#for every other job (including some of the ‘basic’ stuff!! having a bachelors does not overqualify me working at target!!)

[broadway-and-books-love]

.

[no7of9]

Project Babyhood - Chapter 1

It was a typical winter day when Frank Godfrey woke up. The sun poured lazily into the room and he stretched his body. At nineteen he was short for his age and the fact that he hadn’t started shaving didn’t help either.

Two nights ago, a barman had refused to serve him a beer and had accused him of presenting a false ID. This seemed to be happening with increasing frequency. Frank sat up and scratched his head trying to figure out what day of the week it was.

Today was Tuesday, May thirty first. His landlord had given him a month’s notice and he remembered packing his possessions into three small cardboard boxes. He stared at the calendar on the wall and thought for a moment. His parents wouldn’t have back home which left him with two choices. The first was joining the army which seemed a little extreme. He had hated doing cadets at school, but the South African National Defence Force provided food, shelter and a salary.

His other option was a little vaguer. Mr. McAllister at the employment office had seemed excited when he talked about the position available at Melrose Manor. “What exactly would I be doing ?” Frank asked the greying man who had thought for a moment before answering. “Jonathan Adams does psychological research. He is looking for several patients to undergo rigorous psychological testing. You know IQ tests, talking about your emotions, inkblots those sorts of things.”

“It sounds interesting.”

McAllister smiled and said “Yes. It is interesting. Mr. Adams guarantees an experience you won’t forget. It is a live-in position, and you seem to fulfil all the prerequisites.”

For a moment he ducked beneath his desk and extracted five finely typed pages. The first had spaced for filling in items such as his name, height, date of birth and the next included a series of questions about his medical history. “You’ll have to fill these in if you’re interested. The position is available for the first of the month. Simply fill in the blanks and sign at the bottom of each page in a black pen. In front of two witnesses, of course. Here’s a card with the address if you’re interested and an open season one-way ticket to Koppies Lagter. When you get off the bus phone the number on the card and they’ll send someone to pick you up.” “What kind of salary would I be earning ?”

“Ah yes. They pay you five thousand rand per month on a cash basis when you leave. All your basic living expenses will be covered plus full medical, life insurance and unemployment. The first month is a trial.” “I’ll have to think about it.” Frank had said and stared now at the first page of the application form. He filled in the fields as best he could. Most of it was fairly standard stuff but the name of his paediatrician seemed weird. The next page asked questions concerning childhood illnesses and other strange stuff. Frank filled blue in as his favourite colour and said the age he’d enjoyed most was five. The rest of the document was a minefield of personal questions and legal terms that were too complicated to understand. Frank had some serious doubts about this job as he waited in line at the local post office. He absentmindedly thumbed the large blue post that McAllister had stuck on the forms. There was a fat slow woman at the counter. He explained that he needed to sign the form in front of two witnesses and waited while she called the postmaster.

Within five minutes he’d sealed the application form and had re-entered his bachelor flat. He packed three suitcases and stared at the ticket which was next to his bedside table. “The bus departs every day at three-thirty pm daily.” It stated in clear English.

At ten past three Frank had bought himself a coke and nibbled tuna sandwich while waiting at the bus station. He noticed a man with a small board reading Melrose Manor walking around the terminal and nervously waved to him.

“Hi.”, he said but the man merely took any notice. offered him.

“That all seems to be in order,” he said and took out a small badge from his pocket. It had the letters “F.I.T” printed on it and he clipped this to Frank’s shirt.

“I’ll be escorting you, Frank. Now you wait here while I take care of your luggage.”

Frank nodded and watched as his suitcases were taken away. Ten minutes later the man led him to a small bus which had five passenger seats. “It will take us most of the night to reach our destination. Feel free to help yourself to refreshments and be a good boy.” The man said and got in beside the driver.

Although he thought the “be a good boy” part of the conversation to be a little demeaning Frank soon settled down and watched the passing countryside. After he’d finished his Coke, he dozed off Frank woke up a little after ten. His bladder was bursting and the two men upfront were talking quietly amongst themselves. “Hey man,” Frank said calling upfront “Can you stop. I need to take a leak

The man who had the board turned around and grinned. “Sorry. Last stop was two hours back. Besides, this road too dangerous to make an unscheduled stop.”

“Ah come on man. I really need to piss.” Frank complained but neither man in front of the small bus to any notice. In desperation, the young man squirmed a little and crossed his legs. After six minutes he stared at the empty Coke bottle lying on the seat beside him. He picked it up and undid his zip glancing nervously upfront.

Although it seemed a little strange, he quickly eased his erect penis out of his jeans and tried peeing in the bottle. A flash took him by surprise and Frank noticed that his photograph was being taken. “What the fuck ?” he asked and heard the driver laughing

“Rules say that I have to take photographs of you throughout your trip.”, the man said and took another shot. “You seem to have a nice small cock. That will go down really well with the boss.” Frank covered his cock with his free hand and said: “Fuck off.”

The man looked at him sternly and wagged his finger at the youth “Ah, ah now. Don’t use nasty words. I told you to be a good little boy.”

Severely pissed Frank did up his fly and wiped his hands on tissues from his pocket. Christ, I’m starving, he thought to himself and noticed an empty hamburger container on the refreshment cooler. Leaning over his tossed it aside and peered inside the plastic box. There was an apple, a Barone, and a dodgy looking packet of crisps along with some bottles of apple juice in there

It was melted but tasted fine and Frank got stuck into the crisps. For the rest of the night, he dozed until at last, the bus came to a stop at a tiny shop and petrol station. He jerked himself awake and stared about. “Last stop before our final destination.”, the driver announced and climbed out.

Not wanting to be comprised again Frank climbed out and headed for the men’s room. It was small and dark and there wasn’t enough toilet paper in the stall, but the teenager was relieved to be able to wash his hands and take a dump in private.

Inside the shop, he bought himself a cigarette which he enjoyed outside. Just as before the nameless man came and took his photograph. “How much longer before we arrive ?”

“I’d say about another two hundred kilometres, then another fifty to Melrose Manor.” “The bus doesn’t go direct.”

“Naw, they send someone for you in a four-by-four. Anyway, hurry up we have to get going again.”

“To bad if I wanted a weekend’s break,” Frank muttered under his breath and took his last draw on the cigarette.

After half an hour staring at the darkness, he asked the driver if he could put on the radio. “ Picks up a lot of static around here.” the driver replied, “Most folks out listen to the radio via satellite.”

“Where exactly is here ?”

“Five hundred kilometres into the middle of fucking nowhere.” the driver smiled.

You are spot on mate. Frank though and noted that they hadn’t seen another car or building for the past two hours. It was a little after five when the bus slowed down to a tiny shop that most significant feature was a public phone.

“Final stop.” the driver announced and jabbed his companion awake “Ah yes. Here is five rands for the call to Melrose Manor. Somebody is waiting to drive you the rest of the way. Will take them about an hour to get here.”

With his three cases and a sealed box beside him, Frank stared at the horizon which was just still dark He’d called the number on the card forty minutes ago and had also taken a piss in the veld.

The shop consisted of mainly hardware and Frank couldn’t why the shop was open or why the Indian woman who was sitting behind the counter smirked when she saw him. “You wait outside please.”, she said.

Sure enough, after another half an hour, a battered Jeep pulled up. A tall, stout man who looked about thirty-eight climbed out of the vehicle and removed his sunglasses. “You called ?”, he asked “Yeah.” “Good. You got some papers for me ?” the man asked and Frank shuffled his application over to him. “Put the stuff in the car and we’ll leave in a minute.” Unperturbed Frank stashed his cases and the box and got into the car. The man got back into the car and looked at him. “How old are you Frank ?”

“Just turned nineteen two months ago.”

“Hmmm. Get in the back please.” “What ?”

“I said get in the back and hurry up. Dadda ain’t got all day.” the man said. Frank got in the back of the car. Moments later he heard the car’s door locks engage and worried what this stranger meant by Dadda. He tried to roll down the window but the button was useless. All he could do was stare at his application form which was on the front seat.

The man who called himself Dadda was driving slowly over an extremely bumpy road. Up in the distance, Frank could see a small light beckoning in the dark. He sighed and sat back realizing he was trapped in the middle of the countryside.

Dadda turned off the main road and slowly inched the car down a rocky driveway. Frank noted that there were a lot of thorn trees here. At last, they came to a huge eight-foot fence. It had huge guard towers posted every kilometer along it and Frank saw that there was another higher inner fence forming a moat around the property.

Honk, honk! Frank heard the car’s hooter go and within seconds two things happened. In between the two fences, a flock of geese came running up to either side of the gate and quacked loudly. A guard dressed in camouflage uniform approached the car and peered inside

“Open the boot please,” he said and the driver popped the trunk. While the guard inspected the boot the driver opened his cubby hole and took out what looked like pieces of chopped bread.

“You can go through now.”, they were told and the driver stopped to toss the bread out to the birds who began fighting over it. Next he hit a button on a remote the inner gate opened. The teenager watched as they passed a house and then a large compound of buildings. Dadda parked the car in front of one which had a huge number one painted on it, popped the boot and grabbed the application forms from the front seat, and got out of the driver’s side of the car.

Although he tried to tap on the window but had no choice but to wait in the back of the car where he was basically trapped. He tried to push his hands against the glass barrier which separated the front of the car from the back, but it didn’t move.

“Let me out of here.”, he screamed as loudly as he could, but nobody seemed to take any notice. Dawn was breaking and the morning was cool. Eventually, after a long wait, the driver reappeared out of the building. He had pulled a white lab coat over his polo shirt and a riding crop dangled from a hook on his belt. Two orderlies dressed in white followed him and approached the car.

They smiled as Dadda clicked a remote and the car doors unlocked. Without a word they reached into the car and extracted Frank. “Hey man, I can walk by myself.”, Frank protested but they held him firmly by each arm.

Frog marching down a long passage they turned to a room on the right and followed the man, known only as Dadda, inside. The room looked like a normal office, but it had a strange chair that seemed to belong in a dentist’s office in it.

Without a word, Dadda picked up a clipboard and camera. The two orderlies left Frank standing in the middle of the room, just within their reach. “Name ?”, Dadda asked

“Frank Johan Smit.”, Frank said. “Date of birth ?”

“All this information is on the form.” “I’ll ask one more time little boy and this time I expect a proper answer. Date of birth ?”

