for movies of 83 words per minute.4.

So an hour of reading (at speaking speed) is ~12,000 words, 30 minutes is 6,000 words, 15 minutes is 3,000 words (that tracks as Guardian chapters take me 15-20 minutes to read being 3000-4000 characters and I read at around speaking speed).

A movie per hour is 5,000 words. A drama is 40 min, 1/3 of a 120 minute movie, so idk probably on average ~3,333 words per drama episode (watched in target language obviously). 

I’m not counting how much time I spend on those, because who knows, and I obviously spent lots of time listening to the Guardian audiobook (though Idk if this person’s article thinks ‘repeated reading/listening of a single material’ counts as multiple things or not). 

---

The article suggests:  Instead, aim to cover, say, 1000-5000 levels in the first year, 6000-7000 in the next, and gradually work your way through 8000-9000 levels during the following 18 months. This way, you’ll consistently read 20-30 foreign language books a year, which is more than manageable. 

(that’s 15 chinese books in first year, or 2,880,000 characters... I feel like I’ve heard of a book easily that long in chinese... anyway, that would be 15 ‘chunks’ of 54 chapters 20-pleco-pages, or 15 ‘chunks’ of 106 chapters 10-pleco-pages... which for chinese novels typical lengths of ~100 chapters that would mean more like ~7.5 actual novels read total and possibly less if the novels are significantly longer).

---

Another interesting article: https://puroh.it/reading-for-a-fine-vocabulary/

Did a lot of these calculations for me (too bad I didn’t read it first).

They said at about 11.6 million words you will have learned a 35,000 english vocabulary. So 11,600,000*1.6 (the english words to chinese characters scale) = 18,560,000 chinese characters. 18.5 million characters. 

That is ~96 ‘chunks’ of 54 chapters of 20-pleco pages, (or 5155 chapters to reach all 18.5 million words). Because chinese web novels are often 100+ chapters, it would be around ~48 novels at 100-ish chapters each. 

So to get back on track: this article estimates 11.6 million english words to be 137 novels. For chinese, the equivalent would be 18.5 million characters is either ~96 chunks (54 long-chapters) or ~48 novels (100-ish chapter novels). 

48/137= 0.35 so you need to read only .35 the amount of ‘novels’ you’d need to read in english to reach the same level.

In this article, it says 100 books in english would get you to 25,000 words learned. So that would be 100*.35 = 35 (100 chapter) novels read in chinese to get to the same level maybe? And 80 books in english to get to 20,000 words learned, which is 28 (100 chapter) novels read in chinese.

---

I would guess, based on the two articles combined, yeah 28-35 novels read would probably get you to a comfortable reading level, possibly les novels than that.

Things I want to read: hanshe, guardian, modu, sha po lang, can ci pin, poyun, liuli, qi ye, tian ya ke, xin xiao shi yi lang, dao mu bi ji 1-9, dmbj ten years, peach blossom debt, san ye.... that’s 22 novels by name (likely more if i were to count in 100-chapter segments), plus some other novels and fanfic... i think if i just keep following my plan of reading books i want to read i will eventually hit those benchmarks. 

---

Anyway, those articles above are interesting if you’re curious just how many books it may take you to read (or words) to hit certain levels of reading skill in a language.

[simmonsofshield]

Broken, Mended

Pairings: Steve Rogers x Reader, Sam Wilson x Reader (platonic)

Summary: After breaking off an engagement, Y/N may have possibly hit rock bottom. But she doesn’t have time to think about it because she gets deployed to Iraq. Leaving their daughter with her friend, Sam Wilson, she’s gone for a year. She doesn’t like talking about her ex-fiance and is unsure if she’ll ever be able to love again. What happens a certain Captain is his literal doppleganger?

Words: 1700+

Warnings: mentions of murder? it’s knives out, yall.

A/N:  Y/N was engaged to Ransom. Spoilers for Knives Out in this first part. This is for @ussgallifreyfics​ 550 follower writing challenge! Congrats! And you’re already over 700? Way to go!! I chose the prompts home and roses. Takes place during Civil War.

tag list is open

Flashback Y/N sits in one of the many ornate chairs in the livingroom, tears streaming down her face. Joni tries to comfort her while Linda holds her now 3 year old, Rosemary. Ransom runs after her trying to stutter out an excuse, not that he could. Detective Benoit Blanc and Marta both figured out it was him who killed Harlan, there was nothing that he could do that would get her to forgive him.

“Y/N, baby, please just listen to me.”

“No, Hugh. This-This is-ugh! How could you do something like this when we have a child? Linda, would you-” Linda nods and walks out of the room with Rosemary still in her arms. Y/N continues, “How am I supposed to explain to her that Daddy’s in jail and never going to see him again?”

He gives her an exasperated look that said ‘you’re ridiculous,’ “Never? Babe, come on. I’m going to get the best lawyers on my case and I’ll probably get no jail time. I’ll be in and out of court in a matter of days.”

“You literally killed your grandfather, Hugh.”

“Don’t call me Hugh. Only the help calls me that.”

“The help? Are you serious? God, were you always this insufferable and I just didn’t see it? After all this you don’t deserve to be called Ransom. And you know, I love your whole family. They’ve been great helping you with Rosemary while I’ve been gone. Your mother I can clearly tell has enjoyed all the grandma time...”

He speaks through clenched teeth, “What are you saying?”

Y/N begins to take the beautiful ring that has been on her finger or around her neck for the last three years. “I’m saying that it’s over, Hugh.” 

She takes it fully off and walks over to him, setting it on the entryway table beside him. Now in cuffs, he just stares at it and back at her. She can tell he’s upset, maybe a little heartbroken, but not a single tear falls from his face. Noticing this just breaks her more. She backs away as tears begin welling up in her eyes.

“I really did love you.”

And with that the cops take him out and put him in the back of their car. 

The family has their own drama now having to deal with Harlan giving literally everything to Marta and nothing to them. In that sense, Y/N is relieved to not be tied to them anymore. Though she is still going to miss them.

She picks up her phone and calls one of the only people she would at a time like this. “Hello?” “Sergeant. How are you on this fine day?” “Better now that I’m talking to one of my favorite people.” She can hear the smile on his face. “How are you, Y/N?” “Fine, Sammy.” He knows what she really means when the nickname is used. “Y/N, what happened? Do you need me to pick you up?” “No. It’s okay, I have a car. Is that spare room still open though?” “Always for you.” A sad smile appears on her face. “Rosemary and I may need it for a few days.” “When will you be here?” “Later tonight. I’ll text when I’m close.” “Okay, see you then.” “Bye, Sammy. Thanks.” And with that she hangs up.

“Mama?” 

She wipes away any remaining tears and turns with the best smile she can muster, looking down at the light of her life. “Yes, flower?”

“Who were you talking to?”

“An old army buddy. Do you remember Sam? You met him about a year and a half ago.”

“Mm-mm.” she shakes her little head.

“That’s okay. Would you like to meet him again?”

“Is he in Afstan?”

“Afghanistan?” Y/N chuckles, “No, he’s in DC. Just a car ride away.”

“Then yes! I want to remember him.”

“Okay! Well, there’s no time like the present, so why don’t we pack up our things and put them in the car?”

“What about Gramma, and daddy, and Marta, and Megan, and-”

She cuts off her daughter, “Whoa there. There’s a lot going on right now after Paba went to heaven. They have a lot to work out. We can help them by going on vacation to see Sam.”

That seems to satisfy the 3 year old. She runs up the stairs to her room to begin packing, “Okay! Let’s go then!”

Present day Three. That’s how many tours Y/N has been on now. Not that she doesn’t like it. She loves serving her country. But, it’s just too much time away from her daughter. Years she’s missed out on her daughter growing up. She explains as good as she can and hopes that her daughter understands. Mommy leaving a year at a time and having to stay with Uncle Sam is a lot for a toddler’s mind to take in, however. 

Slowly opening her eyes, Y/N stretches as good as she can in the cramped plane seating. She opens the small shade and looks out the plane window. Water, but she has a feeling they’re close. She slept for a while. Not a moment later, the flight attendant’s voice comes over the intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are beginning our descent into Virginia, Washington Dulles International Airport. We should land at approximately 5:50pm, which is just under an hour from now. Please turn off any electronics and stay seated and buckled up until we land and the seatbelt sign is turned off. Thank you for flying United and we welcome you to America and our Nation’s capital.”

The next hour is filled with nervous excitement as Y/N thinks about finally being home and seeing her Rosemary again. It had been a long, hard year in Iraq and she was ready to relax and have a fun summer with her and Sam.

They land and everyone files off the plane. As she walks through the airport, she gets a few salutes and ‘thanks for your service.’ She just smiles back as she looks for something to eat. After doing so, she beelines for baggage claim. Coming down the escalator, she sees many posters welcoming family members and other soldiers home. It doesn’t take long for her to find the one made for her. Bright blonde curls are holding it as best she can above her head and it makes Y/N laugh. It says Welcome Home Mommy! in gold glitter on bright pink paper. Not hard to miss. Little arms quickly bring it down as she trades the poster for what Sam was holding before running over to her.

Y/N crouches down, arms out as her little one barrels into her. Happy tears run down both their faces. 

“Mommy, mommy, look!” she hands the flowers over so she can wipe her face. “They’re called roses. Aren’t they pretty?”

“They're beautiful, baby.”

“They have my name in it!”

She laughs, “They sure do.” 

She stands up, carrying the bouquet in one hand, holding her daughter’s hand with the other as they walk to Sam. “Got anything for me?”

“Uh, no.”

She takes a sharp inhale, “Gotta step up your game, Wilson. You’re getting beat out by a four year old.”

He hangs his head in mock defeat but quickly brings it back up with his signature gap-toothed grin. She knocks shoulders with him as they continue their walk to baggage claim.

“So how has this year been with Sam, little one?” Y/N asks as they drive back to his place. “Was it so much fun?”

“Yeah! Did you know I turned four while you were gone?”

Y/N gasped, “No! I thought you looked taller.”

“Yeah! And on my birthday, Uncle Sam let my bestest best friends come to his house.”

“Ooh, I bet that was fun.” She side-eyes Sam who is smiling but shaking his head. She assumes having a bunch of kindergarteners is his house was not something he expected to ever happen.

“It was amazing!”

“How’s kindergarten going?”

“Good.” she answers with a shrug, “we’re learning letters and colors and shapes and how to count to a hundred.”

“Wow. You’re going to be smarter than me someday.”

She looks at her daughter in the rearview mirror who is just smiling. Only a few minutes pass before she’s out in her carseat. As if he was waiting for this moment, Sam speaks, “So, how was it?”

Y/N shrugs, “The usual, I guess. Nothing to report.”

“Okay.” he nods slightly “Can we talk about the other thing then?”

Y/N sighs, “Now?” she asks, trying to avoid the upcoming conversation.

“When else, Y/N? You avoid it by spending most of your time with Ro, and at night you don’t want to because you’re ‘too tired.’”

“I was just on a really long flight, Sam-”

“No. I don’t want to demand it out of you but don’t you think you owe me an explanation? I opened my house to you for five months, then I had to spend a year with your daughter and everyone thinking she’s mine, and having to explain that ‘no, mom’s in the army and i’m just looking after her.’”

“And you think that me telling you what happened in Boston is going to make your life easier? Sorry to be such an inconvenience.” Y/N asks, defensively.

He takes a deep breath, “You’re not. I’m sorry. It’s just, I let it go when you showed up because whatever happened was fresh. But then time kept going by and I thought you would bring it up on your own and you never did.”

She lets out the breath she’d been holding and nods slowly, “Yeah, well it was a lot to process. I’m going to give you the short version because that’s all I have the energy for right now.”

“I’ll take whatever you give me.”

She closes her eyes and takes another breath, “I’m sure you figured it out but I broke off the engagement with Ransom.”

“I did notice a lack of a ring when you first came. It must’ve been bad huh? You did love the guy.”

“Really bad.”

And he accepts that for now.

[twilight-love-nochu]

Secrets kept & unpaid Bills | myg

⇴ pairing: Suga x Reader

⇴ genre: tiny bit of angst but mostly fluff

⇴ summary: Y/N has some unpaid bills but she keeps it from Yoongi because she doesn’t want him to think that she is in the relationship for his money, causing some conflicts between the two lovers.

⇴ warnings: financial problems; mention of arguments

⇴ tagging: @yoongisqueenn

⇴ notes: I am so unbelievably sorry that this took so long to write. I had so much to do for school and honestly I was also a bit lazy not going to lie hehe sorryyyy. Hope this is good enough and close to what you expected, thank you for your recommendation!! xx

⇴ word count: 2.1k

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You were running around in your house rushing to get ready for your date with your boyfriend Yoongi who was going to be here in approximately half an hour. If you learnt one thing about him in the 5 months of your relationship, it was that Yoongi was never, and I mean never, late. Don’t get me wrong, his habit of punctuality was a real blessing most of the time, but at other times, like today, where you really needed an extra 30 minutes, it could also be a real curse.

You didn’t actually mean to be this late and it’s not like you had been loafing around and procrastinating all day. Actually, today you had to attend your 3-hour lesson at university this morning, then work at your part-time job at the university’s library and then rush to your other part-time job at the restaurant. You had scheduled your date with Yoongi so that you had enough time to get home after your shift and get ready but your colleague chose this exact day to come in late so you had to stay 45 minutes longer until she got there. Needless to say you loved your job.

“Why don’t you just quit?” You may ask. Well simply because you needed the money. Your family wasn’t the richest and since you were fourth out of five children and your parents already had to pay for your siblings university tuitions, food, appartements and other necessities not much money was left for you. So you had to finance most of those things yourself. You had found two jobs that you had to juggle between. The two jobs barely even gave you the money you needed but there unfortunately are not enough hours in a day for you to get another job. And honestly your nerves would not have kept up with that either.

This month you were particularly stressed: your parents couldn’t send you the money for your food like they usually do so you had to pay for it yourself. Because that, you didn’t have enough money to pay your rent for the month and had yet to figure out how you would come up with the money to pay the bills laying on the coffee table of your living room.

Anyway, at the moment the only thing you had in mind was being ready in time. You dashed into your bathroom to take a quick shower. Your clothes hit the floor and you made your way into the shower. Warm water hit your naked shoulders trying to wash all the stress from the day away but you barely had time to register it as you started shampooing your hair in a hurry.