“Twelfth of June nineteen eighty-nine.” “Now what was so difficult about that ?”

“Uhm, nothing.”

“You little boy think you are such tough mean men, don’t you ? We’ll see how tough you really are. Are you cut ?”

“Ah, I don’t understand.”

“Does your penis have a foreskin ? Were you circumcised ?”

“No.” “Good. When’s the last time you had sex ?”

“I haven’t.” “You’re a virgin then.”

“Yes.”

“OK, when’s the last time you had a wank ?”

“Yesterday ?”

“Ah ha. Did you enjoy it ? Or did you feel a little guilty about it ?”

“Fuck no. It was good.”

“Right. Now I’m going to give you a medical examination. We’ll get you undressed and go through everything.” Dadda said snapping off a few pictures of Frank. Frank reached down and begun to undo his sneakers when he heard Dadda say “STOP.”

“Huh ?”

“What are you doing ?”

“You said you wanted me to undress.” “

No. I said, ‘We’ll get you undressed.’ Orderly prepare the bench please.” Dadda said pulling Frank upward. One of the men in the room went to the wall and pressed a button on a keyboard. The chair in the room rose and flattened out like an examination table. The other man had held out a huge black garbage bag which he got from somewhere.

With almost no effort Dadda lifted Frank up on the table and let him sit upon it. “Make the bench a bit higher please.”, he said, and the entire chair rose about half a meter. Dadda placed his hands on Frank’s neck and felt for his vertebra. His hands felt strong and gently moved the boy’s neck from side to side.

By this time Frank noticed that one of the orderlies had placed a remote on the side of the chair and a microphone, that dangled from the ceiling, had descended. Dadda said nothing but raised both teenager’s short arms feeling each limb through the clothing.

Next, he moved to the top of the boy’s shirt and began unbuttoning it. After he undid the cuffs, he pulled the shirt off Frank struggling to free it from his jeans. “Patient tucks his shirts into his pants,” Dadda said into the microphone. “No visible sign of breakage in either of the arms.”

“Have you ever broken your arms or legs ?”

“No.”

“Sprained your elbow, wrist, or ankle ?”

“No.”

“Patient is wearing a light tee-shirt under his shirt like a vest. His arms seemed to have minimal hair. Lift up your arms boy.” Dadda said and pulled the green shirt free from the boy’s body. For a moment the man stared at Frank’s chest and then held out his hand. He took the stethoscope that was placed there and put it in his ears. The instrument was cold against Frank’s chest. “Breathe in.” the man said and listened for a moment. “Breathe out,” he said and listened again. “Good, this time I need you to breathe in and hold your breath for as long you can.” Once again Frank complied.

After Dadda had finished running his hands down Frank’s chest and had made him lie down so that he could knead his stomach, he asked Frank to sit up. Frank watched as he took a razor and ran it across the outside of his left arm. Next, he took a strip of paper that had some black gel on it and smoothed it against his shaved arm.

After a few minutes, Dadda removed the temporary tattoo and Frank stared at his arm. The words FETUS Number three and an image of a baby in the fetal position were marked on his arm. What the fuck does that mean ?

I wonder how far I’ll get if I run toward the door. Frank asked himself and noticed that the man’s hands were undoing his belt.

Within moments Frank found that his jeans and boxer shorts had disappeared in the black garbage bag leaving him naked except for his socks. He placed his hands over his dick and stared at the man who was busy putting on some rubber gloves. “Patient may have dwarf genes. Ask the lab to run a full DNA profile. His general build is that of a child with minimal body and pubic hair. The patient's penis is small with what looks like two normal testicles.” Dadda said and snapped the gloves at his wrists.

His hands were quick in pushing Frank onto the table and worked his way around his toes. He wiggled each toe separately and said, “Patient was never taught the correct way to cut his toes nails.” Next, he picked up the boy's right ankle and ran his hand up the leg all the way to his groin.

At this point, Frank was embarrassed to find that he had an erection and tried to cup his hands over his cock. “Looks like Dadda’s boy enjoying this.”, the man said and moved the teenager's hands from his crotch. For a moment Frank felt rather inadequate as Dadda stared down at his little penis but then stiffened up as he felt Dadda’s hand take the tip of his member and run it all to the cock’s base.

Dadda took his gloved fingers and inserted them between the foreskin and his shaft. Frank squirmed a little at this invasion of privacy, but the man hardly seemed to notice. “Ever had any trouble with your toti ?” the man asked. Toti ?

What kind of name is that for my cock ? Man, I feel as though I’m about six. Frank thought to himself and shook his head. “Ever urinated blood ?”

“No.”

“Say ‘No Dadda’ when I talk to you boy. You understand ?”

“Yes, Dadda.”

“Good. Now let’s see how long this little toti is shall we ?” Dadda said taking a measuring tape from his pocket. He held one tip at the toti’s base and ran the other along its shaft. “Erect length six centimeters.” Dadda said to the microphone, “Bring me some ice please.”, and let go of the penis. Next, he held Frank’s balls in his hand and ran his finger across the skin. “Testicles seem to be normal.”, he told the microphone and turned to the orderly who held out a small bucket of ice. He picked up the camera, took a shot of the boy’s toti and balls, and then dumped the ice over them.

“Ah ha ha fuck.” Frank said moving his hands toward his genitals. “Don’t touch that.” Dadda said “You’ll never get to touch them again and if you try - I’ll cut them off. You understand me boy ?”

“I, er, er ?” “I said that you are not to touch your toti or balls again. IF you do I’ll cut them off. If you understand me say ‘Yes Dadda’” “

Yes, D-D-Dadda” Frank said hesitantly. Any doubts Frank may have had about this job were now deeply entrenched in his mind. What the hell kind of place was this ? The guy had threatened to cut off his cock. As Frank lay there pondering this, he saw that Dadda had a pair of scissors in his hands. “What the fuck ?”

“Restrain the boy,” Dadda said and waited for the orderlies to lock both of Frank’s wrists onto the bench with straps.

The teenager squirmed, kicking up both of his legs saying “Aw, let me go.” Dadda looked on amused and said “Such spirit. I’ll soon break you of that. Grab his legs.”

Each orderly tried to grab an ankle, but the boy kicked them off. Eventually, Dadda took his riding crop and brought it down on the teenager’s stomach. “Enough of this shit. I haven’t got all day.”, and as the teenager winced in pain both orderlies strapped his ankles down to the bench.

“You’re a naughty little boy Frank. Do that again and I will punish you. Do you understand ?”

“Ah, fuck let me go.” “Sorry can’t do that. Now let’s get rid of this little pubic bush shall we.” Dadda said grabbing a bunch of Frank’s pubic hair and cut it off. “Here a snip, snip, there a snip, everywhere a snip, snip,” Dadda said smiling.

When he was convinced that all his pubic hair had been removed Frank smelt and felt a strange tingling cream being applied to his crotch, cock, and balls. Fuck, I’m going to be as smooth as a baby. What will he do next ?

Without much fuss, the two orderlies turned the boy over and secured him on the table. Frank felt them pull his ass cheeks apart and wasn’t surprised to find the same smelly cream being applied to his crack.

For a few moments, it seemed as though Dadda was finished with him but then he felt a sponge wiping away the cream and all his pubic hair from his anus. “Now for some shots,” Dadda said as he rubbed some alcohol into Frank’s ass.

Frank cringed as he felt a needle go into his ass. “You’ll be happy to know that it’s just one needle but about ten shots in total,” Dadda said resting his gloved hand on the boy’s back. Eventually, the boy felt the needle being withdrawn from his ass and grunted. He expected to feel dopy or faint but didn’t.

“Turn him over lads.”

Once again Frank felt the cream being washed from his crotch. After the hair was removed from his armpits, he saw Dadda press a button on the remote and found the bench folding itself into a chair. “Now Frankie, a dentist friend of mine is going to work on your teeth. I’ll be watching and expect you to be a good little boy and co-operate. You don’t want to make me cross do you ?” Dadda asked and stepped away from the chair.

A woman dentist soon approached the bench and began inspecting his mouth. Hours passed as drilled and clean his teeth. Frank, who had remained strapped in the chair had no choice but to keep his mouth open and was relieved when the woman finally pushed away from her instrument tray

“All done John.”

“Thank you Anne.”

The teenager felt the chair fold up into a normal sitting position and moved his jaw from side to side. From behind him, he heard Dadda approach him. A little buzzing sound was moving with him and Frank soon felt an electric razor mowing away his hair.

Dadda worked quickly and soon brushed the remains of the blonde hair off his boy. With another click of a button, the table flattened out and rose. A tray of instruments was wheeled in a Frank heard the rustling of a plastic package.

“Ouw, ouch, ahhhha, that hurts.” Frank said as he felt the catheter slide all the way up his penis into his bladder

“Awh there baby there,” Dadda said smiling pinching Frank’s cheeks. With a click of his fingers, he summoned a full-length mirror which the orderlies held out. “Take a good look at yourself, Frankie. See what a boy with balls looks like ?” he asked helping Frank stand up. “?” Frank said wondering what he meant.

“They won’t be there when you wake up. Now come along we have a nice little experiment for you.” Dadda said taking Frank by his left arm and leading him towards the door.

Shit, I feel weird. I have to be careful not to fall. Where the hell are you taking me asshole ? Frank followed tenderly too scared and weak to fight. They moved down a series of long passages until at last, they came to a huge door. He watched as Dadda tapped a code into a keypad and allowed himself to be led into an enormous room.

It seemed to be this size of a football field it struck Frank that this room had been sunk into the ground. From an upper level, he could see four transparent bean-like structures on platforms with hydraulic springs. Two of them housed boys inside who seemed to be sleeping.

He felt Dadda’s hand on his shoulder. “No prizes for guessing which one is for you Frankie. Now come on let’s get you ready.” Dadda said and picked him up, “That’s a good boy Frankie, it’s better if you don’t fight me.”.

Frank felt himself being carried down the stairs onto the lower level. As he expected a trolley-like bed was waiting next to the third structure. Dadda placed him on the ground and spread his legs apart. Next, some women slipped a fiberglass diaper between his legs and threaded the tub from his catheter through an appropriate hole.

Although the diaper was cold it seemed soft and flexible. All Frank could do was stare as the nurse worked around him fastening the diaper in place with bolts. “Ok let’s test Frank’s deedee.” Dadda said and smiled as lukewarm water flooded the diaper.