About five minutes later you walked out of the shower refreshed, dried yourself and took out your hair dryer. Usually you would have let your hair dry naturally since you found it gave you less frizz but you didn’t have any time for that at the moment, so you settled with using the dryer and putting your hair in a slick bun.

Just as you finished your hair style- which took you 20 too long minutes- and hurried into your room to dress and put some makeup on, you heard the front door unlock. It was most probably your boyfriend whom you had given a spear key to your appartement to.

“Darling? I’m here.” Your expected guest called. You peeked your head outside your bedroom door to see him taking his shoes of by the entrance.

“I’m sorry Yoongi, give me 15 minutes and I’ll be ready, yeah?” You sighed, feeling a guilty to make him wait.

“It’s okay” he smiled that smile that always gave you butterflies as he saw you “ I came a bit earlier anyway. Take your time.” You smiled in return and went back into your bedroom. Your boyfriend was always the sweetest.

Yoongi decided to wait for you on the couch. To say that he was excited for your date was an understatement. Lately, you two hadn’t been seeing each other much and he missed you quite a lot. He did try to call you and go on meet with you but you would never pick up the phone and always cancel, saying you were busy but you never told him what you were doing, as many times as he asked. As any person would, he started to have some doubts about you but quickly came to senses, knowing that cheating was something you would never do as you cherished trust and faithfulness very much. He trusted you. Still he wanted to know why you would avoid him. So one day, he went to your apartment to get answers but it didn’t work very well. You two ended up having your first big fight and on top of that he didn’t even get the answers he was looking for. But you two talked it out and ended up scheduling a date because he felt bad for starting a fight and you felt bad for always letting him down.

Still you didn’t want to tell him that the reason you had no time for him was because you were busy working. Yoongi didn’t know about your financial problems and you honestly didn’t want him to find out. Not because you were embarrassed- well maybe a little to be honest- but because you knew your boyfriend and you knew he was going to want to help and pay for everything because that is just how caring and kind Yoongi is. You, on the other hand, didn’t want him to do so because you were an independent (and prideful) woman who would not depend on any man- except maybe her father- and on top of that you always felt bad when someone spent money on you no matter if it was only for a sandwich, so spending so much was out of the question. Therefore you deemed it better not to tell your boyfriend about your problems. But little did you know that said boyfriend was going through the bills laying on your coffee table.

You walked out of your bedroom finally done and made you way into you living room and now stood at the entrance with Yoongi’s back to you“ Sorry for the wait, babe. I’m ready now, we can go.” Yoongi didn’t answer seemingly concentrated on something. Frowning you walked over to him. “ Babe? Wh-“ You froze as you got close enough to catch a glimpse of what was taking up his whole attention. Your bills.

Only then does he lift his gaze up to you. “Y/N what are these?” Shit. You didn’t know what to say. You knew he was going to find out eventually but you were planning on telling him one day and you did not wxpwct him to find out like that. What were you supposed to do now?

“Why didn’t you pay your rent Y/N? Are you having money problems?” You stood there helpless, not knowing what to say to him nor how to explain to him why you never told him about your problems. “Are you going to answer me?”

One thing that kind of irritated you with Yoongi was his poker face. You could never tell what he was feeling or thinking if he didn’t actually tell you. So right now you weren’t sure if he was mad or upset or concerned which made you quite anxious as you didn’t know how exactly you should approach the situation.

After a moment you took a deep breath and sat down on the couch close to your boyfriend but still leaving a little bit of space between you two. “ Yes I’m having money problems. My parents can’t afford to pay for my tuition and rent so I’m usually the one who pays for that. That’s why I’m always busy, I have to work two jobs to afford everything. Anyways this month my parents couldn’t send me money for food and necessities like they usually do, so I had to pay for that myself, which is why I now don’t have enough money for my rent. I’m sorry I never told you this before.” By the end of this your voice was shaking and tears were building up in your eyes-though you tried desperately to blink them away- as you finally let all the stress for your busy and problem-filled life out. You never actually complained about your life, but you were still young and obviously you just wanted to see your boyfriend, hang out with your friends or just chill at home, but you couldn’t afford to do any of those things.

Yoongi just sat there and silent with an ever so stoic look on his face, which did not do anything to help your nerves. After a moment he finally expressed himself. “I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell me. I thought we were both taking this relationship serious.” Now you weren’t so sure if you were happy about him responding.

“I am! I swea-”

“Well apparently not because you didn’t trust me enough to tell me something so important.” You could hear the pain through is harsh words. It wreaked you. You didn’t mean to hurt him like that.

“Please don’t say that, baby. You know I trust you.” At this point you couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. You turned your

“Then why didn’t you tell me Y/N? I just don’t understand. This is obviously to much for you and I could have helped you, you know that.”

“Yes I know, and that’s the problem, Yoongi. I don’t want you to spend money on me. I know you only want to help but it just make me uncomfortable. It makes me feel like a gold digger and I don’t want you to think that I’m only with you for you money because I’m not.” You couldn’t help the crack in your voice nor the tears streaming down your face.

That’s when Yoongi finally turned to you and sighed. He lifted his hand up to your face and and carefully wiped your tears away, though fresh ones came to replace the old ones.

“Darling. Look at me.” He gently lifted your chin up. “I’m your boyfriend, if I don’t help you, if I’m not here for you, then what’s my purpose?” He said with a chuckle “And you don’t have to worry about me thinking of you as a gold digger because I won’t. Plus if I’m the one who is offering it to you there is no reason to worry about it. And please don’t feel bad about me spending money on you. We’re a team anyway. What’s mine is yours, okay?”

“But-”

“So I will help you out, at least for this month, even if you don’t want me to. Because first off I can’t see you suffer like that without doing anything and second of all helping you would mean you not having to work two jobs anymore, which would also mean, you having more time for me.” He ended with a smirk, pulling you closer to him.

You giggled “Even if you help me out, I’ll still to keep my jobs because I’m definitely paying you back, no arguing about that.” You gave him Eskimo kisses.

“Well then I could get you a job at BigHit, I heard there’s a shortage of staff. Or even better: you could come live with me.” You laughed out loud. A playful grin showed up on your boyfriend’s handsome face.

“Live with you and the boys? And we’re will I go if you Film something at the dorms? And honestly I don’t think there is enough space in there.” You snuggled closer to his chest.

“True. But I meant the first one though. I can a really find you a job at the company. That way you can pay me back-even though you don’t have to- and we can see each other more often.” Honestly that wasn’t even a bad idea.

“You know what? I could try to get a job there but I want to do that entirely on my own.” You knew why the outcome of Yoongi getting the job for you would be. Having to face gossiping and bad-mouthing from your colleagues and you weren’t up for that.

“An Independent Queen.” He sighed and kissed your temple.

“That’s how I am.” You shrugged with a smile and pecked your lover’s lips.

“I’m really sorry I kept this from you. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” You looked into his dark eyes, showing him your sincerity.

“I know, but the date will make up for the hurt. By the way you look beautiful baby.”

“Well I hope so, you don’t even know how hard it was getting ready in 2x speed.” You laughed as you got up, pulling your man up at the same time to get going.

“Promise me that the next time you have a problem,you will come to me?” Yoongi stopped you from making your way towards the front door.

“Promise.”

[welshdragonrawr]

For the “let’s get personal asks”.... all of them?? Please?? I’ll do anything 🙈 ~🍑

Anythiiiiing? That’s a mighty offer. I’ll try to keep these short and simple cuz there’s so many and poor moots will end up suffering a long post on their dash. But if anyone wants a long-winded elaboration on anything, feel free to ask.

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most? This Is Me Trying by Taylor Swift, Landslide by Stevie Nicks, In the End by Linkin Park, Perfect Places by Lorde, Funeral by Phoebe Bridgers, Wasteland Baby by Hozier

2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? Sarah Paulson

3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.However. Kits is glowering at me. I’m only too aware that...

4: What do you think about most? Life

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say? Your latest [redacted] phone bill is ready. Check it out in your [redacted] account

6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on? With 

7: What’s your strangest talent? Writing? It’s my only talent

8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence) Girls are incredible. Boys are alright.

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you? Yes

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar? About a month ago

11: Do you have any strange phobias? So many, not sure if they’re full-blown phobias tho

12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose? No

13: What’s your religion? What’s the name for respecting aspects of a lot but not following one specifically?

14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing? Walking?

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? Behind

16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band? Fleetwood Mac

17: What was the last lie you told? I haven’t got you anything yet

18: Do you believe in karma? Yes

19: What does your URL mean? I used to live in Wales and I’m too stubborn/attached to change it

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength? Insecurity/Loyalty

21: Who is your celebrity crush? Sarah Paulson

22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping? No

23: How do you vent your anger? Writing

24: Do you have a collection of anything? Books

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? Neither Phone I think

26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become? Yes and No

27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love? Metal scratching glass/Sarah Paulson’s voice

28: What’s your biggest “what if”? What if I had never gotten seriously ill when I did

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens? Yes and Yes

30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm. Phone/Blanket

31: Smell the air. What do you smell? Jacket potatoes cooking

32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to? [Redacted] Hospital

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast? East?

34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender? Hozier?

35: To you, what is the meaning of life? To make the most of the miraculous fact we’re here at all 

36: Define Art. Truth, Beauty, Horror and History 

37: Do you believe in luck? Yes

38: What’s the weather like right now? Grey and overcast

39: What time is it? 1pm

40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed? No, so no

41: What was the last book you read? Thin Air by Michelle Paver

42: Do you like the smell of gasoline? No

43: Do you have any nicknames? So many

44: What was the last film you saw? The Princess Diaries

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had? Just cuts and bruises so far luckily

46: Have you ever caught a butterfly? Yes

47: Do you have any obsessions right now? Sarah Paulson

48: What’s your sexual orientation? Lesbian

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you? Yes

50: Do you believe in magic? Sometimes

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong? Sometimes

52: What is your astrological sign? Scorpio

53: Do you save money or spend it? Save

54: What’s the last thing you purchased? Car accessories for a xmas present

55: Love or lust? Love

56: In a relationship? ‘It’s complicated’

57: How many relationships have you had? 3 I think?

58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue? Yes

59: Where were you yesterday? At home

60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you? Flowers

61: Are you wearing socks right now? No

62: What’s your favourite animal? Otter

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you? Kindness

64: Where is your best friend? Too far away

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr. @serawalkerwrites, @sisterxwinters, @grilledcheeseandguavajelly, @thefandomlesbian, @awildgothappeared

66: What is your heritage? Not much

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM? Reading in bed

68: What do you think is Satan’s last name? Why don’t you ask him?

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off? Yes

70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend? Yes

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do? Help the dog

72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid? a) certain people b) visit my loved ones c) yes

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love. 

74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it? Shake it Out by Florence and the Machine

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number? [Redacted]

76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship? Communication, Kindness and Care

77: How can I win your heart? Be Kind

78: Can insanity bring on more creativity? Sometimes

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far? Deciding to message the ones who’ve become my closest friends

80: What size shoes do you wear? 5 (european size)

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone? Don’t really know, probably something literary

82: What is your favourite word? Fernweh

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart. Loved ones

84: What is a saying you say a lot? Keep on keeping on

85: What’s the last song you listened to? This Is Me Trying by Taylor Swift

86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours? Purple/Red/Blue

87: What is your current desktop picture? Drunk Princess Leia (cover art from Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher)

88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be? He who shall not be named

89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on? What are you truly afraid of?

90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do? Go back to sleep probably

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power? Telekinesis?

92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again? Some time with my Aunt

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? Onset of chronic illness

94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be? Florence Welch

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go? Florida for reasons

96: Do you have any relatives in jail? No

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car? Yes

98: Ever been on a plane? Yes

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say? Be kind to one another. This world is a shitshow right now. Choose to be a good plot twist in it.

That was long, so congrats to anyone who actually sat through/read all that.

[damienhaasbaybee]

Figured it out 😂 for the let's get personal, can I request that you do them all?

I DID IT BAYBEEEEEEE.

* 1: 6 of the songs you listen to most?

I’ll Be There For You and Bad Medicine by Bon Jovi, In My Head by Ariana Grande, I Believe by Jonas Brothers, Air Force Ones by Nelly, and Chasing Pavements by Adele

* 2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

Harry Styles or Damien Haas so they can fall in love with me.

* 3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.

“me that it was a sometimes temporary paralysis that causes damage”

* 4: What do you think about most? the fact that I have nothing to really work towards

* 5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?

“I’m tireddd”

* 6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on?

without most of the time

* 7: What’s your strangest talent?

number and address recall 🙄 its embarrassing sometimes lol

* 8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence)

girls go to college to get more knowledge boys go to jupiter to get more stupider

* 9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?

fuck no lol

* 10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?

um... today.. in the car

* 11: Do you have any strange phobias?

raw chicken.

* 12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?

a piece of ice so i could pierce my nose.

* 13: What’s your religion?

christian

* 14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?

um... if its for pleasure... swimming.

* 15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

behind lol

* 16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?

of all time... linkin park or one direction

* 17: What was the last lie you told?

that I’m fine lol

* 18: Do you believe in karma?

v much so

* 19: What does your URL mean?

um... i am damien haas’ baybee and he is also my baybee

* 20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

weakness, helping people until I die strength, i am honest

* 21: Who is your celebrity crush ?

james marsden, david dobrik, zac efron, miles teller, damien haas...

* 22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping?

no

* 23: How do you vent your anger?

i sing real fucking loud

* 24: Do you have a collection of anything?

one direction memorabilia lol

* 25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

either works with me tbh

* 26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become?

yes.

* 27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?

sound I hate: hearing others talk on the phone, sound I love: rubbing clean hands on a clean table

* 28: What’s your biggest “what if”?

what if I’m just crazy and none of this is real

* 29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

yes and yes. anything is possible.

* 30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.

my comforter both times lol

* 31: Smell the air. What do you smell?

a clean house lol

* 32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to?

uhhhh Louisville

* 33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?

west coast because i have never been

* 34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?

Harry Styles

* 35: To you, what is the meaning of life?

to leave the earth better than I found it

* 36: Define Art.

art is everything and nothing that a person wants it to be

* 37: Do you believe in luck?