Dadda nodded and said, “And drain please.” which caused all the water to disappear from the diaper. Just after this was done Frank felt some warm air being pumped around his groin, effectively drying his cock and ass.

Without any fuss he found himself being lifted onto a trolley where his legs were squeezed together. Starting at his ankles nurses began wrapping his legs tightly together so that he could not move or even jump about

As they were doing this, he felt Dadda removing the fine layer of hair just above his ears. “Can I have a test of the left ear please ?” Dadda asked and Frank heard a loud music sound coming from an earpiece which his Dadda held in his hand.

Dadda wasted no time gluing the piece to his shaved head behind his ears. Next, he felt a tiny cold piece of plastic being glued into place where Dadda had shaved his head. “Just one more to go Frankie then Dadda’s boy is all set.” After his right earpiece was done, the man who Frank only knew as John and Dadda lifted him up and carried him to the open bean structure.

Here he put Frank in on his side, sticking his right thumb in his mouth and bending the teenager’s legs so that he was in a foetal position. At first Frank tried to stretch his body out but he found that two plastic plates at either end of the inside of the bean preventing him from moving anything but his arms. Annoyed he took his thumb out of his mouth and looked up at his Dadda. “Now you be a good boy and I’ll let you out of here in nine months' time,” Dadda said smiling and aimed a syringe at baby Frank’s arm.

As soon as the shot was applied Frank noticed that the top of the bean was lowed and locked into place effectively cocooning him within the structure. He heard a liquid being pumped into his small cocoon and held his breath. They’re going to drown me ? he thought to himself and struggled as the liquid quickly flowed over him. Eventually out of desperation he exhaled and found that he had no choice but to suck in the strange wetness that surrounded him.

He waited for a moment and then realized he could breathe normally. It was a little uncomfortable as the liquid oxygen forced the gas out of his lungs but at last, his breathing returned to normal. Frank had just gotten used to this when he felt the entire structure come to life and rose into the air.

Somewhere above him, he heard the steady throbbing of a fake heart beating and in his left ear he could barely make out the words of a radio announcer saying “Good morning folks. It’s a beautiful sun-filled Wednesday morning on the first of June and you’re listening to Radio Metro Five Hundred. The time is ten past six and up next we have I don’t feel like dancing by the Scissor Sisters to start the morning off with a bang, so don’t hit the snooze button and stretch your body out of bed . . .” .

[hermionecorfields]

As Alibi’s new series We Hunt Together airs tonight, Hermione Corfield confesses all on nature versus nurture, why this crime drama is really a love story and how she learnt to love reality TV.                                                        

By Laura Rutkowski, Staff Writer

Writer Gaby Hull has a knack of taking cat-and-mouse stories and turning them on their head. Last year, we described her ITV drama Cheat as a “stand-off between two cats”. With her latest series, We Hunt Together, plenty more traps are set (for mice – literally – and for people), with the “characters trying to one up each other and catch the other one out”, says star Hermione Corfield (Rust Creek).

Hermione plays “hustler” Freddy Lane, otherwise known as “premium girl” Zara Thustra, who works in the sex industry, operating hotlines and attending paid-for dates set up through so-called dating apps. As one of her dates is about to assault her, Babeni “Baba” Lenga (Dipo Ola, Baghdad Central) steps in and beats him up.

But this story is not as cut-and-dried as it seems and it certainly spits in the face of the “damsel-in-distress” trope. Freddy is out for blood and has a “set of ideals she strongly believes, whether they’re illegal or not”, whereas Baba is a former child soldier, with the “ability to kill engrained in him”. And that’s exactly what Freddy later enlists Baba to do – to kill her attacker.

Hermione says director Carl Tibbetts explained early on that he didn’t “want the scene in the alleyway to be the whole reason why she commits that killing. It’s got to be in her core to want to commit a crime like that”. Freddy is cunning, charming and deftly glib when DI Jackson Mendy (Babou Ceesay, Guerrilla) and DS Lola Franks (Eve Myles, Torchwood) come knocking to question her about the crime.

While shows including Killing Eve and The Fall operate under the detective/criminal dynamic, We Hunt Together offers “a study into four different psyches”. The two couples, one involved in a work partnership and the other embroiled in a True Romance-style relationship, are fundamentally dysfunctional. “However unconventional,” Hermione says, “it is a love story.” She adds, “Crime and murder are almost the background noise to the individual struggles.”

We Hunt Together tosses around that age-old question of nature versus nurture and delivers a fresh perspective on the dilemma. For one, Jackson doesn’t believe people are masters of their fate, he believes they can’t control their actions – leading to the cheeriest inspector you’ve probably ever seen on TV.

So when the damaged do damage, does that mean it’s not really their fault? “There’s a degree of responsibility obviously and I’m not saying Freddy’s blameless at all, but a theme throughout is that everyone’s doing their best with the brain they’ve been given and the circumstances they’ve been given,” says Hermione.

As your mind grapples with that debate, get inside Hermione’s head with one of everything from the entertainment world that she’s loving right now.

TV show: Normal People

Find it in Catch Up > Channels > BBC iPlayer

It’s beautifully shot and brilliantly acted. It was such a deep one that I came away every single time emotionally exhausted. I’ve been waiting a long time for Succession season 3!

Box Set: Call My Agent!

Find seasons 1-3 on Netflix

It’s a French TV show and it’s about the ins and outs of a talent agency in France, trying to keep it afloat and people pinching each other’s clients. There are subtitles – I do speak French, but probably not well enough to close my eyes. I’d like to think I’m getting there.

Film: Ema

It’s not the Autumn de Wilde one [Emma, starring Anya Taylor-Joy]. It’s about a couple where an adoption goes wrong. It tears their household apart and the music is composed by Nicolás Jaar, who is one of my favourite artists. I re-watched The Grand Budapest Hotel. Wes Anderson films are such a comfort for me.

App: PictureThis

My newest app, which is kind of nerdy, is an app that can identify plants. You take a photo of a plant and it immediately identifies it. I’ve been doing some gardening and my garden has sprung up from stuff I planted two years ago. I forgot what I planted, so I’m going around working out what everything is.

Video game: The Sims 4

I don’t normally [play video games], but I’ve gotten into The Sims 4 again, which is one of the biggest time-eaters I’ve ever experienced in my life. It’s a lot of fun, but that’s the only game I’ve ever played. It’s classic. I feel like everyone’s regressing into their childhood selves at the moment.

Podcast: Off Menu

Ed Gamble and James Acaster basically do a dream meal [with guests]. For news, I always listen to The Daily and Beyond Today. I enjoy journalistic narratives that take you through a story. The New York Times’ Caliphate is about this woman [Rukmini Callimachi] going to where ISIS strongholds used to be and collecting documents that have been left behind in bombed buildings.

I watched Tiger King, which was amazing, and I listened to the Wondery podcast of that ages ago. I really enjoy true crime ones, like The Dropout and The Shrink Next Door.

Documentary: For Sama

It’s about the fall of Aleppo and the Syrian War. Another one is Honeyland, which is about a woman in Macedonia who’s a beekeeper in the middle of nowhere. It’s such an amazing insight into a life you’d normally never see.

Guilty pleasure: Reality TV shows

Reality TV shows are definitely my guilty pleasure, because I do always feel significantly guilty when I’m watching them – for ages I’ve fought it. Film and TV is my job, so I guess there’s an element of it not being linked to my work and I can switch off.

I was in the States for a bit and I watched The Bachelor while I was there, which I’d never seen before. I do watch Love Island. It’s just people being people. It’s so interesting to see how people react in those scenarios. It’s like Big Brother in seven different forms.

When is Alibi’s We Hunt Together on TV?

We Hunt Together airs on Alibi/HD (CH 126/212) on Wednesdays at 10pm, with the first episode screening on 27 May. It is also available for 30 days in Catch Up > Channels > Alibi.

(Source/Font) HERE

[thewriterslament]

writing a resume from scratch

as with literally everything i write, this got really fucking long! like, wordcounter.net estimates this will take 7 minutes to read. so i’ve placed the bulk of this post under a read more

this is not a quick tips kind of post; this is a detailed breakdown of how to write a resume from scratch, with examples that are largely taken from my own resume. this is primarily a resource for people who don’t know where to start with writing a resume, not for people who just want resume hacks

i’m saying all this so i don’t get people in my inbox complaining about how long this is. writing a resume takes a lot of time and effort, and this post does not shy away from that

creating a resume will take you a while, especially if this is your first attempt. don’t be discouraged! take breaks, and don’t try to make the perfect resume on the first try. this tutorial is designed to be completed in rounds

it usually takes me a week to get a new master resume into working order

don’t worry about page length right now. you should make a multipage master resume that contains every relevant experience before making a 1-page resume. after you’ve made the master, you can build custom resumes from it for job applications

this post is best viewed on desktop, because i use nested bullets, and tumblr mobile hates those

let’s get into it!

step 1:

list out everything you’ve ever done that could feasibly count as a resume entry: extracurriculars, jobs, volunteer positions, research, organizations you were a part of (professional or casual), freelance work, long-term hobbies. i will refer to each different experience as an “entry”

for each entry, write where (city + state) and when (timespan) you did that thing 

ex. tritones a cappella group, los angeles, ca, august 20xx - present

going forward, update this list as you join or complete new jobs/hobbies/whatever so that you don’t have to wrack your brain a year down the road wondering how long you held down that job or leadership role

step 2:

describe each entry

use bullet points to list out all the things you did within that role. start with the big picture, then move on to the small stuff

big picture: the goal of the role/organization/research, overarching and long-term projects, what results you were trying to achieve + why

ex. “studied the neuroanatomy and synaptopathy of the inner ear to determine the role of glutamate receptors in hearing loss”

small stuff: literal day-to-day tasks, every software and hardware you worked with, any particularly successful moments

basically, walk through a typical day or week in this role and list out every single thing you have to do, even the grunt work.