I do. circumstances create luck.

* 38: What’s the weather like right now?

pretty clear

* 39: What time is it?

10:08pm

* 40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?

yes and yes! I won’t say what it was but it hit ME.

* 41: What was the last book you read?

I tried reading Girl Wash Your Face but couldn’t get into it.

* 42: Do you like the smell of gasoline?

Yes

* 43: Do you have any nicknames?

yes I do... you can call me queen tho.

* 44: What was the last film you saw?

Legally Blonde

* 45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?

several ankles sprained severely on each side.

* 46: Have you ever caught a butterfly?

no

* 47: Do you have any obsessions right now?

yes. damien haas.

* 48: What’s your sexual orientation?

bisexual, demisexual, pansexual????

* 49: Ever had a rumour spread about you?

yes. I was pregnant.

* 50: Do you believe in magic?

no.

* 51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?

yes, unfortunately.

* 52: What is your astrological sign?

cancer

* 53: Do you save money or spend it?

both!

* 54: What’s the last thing you purchased?

a carwash for my dads truck

* 55: Love or lust?

both

* 56: In a relationship?

somewhat

* 57: How many relationships have you had?

two

* 58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

no

* 59: Where were you yesterday?

home

* 60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?

yes, my water bottle

* 61: Are you wearing socks right now?

no, never

* 62: What’s your favourite animal?

polar bear

* 63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?

my hospitality (including dis mouf)

* 64: Where is your best friend?

idk, at home?

* 65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.

oooooo bisquett, thebasketcase101, persistence-ofmemories, creativegoof, and zanesgirlfriend

* 66: What is your heritage?

I am part native american and european as far as i know. i want to do a 23andme so I can find out. My skin tans realllllly dark even with tons fo sunscreen on so that makes me think I have more Native American than I thought.

* 67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?

I was definitely watching New Girl

* 68: What do you think is Satan’s last name?

idk... Jones?

* 69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?

biiiiitch of course I have.

* 70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?

Yes. I may suck but I am loyal as hell and I’ll do anything for my friends.

* 71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?

save the dog, fuck that job.

* 72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?

a) yes b) spend it with family and write a book c) fuck yes. i am terrified of death all the time.

* 73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.

trust. love is nothing without being able to trust.

* 74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?

It’s A Great Day to Be Alive by Travis Tritt

* 75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?

1389.. not in that order.

* 76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?

honesty and communication.

* 77: How can I win your heart?

buy me food and show me that I can trust you with my heart. I sturggle to trust people. I also NEED to be called pet names.

* 78: Can insanity bring on more creativity?

Yes.

* 79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?

Quitting my toxic ass job.

* 80: What size shoes do you wear?

9.5

* 81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?

She did her best, even when odds were against her.

* 82: What is your favourite word?

I dont have a favorite but my least favorite is “creamy”.

* 83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.

Love.

* 84: What is a saying you say a lot?

“ooooo bitch”

* 85: What’s the last song you listened to?

Always You, Louis Tomlinson

* 86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours?

darkkk red and black

* 87: What is your current desktop picture?

bitch I aint been on there in so long, I have no clue.

* 88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?

Donald Trump

* 89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?

depends on who is asking, if its my family... asking my sexuality.

* 90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?

Fucking scream and run.

* 91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?

Mind reading.

* 92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

Seeing my dads face when I walked across the stage at graduation or him telling me how I looked in my junior prom dress.

* 93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

Watching my dad die.

* 94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?

Harry Styles.

* 95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

The beach, pronto.

* 96: Do you have any relatives in jail?

Not anymore

* 97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?

No

* 98: Ever been on a plane?

Yes. I loved it.

* 99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?

Love others like you would like to be loved and see where that gets you.

[codysepipen]

Love At First Bite - Chapter 3

The diner was closed on Sundays. Which meant Courtney, who woke up late, had to find a way to spend the afternoon.

She wandered around the house for a while, eating some breakfast and feeding her cat. She even had the time to sit down and write a few pages of her advanced literature essay. But boredom quickly consumed her and she flopped onto the couch, shooting a text message to her best friend.

Bridgette, though she was supposed to be at work, responded with ridiculous speed.

Bridgette Evans had been Courtney’s best friend since first grade. She was one of those beachy chicks who had grown up in California until age 6 and then moved to New York, two hours away from the coast. No beach, no waves, no turtles. Bridge loved turtles, and would not hesitate to talk about them every five seconds. And she still made the trip to the Sacket’s Harbor with her boyfriend Geoff and his family every summer.

Of course, she was the head lifeguard at the Condervale Public Pool. She loved bossing Geoff and Duncan around from late spring and through summer.

Courtney didn’t mind going to the pool. Except for when Duncan was working of course.

But Bridgette assured her, over text, that Duncan didn’t have a shift today. This eased her mind enough and she changed into a swimsuit. Courtney wasn’t a huge fan of swimming in particular, but hanging out at the pool could be enjoyable.

The Condervale Public Pool was about half a mile from Courtney’s house. It wasn’t quite close enough to walk, but also not quite far enough to take the bus. So she settled for walking and left. Though she had a coverup over her grey bikini, the March air was not forgiving and the 20 minute walk was spent in slightly uncomfortably cold silence.

It didn’t take Courtney long to realize Bridgette had been lying.

The blonde was leaning on the open front gate when Courtney arrived, a suspicious smirk plastered across her face. Courtney immediately knew there was something up, and she almost straight-up walked away when Duncan walked out from behind the snack bar. She shot a pained glare at her ‘best friend’ and walked straight past the punk, ignoring him as he followed her around the pool to the spot where she usually sat. She set down her drawstring bag and towel, removing her sunglasses and coverup, and sat on the edge of the pool. Duncan stood over her, arms crossed, “What’s with the silent treatment all of a sudden, princess?”

Courtney’s gaze snapped upwards and she had to squint against the bright sunlight, “Don’t call me that.”

“Okay…? But still, what did I do to deserve the honor of being ignored by you, your majesty?”

Courtney rolled her eyes, looking away again as she caught a glimpse of Bridgette watching intently from inside the snack bar.

“I don’t particularly want to talk to you,” she stated, crossing her arms, “after you didn’t respond to my text yesterday I figured you-“

“You texted me?”

“Yes I did. At approximately 9:26 la-“

“I never got it.”

Courtney blinked. “What?”

“I never got the text.” Duncan repeated, taking a seat next to her on the water-cooled concrete.

“Oh…” She muttered, not making eye contact with the green haired boy beside her.

He seemed lost in thought for a moment before he turned abruptly to her, a revelation flashing in his ridiculously clear blue eyes, “Let me see your phone.”

“Now why in hell would I-“

“Just trust me for a second would you? God-“ He trailed off, hoisting himself from the ground and walking to where Courtney’s things were laid neatly on the pool chair and reached into her bag, claiming her phone in his palm and holding it out in front of him in silent triumph. She stared at him, not really sure how to react, since no one had ever just...ignored her like that before. Well, apart from Justin; he was just stupid and didn’t actually know any better.

Duncan returned to where Courtney was sitting, holding the phone out to her.

“Unlock it.”

Courtney cautiously snatched her cell phone from the punk’s outstretched hand, slowly pressing the pad of her thumb to the home button. After a moment, the screen lit up with her home screen; a picture she had taken with Bridgette at the beach last summer, and she silently handed it back to Duncan.

She watched him fiddle with it for a minute, no doubt trying to rifle through her pristinely organized app folders, until he obviously found what he had been looking for.

His nodded once, turning the phone around so that she could see the screen, “you put my number in wrong.”

Courtney just stared at him for a moment. That wasn’t possible. She looked at it multiple times in her thirty-minute-long contemplation of whether she was even going to reach out to him or not.

“Well then how do I know you didn’t give me a fake number?” She said, aggravated now, trying with all of her being to convince herself that he was just some awful person instead of her being wrong.

Because Courtney Hayden was never wrong. Especially when it came to stupid like Duncan Cross.

But he shook his head, typing on her phone furiously for a few seconds and handing it back to her.

“There. One number difference. Try and call that one.”

She took the phone back from him, furrowing her eyebrows as she tried to see the screen in the bright sunlight. When she finally found it, she pressed the call button, and held it away from her face as it began to ring.

After a moment, something in the pocket of Duncan’s bright red, lifeguard-issue swim shorts started ringing loudly. He grinned, pulling open the Velcro and removing his violently-shaking cell phone.

“See?” He smirked, “what did I tell ya?”

Courtney sighed and ended the call with a swift tap of her index finger.

She swore quietly under her breath as Duncan continued to smile at her, extremely pleased with himself.

This boy was going to be the death of her.

[love-loser]

cocky student tony x professor peter moved here for mobile users

Even though college was a volatile time for many, this whole higher education thing was going pretty well for Peter. Granted, he’s the one teaching the class, but still, pretty good seeing as see he was so young (25) and oh so (very) endearing, both of which helped him get along with his students.

Well, most of his students.

He never knew just how much one person could annoy him but walking into class, seeing that stupid smirk on the younger boy’s smirk, just made his coffee taste that much bitter, the junior never failing to make his day just a bit shitty, somehow.

Even more- he’d always managed to somehow know the material even though Peter was sure he was either sleeping or on his phone half the time. The Engineering professor could probably count on one hand the number of times he’d seen the brunette actually take notes. And it was already halfway into the semester. It hadn’t even caught Tony off guard when he tried to call on the boy.

What he hated the most, though, was the way Tony’s stupid, stupid, intense, dusky eyes always seemed to undress him everytime he walked into the room. The way his hands made his excessively big iPhone look tiny when he wrapped his capable fingers around it and- not to mention those same fingers that rubbed against his lips as he blatantly checked his own professor out, in class, no less. Did kids these days have no manners?

Yes, maybe Peter was exaggerating just a tiny bit–– it’s not like Tony tormented him everyday or openly harassed him, but it’s the principle of it, see. In Peter’s mind, he only has one goal when it comes to Tony Stark, aka (surprisingly) straight A student, aka genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist most annoying boy on campus.

And that goal: To put him in his place.

Peter can’t imagine what it’ll be like for the student when he gets to senior year in just half a semester–– in fact, even the very thought of Tony treating any of his teachers this way (or anyone) sends the assistant professor’s matchbox heart into insistent, restless flames.

(He chalks it up to just pure concern for his student.) Not jealousy.

Peter even writes up a list between inputting scantron grades, of why exactly he hates Tony’s guts.

Eloquently, he titles it, ❌ Tony Stark ❌.

1. Taller than me by an inch 1.5 cm.

2. Somehow knows my favourite breakfast from panera bread.

3. Always borrows notes from other people when he’s absent EVEN THOUGH HE KNOWS I HAVE COPIES BY MY DESK!

4. Wears those stupid glasses all the time.

5. Spends an average of 6 minutes after class just cleaning up, making me WAIT

6. Never pays attention in class but always sets the curves on tests.

7. Always flirts with other people outside the hall before class. (distracting!)

8.

On the eighth, Peter’s mind draws a blank. He’d thought that he could go on and on when given the chance, but maybe now isn’t the time- after all, he does only have 2 braincells left after mindlessly typing in scores.

It’s about 5:43 pm now, which probably means he should go after entering this last girl’s score and-

Done. Rarely do other professors ever stay this late, but Peter isn’t really in the mood to stick around and see. He grabs his trusty bullet journal- the one he proudly spent 2 and a half hours on in the beginning on the year, and also the one he just slandered Tony in, which, speaking of the devil- Shitshitshit, avoid him before he annoys you, Pete. It turns out his stiff, minecraft esque speedwalking in the other direction still isn’t enough to deter Tony, who looks up from his phone and calls out a nonchalant, “Hey, Mr. Parker!” Peteralmost scoffs at the sheer level of disrespect in that one line- how dare he? Who does he think he is?! At least, that’s what he sputters mentally.

Physically, the brunet is ready to embrace a thousand year nap.

Peter mentally debates whether or not to stop and give Tony the time of day, his aforementioned 2 brain cells bantering back and forth before, eventually, Tony just decides he will have a conversation with Peter, whether he likes it or not. “Hey, earth to Mister,” Tony says, suddenly in front of his face, dangerously close.

“Hi, Tony. You do know my first name isn’t mister, right? And you should be calling me Professor.” Peter says, voice scolding. “Okay, then, professor,” Tony says, though Peter knows he won’t really listen to him, “What’re you doing so late? Isn’t it past your bedtime? You need sleep to grow taller.” Well- okay, this is getting ridiculous.

“That’s no way you should be talking to your elders, much less your lecturer, Tony,” Peter reprimands, starting to walk again. Hopefully, he’ll be left alone now. Unsurprisingly, and to Peter’s horror, Tony only starts striding backwards easily, as if he’d grown up learning how to walk that way. “But you’re so young. You barely look like my elder, much less a teacher,” Tony’s eyes flicker down, then drag back up, and Peter tries not to flush at this. “That’s not to say you don’t look good, though, the opposite, really.”

Peter only scoffs at this, round eyes rolling in disbelief, a warm tinge to his cheeks to top it all off. He stops abruptly, ego puffing just a bit when Tony stumbles.

“Actually, why don’t we talk about that, Tony?” He stops just to mentally imprint Tony’s somewhat panicked expression, before continuing with an adamant, “I’ve seen the way you act in class- the way you look at me,” which sounds much more scandalous than it should be.

Peter’s voice lowers to a hush, registering that they’re still in a school building, where anyone could be listening. Trust no one, not even yourself.

“It’s not appropriate. I’m not some romantic interest for you to try to indulge in, and I’d much rather you put some of that attention to the lecture’s material instead.”

A moment passes by, then two, and Peter is still staring Tony straight in the eyes, his own hard with determination, brows furrowed.

After a pregnant pause, the student clears his throat.

“Do you wanna be?”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, yeah, you’re cute professor,” Tony admits shamelessly, “Why don’t you just give me a bit of a chance? I’m not that bad, I’m actually very great.” “That’s exactly what a bad person would say,” Peter points out.

“Let me prove that I’m not, then,” Tony says. Then, his phone dings, “Well, I have to go. But I mean it, mister! Bye,” And with that, Tony bids him goodbye with a wave and a blown kiss.

Peter shudders.

Yuck.