ex. “used redcap to administer neuropsychological batteries and collect biological data”

ex. “designed and implemented a novel article format that yielded a 10% increase in audience retention”

if you still have access to the original job posting or a corporate description of responsibilities for your role, pull that up and see how much you can paraphrase from it

no duty is too stupid rn. did you google weather forecasts for your boss every week? write it down. you can make it fancy or choose to delete it later

step 3:

fancify this shit

rewrite your bullet points from step 2 with better jargon. tell your employers what you did in a concise yet assertive manner

it helps to break down each point into its most basic components, which you can then generalize or rephrase 

ex. “googled weather forecasts” might become “compiled weekly reports on changing data points to assess weather trends over time”

use action words. you can find resources all over the internet for this, but if you’re still struggling, shoot me an ask and i’ll link some of the resources i’ve used myself

caution: you don’t want to sound like you used a thesaurus on every word. make sure you aren’t obscuring the meaning of your bullet points. “googled weather forecasts” should not become “utilized online databases to assemble weekly communications on meteorological variations”

start thinking about how your responsibilities for each entry relate to a) what skills you want to showcase and b) what the employer wants from you. does the employer want you to demonstrate familiarity with online databases, or does the employer want you to demonstrate familiarity with weather forecasts? your bullet point for “googled the weather” will change depending on the answer to these questions

step 4: 

look at the big picture

you probably have a metric buttload of bullet points for each entry. now you need to cut that down to what’s relevant. think about which bullets are most impressive, noteworthy, and descriptive of each entry

aim for 3-5 bullet points. any less than that and you have to ask why you’re including that entry. any more than that and the employer’s eyes will glaze over

try to combine bullet points

ex. “identify content and write articles when necessary,” “maintain a pool of freelancers,” and “identify key graphics and maintain tagging structure when uploading articles” all involve the process of creating an article, so they can be combined into: “identify content, assign stories to freelancers, write articles when necessary, and upload with appropriate graphics and tags”

start thinking about tailoring your word choices and bullet points to what the employer is looking for

if you can, pull up the job posting or a sample resume for the job you’re applying to and compare your resume to it. are you using similar language? are you demonstrating similar skills?

jobhero.com is a lifesaver

finally, eliminate redundancy in your resume, both in every individual entry and in the resume as a whole. if a skill can be demonstrated by multiple entries, you only need to list it once

kill your darlings! it may sound harsh, but the things that seem super impressive to you probably won’t even be a blip on the employer’s radar. “but saying i made coffee runs shows i’m dependable and a team player!” the employer isn’t looking that deep, my dude. you can showcase your dependability in your cover letter or your interview

you should redo steps 3 and 4 several times, soliciting feedback from your parents, peers, career center, etc each time

step 5:

add the Other Stuff

education

typically, you should only include institutions for the highest level of education you’ve attended. (undergrad and grad school both count as college for this purpose)

there are exceptions to this, depending on how long you’ve spent at a higher level of education, whether your alma mater will earn you brownie points, whether you had genuinely impressive accomplishments earlier in your life, etc.

once you hit, like, 2 years in college, you should try to get rid of high school achievements and showcase college achievements instead

list the school name, city + state, degree type (BA/MA/etc) and expected graduation date (even if it’s in the future), your major(s) + minor(s), and any related coursework (ie preprofessional tracks, specific courses related to the job). you can list your gpa if you feel it’s relevant, but i caution against doing this once you’ve graduated

ex. (where // indicates a new line) harvard university, boston, ma, may 2020 // bachelor of arts in cognitive neuroscience // minor: english: focus in creative writing // related coursework: pre-medicine, computer science 101 and 102 // gpa: 3.9/4.0 (dean’s list, all semesters)

skills

a list of items without descriptions. you can do a bulleted list or you can list the entries in paragraph form, separated by commas or bold bullets

hard skills: hardware, software, languages (spoken and programming), digital and communication platforms, social media proficiencies, other technologies and devices

ex. microsoft office suite, java, wordpress, slack, familiarity with ap and chicago style

soft skills: general qualities, buzzwords, personality traits

ex. leadership, conflict resolution, time management

certifications and awards

can be one section or two depending on how many of each you have

list each one on a separate bullet point

for each, write the certification or award, the institution that granted it, and the month and/or year you received it if relevant

publications

tbh i just cite my publications in the following format instead of following a style guide

lastname, firstname. “article or chapter title.” book title, publisher (aka company or website). publication date.

if you’re the sole author, you don’t need to list the author’s name

interlude: stretch the truth a bit. don’t lie about having experience or skills you don’t, but if you can reasonably google how to do something, boom! you’re proficient in it. if you worked with two team members who never pulled their weight? you just became the sole project lead. were you a beta reader for anime fanfiction back in the day? you’re a freelance editor, baby!

step 6:

now you have to organize all the entries from step 4

separate your entries into relevant sections. what’s relevant might change based on what you’re applying for

i’ve had, at various points in my life, some subset of the following sections: work experience, volunteer experience, leadership experience, research experience, writing experience, other relevant experience

list sections in order of descending importance

write all entries in reverse chronological order: start with the most recent and work your way backwards

write all bullet points in order of descending importance. unfortunately, i don’t have any quick tips on determining what’s important, but it helps to look at the job posting and see what matters to the employer

i tend to list big picture goals, then personal accomplishments (leadership skills, projects), then daily tasks

step 7:

format this shit

you can find resume templates online or in your word processor. templates serve as a good starting point, but i recommend creating your own format so you can edit and customize it with ease. this will probably involve a lot of fiddling with indentations, paragraph spacing, and moving things around

don’t go smaller than 10pt font

mess around with line and paragraph spacing to get the right balance of white space. if you’re curious about what i use, shoot me an ask and i’ll share my weirdly specific settings

keep an eye out for bullet points with orphan words (ie lines containing only 1-3 words) and get rid of them to streamline your resume

margins can be anywhere between 0.5″ and 1″

consistency is key! make sure each entry has the same kind of spacing. don’t use hyphens in one entry and en dashes in another

in the header, write your name, email, phone number, and address

interlude: save this version of your resume as your master resume. this gives you an unedited list of everything you ever did that you can now pick and choose from when you apply to jobs. update this list every 3-6 months.

step 8:

customize your resume for the job application

unless you’ve been in the industry for several years, your job-specific resume should be no more than 1 page

if you have more than 1 page: compare the job listing and your resume side by side and ask which entries demonstrate your capabilities most effectively, which bullet points are the punchiest, and if there’s any extraneous info

match each job requirement to one bullet point on your resume. then match each bullet point on your resume to a requirement in the listing. get rid of any bullet points that don’t meet either of those criteria. if multiple bullet points match the same job requirement, get rid of the extra bullet points

if you have significantly less than 1 page: see if you can add more bullet points or reformat your resume to introduce some more white space. a 2-column set-up is great for this, with section headers on the left and bullets on the right. do you have any hobbies you’re forgetting about? any soft skills you could add?

emulate the language of the job posting; use the same action words, the same soft skills

coda

your resume should work in tandem with your cover letter, but that’s a topic for another post. maybe in another 6 months i’ll write a post on that, too

always save your resume as a pdf! you don’t want your employer to have access to your metadata

if you made it through this whole post... i’m so sorry lmao but also thanks for sticking with me

let me know if you found this helpful or if this method scored you a job!

[duanewardell]

Way to Becoming a Doctor: Steps to Take from High School

Possibly you've longed for being a doctor since the day you got your toy specialist's pack. Or then again maybe you began considering a clinical vocation in secondary school. Despite when the thought happened to you, you're probably pondering exactly the stuff to turn into a specialist.

While medication is probably the hardest calling out there, there are approaches to build your chances of acquiring that subtle white coat. Continue perusing to discover more about a profession in the clinical field, alongside the means you can take to help your risks click here.

What Does a Doctor Do?

America's No. 1 most renowned calling, specialists assume a key part in our general public. Alongside diagnosing physical and states of mind, specialists treat illnesses, wounds, and sicknesses so as to improve wellbeing and prosperity. Contingent upon the specialist's forte, they may arrange tests, recommend drug, perform medical procedure, or simply tune in while a patient subtleties their torment.

In view of the significance of the undertaking they play out, it's nothing unexpected that specialists are commonly generously compensated. As per an investigation by ZipRecruiter, the normal yearly compensation for a clinical doctor is $224,190, with most specialists making somewhere in the range of $150,000 and $312,000.

Step by step instructions to Become a Doctor: High School Through Residency

Regardless of whether you see yourself working in a specialist's office or a trauma center, in a lab or a facility, you should begin getting ready for your vocation at the earliest opportunity preferably while you're still in secondary school. The following are a portion of the urgent strides to take at different focuses in your instructive vocation:

Secondary School

While you presumably realize that you should take a lot of science classes during your secondary school vocation, you probably won't understand how significant your school decision can be.Also, understudies who are certainly dedicated to gaining a clinical degree might need to consider applying to at least one BSMD programs. Permitting understudies to win a Bachelor's of Science qualification and a Doctor of Medicine in one program, this choice can bring about a quickened time period, wherein understudies total their investigations in as meager as six years. Study the different BSMD programs out there.

In case you're not absolutely sure in the event that you need to be a specialist, perhaps the most ideal approaches to find out about the field is to shadow a specialist in your locale. Shadowing permits imminent drug understudies to follow a specialist for the duration of the day to all the more likely comprehend what the job involves. As a high schooler, you can don't hesitate to inquire as to whether they'd be available to you shadowing them, or converse with your educators to check whether they know somebody who may be amiable.

Also, secondary school understudies can increase significant data about a profession in medication by booking instructive meetings. Dissimilar to prospective employee meetings, the motivation behind an enlightening meeting is essentially to collect data about a position. Pose inquiries, find out about every day duties, and see whether you'd be glad working in this calling. Regardless of whether you choose a vocation in medication isn't directly for you toward the day's end, you'll be one bit nearer to securing your fantasy position.

School

Along these lines, you've picked a school and are prepared to set out on your clinical training. While numerous individuals erroneously accept that you can study pre-medications, in all actuality pre-drug is an overall track as opposed to a particular major. Essentially, a pre-drug understudy is only one who expects to go to clinical school down the line.

Indeed, a pre-drug understudy could in fact major in anything, as long as they complete the necessary courses for prescription school confirmations. A pre-medications understudy could be a music major, for example! The restricting variable is only that the essential course list is extensive, and the greater part of them are science classes. It's ordinarily less difficult for pre-prescriptions to study a science field, as opposed to need to stress over finishing significant prerequisites in an entirely unexpected space alongside the pre-drug necessities.

It's important that hopeful medications school participants ought to abstain from taking an excessive number of classes at junior colleges. As indicated by U.S. News and World Report, medications school confirmations officials lean toward understudies to take most of their science classes at four-year foundations.