-

What is not so yuck, though, is the next morning, is when Peter gets in at approximately 8:30 am. There’s a still toasty croissant on his desk, with a orange post it note.  

Hope you enjoy this. I was late bc i was picking it up so i just decided to skip for the whole day- TS<3 xoxo

Peter, infuriatingly, knows exactly who wrote the note, and couldn’t resist the urge to roll his eyes. He’d been doing that alot lately. ‘Late picking it up so he just decided to skip the whole day over a croissant, are you kidding me,’ Peter doesn’t bother actually protesting against the innocent pastry, though, instead setting his bag down and taking it out of the pastry bag. He recognises the label- it’s from the campus coffee shop. Tony was late to class picking up food from an establishment on campus.

The kid’s gotta have a demerit, or something, because that might be going just a little too far, even for him. It’s like being late to a party you’re already at, but leave it to Tony Stark to somehow find a way.

Well, that’s too bad. There was suddenly going to be a pop quiz today.

-

Peter, later, finds that he has to reach deep inside himself to not literally slap the living shit out of Tony’s face when the boy opens the door to his lecture hall as the professor is packing up later that day.

“So you are here,” is what he says instead, eyes narrowed accusingly. He still doesn’t get why Peter doesn’t just come to class if he’s already there- are his lessons really that bad?  

“Indeed I am,” is the answer that comes, infuriatingly nonchalant. “Miss me?”

“Never,” He huffs, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

“Did you at least like the breakfast I got you?”

Hell yes. “No. What would be better, Stark, is if you actually attended class while you were on campus.” Then, he adds in without thought, “Especially mine.” There’s a beat of silence, the words not quite sinking in for the professor yet- it’s a different story for Tony, though. “Especially yours?” Tony asks with a grin, and the tone in his voice makes Peter immediately regret whatever he said to induce said piece of shit’s intonation. “Yes. Is there a problem?” One strong brow raises in inquiry.

“Not at all,” Tony’s stupid smile only widens, “The opposite, really.”

[sugarcontent322-blog]

Reminiscence — A Trip to Remember

This article was first published on Medium.

It’s been a few months since my solo trip to Japan, and I still remember vividly every single moment with precise detail. I mean, how could I not? It was the most memorable trip that I ever had, not to mention, my very first solo trip. Remembering every moment brings joy and excitement to my heart, which gave me the motivation and drive to write this journal.

I wasn’t planning to travel alone in the first place, to be honest. The thought of solo travelling never did cross my mind whenever I planned an overseas trip. Part of the reason was because I felt it would be too boring without friends, without having someone to talk to. But, circumstances *psst— leave approvals* prevented me from joining my friends’ itinerary. And thus I was left with the option of planning a solo trip.

Planning an itinerary alone proved to be very enjoyable, as I realized. Researching on places to visit, planning the route and mode of transport, day-to-day schedules, it gives you a sneak preview of what kind of adventure awaits. Not to mention, I can go wherever I want to go, as my mind pleases. That’s sort of a main perk of solo travelling I guess, flexibility in plans. Few days before my flight, I switched a day in Osaka with a trip to Hiroshima, just because I suddenly had the urge to explore. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

My trip lasted for 10 days, travelling through Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Hiroshima. Looking back at my itinerary, I wondered how I was able to follow through such a spartan schedule. Everyday was a visit to a new area, and I never did spend much of my time in the city, only at night when I’m done for the day.

Waking up at 7.30am every morning (why can’t I have the same motivation for work!), I planned to start my day early so I could maximize my time spent at places I was visiting. Having bought the painfully expensive JR Pass, I had unlimited rides on JR lines and also the shinkansen, so I was determined to capitalize on it as much as possible. Booking my shinkansen ride at 8/9 plus, I was always rushing to the station without having breakfast. Hunger wasn’t a concern to me, but missing my ride was. And yes, I have missed x number of trains throughout this trip, and 1 particular shinkansen which got me panicking for the first time on the trip.

Kamakura

Throughout my stay in Tokyo, I visited Kamakura, Nikko and Hakone. Approximately 1 hour away from the capital city, each of these places have their own iconic landmarks. My first destination was Kamakura, a suburb filled with Buddhist Zen temples and shrines. Walking on the streets of Kamakura felt different from walking in Tokyo, there was no no urge to walk briskly, no rush. Everyone around me was strolling casually along Hachiman-gu street, occasionally stopping halfway to indulge on the variety of souvenirs, sweets and snacks that the roadside shops had to offer.

I was absorbed into the 'slow-paced life’ of Kamakura, and took time to appreciate the traditional architecture of the shops, before reaching Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu at the end of the street. At the entrance of the temple, I chanced upon a pair of Japanese newlyweds decked in Japanese wedding kimonos, having a photoshoot with a group of people who seemed to be like their families and relatives. The tourist spirit inside me sprung into life, as I whipped out my phone to take a couple of photos and an instastory. Mind you, I wasn’t alone in doing this.

Venturing into the temple, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw yet another pair of Japanese newlyweds! This time, the pair were in the middle of a ceremony, exchanging vows as per tradition, I guessed. Then again, Kamakura is a place famed with its shrines, so its no surprise that newlyweds would hold their wedding ceremony here. But still, to chance upon two wedding couples on the same day, I think I was very fortunate and lucky. On towards Hase, which is 3 Enoden (the local railway in Kamakura) stops away from Kamakura station, I went to visit the famous bronze Great Buddha Daibutsu.

The Great Buddha statue, Daibutsu

A majestic, magnificent statue. I stood still for a few minutes, just staring intently in awe at the great figure in front of me. The interior was open to visitors for a small fee, and there were details of the weight, the height of each part of the statue. I took a few photos, paid my respects to the Daibutsu, and headed back to Tokyo for dinner.

I met up with my Japanese friend in Kanda, he brought me to an Izakaya his friend owned. While we were having dinner halfway, there were a huge group of people in colourful traditional costumes, parading and cheering down the streets of Kanda, carrying a lavishly decorated palanquin. My friend explained that there was a festival happening— the Kanda Matsuri. Another lucky coincidence!

Although this was supposed to be a solo trip, I did meet up with some groups of friends for dinner sometimes. Honestly, I was really lucky to have company for some parts of my journey, given my talkative nature, so shout-out to those people (you know who you are ☺).

Nikko

The next day was a long, long journey into Nikko, taking the Tohoku shinkansen to Utsunomiya station, the local Nikko line towards Nikko station. I used the 2 hour travelling time to review my plans for the day — head to Ryuzu Falls, which is the start of the nature trail, towards Senjougahara Marshlands, Yudaki Waterfall, and finally Yumoto Onsen. Never would I have thought that I’ll willingly go on a nature trail myself, but hey there’s a first for everything I guess.

Ryuzu-no-taki, Ryuzu Waterfall

Alighting at the Ryuzu-no-Taki bus stop, I stared at the limitless flight of stairs in front of me. Did I mess up, I wondered? I didn’t know these stairs existed when I was researching the area! Well, that was the start of my “spartan” trail, as I dubbed it. When I reached the top, I realized that the flight of stairs was not even part of the nature trail! If I alighted one stop after, I would have skipped the stairs altogether. Oh well, lesson learnt and I continued (started) forward nevertheless.

A warning sign at the entrance of the trail — beware of bears!

Unfortunately (or fortunately), there were no signs of wildlife to be seen throughout the trail, only birds which I was unable to identify. The journey to Senjougahara marshlands was a brief one; took roughly half an hour to reach. I was greeted by the majestic view of the marshlands — its hard to believe that such a breathtaking landscape was 1400 meters above sea level! The rustling of leaves in the wind, the serenity it exudes, made the whole hiking trip worthwhile.

Fast forward to the journey back to Tokyo city, I was racing for time to catch my shinkansen to Shin-Osaka at 8.33pm, because my accommodation for the night was there. Unfortunately, I was 6 minutes late (Yes, I vividly remember) and my shinkansen had left without me. I went to inquire at the ticketing counter in Tokyo station whether there were any Osaka-bound trains left, and the earliest ride was next morning. Then the sudden realization hit me. I was left stranded in Tokyo, without any accommodation.

Hungry and angry — “hangry”, I was walking around Tokyo station aimlessly. The cons of solo travelling started to surface: I felt lost, I didn’t know what to do, nobody was around to tell me what to do, there was nobody for me to discuss with. Cold sweat, goosebumps — you name it, I felt it. Firstly I had to find a way to calm myself down. I went into a Family Mart, dragging my luggage along, bought a bottle of Mitsuya Cider (good stuff, highly recommend), and took a huge gulp.

Now that I have calmed down, it’s time to make a Plan B. I whipped out my phone, opened the Agoda app and searched for the nearest capsule hotel with a vacancy. Fortunately, capsule hotels are aplenty in Tokyo, and I had no issues finding one with a vacancy — in Kanda, just a street away from the Izakaya I had dinner at the day before. After settling down in my new accommodation and grabbing dinner at a nearby eatery, I crashed into my bed. It was a long roller-coaster ride of a day, and it was about to get even more exhausting, because I would be starting the next day with a 6.26am shinkansen to Osaka!

Miyajima, Hiroshima

For my first time stepping outside of the Kanto region, I was excited to explore more places that I could only see through the Internet. The first place I visited was Miyajima, an island off the coast of Hiroshima, western Honshu. Though Miyajima was totally out of the way for my plans, I just went with it because hey, with the power of my JR pass I can go anywhere! It was really easy to get to Miyajima also, connected by local trains from Hiroshima, since it’s a popular tourist destination that hosts the World Heritage Site: Itsukushima Shrine.

On board the JR ferry, I could clearly spot the iconic “floating” torii gate over the distance. Its tall orange pillars stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the green and turquoise landscape of Miyajima.

Spotting the torii gate over the distance

When I disembarked from the ferry, I couldn’t believe what I saw — there were deers all around! There was no mention of deers roaming around the populated areas of Miyajima when I was doing my itinerary planning, or so I believed. But, unlike their counterparts in Nara, the deers in Miyajima are not really as tame and friendly. They don’t bow unfortunately, I tried in embarrassment. There were warning billboards that advise tourists not to feed the deers as they are considered wild animals. Nevertheless, I did spot some deers approaching tourists for snacks, though in a slightly aggressive manner.

Stare-down with a deer outside the Miyajima pier

Before heading into Itsukushima shrine, I took a little detour to take a look at the floating torii gate. Luckily for me, it was low tide and sightseers were able to walk down the coastline and get a close-up with the majestic torii gate. I stood in front of the torii gate, staring intensely at its pillars. To think that this structure remained unscathed and survived the destruction brought by the atomic bomb in World War 2, it truly is a miracle indeed. The bottom part of the pillars were eroded though, because of the waves. Tourists took this opportunity to grab a selfie/group photo with the torii gate, including me.

Up and close with the famed ‘untiltable’ torii gate

After visiting the torii gate and Itsukushima shrine, I headed out for my main objective of the day: reaching the summit of Mt Misen, the highest mountain in Miyajima. Of course, I wasn’t going to start my ascent from scratch, there were ropeway services that brought tourists up to Shishi-iwa observatory, and another 30 minutes walk up to reach the summit. However simple it sounds, this walk is far from easy. Slopes after slopes, I kept leaning my body forward to push myself up these slopes.

Along the way I met a bunch of hikers, tourists and locals. When we walked past each other, I was caught off guard by their afternoon greeting konichiwa, I couldn’t react in time to give my reply, barely giving a smile and bowing my head slightly in return. Such an act of courtesy was heartwarming. Almost every Japanese people greeted me on my way up to the summit, to the point where I started to initiate the greetings myself.

Rock formations at the summit of Mt. Misen

The view at the summit of Mt Misen was absolutely breathtaking. You could see the Hiroshima Bay in its entirety. Fresh air, clear blue skies and clouds, invigorating wind, all these made my effort (and money spent) worthwhile. Having accomplished my plan for the day, I spent the remaining afternoon browsing through Omotesando shopping street.

On a side note, if you’re planning to visit Miyajima, don’t forget to grab some Momiji Manjyu as souvenirs on your way back! They are Miyajima’s specialty, and they well deserve that title.

Kyoto

Kyoto — the land of temples and shrines, was nothing short of amazing. In this laid back town, the streets are not as bustling as its neighboring city Osaka, just peace and quiet. Also, the number of temples and shrines in this town is astonishing; for every few hundred meters you walk, there is almost certainly a temple or shrine nearby. But, each and every temple or shrine has its own story to tell, with different history and architecture. For travelers seeking out Japanese religious culture, Kyoto certainly is a must-visit.

As I was travelling solo, I could quickly decide what I wanted to do, so I tried to visit as many landmarks as I could within the two days I allocated in my itinerary. Places like Ginkaku-ji, Kinkaku-ji, Kiyomizu-dera are “mandatory” visits for tourists in Kyoto, so I prioritized those places first. I was fortunate enough to be accompanied by a friend of mine, despite a hectic schedule, if not I’ll be hopelessly lost in Kyoto’s complex bus system.

I have to say, riding on a Kyoto bus was interesting, and a tad scary. The entrance is at the back, which was supposed to be where the exit is, and vice versa. Only at the terminus do commuters board from the front. Also, I noticed that Japanese drivers like to drive very, and I mean VERY, close to one another, leaving just a few inches of gap, too close for comfort. So when the bus I was on came utterly close to a car beside (I sat at a window seat, so I could see the car being CRAZILY near), I felt very uneasy and claustrophobic.

Shortly after I arrived in Kyoto, I was told by my friend that there was a festival Aoi Matsuri, one of the three main festivals in Kyoto, happening at the Kyoto palace. Second festival that’s happened during my trip, how lucky I was, really! I pushed my plans back and headed straight for the palace. A large crowd had already gathered outside the entrance of the palace, with some photographers setting up their gear in preparation for the big event. But the first of the palanquins appeared only an hour later, and suddenly the crowd sprung into action, whipping out their phones and cameras and snapping away. Of course, that included me as well!

The parade heads off from the Imperial Palace

It was a grand festival all right, with horses and oxen walking beside people in ceremonial attire. A strikingly beautiful palanquin stood out most of all, with the high priestess Saio riding in it. After walking alongside the parade for a while, I decided to call it quits and head for my next destination.

The Golden and Silver Pavilions, I could only see them through the Windows wallpapers when I lock my computer. They already look magnificent digitally, but seeing them in person is truly a sight to behold.

The Golden Pavilion, Kinkaku-ji

While being surrounded by greenery and a pond, the Kinkaku-ji stands out with its striking gold. Covered in gold leaf for its exteriors, you could see the gold brilliance clearly reflected by the surrounding pond.

While the Ginkaku-ji is not as flamboyant as its golden counterpart, the Silver pavilion offers a dry sand garden with a striped line pattern situated just beside.

Sand garden of Ginkaku-ji

The simplicity of the garden gives off a serene vibe, I felt at ease while looking at the pavilion, also maybe because the crowd here was smaller here compared to Kinkaku-ji. After a few walks around the garden to make my money’s worth (the entrance fee is 500 yen, goodness!) I decided to head towards the most famous structure in Eastern Kyoto: Kiyomizu-dera.

Similar to the two Pavilions, Kiyomizu-dera is widely popular on various mediums. Any travel ad and tour package would feature the temple as one of the main highlights in Japan. Unfortunately the roof of the main hall was under construction when I visited, so the scenery of the whole temple wasn’t as great as before, but at least the main hall was open for visits, so it’s not all that bad.

The temple is located up in the hills, so there’s a arduous 10 minute uphill walk to expect. The walk was not in the slightest boring though, because you’ll be walking through the Higashiyama district, where a whole line of shops and cafes awaits a curious traveler. There were a lot of shops selling Japanese sweets, and a few of them offered samples to shoppers (wouldn’t have known if I wasn’t guided by my veteran friend!). There were samples for matcha tea as well! What a great pit stop in the middle of the district, perfect for a short tea break before continuing further.

At the top of the hill, at the entrance of the temple, the view was simply breathtaking. I could see the entirety of Kyoto all the way to the mountains in the west.

The view atop of the hills, outside Kiyomizu-dera entrance

The crowd here was really huge, probably double the size of Kinkaku-ji crowd. That’s to be expected from the most popular temple in Kyoto, with tourists flocking in to see the temple and the spectacular view.

After a full (scorching) day of temple-hopping, what better way to cool down than to visit an onsen? What I like about Japan, especially Kyoto, is the abundance and convenience of bathhouses, there’s bound to be one around your vicinity (provided you are in an urban area of course).

For the remaining 3 days of my trip, I decided to spend my time leisurely. I spent the late afternoons on an onsen spree, going to popular onsens. In total I visited 4 onsens within these 3 days (maximum health & wellness!) One onsen that left a deep impression on me was Yunessun in Hakone, the place is a water theme park combined with an onsen. Visitors can check out the unique wine/coffee/sake pools and then relax in an onsen, it really is a cool concept, I don’t regret spending half a day there!

Four buckets of coffee ready for splashing people!

Afterthoughts

Honestly, I felt very skeptical about going on an overseas trip all by myself. All the what-ifs fogged my mind, while worrying about safety and the probable loneliness. However, this trip made me realize that a leap of faith into the unknown was the push I needed to understand how enjoyable and exciting journeying solo could be. From the start of the trip planning till the end, it was a phenomenal experience.

The power of the JR pass is limitless

I’m really glad that Japan was my first country to experience solo travelling (not to mention how safe Japan is), definitely would recommend Japan for avid solo-trippers! Writing this journal has spurred me on to plan for my next Japan trip already. If you have any recommendations on where/what to visit in Japan, please do share them with me! Or, if you are planning a trip to Japan yourself and would like some ideas, I’d love to share and discuss my thoughts and experiences!

Special thanks to Nurulhuda, Lee Ming Rui and Wilson for taking their precious time to proofread and provide their valuable inputs!

[pianoperson]

Get to know me (if you want)

No one asked for this. Questions are from @chvmpagne-and-gasoline so if you wanna answer them, feel free to.

1. 6 of the songs you listen to the most?

La Campanella by Liszt, Humoresque by Dvorak, Rolling Girl by wowaka, Servant of Evil by mothy (?), Circles by Kira (?), Comptine D’un Autre Été (yes I don’t give a damn about pop culture)

2. If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

Brett and Eddy from TwoSet

3. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.

“1997—X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter” from Armada by Ernest Cline

4. Who do you think about most?

My real life friends because they’re great, and IkeRev guys (especially Jonah)

5. What does your latest text message from someone else say?

Asking them where they are

6. Do you sleep with or without clothes on?

With. How do people sleep without clothes?

7. What’s your strangest talent?

Having random thoughts enter my mind that actually predict the future (but I never really tell anyone so)

8: Girls are cool; Boys are cool. (everyone is cool period)

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?

Nope, well at least I don’t think so. But I did write a poem about someone (it was never meant to be a roast poem, just a poem that was meant to be an outlet for my sadness, but it was accidentally written in such a way that it can be interpreted as one)

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?

Bold of you to assume I ever played guitar. The closest was ukelele but that was for school.

11: Do you have any strange phobias?

No

12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?

No, unless your finger counts (hey, it gets bothersome sometimes to feel something within your nostril)

13: What’s your religion?

Roman Catholic

14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?

Either I’m going out to eat or exercising

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

Behind, but I always end up in front of it

16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?

I don’t have a favorite band.

17: What was the last lie you told?

It was probs a yes to a question I no longer remember.

18: Do you believe in karma?

I joke about it, but honestly, no.

19: What does your URL mean?

I’m a person who likes piano. That’s it.

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

My greatest weakness is being too cautious to the point I get tense due to fear of failure. My greatest strength is probably scrape by school with grades 90 and above without putting in my best.

21: Who is your celebrity crush?

Bold of you to assume I even have one.

22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping?

Nope, never

23: How do you vent your anger?

If I want to rant, I either rant alone or with people who think alike. But that’s with  really shallow stuff. If it’s really bad anger, I tend to keep it to myself because I feel like I’m gonna waste people’s time and my own energy.

24: Do you have a collection of anything?

None

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

Depends. But I’ll go with talking on the phone.

26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become?

Nope. Not yet.

27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?

I hate Edgar Bright’s voice the sound of a spoon or fork accidentally scraping against the plate. I love the sound of pianos and flutes.

28: What’s your biggest “what if”?

What if I screw up so badly that I’ll end up a failure, a loser, and a loner for the rest of my life and end up dying in pain alone?

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

Ghosts, no. Aliens, a bit.

30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.

With my right, I touch air. With my left, I touch the TV screen,

31: Smell the air. What do you smell?

Nothing

32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to?

If it smells like garbage, then automatically, it’s the worst place for me. And I’ve been to a number of places like that so I can’t specify.

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?

West Coast just because I’ve been there

34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?

Does Jonah Clemence count? He sings lol But in all seriousness, none.

35: To you, what is the meaning of life?

Life is like a Pokemon game. You’re not going to win all those battles, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give up. But if your life is Pokemon X and Y, you’re lucky.

36: Define Art.

Art is something universal yet personal.

37: Do you believe in luck?

Yes. Of course, you need to work hard, but you still have to hope that things go your way.

38: What’s the weather like right now?

Pretty cool since it’s nighttime. Clear skies too.

39: What time is it?

10:07pm

40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?

Nope. 

41: What was the last book you read?

Armada by Ernest Cline. It’s a great read, especially if you read Ready Player One by the same author.

42: Do you like the smell of gasoline?

Yes. Everyone around me finds it weird.

43: Do you have any nicknames?

Yeah 

44: What was the last film you saw?

Infinity War

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?

When I was grade one, I fell and hit my head. 

46: Have you ever caught a butterfly?

Never had, never tried.

47: Do you have any obsessions right now?

IkeRev I guess

48: What’s your sexual orientation?

Bi

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you?

Yep. Quite a bit.

50: Do you believe in magic?

Nope. But I wish I have.

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?

Nope, because that’s a waste of time and energy. Also, I tend to forget they even did anything to me lol

52: What is your astrological sign?

Sagittarius

53: Do you save money or spend it?

For school and food, spend. Otherwise, save.

54: What’s the last thing you purchased?

Takeout from a restaurant because there was no food at home.

55: Love or lust?

Love

56: In a relationship?

Nope

57: How many relationships have you had?

Was single, has been single, always will be single

58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

I think I used to, but no.

59: Where were you yesterday?

At home

60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?

Nope

61: Are you wearing socks right now?

Nope

62: What’s your favourite animal?

Idk. My dog I guess.

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?

I don’t even try.

64: Where is your best friend?

At home

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.

@just-shower-thoughts​ @extramadness​ @laineclemence​ @theundyingskeleton​ @valkryie-nyte​

66: What is your heritage?

Filipino with a bit of Chinese and Spanish

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?

Answering some questions on Tumblr

68: What do you think is Satan’s last name?

He doesn’t have one.

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?

Sorry, what does that even mean?

70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?

Considering I talk to myself a lot, yes.

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?

Go to work. I don’t think I can save that dog.

72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?

Yes I will tell my family and friends that I will die. Yes I will be very afraid. I will go to confession as soon as possible and perhaps try to do some stuff before I die.

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.

Trust

74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?

The One That Got Away by Katy Perry just because nostalgia

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?

My lips are sealed about that.

76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?

Being great friends grants a great relationship.

77: How can I win your heart?

You can’t.

78: Can insanity bring on more creativity?

No, but it can make you do the things you want to do by removing all insecurities and inhibitions preventing you from doing those things.

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?

Staying alive

80: What size shoes do you wear?

If we’re talking about closed shoes, size 5

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?

Never thought about it

82: What is your favourite word?

Right now, it’s Queen.

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.

Jonah Clemence (ok how many times have I said his name in this post)

84: What is a saying you say a lot?

“Lol”, “nice”, “I wanna die.”, or “Patayin mo na ako.”

85: What’s the last song you listened to?

Melt’s cover of Rolling Girl

86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours?

Blue and black

87: What is your current desktop picture?

A galaxy

88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?

I don’t want to have that on my conscience and my record so nope.

89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?

Do I have a kink?

90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?

Clutch my blanket and stay still, trying to think of a way to get them out without inadvertently causing my death.

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?

Psychic powers

92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

That one time I touched a thermometer that wasn’t supposed to be touched in grade two. Everyone got mad at me for it. It took me three or four years to get over the shame from that incident.

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

2016. What a time waster.

94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?

That’s uncomfortable...

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

Iceland just because it sounds great

96: Do you have any relatives in jail?

Nope

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?

Never, which is great

98: Ever been on a plane?

Yep

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?

Jesus is the answer.

[redhoodsjacket]

Confession Part 2 - Bucky Barnes (Mobster!AU)

Finally I kicked my ass to finish writing part 2. I will conclude with a part 3, I think that would be just long enough. THANK YOU TO ALL MY READERS ON PART 1 Y’ALL AMAZING

Part 1

Pairing: Bucky x reader

Type: Fluff

Word count: 3448

Rating: PG-13 (I have no idea how american rrating works but this contains strong language at some point)

With your head high, you pushed the door to the office floor open, walking in almost three hours late to work, dressed head to toes in expensive designer clothes. There were two distinct files in your hands: one that would make your superior happier about you not being at work yesterday too, and the other that would probably make him furious. You didn't care anymore. "Look who bothered to show up, and late at that" Your boss spoke, and silence fell over the office. You felt one specific glance pierce through you, but you ignored him. 

"I need to speak to you" You replied.

"Well, you can say it here" He shrugged. "I'm guessing your colleagues will appreciate having perhaps an explanation for missing a day of work without calling beforehand" 