Taking the correct school classes isn't just about satisfying the prerequisites, in any case. Future specialists likewise need to grow their insight so as to get ready for the MCAT. A PC based test enduring seven hours, The Medical College Admission Test assumes a key function in medications school confirmation choices. This test covers brain research, humanism, material science, science, natural science, organic chemistry, and science. The MCAT additionally covers basic perusing, so it's likewise essential to create solid literary examination aptitudes in your humanities classes, for example, theory or writing.

Since the MCAT is such a profound test, and such a vital piece of clinical school affirmations, you need to develop the important aptitudes and information through the span of your school vocation. The MCAT is certainly not something you can pro by just self-reading for a couple of months; you need a solid establishment to accomplish a high score, and taking every one of those science courses will assist you with building that establishment.

In the event that this sounds overpowering, recollect that most schools brag pre-prescription educating boards of trustees contained with respect to science and wellbeing experts. These specialists can help guarantee you find a way to turn into a serious clinical school candidate. A few boards of trustees are more required than others, however you should exploit yours. Most will assist you with delineating your school a long time as a pre-drug, however some may even compose an advisory group wide suggestion for you and assist you with planning for clinical school interviews.

Clinical School

During the four years understudies spend considering medication, they'll get the opportunity to invest energy both inside and outside the study hall. Coursework during the initial two years incorporates life structures, natural chemistry, microbiology, pathology, and pharmacology, just as more essential science classes. Furthermore, understudies will gain proficiency with the correct techniques for analyzing and interfacing with patients. Being acknowledged to mbbs in china l is a critical advance on your excursion to turning into a specialist.

During the following two years of drug school, understudies will begin to set out on their emergency clinic and facility revolutions, where they work one next to the other with inhabitants. Most understudies select a strength in Year Three, with choices including inner medication, general medical procedure, gynecology, pediatrics, orthopedics, and numerous others.

Before proceeding onward to your residency, you should finish a test known as USMLE Step 2, which incorporates both various decision and patient-communication segments.

Residency

Following four years of clinical school, understudies are currently viewed as specialists. Nonetheless, that doesn't mean their time of difficult work and learning is finished. As an inhabitant, you will probably go through 3-7 years working in a showing emergency clinic under more experienced specialists.

Also, you'll have to finish a board test in your picked forte before proceeding to rehearse medication all alone.

[sailor-cresselia]

Domesticity

Intended to be part of the ‘Press Start to Continue” continuity, but I felt like I should post it now. :) 

-

After they all move in together, even weeks later, it all still seems a little too good to be true.

Some nights he actually tries to sleep just because he feels like it, just because he wants to, and can have that luxury. It never seemed like a luxury before – after all, he didn’t usually need to sleep, so why bother? It was just a waste of time. but now…

Now it’s kinda cool that he has the freedom to just… chill out, and not be all conniving and plotting against people and stuff.

It definitely helps that Lazer – that Kiriya gets it. He still sleeps more often than he needs to, so it’s not like there’s anyone who’s going to look at him like he’s being weird. Although, in his case it’s a way to feel ‘normal.’

…Not that Parad doesn’t understand where he’s coming from with that, either.

The first year of not being M anymore was hard.

Having graphite around actually did help with that a lot, since he was a regular bugster, not the beta test that Parad is. Not still hooked to his host like Parad is.

After a year of only knowing Kuroto, not being the only non-human around made Parad feel… well, somewhat normal. So, yeah. In the same way that Kiriya and Emu are helping him with civilian life, he’s helping Kiriya get with the bugster program.

Heh. Program. Because they’re part digital.

…Damnit, Lazer. Looks like making puns in hindsight is contagious.

But… Yeah. It’s going… weirdly well. He hadn’t had any expectations for the apartment – the last one he lived in in any way was Emu’s ‘home’ when they were 18 – but the guys were kinda surprised at how big it was. It’s partially paid for by the Ministry of Health, because Parad’s technically a ward or on parole or something, but the rent is mostly covered by Emu and Kiriya. apparently they make pretty good money.

(Emu’s mentioned that he thinks it’s because of the superhero gig. They can’t afford for him to go work at a different hospital, so his pay got… boosted, a little, instead of what his ‘recent hire’ pediatrician pay would usually be. Not that he has any way to actually prove that, and his being the department lead for CR definitely plays a part, too, but… Well. He’s definitely making more than he might otherwise.)

There’s also the matter of just having a chore roster. Actually, just having more than one person doing said chores is an adjustment for all of them, since Parad was living in a literal office, and both Emu and Kiriya were bachelors without roommates, the whole not ‘doing an entire apartments work by themselves’ is a new thing.

Surprising everyone, including himself, Parad has discovered that he actually really likes cooking. He’s not great at it. Good, but not great. But holy shit, once he gets the basics of a recipe down, and can reliably make it? That’s when the fun begins.

Of course, not that he started off intending to pick it up as a second hobby. It mostly started because they were all sick of takeout.

-

“Curry?”

Kiriya shudders. “Nah, I gotta be in the right mindset for spicy stuff.”

“Then…” Emu turns back to the restaurant listings. “I hear there's a new okonomiyaki place that opened recently.”

Parad shakes his head. “Isn’t that, like, three wards over? It’s way too late to be bothered going out. We could always just heat up a pizza.”

“We did that two nights ago, though…”

Emu sighs. “Well, we have to figure out something.”

That was how it went just about every night. Technically speaking, bugsters don’t actually need to eat, but they’re able to, and it’d just be awkward if Emu were the only one having meals and stuff. But after a few weeks, Parad had enough, and went next door for advice.

-

“Niiiicoooo? Poppyyyy?”

Nico rolls her eyes as she answers the door. “‘Sup, nerd?”

“Do either of the two of you know how to cook? Because no one in our place does, and we’re all getting really sick of ordering in and having frozen stuff all the time.” There’s a distinct whine in Parad’s voice, and she isn’t sure what to make of it.

“We’re not your moms, dude, we aren’t gonna cook for ya.”

He pouts. It looks absurd on a guy his height. “That’s not what I was asking. I wanna learn how, you guys are closer than anyone else, and my only other options would be Brave and Snipe. Brave still doesn’t like me, and I have my doubts about Snipe giving enough of a shit to know how to cook either.”

‘Men.’ Groaning, Nico buries her head in her hands. “Alright, come on in. My mom grilled some stuff into my head so I could fend for myself when I started going all over for tournaments. So I can give you a rundown on some basics for right now, and we can see from there.”

-

“But I’d heal really fast from it, so-”

“Weird bugster healing times or no, you’d still have to recover, and ya wouldn’t be able to so much as hold a controller during it.”

“…True.”

“‘Sides, I know I wouldn’t wanna explain it to Emu, and I don’t even live with him. Do you want to be the one to tell him you burned your hands because you’re too damned stubborn?”

Parad pales. “Alright, alright, I get it already! I’ll use the damn potholders!”

-

“So, I know this is my first time out, but this can’t be right…” Parad wrinkles his nose at his attempt at chopping carrots.

“It’ll do, and we can salvage these, but going forward-” Nico picks up the knife and sets another carrot on the cutting board. “You want to do each slice in a single movement, and it’s easier to move the thing that you’re cutting than it is to move the knife. Just push it along, like this-” she chops the carrot about halfway, her slices coming far neater and more evenly sized than Parad’s large hunks and thin wedges. “Then you can get them all even. If all of your pieces are different shapes and sizes, they won’t cook in the same amount of time – that goes for everything, actually, but this is an easy example for now.”

He nods, with a serious expression. “Can I try again?”

“No problem!” Grinning, Nico steps aside, and he does a much neater job at the remaining half of the second carrot. His slices are still a little uneven – mostly owing to him not being used to how much pressure to use – but overall they match her demonstration way closer than they do his first attempt. “Not bad!”

-

A few weeks into Parad’s cooking lessons, the two of them are waiting for the stock to come to a boil, and get to talking.

“Hey, why’d you come to me and poppy, anyway? Why not just, like, look this all up online?”

Leaning back in the chair, he laughs. “You think I didn’t try that first? Nah, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it all, and most of the sites said that you needed to see all this in person, which didn't help one little bit. And…” he hesitates. “And I wanted to surprise them. Emu and Kiriya are paying for the place, and they’re. You know, they're used to all of this…” he waves his hand in the air. “All of this domestic stuff. I… wanted to show that I can get there, too. I want to pull my own weight, at least in some way.”

Nico almost doesn’t hear his next sentence.

“I want to make sure their choice is worth it.”

“So, you wanted to spring this on the guys, and it’s hard to do that at your place, so you looked for help from me ‘n Poppy? Makes sense to me.” Nico grins, before looking at the timer. “Aaa! We’ve gotta get the cutlets ready!”

Both of them set into motion. “Grab the flour, would ya? I’ll get the pan.” Rummaging through her cabinets, Nico starts growing a little more frantic. “Where the hell did it go?!”

“Hang on, hang on, I remember where it got to last week-” Parad sets the flour and breadcrumbs on the table, going to a different cabinet. “I think I had to put it over here, because you were busy around the right one, and I just forgot to put it back- yeah, here we go.”

Glaring, she smacks him with a dishtowel. “Don’t! Put! My! Stuff! On! The! Top! Shelf! You! Lanky! Asshole!” Each word is punctuated by another bap. It’s not hard, she doesn’t really mean it, but seriously. He is way too tall to be allowed to put stuff away in this apartment, not when the people who live here are at least a foot shorter than him.

It’s Taiga taking her handheld and putting it on top of the supply closet all over again.

“Okay, okay, I get it already! Come on, N, cut it out!” He’s trying to fend off her attacks by using the frying pan as a shield.

“Nope!” She glares sarcastically. “The beatings will continue until morals improve.”

“…I think it’s supposed to be morale, isn’t it?”

She picks up the pace, and he responds by using one of his magic bugster power shields to block her. “That is cheating, Parad!”

“Hey, Nico, the broth!”

“Shit!”

-

Eventually, everyone’s schedules have finally lined up. All three of them – Emu, Parad, and Kiriya – are going to be at the hospital for once. Admittedly, Kiriya’s only going to be at CR because all four of the bugsters – and Emu, because of his whole ‘technically infected but also not quite human’ deal – are being examined and analyzed and all that tedious research and check-up stuff, but! this is perfect timing!

Okay, mostly perfect timing. Yes, everyone is going to be there today – and he does mean everyone, since Taiga and Nico are helping out due to a lack of overall manpower – but… well, he’s supposed to be sleeping. Same as the others, so that they’re all ‘bright eyed and bushy tailed’ for the tests.