You looked around and held back a smirk. You handed your boss the first file. "Okay. So here's everything to win the State against Mauritz case, it's basically already won" You explained as he kinda looked baffled. "And here's my resign letter. I quit" Chatter rose up around as you turned on your heels and walked away, until a hand pushed you in the archive room. You yelped as you steadied yourself on your heels, and directed your furious glare at the offender. "What are you doing?" Andrew said as he let go of your arm. "Didn't you just hear what I said?" You frowned. "I'm quitting" "I knew it" He muttered harshly. "It's him, isn't it?" You feigned innocence. "I don't know what you're talking about" "The only reason I didn't dig deeper into you is that I still estimated you a good person" He spoke with venom. "But if you walk out that door, I'll have to come after you" You took a step back, a sneer on your face. "And if you do that, I'll make sure you can never contact Sofia ever again" "You can't do that" His eyes widened before a smug expression took over. "By the court order, I can see her" "I have a couple of judges that owe me favors I can call" You replied. "How does a restraining order sounds?" "Aren't you already acting like you have it anyway? You've literally stopped allowing her to call me" He rolled his eyes. "You think I'm stopping her from calling you?" You snorted in disbelief. "It has never crossed your mind that she didn't want to hear about you ever again? You've broke her heart more times than I can count, and she's old enough to decide who she wants in her life. That doesn't include you" "You're lying" He muttered, his smugness gone. "Why do you think you're not paying child support anymore?" You crossed your arms defiantly over your chest. "You're her sperm donor at best. You'll be nothing but a bad memory to her" "And you think he's better?" He retorted as a last resort argument. "Has always been" You shrugged and took a step back. "Even when you were in the picture. So do us a favor and leave us alone" "Wow (Y/N), using your own daughter to blackmail me" He chuckled dryly. "You've changed" "Goodbye Andrew" You said and turned around to get out of this place. You hadn't taken two steps that his hand grabbed your wrist and held it up, halting your steps. "What the fuck?" You spat, trying to get your wrist out. "Let me go right now or I scream" His hand flew open and you retracted your wrist like it had just been touched by fire.  "Is that an engagement ring?" He asked, like you owed him any explanation. "Yes, not that it's any of your business" You answered anyway. It took Bucky a whole three months to pop the question, and he did it on a rooftop restaurant overseeing New-York, during one of the most gorgeous sunset of all year.  Obviously, you said yes. "You didn't have that last winter" He added, before he probably made the link. "You're crazy. I've never pegged you for the impulsive type but I guess given a bit of money you lose your mind" "I dumped you three years ago, you seriously need to get over it" You managed to come up with an answer that didn't involve threatening him, but maybe a bit of anger seeped past your self control. You walked backward and flipped him the bird with your left hand, exposing the golden band with a bright green emerald right beside your middle finger. "Go fuck yourself" You left him in the archive room, all offended and disgraced. You took the elevator down to the main hall and walked straight out, then headed straight to downtown to treat yourself to some shopping. You deserved it. Time rolled fast and before you knew it, shops started to close, so you went back home.  You had to speak to Bucky. Nobody seemed to be around when you arrived. The sound of your heels echoed around with every step, and usually that would make someone come out of their hiding place.  But Sofia was spending the night at a friend's house, Bucky was probably in his study working on some deals or access contracts to his docks, and the rest that would hang around the house were probably working on something.  You dropped your purse and made your way upstairs and to the end of the hall. You gently pushed the mahogany doors and noticed Bucky at the phone looking tired and discouraged. His tie had been slackened and his jacket had been thrown on one of the chairs in front of his desk.  He looked up to you as you made your way in, but you gestured to him to finish his phone call. He nodded, you weren't sure if it was to you or to something whoever was on the other side of the line said. You stopped in front of the tray with multiple fancy glass bottles, grabbed a glass with two ice cubes from the bucket and poured Bucky's favourite whiskey in it. He always took his whiskey with two ice cubes; he didn't like odd numbers, and four would dilute the taste too much. You however, liked it with three cubes. But it had been a while since you hadn't taken a glass, and you were surprised that Bucky didn't notice you weren't drinking with him anymore.  You took the glass to his desk and pushed it to him, then sat in the leather chair that didn't have his jacket on it. You observed him work and took in new details about him, like how his hair was getting long or how the crinkles around his eyes would harden when he was frustrated. "... Yes. No, Parizzi, you're not hanging up on me you f-" He cut his word shot before slamming the phone down and letting out a long sigh. "Rough day?" You inquired and nodded to the glass. He took it and immediately took a big sip. "The guy who runs the cartel, Parizzi. He called off the whole cocaine deal, he's going for cheaper and lower quality" He grunted. "Approximated loss of 7 millions on five years if we can't find another cartel in New-York" "Yikes" You replied. "Have you tried contacting that boy Suarez? You know the one that is trying to build his own cartel? Maybe he'd be interested" "He doesn't have any money" He frowned. "Yet" You pointed out. "Sell to him to costing price for the first few years, then help him take down Parizzi when he's big enough. Then you have Suarez and his cartel under your thumb" You explained. "It's a whole lot harder to backstab someone who practically owns you" He stayed silent for a moment, wheels turning in his head. He was trying to imagine that deal displaying. "You know what" He blurted out. "That could work. Smart move, (Y/N)" "I try" You smiled as you crossed your legs and placed your hands folded on your laps. "You're adjusting pretty well to this life, doll" He remarked with a smile of his own. "Six months in and you're already thinking deals better than me" He joked. "It's almost like I have been raised into this lifestyle" You rolled your eyes playfully. "And that's because I had a clear mind, darling. You'd have had the same idea after a night of sleep" "True, true" He conceded. "And don't put yourself down, take credit for your ideas. Like this one" "Told you I was raised into this lifestyle" you shrugged sheepishly. Your mom subconsciously raised you as the perfect mob wife, just like how she was raised herself. She lost most of it with the years, because your father died taking a bullet aimed to Bucky's father-the main reason you were close to the Barnes-making her half quit the lifestyle. But Bucky's father still insisted to help her financially and with moral support so she wouldn't struggle raising you. So it ended up with many thanksgiving and Christmas dinners at the mansion, and a close relationship to Bucky.  "Anyway, tell me about your day" He changed the subject as he relaxed in his seat. "I quit" You replied simply. He raised an eyebrow as to tell you to elaborate a bit. "I was fed up, and I'm starting to raise real suspicions. Andrew knows" He blinked several times. "He knows? Are you in trouble? Should I order him taken down-" "Woah there" You interrupted him. "He won't be a problem, at least not yet. He confronted me about me quitting and threatened to expose me, but I blackmailed him into silence. He shouldn't talk" "That's my girl" He relaxed once again. "What did you use against him?" "Sof" You answered. "I told him he'd never see her again if he spoke a word of what he dug up, and then I told him to go fuck himself when he tried to tell me I wouldn't be happy with you or whatever" "I still don't know why you never agreed to let us take him down" He grumbled. "I hate that guy" "And I told you I wanted to wait until Sofia was old enough to decide if she wants to forgive him or not" You sighed. "That kill order will come from her if anything, not me" "Right" He mumbled.  "And besides, it would have been too much questions I couldn't have answered truthfully" You returned on the topic of why you quitted, a sly smile on your lips.  "What?" He frowned. "At work. Too much questions. Like 'So who's that mysterious fiancé of yours?' or 'Oh my god, it happened so fast, was the baby like, a mistake?'" You said and waited for him to catch on your words. It didn't take long that something shifted in his face and he looked at you with wide eyes. "Repeat that, doll?" He choked up. "I also read that working under stress while pregnant wasn't good" You clarified as you laid your hand flat on your stomach.  Some would consider that six months into a relationship was way too soon to get pregnant. But what you had with Bucky was different, and you loved each other. Your birth control was conveniently due for renewal right after he proposed, so you decided to drop it. You didn't tell Bucky, but he always talked about having children one day, so you figured out that keeping it a surprise wouldn't make him mad. "Oh my god" He breathed out. "You're- We're having a baby?" "Yes, Bucky" You nodded and he stood up faster than you've ever seen. He walked around his desk and kneeled in front of you, taking both of your hands in his own.  "I love you so fucking much, (Y/N)" He said, a bright gleam in his eyes. Tears were welled up in his eyes, something you've never seen before. He kissed the top of your hands and stood up again, taking you into a warm hug. "Thank you" "Well, you're not the only one who wanted another child" You whispered with a soft chuckle. "Sorry that I didn't tell you of my plan though, I kinda wanted to surprise you. Got the confirmation yesterday" "It worked" He replied as he pulled away, a wide smile on his face. "I thought you were on birth control" "Dropped it after you put ring on it" You raised your ring hand quickly, a small grin on your face. "I wanted to find the One, the real one, before having my second child. Truth is, I realize now that I always found a way to report the wedding last time because I knew deep down he wasn't the one I wanted and needed. However I had no idea the perfect man for me was right in front of my eyes" He kissed you tenderly, yet with passion and all the love he had for you. You smiled into the kiss, relishing the feeling of his lips against yours, or the trail of tingles his hands left on you.  "Jesus Christ, you're the best thing to have ever happened to me" He whispered. "I can't wait to marry you" "Me too" You replied. "For both affirmations"  You stood there for a while in each other's arms, just enjoying the feeling of him against you. You felt safe and loved, something that you hadn't had in a while.  "I don't know about you" You began after a while. "But a nice, hot bath sounds really good right now"  "It does" He hummed and lead you to the bedroom, then in the joined bathroom. Without another word, he gently lifted you to sit on the counter before he began to prepare the bath. You didn't protest as you watched him with a smile, knowing his protective mode would kick in harder than ever. He surely wouldn't let you do any work around for a while, just in case.  "Do we want to smell like lavender or jasmine tonight?" He asked as he raised two bottles of essential oil. "Oh, definitely lavender" You answered straight away.  "Alright" He nodded as he added some to the quickly filling bathtub. He then came back to you and gave you a quick peck on the lips. His hands trailed down your legs and took off your heels from your feet. "No more of these. Not good for the back" You couldn't help but giggle. Out of all things, you didn't expect him to come for your six inches heels you practically wore every day. You'd feel very short for a while, that's obvious. "Sure" You conceded with a grin.  "I'll hide every pair if it's the only way to keep you away from them" He joked as he gently put you back down on your feet. He unzipped your high waist skirt and let it pool around your feet as you unbuttoned his shirt.  "Good luck with that dear" You teased back as you pushed his shirt off of his shoulders and moved to his belt. "I might have a hundred of 'em scattered around the house" "Call it an early Easter egg run" He said with a now full blown grin. "Would be even better with you dressed as a bunny" You gaped at his words as his eyebrows shot up defiantly. He was referencing to that pathetic wanna-be-sexy playboy bunny-ish costume you wore on his Halloween party the year of your 15 years old. You swore him and Steve to never bring up that shameful moment again, yet your fiancé dared to. "James Buchanan Barnes" You started hands on your hips. "I am going to wipe that smug smirk off your face like none of your enemies ever did" "Doll" He cooed in that sweet, low voice he used when he tried to talk his way out of a sticky situation. You didn't protest when he loosely wrapped his arms around your waist. "The only shameful thing about that whole order deal is that you never realized how many guys spent the rest of the year drooling after you... Me the first" "Oh I did realized that bunch of dumbasses following me like lost puppies" You corrected. "Never paid them much attention. I guess I preferred your company over theirs" "You have no idea how happy it made me" He whispered, brushing a strand of hair away from your face. "Call me a selfish asshole but I got a whole lot of satisfaction knowing you'd choose me over them" "Perhaps I always subconsciously knew I was yours" You trailed your hand on his shoulder, tracing his scar lines as a shiver went across his skin. He didn't let a lot of people see them, actually, you were pretty sure only Steve and you knew of them, beside the doctors that patched him up of course. A dumb accident, really, during a business trip in the Alps. He and his men were in a hurry, they didn't check the train or the employees. An enemy of Bucky chose that day to try and blow him up, but he hadn't expected him to survive the fall. The revenge was bloody and merciless, and his tale is now told more or less accurately around the mob world.  "I like to hear you say that" He replied as he unbuttoned your black silk blouse and took it off. "Say it again" "I'm yours" You obliged without hesitation. He tightened his arms around you and pulled you impossibly close to him, before kissing you slowly. He was taking his time, as to savor the moment while it lasted. Luckily for him, you weren't going anywhere. The rest of your clothes finally fell off, his hands taking extra time on the set of lacy underwear you had put on for the occasion.  Then, you both got in the bathtub and submerged yourself to your shoulders in the hot water. You sat back again Bucky's chest as his arms sneaked around your waist to keep you closer. He snuggled his nose in the crook of your neck and sighed contently.  "You know" He began as he placed a butterfly kiss on your shoulder. "I'm glad that you quit"  "Is that so?" You hummed, a small smile spreading on your lips. "Hm" He agreed. "I wouldn't have let you go back there anyway. I don't trust 'em" You giggled and threw your head back against his chest. "I knew you'd say that, you overprotective teddy bear" "Well, heads up, it'll get worse" He replied, and you could feel his smile on your skin. "I know you like your independence, but I will be overbearing" "Oh you think you'll be overbearing?" You turned your head on the side. "Clearly you either don't remember me pregnant, or I didn't spend enough time with you when I was. Because I'm the worst, baby" "Do tell" He raised an eyebrow playfully. "Well first of all I might spend my days with Sergeï, so start considering giving him a raise" You began. You'd have to apologize in advance to the mansion's chef for the upcoming months. "Then I will make demands, some you'll like, some you won't, but you will have to make them happen or I will probably cry like a baby" "Like what?" He asked in a whisper.  "I'll be horny all the time" You blurted out, and he gave you a look that clearly said it was the opposite of a problem. "Yeah that's the fun part, Buck. But I know you don't like to be ordered around, so I'm pretty sure you'll get fed up of bringing me things after a few months" "You're gonna take advantage of the situation, aren't you?" He tickled your sides and you squealed. "Absolutely" You admitted without shame. "Not every day than you can have the most feared man in New-York at your beck and call, so I'll enjoy it while I can" "Then I'll gladly do it" He pressed another kiss to your neck. "Someone's gotta put me in my place at one point, and I wouldn't have anyone but you to do it" "Oh honey" Your shoulders shook in silent laughter. "If only that was possible" He gasped and pinched your hip. "Don't mock me while I try to resolve my character issues" "Payback for bringing up the bunny costume, my love" You smirked.  "You're right, I might have deserved this" He leaned his chin on your shoulder. "See, you're already doing it" "Just- don't change completely just yet" You said in a whisper. "I'm kinda loving that mob boss edge of yours" "Oh I know doll, I know"

•••

Adding the people who commented they wanted to be a part of the tag list! It’s always open for part 3 btw

@potato-with-possible-standards @m4shtyx @ladymelissastark @officially-emo 

[lifeofbouyd]

Soldier Freak

Dear Bouyd,

I hope all is well with you and thanks for giving me a chance to tell my story. I do hope you and your readers will enjoy.

Back in college, I was one of the most wanted girls. Thanks to my small waist, big ass and a pretty face who made it possible. Men and women perused me daily trying to get between my legs but I was more focused on getting an education than getting fucked or sucked by random people. I had my game all planned out until my father decided to he wasn’t gonna pay my tuition anymore. Where the hell did he expect me to get money from to pay by myself? He could have at least said he’d pay half. For one, I didn’t have a job because there was no need for a job and secondly, I didn’t have a man spending crazy money on me because that was my dad's job. Against all odds, no experience nor a known skill I started searching the classifieds for a job. Anything was better than nothing. Eventually, I found my calling, just when I was about to give up.

Ad:

Are you in need of quick cash? Have no experience but can read and write fluently? Currently enrolled in college? Earn up to 80k every month. Submit your resume to the email address provided below. We look forward to meeting you.

Call me greedy if you wish but I was not going to be a drop out. I drafted my resume and sent it off. Crossing my fingers and praying. It took only three days for me to get a response and to my surprise they wanted me to come in for an interview. I put on my “Sunday best” and headed for their office not too far away. They loved my jovial spirit and the fact that I really needed the job. Instead of placing me in the packing room for which I applied , they placed me in sales and inventory. That was 115k a month. Just like that I had made a way to survive. I was making enough to cover all my expenses and didn’t have to kiss my dad’s ass for a thing. On my way home I got a ride with a soldier dude, nigga claimed I was in a bad area and even the taxi men are rapist and thieves. I didn’t even think for a second before jumping in his military van. He was somewhat of a gentle man or at least he tried to be. He got us food and drinks before dropping me off and he didn’t even ask for my number which weird. I hadn’t seen him until about two weeks later. He picked me up from the same spot. He introduced me to his buds as his girlfriend and I played along because I wanted the free drive. He dropped them off then got us something to eat and took me back to my place.

Vybz: You wanna go out tonight? My friends and I will be hitting Taboo later on. You up for it?