(Those were Kiriya’s very sarcastic terms, not anyone else’s, although Parad kinda agrees.)

Still, he’s supposed to be sleeping, as opposed to getting up at three AM for a few hours to sneak over to Nico’s. He’s going to go back to sleep, really, but he has a few things to make, first.

A lot of things, actually. And he has to assemble them all into a bunch of different things.

“Thank you for letting me use the kitchen, I know that it's a hassle, but-”

“But ya don’t have the equipment, and Emu’d notice you sneaking around. Whereas Poppy has an inkling of what’s going on, but is okay with keeping the unusual number of groceries I’ve been buying for the past month a secret.” Nico giggles. “It’s definitely no problem. Let me know what I can do to help, okay?”

He frowns as he considers this. “I wanna do the cooking and assembly by myself, to prove I can, and it’ll mean way more that way, but if you could, like, get things out when I need them, and help keep up with dishes?”

He gets a thumbs up in reply. “I got ya. I’ll get the boxes out when you’re at that step for you, too, hows that sound?”

“Thanks!”

-

Parad glances at the clock. It’s almost five, he’s supposed to be getting up around seven – and he’s almost done, he really, really is, but he’s not actually done putting the boxes together yet…

He feels a hand on his arm. “Hey.”

Jumping, he turns. “Don’t do that!”

Smiling apologetically, Nico nods toward the assorted lunch boxes. “I’ll wrap this up. If you don’t head back soon, you’re gonna get caught.”

“No, I have to-”

“Dude, go home. I’ll bring ‘em in for ya, to keep the surprise. Besides.” She grins. “We don’t know who’s going when tomorrow, so who knows if you’d be allowed to teleport back by lunch.”

His shoulders slumping in defeat, Parad sighs. “Alright, yeah, you’ve got a point. A couple points. Good ones. Stupid 24-hour power ban… Alright. See you later, and uh, thanks again.”

“Don’t mention it.” Nico smirks. “I mean it, you don’t want you spilling the beans on your own surprise.”

He grins cheekily as he walks out.

-

Once he’s entering his own room, another door cracks open. “Kid? What’re you doing?”

‘Whoops.’ Parad flinches from Kiriya’s scrutinizing look. “Hey. Got kinda wired up. Had to go get some air. No, I didn’t use my powers, I used my key, I’m not dumb.”

“Heh.” Sleepily – looks like he really needed this – Kiriya scoffs. “Nah, if there’s one thing I could never call you, it’s dumb. Reckless, yes. An asshole sometimes, definitely, but Emu and Poppy are the only ones around here who aren’t, and Emu can toe the line when he’s pissed.” His smile dies down. “You okay?”

Parad nods. “Yeah. Really, I just went outside for a little. I’m headed back t’ bed. See ya in a few hours.”

“…Yeah. In a few. Too few.” Kiriya groans. “I hate mornings.”

“Is that why you always have that abomination that you call coffee?”

“Coffee’s perfectly normal, kid.”

“Not the way you drink it. Can I even say that you drink it? Does it still count as a liquid once you pour all that sugar in, or is it more of a syrup at that point?”

“Go to bed, you twerp.”

“Am I wrong though?”

Pointedly ignoring Kiriya’s mostly-pretend glare, Parad waves, heads into his room, and passes the hell out on his bed.

-

“What I can’t believe is that we’re letting Genm just. Wait around out here. I’d’ve thought we’d get him out of the way, and then back in he goes.”

“Yes, yes, very funny, Kujo.”

“The guy is a flight risk, and known terrorist, and a grade-A douche canoe, so, really, it doesn’t make sense for his exam to be one of the last.” Kiriya continues his diatribe, pointedly pretending to not hear anything Kuroto says.

“Yeah, well.” Parad scoffs. “I think it was something about how he’s virtual so much, he needs the extra time in the ‘real’ world to ‘realign’ or whatever.”

“I’m right here, you know. I can hear everything you are saying.”

Kiriya looks at the ceiling, acting confused. “Huh, that’s weird. I thought I heard some sort of weird droning, for a minute there…”

“Kujo, I swear-”

“…Ace? you okay?”

Emu grits his teeth. “I’m fine. Just… tense.” Seeming to realize he’s been pacing for the last ten minutes, he pulls out a chair and sits down, resting his head on his crossed arms. “Just… didn’t sleep well. That’s all.”

Kiriya and Parad look at him, then at each other, and then back at Emu. ““Bullshit.””

“Language.”

Parad frowns. “Sorry you got pulled into this whole testing thing, too.”

His head still down, Emu shrugs. “It’s partly because technically speaking, you’re still infecting me, and I feel I need to repeat for the record that, no, I don’t blame you for. But this way, we can also get more information on how this ‘stage’ of the game disease works. Well, kind of, anyway. The length of time kinda distorts the data, if you ask me.”

“And you’ve been in this situation so long, we may as well call you an honorary bugster.” Kiriya tries to joke. “I mean, you’re the one who wanted your DNA checked out, Ace. Not your fault it confirmed that you’re a hybrid.”

“Yeah, but I don’t even get the extra mileage out of it!” He sounds exasperated, but his grin shows that Emu’s cheering up – or at least doing a good job of distracting himself. “Suuuure, I get to transform without the surgery, and I’m a little stronger than most people, but not even by that much, and I don’t get to teleport!”

Parad shakes his head. “I’m telling you, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you do little mini forcefields.”

“Those hurt when you use them to shove someone away, you know.”

Emu glares. “Shut it, you were trying to choke me and you had it coming.”

“So you acknowledge that you have some extra powers?” Everyone turns away from the former CEO. “You all just don’t appreci-”

“Boys?” Poppy comes up the stairs. “How’s it going?”

Everyone brightens, Kiriya leaning forward. “Hey, welcome back! So that’s you ‘n me down, and these three to go.”

Whining, Parad drapes himself over a chair. “Are you sure you guys can’t tell anyone what’s coming?”

“Pfeh.” Kiriya snorts. “They wouldn’t even let me ‘n ‘God’ design the tests for you three, let alone ourselves, and we’re the ones who do most of the research. That’s how out of the loop we’re all being kept. The only one’s who’ll probably have the same tests are me and him, anyway, since you and Poppy are in different situations, and Emu, well, is Emu.”

“Funny.”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough, you guys.” Her hands on her hips, Poppy gives them a serious look, then almost immediately beams when all four of the men straighten up.

Parad blinks. “Oh no. She knows everyone’s terrified of letting her down. She’s weaponizing it.”

Emu glances over. “Well, it’s been nice knowing us all.”

“A-hem. Weren’t you two supposed to keep the psychic chatter to a minimum?”

““Sorry.””

“A-ny-way…” With a singsong tone, Poppy drops down onto the couch. “Nico was helping out, but she took off a little while ago, saying something about grabbing lunch.” Frowning, she crosses her arms in a pout. “Except we were all supposed to be here today. Everyone. As a group.”

“What were the plans for lunch, anyway?” Emu slumps back down. “Does anyone actually know? The three of us were told ‘it was taken care of’, but…”

“Yeah, that doesn’t really explain anything, does it?” His arms crossed, Kiriya huffs. “Because explaining anything would just be too difficult, wouldn’t it?”

“Pot, meet kettle.” Taiga’s voice carries from the stairs.

“Oh, right, like you’re one to talk, mister ‘only rider we need around here’!”

“You’re all insufferable.” Hiiro’s voice comes from behind the emerging Taiga.

“And yet you still work with us.”

There’s an amount of light banter as everyone converges into the office, and some facts become clear.

Absolutely none of them brought lunches.

And absolutely none of them were told why they weren’t supposed to.

Parad’s phone goes off, a victory sound effect playing to signal a text. “Hang on, I’ll be back up in a sec.”

Emu gets up as he darts off. “Hey, we’re supposed to be staying in here!”

“I’m not going far!”

True to his word, he comes back up less than five minutes later, Nico right behind him. The both of them are carrying decently sized picnic baskets. Looking quickly around, Parad nods to a spot near the table, where they both set them down, and begin distributing bento boxes to everyone seated around the table.

Each one is personalized, too – a lot of thought was put into this.

-

Emu: Pink with mighty on it, and a cyan chopstick case – the same as his half of Mighty Brothers.

Hiiro: Metallic blue with a picture of a shortcake, and a silver chopstick case (and it was really hard to find a blue version of that – most of them were pastel pinks or purples)

Taiga: Yellow with a pen-and-ink calligraphy of a tiger, and a black and yellow case.

Kiriya: Dark red with a yellow Hawaiian floral pattern, and a dark yellow case with a similar red pattern

Poppy: Pale yellow with pink and green music notes, and a pink case with yellow and green notes

Kuroto: Dark purple with a grey chopstick case. (Parad sets that one down while glaring)

Nico: Purple, pink, and blue tie-dye, and a dark pink case with a pattern of game controller buttons all over.

Parad: Purple with red, blue, and yellow squares, and an orange case the same color as his half of Mighty Brothers.

-

Everyone starts off reluctant to try – the meals all look good, but… well, they’ve never known Nico to cook at all. Sighing, she takes a big bite out of hers. “Come on, it’s not poison, guys.”

After seeing that she doesn’t drop, the others start eating as well – and one by one, light up.

There’s no conversation at this point – everyone’s too distracted, up until Taiga looks at her. “If you can make this, why the hell are you always bringing in all that junk food?!”

She grins deviously. “I said I was going to grab lunch. Never said I was the one who made it.” She turns her grin to the bugster sitting across from her. “Right?”

Fidgeting nervously with the corner of the cloth his box was wrapped in, Parad nods, apparently trying to avoid shrinking into his collar. “I made them. Nico’s been helping me learn, and. Well. I wanted to show how I’ve been doing. Since everyone was going to be here, this seemed like a good enough time as any to do it.”

Kiriya looks at him, a smirk on his face. “Oh, ya mean that’s where you were? Getting some air my ass!”

Poppy beams. “So this is what you two have been up to! I didn’t want to ask, but I knew something was going on!”

Parad nods again, averting his eyes. “Yeah. I thought – if I could at least partly pull my weight, that’d be one thing, but I also realized that cooking is honestly really fun to do. I… was kinda surprised, but… it’s something, and it’s a way I can help, so…” He casts a nervous glance up at Emu, before looking back down. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. I know we’ve got the ‘no secrets’ rule in the apartment, but I figured you would tell me ‘not to worry about it’ and not bother, and this is something I really wanted to do, so I can be useful-”

He’s silenced by a hand on his shoulder, and a small wave of reassurance being pushed his way.

Emu smiles. “Why would I say that? I mean, you don’t need to worry about ‘not being useful’, because that's kind of silly. You don’t need a purpose for us to like each other, you know.”

“I know, but… I still-”

“This one is the good type of secret, Parad.” Emu squeezes his shoulder for good measure, and turns back to his lunch. “So, how long have you two been at this?”

Nico chuckles. “Told ya not to worry. We’ve been practicing for about a month – and as you can see, the lanky jerk’s gotten pretty damned good at this.”

Kiriya – half done with his – wheels his chair behind Emu in order to clap Parad on the shoulder. “I’ll say! This is good, kid.” He smirks. “And now we don’t have to get take out almost every night!”

Parad blushes at the complements. “Thanks. The take out thing was a big part of why I started, too.” He gestures toward the boxes themselves. “I, uh, took the liberty of getting these, too – there’s two each, actually. The boxes and cases belong to different sets, and I tried to get ones that fit each person.” With a slight chuckle, he continues. “Yes, I included Genm, because while he may be an unrepentant dick, I’m trying to move on from my assholery… and the site I found had a deal if you ordered a certain number of sets, but it required a lot of sets, and I didn’t quite make it with just everyone else’s, so I figured I might as well round out the whole thing.”

[echodrops]

I was thinking of doing an English literature degree in university and was looking into the possibility of becoming a professor. I was wondering about the process of becoming a professor. As in, what type of further degree did you have to get and what was the course load like? Also what exactly does being a professor entail? Do you do research as well as lecturing? I’m sorry for bothering you with this, it’s just that you always explain things well and I don’t know any professors in real life.

Sure, I don’t mind answering these kinds of questions at all!

What type of further degree did you have to get and what was the course load like?

For reference, I have a Masters degree of Fine Arts (in Poetry) which is, for the moment, still considered a terminal degree in the creative writing field, although the Ph.D. is becoming super popular now.

In order to teach at the college level at any accredited institution, you must have a minimum of 18 graduate level credit hours in your chosen field. I.e., you would need at least 18 credits (about 2.5 semesters) of a graduate program in English in order to teach any English college-level courses.

In today’s market, it would be extremely difficult to get any full-time teaching position without having completed at least a Masters degree, so if you want to become a professor, plan on going to graduate school.

Some good news though: Many English graduate programs are generously to fully funded, which means that you’re a lot less likely to leave graduate school with crippling student loan debt than you would be if you went to graduate school in another field like business or medicine. Don’t go to a graduate school that isn’t covering a large portion of your tuition costs. If they don’t offer you good financial aid, just say no thanks!

In terms of what degree you should pursue specifically, that depends on your interest, but three degrees that feed directly into English professor positions, in order of most likely to be hired, are:

Master in Rhetoric and Composition (this is the most likely to get you a job, but personally I would have found a degree like this boring as dirt)

Master in Literature (if you like analyzing other people’s writing, this is where you go; this degree is a double-edged sword though. You can specialize here and get into some really, really niche stuff that you love to death–but if no schools out there need your niche literary background, you may be a less appealing job candidate than the Rhet/Comp person above)

Master in Creative Writing/Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (if you like writing your own stuff, this is the route to go; you will come out of this kind of program fully qualified to teach general English courses. Double-edged sword again though–EVERY school needs people who are experienced in teaching English 101… Not every schools needs someone experienced in teaching, say… Introduction to Poetry)

Course load in graduate programs is more tolerable than undergraduate programs. 12 credits is the minimum to qualify as full-time in undergrad, while 9 is considered full-time for most grad programs. You’ll take fewer classes to get a Master’s degree than an Bachelor’s.

That said, be ready for a completely different vibe and expectation level. People who go to grad school aren’t fucking around. Someone in my program got a B in one of our classes and that was enough to put her on academic probation. My friend, who also went to grad school for English, got an A- that she STILL feels guilty about to this day. So it’s less classes, but the expectation is that you will bring your absolute highest effort to the table in each class and engage fully with the material. (To be honest though, I feel like a lot of graduate-level professors are more chill than undergrad professors; there were “A” grades I worked A LOT harder for in undergrad than some of the “A”s I got in grad school.)

Also what exactly does being a professor entail? Do you do research as well as lecturing?

I’d say there are six general parts to the day-to-day job of a professor:

1) Prep. This is getting your courses ready: writing lectures, building activities, creating homework assignments, building your syllabi, picking readings, designing discussions, etc. This takes a fuck ton more time than you will ever want it to, and you always tell yourself after you get the class done once you’ll never have to do it again, but that’s a lie, because you will find yourself updating and changing things every single semester. Your mandatory “office hours” are basically just prep time since, no matter how much you beg them, students will rarely take advantage of your office hours unless you bribe or force them.

2) Actually teaching. This is your time spent in the classroom. The LEAST time-consuming part of your job. For every hour you actually spend in the classroom, expect to spend 154680060 hours doing outside stuff like grading. If you’re confident in front of crowds, this part is the easiest thing about being a teacher. If you want to get good at the actual “teaching” part of being a professor, take drama classes. Good teachers project confidence and energy at all times in the classroom, and drama teaches you how to do this much better than any public speaking class can.

3) Grading. Hell itself. It never ends. 9/10ths of your job as an English professor is just this. I envy the professors who are out of shits to give and just circle bubbles on a rubric, but I am not that person and so I comment extensively on every single one of the assignments for every single one of my students. If you’re up at 3am in the morning, it’s probably because of this!

4) Dealing with students on a personal level. The scariest part of the job. College is an extremely stressful time in a lot of young people’s lives, and especially if you are not teaching in a rich neighborhood, your students may be experiencing very significant personal, familial, financial, etc. difficulties that severely impact their mental health and well-being. You will encounter situations that you would never expect–students bursting into tears in the middle of class, students coming into your office and telling you they’re contemplating suicide, hearing graphic stories about the students’ abusive backgrounds, and being asked directly for help in situations that are completely outside of your experience level. Because there’s such an incredible stigma against therapists, many students will bring serious mental health issues to their professors long before they would ever consider going to the school’s counseling services.

5) Committees. Dear god. The committees never end. As part of your contract at most institutions, you will be expected to be performing service to the college, aka serving on committees and task forces to do all manner of things. If you’re lucky, you can get on committees you actually care about, with coworkers you like, and then they are fun. If you’re unlucky, you get “voluntold” (aka forcibly placed) on a bunch of committees that you feel completely unpassionate about and you’ll just have to deal until they complete their purpose or fizzle out. The amount of time you put into the committee has no correlation to the amount of work the committee actually gets done.

6) Research and professional development. In the .0002 minutes you have left each week, you will either be required (if you’re at a research institution) or highly encouraged to complete research, publication writing, and professional development activities. At my institution, research is highly encouraged and publication is a sure way to get in good with administration, but professional development is required, i.e. we have to participate in conferences or development trainings throughout the year to demonstrate continued efforts to discover and employ best teaching practices. This is usually a fun part, but you will never, ever have enough time for it.

The path to becoming a professor–some advice:

If you are not yet in college, pick your college based on a combination of three factors: 1) financial aid, obviously; 2) the robustness of their English department (i.e., do they have a Writing Center you could tutor at or other internship opportunities? Do they have a chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the English honor society? Do they send undergrads to conferences? Do they have department events like essay contests and/or writing clubs? Search the school website thoroughly for info on their department--or better yet, call and talk to them); 3) the courses taught (you should be able to access the school’s complete course catalog before applying. If you read over every course the English department offers and none of them interest you, then obviously that’s not the school for you).

If you are already in college, look for opportunities that will make your grad school applications stand out–try to get a job as a writing tutor, join the English honor society, join/sponsor a writing or book club, be on the staff of your school’s literary journal, submit your work (including essays, why not) to other literary journals, take part in any competitions you can, etc. Strong involvement in your English department will make your application to graduate programs shine.

Consider planning for a day-job after grad school, at least for a couple years. The more English experience you have on your resume, the more likely you are to earn a full-time teaching position. Landing a tenure track job right out of grad school is tragically uncommon. Plan on adjuncting for a few years to get some college-level teaching experience under your belt. It’s common for adjunct professors to teach a few classes as a side-job while they do other work, such as freelance editing, to bring home the real money. Then you can translate your courses taught as an adjunct into years of experience when you are applying for full-time positions!

Phew, sorry if that was longer than you expected!

[neighbours-kid]

2018

I honestly don’t even know where to start.

How does one talk about a year like this?

I’ll try and start at the beginning.

The beginning of my 2018 was very hectic. I started the new year in London with my two closest friends. We were standing on Primrose Hill with probably a few hundred other people, waiting for Big Ben to chime in the new year, and the fireworks over London to start. It was freezing cold, but we had a blast. We returned to Switzerland on January 01, I spent one very hectic day of double- and triple-checking my bags, and seeing some people for the last time for six months.

On January 03 I had my flight to New York City, via Dublin. It was….quite a day, I was highly emotional because everything seemed to fall apart, I had at least one anxiety attack, and it just wasn’t fun. But in the end—and after a night spent in a Dublin airport hotel—I arrived in my East Harlem airbnb in New York for my Stay Abroad around midnight between January 04 and 05.

What I did in New York for my six months stay, you can read on this blog right here, beginning with Part I. You can find links for the other parts at the end of that post.

Being in New York was a highly enjoyable time for me. It gave me the opportunity to become more of myself, be who I am more honestly, more truly, and more openly. I learned a whole lot about the film industry, about so many integral parts of what makes movies good, I learned a lot about myself, who I am and who I want to be, but I think most importantly, and most prominently, I met so many wonderful people who share a lot of interests with me, and who made this adventure unforgettable.

At the end of my time in New York, my mom came to visit me for a week, and we did all the touristy things. We walked up and down Broadway, we saw Time Square, we did The Empire State Building, visited the 9/11 Memorial and the museum, I took her to Brooklyn to eat at Peaches and then we went all the way down to Coney Island. We went all the way up to Washington Heights, went to the MoMA, walked a bit in Central Park, and visited my stomping ground from the Filmmaking Workshop (including eating at Café Katja and going up on the rooftop of my friend’s airbnb). I took her to NYFA where I spent most of my time these six months, she met some of my friends, she had my well-loved lobby-guy-iced-coffee, and ate the deli salad that I had eaten so many times. We saw Hello Dolly thanks to my lovely host, we did the Liberty and Ellis Island boat tour, we found the place Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan finally kiss in You’ve Got Mail (91st Street Garden, Riverside Park), and saw Ocean’s Eight. We both flew back home on July 12, ending my six months adventure in NYC.