Well, it was a Saturday night; no work nor school the next morn, of course I said yes. I got all dressed up and spent approximately an hour fixing my face. “Pretty on fleek” was my motto. His eyes stripped me naked the moment he picked me up. I could feel his eyes between my legs and in my bra. The feeling of him staring me down made me tingly. I reclined my seat and raised the sun roof, staring into the galaxy while sexual thoughts ran through my mind. I hadn’t had sex in a long time and I felt like I’d let him take me down if he made me have a good time. Henny, Red Bull, Campari and orange juice; an unorthodox lineup but that shit “lik mi chip”. I was super charged. I kept whining on him from front and back causing his shaft to stretch across his pants. The moment I realized how hard he was I turned around to give him a lap dance. I was showered with $100 bills. Call me greedy but I scraped it all up and tucked it in my purse. That was $7000 towards my expenses 😂. We left the party around 3 am and headed home. He touched my leg and I got soaking wet. “Mi oil did a ride mi”. I opened the sun roof trying to cool down but my body wanted something thick and milky. I reached over and pulled his zipper down to take his dick out and to my surprise it was already rock hard. I gently stroked it with my right hand while rubbing my clit with the left. Both my skirt and his seat were soaked with cum. I started climbing him while he was driving, causing him to pull to the curb. I shifted my soaked underwear to the side and sat on his pipe. Bracing against the steering with one hand on the chicken bar I started to ride his dick. He had one hand and my shoulder and the other holding my waist. In synchrony we made love. It was a shaking, squeezing, moaning, squirting kinda sex. I hadn’t felt so good in a very long time. He had me lay on my back with my legs almost touching the ceiling; deeper and sweeter he planted it inside me. Tears ran down my cheeks. He pushed me all the way to the back seat with my legs still raised. He started kissing on my already paralyzed from sex legs causing my heart to skip several beats while I gasped for breath. He slowly dragged his tongue all the way to my thong before rubbing his tongue all over it. Nigga’s tongue was at least seven inches long. He ran it up and down my clit then sticked it in and swirled it around inside me. I had to hold my mouth and close my eyes not to scream. I grabbed his head, I grabbed the seat, I slapped my pussy and did that on repeat. I vibrated like an alarming clock while I sprayed his face with hot cum. Vybz was no regular freak. He had a PHD in eating. He made me regret not fucking him the first day I saw him. I was so defenseless when he asked me to ride his dick; all I could do was ask him to take me home. I fell asleep long before he even drove off.

I woke up in a strange room. A big bed with expensive sheets. Curtains that matched nothing and a tv that seemed too big to be on the wall. I smelled something delicious coming through the door but I couldn’t help but look around as if I was lost. A big portrait hang on the wall. They had painted him as a god with a sniper rifle in his hand. That’s when I realized where I was, he had taken me to his house instead. He came through the door with a breakfast tray in his hand which was different from anything I’d ever experienced. It was a really nice gesture but I could help but noticing how sexy he was. Big arms, a muscle packed tummy, hard chest and muscle built thighs. He was smoking hot and he cooks. I had fallen in love with this man I had only planned to fuck once. I took a long warm shower trying to beat the feeling out my head but it only made me hornier. I came out with nothing but my towel on. He grabbed it off and kissed my waist. He squeezed my nipples and grabbed my ass while he ran his snake of a tongue over my legs, waist and belly bottom. I was dripping wet and shaking as if I was cold. He grabbed me by the legs and held me on his shoulders, giving him full access to my juices. His tongue created chaos. I came on his face at least five times before he held me on his manly hood. Him beat it , eat it, beat it then eat it again. I was weak to my knees. I just kept cumin. For months we had sex and it was awesome.

Good dick but great tongue. I tried avoiding him so many times but that tongue kept me coming back. He’d come by my work place to pick up to pick up supplies for the camp and on most occasions we had sex in my office. My boss decided we would have a Christmas party and we could invite our partners. He was the closest thing I had to a boyfriend and the only nigga I had sex with since the year started. I thought he’d never show up but eventually he did. He kept squeezing my ass and scratching my legs which made me super horny. I had him meet me in my office where he devoured me on the table before fucking me hard from behind. Just as he came on my ass my boss walked in. There was no covering it up.

Boss: Vybz, is this how you treat your wife? Fucking my employee at my party. Have you forgotten your wife is my sister? Venice, your fired. I gave you a job, a way to survive and this is how you repay me?

We just sat there. We couldn’t even answer her questions. He said he had a girl but he never mentioned marriage. I lost my job simply because I couldn’t keep my legs closed. On the other hand, he couldn’t keep his tongue in his mouth. He pellets a wipes from a pack I had on the desk and wiped his oats thick cum off. He slapped my ass and grabbed me by the throat. Bracing against my ass he said, “no matter what happens, I got you”. That was all the reassurance I needed. I pushed him back on the table and jumped him. With my hands on his shoulders and feet on the table, I danced on his dick like a crazy woman. I had already lost my job so why hold back. I packed my stuff as soon as we were through and he took me home where we continued where we left off. I had already paid for my last semester so I had nothing to worry about at that point. I even tricked him into paying my tuition which was already paid so I had a lot of cash sitting on. We dated for two years before breaking up and since then I ain’t ever had anyone do me like he did. I even had to hit him up a few times lately for a fix.

Good dick and great tongue. Never to be replaced. I just Regret is breaking up but I wouldn’t change a thing if I got the chance. Shoutout, Soldier Freak. You are greatly missed.

Yours truly,

Kim

[hahanoiwont]

Johann was too powerful to let live.

Alternately titled: Johann the level 35 billion bard

And here’s why.

Bardic Inspiration, according to the DnD player’s handbook, can be cast a number of times equal to your charisma modifier, with a minimum of one. It is a single-target bonus action, meaning you can cast a spell or take an action (such as telling Magnus not to let the world forget you) on the same turn. If he hadn’t been busy with dying he could also have used his movement and an attack or spell, but he was pretty stabbed at the time and only posthumously managed to get that inspiration going. It only affects people other than yourself, within 60 feet, who can hear you.

We can assume the voidfish negated the 60 feet rule and also the need to use a separate action for each inspiration by virtue of psychically blasting that music through the planar system. But other characters who can hear your Bardic Inspiration do not benefit if they aren’t the target. That means that Johann had to have the charisma to reach each person he inspired.

So just how many people did Johann reach? The entire planar system heard his song. That means the population of each plane has to be taken into account.

Planar populations (I don’t know how Griffin got 13 planes out of the crazy planar systems in the handbook so I am using my best guesses): Prime Material Plane. This is a traditional high fantasy setting. We are assuming (errenously but generously) that aliens don’t exist and that Johann’s Inspiration went to only inhabitants of the world Faerun is on, Toril. There are eight continents on Toril: Faerun, where the campaign takes place, is the most populated and the one we know most about. It’s a medieval-magical continent, so I’m going to use Europe’s population just before the black plague and say 450 million people. Zakhara is dominated by elementals and is physically much smaller than Faerun, so we’ll say it’s only got 20 million people. Kara-tur is Fantasy East Asia, which had approximately 100 million people if we were to cut out a Kara-tur-sized swath of it. Maztica is akin to Fantasy Pre-European Americas, so we’ll go with an approximated pre-European Mexican population of 37 million, given the similar size, shape, and agriculture. Anchorome is unexplored territory inhabited by the same “wild elves” and humans as Maztica, so we’ll give them a minimum of 13 million people. Katashaka is completely unexplored but known to be the origin of several tribes of various species, so we’ll give them and average of all the other continents at 150 million people. Laerakond is home to dragon empires and “new cultures,” and so presumably well-populated. We’ll give them the same population as Faerun with 450 million. Finally, Osse is a nature-oriented continent populated by spirits and druids, and so probably not very dense. For easy math, we’ll say 5 million on the whole landmass. This gives the Prime Material Plane 1.22 billion inhabitants. Plane of Thought. As I sat down to write this, the global population is estimated to be 7.6 billion. Again, not counting aliens or animals, though theoretically an animal could be given Bardic Inspiration depending on the languages spoken by the bard in question. Celestial Plane. How many gods can there be? We’ll say two hundred, each with a maximum of 100 servants, angels, et cetera. 2000 max population makes the Celestial Plane mostly insignificant. Ethereal Plane. No one lives here. Astral Plane. Presumably, everyone who has ever died comes here, which means 100 billion from the Plane of Thought alone, discounting reincarnation. However, the sea of souls does not seem to support individual identities, and Kravitz at one point said something I can’t find about how you join all other dead people not in the Stockade and simmer in the collective memories of all who have once lived. For simplicity’s sake (and also because we cannot get into the trillions here, please God), we will assume those people are not individuals enough to be hit with the Inspiration, and the only recipients from the Astral plane were Kravitz and a couple thousand souls in the Stockade, which then formed Legion. Therefore, this is also an insignificant number of people, say 2001. Plane of Shadow. Has its own quasi-god and inhabitants, sort of a mirror of the other worlds’ fears. 2 million inhabitants seems reasonable, approximately one for every 600 people on the Prime Material Plane. Plane of Light. I’m sorry guys, I don’t know shit about this. I don’t think it’s a canon DnD plane. Griffin mentioned it by name but I think he lied to us, folks. We’ll give it the same as the Plane of Shadow for the sake of balance. 2 million inhabitants. Elemental planes: Air, Water, Fire, Earth. Each of these is home to creatures associated with this element, including Genasi, particular species of elves, Aarakocra, etc. We’ll give them 25 million each, for a total of 100 million. Plane of Magic. Also not a real plane. Do people live here? Since this plane colliding with the Prime Material Plane resulted in the loss of all life in the system during TSC, I’m going to say it itself cannot support life. 0 people. The Far Realm. Origin of mind-flayers, beholders, etc. Population is unclear, as visitors go insane and usually die. At least 1 million. Other Planar Systems. Seven humanoids and two voidfish, total of nine people.

That is thirteen planes and the IPRE accounted for, although I will entertain suggestions about other planes replacing the Far Realm, which is the only plane not directly referenced by Griffin in the show. However, since mind-flayers are canon for taz, it seemed appropriate to include their place of origin in the universe.

I have been very conservative with some of these measurements, so as not to be in danger of exaggerating. We have a minimum total population of 8,925,004,010 (eight billion, nine hundred twenty-five million, four thousand and ten) sentient beings capable of receiving Inspiration, and Johann is heavily implied to have reached all of them.

How is this possible?

There is no way in the base game to increase the number of people you are capable of giving Bardic Inspiration to unless you improve your Charisma. Johann, being dead, did not have time to take a short rest and regain his Bardic Inspiration uses. He must have performed all of his inspirations in one go.

Clearly, Johann’s Charisma modifier is 8,925,004,010, allowing him to use that many Bardic Inspirations in a day.

This means Johann’s charisma is 17,850,008,030.

Assuming he started at level one with a perfect 20 Charisma (possible for half-elves and a few other races), and he improved his Charisma at every Ability Score Improvement opportunity without taking feats, and that past level 20 Ability Score Improvements continue to come every four levels (and completely discounting the 20 cap on level and abilities because we don’t have evidence for that existing in canon and we do have evidence of Johann using nearly 9 billion Bardic Inspirations at once), he must have increased his reach by one person every four levels. There is no other way to gain points in Charisma in the base game, so he must have improved solely through leveling.

He started out as a level one with five uses of Bardic Inspiration, and ended with at least  8,925,004,010. This would mean that he leveled at least 35,700,016,020 times, making him a level 35,700,016,021.

Johann is a level 35.7 billion bard.

For reference, this makes his proficiency bonus 8,925,004,011; he knows every Bard spell, if spells known follows the trend of the Bard table past level 20, and up to 6 spells from other classes due to the Magical Secrets bardic ability. If that follows the pattern of increases past level 20 as well (learning two non-bard spells every four level past level 8), he knows every spell in existence, regardless of class. Spell slots seem to stop going up after four per level for bards, but he definitely has at least four in every level of spell up to 9th. His spell save, the number you have to roll to resist his spells, is well over 17 billion.

But Jared, you say, Jared. If Johann was truly a level 35,700,016,021 bard with all of these crazy abilities, he couldn’t possibly have been killed in one flip!

Wrong! I say, doing a sick flip and jumping on the table because this is my essay and I get to decide what it says. You think I am very cool and definitely right about this. I didn’t spend three hours today researching for an essay about a minor character in a dungeons and dragons podcast.

Anyway, yes, Johann can be killed. For instance, the lowest base score you can have for Constitution and Dexterity is a three, with a modifier of -4. This means Johann could have started with 4 hit points. Given that he as a bard gets 1d8 plus his constitution modifier hit points with each level, it’s possible that he even lost hit points with about 3/8ths of his levels. If he rolled badly (and depending on DM mercy), he may still have somewhere around 4 hit points.

Even if he had more than that, though, he also dumped Dexterity, and never put any points into anything but Charisma. He has not fixed the problem of being squishy and easily killed with any of his 8.9 million Ability Score Increases. With a Dexterity modifier of -4 and his canonical clothes instead of armor, his Armor Class is 6. He is easy to hit and easy to kill once you get past the frankly terrifying Charisma stat. This would also give him a -3 to Initiative (the bardic skill Jack of All Trades gives him +1), making his turn pretty late in each round of combat, depending on what he rolls. If you can go before he completely annihilates you, Johann is very squishy and mortal.

The Hunger, a multiplanar, vaguely bardic entity, would be capable of dealing large amounts of damage, too. The Shadows that are initially sent deal 17-33 points of damage with regular attacks in canon, and a crit or a surprise attack would certainly kill someone with Johann’s shit constitution. Given the circumstances, Johann’s death is plausible from a narrative standpoint and absolutely necessary on a metatextual level because a level 35 billion bard would absolutely just crush the Hunger beneath his heel. I don’t care how many planes it’s consumed. His Vicious Mockery, a cantrip, would deal 8 billion d4 damage. The Hunger saw its most terrifying opponent and took steps to kill him first, before he could see it.

Luckily, Johann had already written his hella inspiring music apparently seconds before this happened, so he can hang out in the Astral Plane watching his bardic legacy wreak havoc as literally everyone everywhere adds, like, 34d100 or some shit to their attacks. “Fuck you,” he says.

(As a side note: he is never sent out on missions because can you imagine a level 35,700,016,021 character with a Grand Relic. Shit, he practically is a Grand Relic. He would touch it and the world would end. He is the one strum man.)

In conclusion, Griffin gave Johann depression and then killed him because if he actually did shit he would be too powerful. Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.

[rebelmeg]

Let's Get Personal

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most?  Recently, it's been "Secret Love Song" by Little Mix, "Poison" by Rita Ora, "What Ifs" by Kane Brown and Lauren Alaina, "U and Ur Hand" by P!nk, "Perfect Matchup" by Kenny and London Holland, and The Greatest Showman soundtrack 2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?  Robert Downey Jr. 3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.  “When was the last night or day you took time off?” 4: What do you think about most?  Writing.  A new idea, a current idea, something I need to jot down, something I need to fix, the one I want to read. 5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?  I'm fine, unless you want the time. 6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on?  Underwear. 7: What’s your strangest talent?  Personalizing or adding to things that probably do not need to be personalized.  (The beige Calvin Klein purse was BORING so I defiled something expensive to make it more “me”.) 8: Finish the sentence.  Girls… are strong; Boys… are allowed to be soft. 9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?  Not that I know of. 10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?  I'm not an air guitar person, I have a THING about looking stupid and I’m certain that I can’t pull off looking cool doing air guitar. 11: Do you have any strange phobias?  Nah, just the regular ones. 12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?  Don't think so? 13: What’s your religion?  LDS 14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?  Walking to my car. 15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?  Behind, definitely. 16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?  I do hate this question.  I'll go with Queen, it's the first one that popped into my head. 17: What was the last lie you told?  I don't recall. 18: Do you believe in karma?  Eh, sorta 19: What does your URL mean?  I am and have always been a little bit of a rebel. 20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?  Weakness, personal motivation and time management.  Strength, creativity. 21: Who is your celebrity crush?  RDJ and Sebastian Stan 22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping?  Yep. 23: How do you vent your anger?  Stewing about it, venting to other people. 24: Do you have a collection of anything?  Soooo many collections... I collect shot glasses as my travel souvenir. 25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?  Phone. 26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become?  For the most part. 27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?  Permanent markers on cardboard boxes give me the heebie-jeebie shivers, the sound of a soda pop tab opening a can makes me swoon with happiness. 28: What’s your biggest “what if”?  I'm not sure.  Maybe what if I'd married someone else (not a desire at all, but something I've wondered about from time to time), my life would be entirely different from what it is now. 29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?  No and yes, but not in the traditional sense. 30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.  The chair next to me on the right, the child that is being clingy on the left. 31: Smell the air. What do you smell?  My house and my perfume. 32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to?  A casino. 33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?  I've never been to the East Coast, so I can't really say. 34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?  Oh geez, I don't know. 35: To you, what is the meaning of life?  To do your best, be kind, and be happy. 36: Define Art.  Life made viewable. 37: Do you believe in luck?  Not really. 38: What’s the weather like right now?  Rainstorm is heading this way. 39: What time is it?  9:31 am 40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?  Yep and yep.  Not a big crash, though, minor one.  Fixed the alignment! 41: What was the last book you read?  Currently reading "Blood Fury" by JR Ward 42: Do you like the smell of gasoline?  Don't mind it as long as it's not too strong. 43: Do you have any nicknames?  A fair slew.  Meg, Megs, Rebel, Mom, Mama, and then standard endearments. 44: What was the last film you saw?  Geostorm, I think. 45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?  Not sure if this counts as an injury, but I ended up in the hospital with a miscarriage that required surgery.  If that doesn't count, I broke my foot falling out of a tree. 46: Have you ever caught a butterfly?  Yep!  I found one on the grass once during recess as a kid when it was raining, it was close to getting crushed by the other kids playing ball. I held it cupped in my hands so I could show my teacher, its wings dried while I held it, and it flew away while we all watched. 47: Do you have any obsessions right now?  Fandom ones, heck yeah. 48: What’s your sexual orientation?  Straight. 49: Ever had a rumor spread about you?  Probably. 50: Do you believe in magic?  Everyday magic, yes. 51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?  Yeah. 52: What is your astrological sign?  Libra 53: Do you save money or spend it?  I spend like it's burning a hole in my pocket. 54: What’s the last thing you purchased?  Lunch last week. 55: Love or lust?  Love 56: In a relationship?  Yes 57: How many relationships have you had?  Just one serious one. 58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?  Not quite. 59: Where were you yesterday?  Home. 60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?  My elbow is resting on a pair of my daughter's pink underwear. 61: Are you wearing socks right now?  Yep, I love socks. 62: What’s your favorite animal?  Bears, penguins, peacocks, owls, dogs. 63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?  Being kind and friendly. 64: Where is your best friend?  Teaching school. 65: Give me your top 5 favorite blogs on Tumblr.  Oh geez, I can't narrow it down to just five! 66: What is your heritage? Mostly British, good mix of other UK and European ancestors, I’m a 2nd generation American. 67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?  Watching Gilmore Girls and folding laundry. 68: What do you think is Satan’s last name?  Don't think he has one. 69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?  Of course. 70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?  I hope so. 71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?  Save the dog quickly. 72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die?  Yes, everyone. b) What do you do with your remaining days? Be as happy as possible and spend as much time with the people I love as possible.  c) Would you be afraid?  Heck yes. 73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.  A huge part of love IS trust, so love. 74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?  Goody Goody by Julie Lavery, it's an upbeat, bouncy song.  (Which is funny, because the lyrics tell a sad story) 75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?  Nope, I use it as a passcode for stuff sometimes. 76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?  Humor, taking care of each other. 77: How can I win your heart?  Interact with me. 78: Can insanity bring on more creativity?  Yep. 79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?  To start writing again. 80: What size shoes do you wear?  7 81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?  *shrugs* Something nice. 82: What is your favorite word?  Popcorn.  I love the sound and the visual appearance of the way the letters are arranged. 83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.  Love, courage, strength. 84: What is a saying you say a lot?  "Best thing ever!" 85: What’s the last song you listened to?  "Hey Soul Sister" by Train 86: Basic question; what’s your favorite color/colors?  Purple! 87: What is your current desktop picture?  Shamrocks 88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?  I don't know enough to be able to make that decision.  Also, too many corrupt world leaders to narrow it down, I think. 89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?  I can think of many. 90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?  "I am too tired for this nonsense, either sit down and chill or go downstairs and wait until morning." 91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?  Time manipulation without accelerated aging.  I just want to be able to nap whenever I want and have time to catch up on my Netflix list... 92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?  The first time my hubby and I held hands when we were dating.  It was perfect and absolutely adorable. 93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?  Ugh, I'm not sure, there are two that immediately spring to mind that were pretty awful. 94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?  I have no idea. 95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?  Europe.  Anywhere in Europe, but particularly the UK. 96: Do you have any relatives in jail?  I don't think so? 97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?  I'm sure I did when I was a kid, but not that I can remember. 98: Ever been on a plane?  Finally went on one for the first time a couple years ago! 99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?  Be kind.

[swordarkeereon]

No More Outside Publishers. Period.

I made a solid decision at the beginning of the year to no longer work with any outside publishers. There are two exceptions. The first being my friend Bernadette’s publishing house, 5 Prince Publishing, where Saving Sarah May (my first, and perhaps only, sweet romance) was published. The second, being my friend Andre Gonzalez publishing house, M4L Publishing, which publishes me and Andre’s co-authored Amelia Doss series.

What was the final straw, you ask? It wasn’t a straw really. It was more like I had a realization of what my work is actually worth, and that people were coming to me with TERRIBLE publishing deals and offering to pay me what professional writers were making back in 1990. YES – 30 years ago professional rates. I’ve been writing for almost 30 years, and I’m really not doing anything for other writers in the industry, or myself, by accepting anything less than .20 cents a word for an article (plus more if newsletters and videos are required).

Modern day, professional advances on non-fiction books are running $5,000 – $20,000 ($2,500 is noob, rock bottom), and I’ve had publishers contact me and offer me $500 -$700 and tell me that’s a professional rate. Uh, no. Sorry. Not for a professional writer who’s been at this game for over 30 years, and who is one of the foremost world experts on her subject matter. Advances on non-fiction haven’t been that low since the 90’s, and if you’re working for that — you’re fucking yourself.

What is even worse is when you know what these publishers are selling the books for, and that they’re only paying their authors $4-$5 per copy sold toward the advance of $700, and you know the publisher is making $36 a copy (after you deduct the $10 print cost). Yet — it was the AUTHOR who did all the work. Especially in occult publishing, I’ve learned, no one is hiring editors, and layout is often done by the publisher him/herself. I know this because I’ve later found mistakes in my own work published by certain publishers that any editor would have caught.

Frankly, coming to a professional author who isn’t just starting out, and offering them 1990’s rates for professional content, is FUCKING INSULTING. And between last year and this year, I’ve been insulted enough to realize – hey – I’m worth getting paid professional rates!

Especially when I can publish my own work, do a fantastic job, AND make 100% of the profit without having to include a middle man, and not only make my professional rate, but also the publisher’s cut (minus printing, editorial, and formatting fees). But still, the difference is huge. Let me just spell it out for you.

ARTICLES: A 7,000 word article at .20 cents a word (which is the rock bottom professional NF rate in 2021) is $1,400.00. If you’re writing NF articles for someone and they’re paying you less than that…. WTF are you doing? The last one I did has barely netted me .10 cents a word, which is what I was being paid to write articles for a trade magazine back in 1996. Not kidding.

BOOKS: Let’s specifically talk the economics of limited edition hardcovers (LEH). Let’s say a publisher prints 250 LEH. They offer the author a $700 advance with an 8% royalty toward that advance (that means you have to sell at least 175 books before you earn out that advance and start actually making money, of which there is approximately only $300 more to make.) This means you’re being paid, AT MOST, $1000 to write a content rich book at a minimum of about 30,000 to 40,000 words. SERIOUSLY. Now, take into account that the publisher is likely only paying about $2,500 in printing (including shipping, taxes, etc) and the book, with all copies sold, the book stands to bring the publisher $12,500. Even if the publisher hires an editor for about $400, that means it’s only $4000 out of his pocket. The author gets $1000. The printer and editor get $3000 between them. The publisher walks away with over $8,000. Seems a bit predatory to me since without the author, you don’t have the book. Period.

Now I’m not saying the publisher shouldn’t make money. After all, they have to hire the editor, format it, get it printed and do the distribution, marketing, etc… But honestly — that’s the easy part nowadays. I know because I’ve been indie publishing since 2006. The hardest part is learning how to format or finding a formatter, where to find editors, where to find a printer, and how you’re going to distribute it. Once you have those things set up – you sit back and delegate. You line up orders, you package them and ship them out. Hell, you don’t even have to leave your home office to do that. You can print your own mailing labels directly from most point of sale systems, or via USPS online. USPS will deliver your mailing material, and they’ll pick that shit up for you if you arrange it. After the initial rush of sales on a book, your time spent packaging orders is minimal (unless you do that as your primary business).

There are some publishers that are doing better splits with authors, but the sad fact remains that many of them are just putting out the up front money to have the books printed, hoping the author ran it by a few friends who edited it, they quickly format it via word (which literally takes maybe an hour depending on length), and distribute it. For that, they’re taking half, or more. They don’t edit. They don’t market. (They’ll tell you they do, but they don’t. One post on their social media page doesn’t count.)

I published one book with a publisher who honestly didn’t know how to sell my books. We did have a 50/50 split, but this guy was HORRIBLE at selling the books. I got the first few royalty payments okay, but then, like a lot of small publishers do when they start to go under because they don’t know what they’re doing, he started spending the money as it came in and when it was all said and done, he owed me a little under $1000 and basically whined that it was my fault the book wasn’t selling. That I wasn’t well-known enough and the books were worthless to him. (All this so he could get out of paying me my $950 or whatever.) So I told him that instead of cash, he could send me the books he couldn’t sell. He did. I made well over that $950 he owed me on those books. A lot over, actually. I had no problem selling them. He couldn’t figure it out. ::shrug:: To this day, I don’t know what was so difficult about selling them and my only guess is HE wasn’t putting forth any effort to market them, and was expecting me to do it. And so I did and I ended up doing well on that book.

So — there’s that. Not all publishers know what they’re doing beyond distribution, and if they want to pay an author peanuts for a book and expect the author to do all the marketing — well seriously, fuck that. Let’s not even get into the hourly rate you’re making. If you make $1000, divide by the minimum wage in your state (it’s almost 12.50 in Colorado) — that means you have to be able to write a full book in 80 hours (two weeks) just to make minimum wage. That means all outlining and research, all the writing, and all the revision. 80 hours. Considering most NF books can take authors six months to a year to write — how much you think authors are actually making per hour at $1,000.00 for a book? Even for a 30,000 word book at .20 cents a word – the author should be making a minimum of $6,000.00. That at least pays the author for 480 hours, which covers twelve 40 hour work weeks at minimum wage (12.50 an hour), or three months of their time. (I could write a solid 30K book in 3 months).

Then the question is — if you’re going to do the bulk of the work anyhow, why not just add managing the project and distribution to the mix and do it yourself? You can have readers fund the printing costs through paid pre-orders. You only need 50 people to pre-order to pay for a 250 print run. 56 if you want to hire an editor. At least then you’re the one making the eight to ten-thousand dollars. Yes, you’ll have earned every cent with writing, hiring editors, formatting, dealing with printers, and doing your own marketing and distribution, but you won’t feel used – like a cheap whore.

If you are a professional writer, you charge professional rates because you’re WORTH PRO RATES. End of story.

Is there an instance where I would consider a traditional contract? Absolutely. The contract would require the following:

Contract limit of 3-5 years, at which time 100% of all rights revert back to me.

It better be a million dollar book deal.

I get full creative license.

HAHA — contracts like that don’t exist. But if I can do what a publisher can do, and I could do it better and actually make what I’m worth, then why wouldn’t I? That said, I don’t often deal in LEH anymore. I prefer my books to be affordable for readers which means ebook, paperback, and hardcovers that won’t break the bank. Which means I do make a lot less than the above example, but at least I’m not handing most of my wages to a middle man who is basically my pimp while I do the bulk of the work. If I’m doing the bulk of the work anyway — I’m doing IT ALL. Eventually each book will earn out the work I put into it. Some books it happens faster – others it happens slower.

Okay, I’ll quit bitching. I am simply fed up with being offered insulting contracts.