And then came the slump.

I came home from six months of doing things I’ve never done before, I came home to good old Switzerland — which at first I was very happy about because I was so TIRED, but there were reasons why I was excited to leave in the first place, so y’know, that was certain to catch up with me — and I was like, what now? And I had no idea.

I hung out with friends and watched the World Cup finale. But then I also went to my grandma’s funeral. But then I saw my dad, and went to a birthday of a friend. I went to the movies, and was able to work for a few days. I went to my cousin’s birthday dinner, my friend’s bachelorette party, a park event of our church.

I was able to celebrate my own birthday with people who I cared about, went to brunch with another dear friend, and yet another birthday. And more work. And my friend’s wedding.

All those things (except the funeral of course) were really cool and I enjoyed seeing my friends, my people.

But in all of that I was just….lost.

I came home from six months of doing so much cool stuff, speaking a language I feel way more comfortable in than my mother tongue, met people I can hopefully call friends for life, became more comfortable in my own skin and started taking steps into the direction where my true self was waiting—I came home, new me came home into old me’s home, and I was lost.

University started and while I missed some of it, I also realised more and more how much I really hated other things.

And during all of that, I was living with friends dear to me for three months. And during that time I realised even more that how things are right now is not a way they can stay for much longer.

Luckily, one of my circumstances changed within the first few weeks of studying. I looked at an apartment with my mom, we both loved it, I applied for it the next day, and the day after that, I got the phone call that I got the place. I was able to move in on October 20, and the rest is history. Having my very own place, where only I live and nobody else, has been very good for me. It’s giving me an even clearer picture of who I am and where I want to go next year.

More lovely birthdays filled those months, more fantastic movies, good days with friends, with family, and some actually really decent days at university. I binge-watched The Mentalist within a month, started reading a book again that I really like, and for a while there, the slump stopped, and I wasn’t so lost anymore.

I finally got my ass to my doctor and did some general check-up, found out that my iron is pretty low and I’m taking stuff for that now, I was able to have a very honest conversation with my doc and she’s forwarded my info to a psychiatrist who should contact me in the next few weeks or months, so that I can start my 2019 knowing that things might actually start going in the right direction for once.

I know, this all sounds like a very good year over all. And it was, for some parts. But 2018 didn’t go by without anything bad happening. Sure, most bad things that happened this year, didn’t personally affect me. I’m not one of the kids separated from their parents at the border. I’m not one of the kids whose school got shot up by a lunatic. I’m not part of a caravan looking for refuge and not being accepted in a country that prides itself to be a country where everyone is accepted. I’m not an unwillingly pregnant woman who can’t get an abortion in my own country. I’m not one of the many people who have lost loved ones to gun violence, white supremacy, racism, homophobia, and many more reasons this year.

I’m lucky, you know. I’m not from a country lead by dictators, white supremacists or literal nazis. I don’t live in a war zone. I’m also white and 99 out of a 100 times don’t get people yelling obscenities at me on the street. I don’t have to fear being assaulted when I walk alone at night, I don’t have to be afraid when police approaches me, I don’t get harassed for how I look or how I speak or where I’m from. I’m lucky.

But hearing these stories every day, reading about so much injustice and hate every day, opening twitter to connect to my international friends and seeing all this crap that is happening every day all over the world, it doesn’t just go by you without having an impact. I lived in a country currently lead by an actual literal fucking nazi and his fucking nazi friends for six months, and even though I lived in New York City, which is kind of a bubble within the states, I felt that, I felt the impact this leadership — or lack thereof — had on the people of this country. I listened. I heard people talk. I had these conversations myself. Living among people who are afraid every day of their lives because the person who is supposed to be leading this country into a brighter future, is an actual nazi who thinks it’s okay that people don’t have access to health care, that children are taken away from their parents, that children keep dying, that people fleeing bad circumstances are being detained in prison camps, this fear doesn’t just go by you. I could go on, but I’m already sick to my stomach just thinking about all this. I experienced this fear during those six months. Not personally, but I felt it all around me. And, if you are even remotely a decent person with some percentage of compassion, that doesn’t leave you unscathed. It makes me angry and sad and frustrated.

2018 was a hell of a year, and I don’t mean that positively.

I still believe there are good people in this world. I see it. I see them every day. I know they exist, I know they’re there, and I know they fight for a better future. But damn. I also see so much hate, so much injustice, so much of what should not be there.

I thought about quitting twitter or at least unfollowing/muting all political talk, because I just keeps dragging me down. But I didn’t. I can’t. I refuse to turn around and close my eyes on all this crap that is happening. If I don’t have twitter, there will come a moment, where I won’t have any idea what is happening, and that will make me susceptible to all the lies that are being told and I can’t have that. I refuse to be one of the sheep who just follows where everyone else goes. Even if my mental health takes a toll, and it does and it will, I refuse to turn a blind eye to what is happening.

I don’t know what these last days of 2018 still hold. I have this week of class left. I have my English Department Christmas Party to go to, I have Christmas with Mom, Christmas with Dad, Christmas with my Quasi-Family, Christmas with my friends. I have some days in between with no plans, I have no clue what I’ll do on New Year’s Eve. I have these plans, but so much could still be happening.

As for 2019….I don’t know what to expect. I have hopes, of course. Doubts, sure. Wishes, definitely. Some plans here and there, too. But who knows what exactly it’ll bring.

I don’t usually do this — I don’t think I’ve actually every done this — but here’s a list of things I’d like to achieve in 2019:

Finish my Bachelor’s Degree.

Have at leats one hands-on creative outlet.

See a Psychiatrist and establish a routine with them.

Establish a basic workout routine that doesn’t require a gym.

Find a job OR decide which Masters to do.

I’m gonna keep it at that. Start small, right?

If everything goes how it’s seems right now, points 1 and 3 are already looking very good. We’ll work on the rest.

On a global scale, I don’t expect there to be any changes in 2019. I hope, of course, but I don’t expect it. Personally, however, I hope that 2019 can be a good year for me. Taking me further on this journey that I started a while ago. I have a feeling that it will do that. I’m hopeful.

I wish you all a very pleasant festive time, and a hopefully not horrible rest of 2018. You deserve good things and I wish you all the best of them. Hug some loved ones. Indulge in something you like. We only have this one live, might as well make the best of it.

Merry Christmas, guys.

[ezzydean]

Okay so.  My main friend group right now consists mostly of my roommate, a few of our coworkers (now technically my ex-coworkers since I'm at a new store lol), and a few other mutual friends.  One of mine & Ashley's (the roommate) friends is also a coworker.  Well she's always bailing on our friend group events and always saying she'll be there and then just not showing up and she's always saying how she and Ashley and I need to get together and do a movie night and just hang out.

But every time she mentions the movie night to one of us we'll be like 'oh we're free this weekend' or 'well we have next Friday off' or something similar.  And then she says that she can't do it then because she already has plans.  Or we’ll be like ‘we’re gonna go to this fair/carnival/whatever’ and she says she wants to go too so we’re like ‘send us a message whenever you’re free and we can meet up somewhere and go together’ and she never messages us.

And we'll have friend group events that she'll mark on FB that she's going to and then just not show up.  Or she'll say that she has plans for the Friday event but will be there Saturday or has plans that morning but will be there in the afternoon.  And she never shows up.  Never sends a message that she's not coming.  She just... doesn't show.

(a lot more ranting under the cut)

We changed the date of our Palentine's Day party/outing so she could go to it (even though it kind of fucked up things for Ashley, whose bday we were also celebrating that night) and she just... didn't show up.  We were waiting to order at the restaurant we decided to try that night and had to text her to see what was going on and she 'just wasn't feeling up to socializing’ that night.  The night we had specifically rearranged so she could come because she made such a huge fuss over not being able to go in the first place.  (And then later that night she had snaps on her story about having a night in with wine & movies & pizza with some random friend of hers.)  Then the next day we went ice skating (which we had planned to do all along) for Ashley’s bday & just because we wanted to do it, she couldn’t go for whatever reason.  Then a few weeks later she made comments about how she wished she could go ice skating too and that it wasn’t fair we all always do stuff without her.

She got upset in the group chats we had this spring and said she didn't feel like part of the friend group because ‘no one ever responded to her’ or she'd get to the messages like 3 hours after the convo happened so she was out of the loop.

We had an ugly sweater party in January (which was also our friend Paul’s bday party sort of) and she showed up with her bff Taylor like an hour after the rest of us.  They stayed a couple hours and then left.  (99% of her 'plans' that are happening so she can't do stuff with us involve her driving up to the cities to see Taylor for the weekend.) St. Patrick’s Day.  Same thing.  She showed up like an hour later than most of the rest of us, with Taylor, stayed a couple hours, and then left.  Then (after both parties) when our friends would all be together later and joke about or laugh about something that happened at the party she would get irritated because she didn’t know what was going on.  (Because she left early.)

This summer we had a day & night out with a bunch of us for our friend Paul & his fiancee’s joint bachelor/bachelorette party.  We did paintball and then went out drinking.  The last bar we went to she spent almost the entire 2ish+ hours we were there off where we had no idea where she was because she was off talking with some other people she knew.  We were there for Paul & Tasha and she spent most of the time talking and hanging out and playing pool with other people.  Then (later that night and a few days later when we were talking about stuff that happened at the bar) she got upset because she didn’t know what was going on or like she was acting upset because one of our friends bought a round of shots and she never got to have one (and we told her that was because we had no idea where she was because she basically just vanished as soon as we walked in and then she got defensive about it.)  

We have friends who live across the hall from each other in an apartment building.  One night at some get together she was getting mad at Ashley and I because we weren’t going to bed yet and she stormed off across the hall to the other apartment and then was getting all mad cause she had no place to sleep cause the beds were spoken for and the couches were being used.  The next morning she came into the apartment Ashely and I stayed in and while I was in the bathroom she took over my spot on the floor where Ashley and I had made a blanket/pillow nest and went back to sleep, basically forcing me to lay on the floor with no pillows and one blanket.

Last month we went camping at our friend Paul's parents farm.  She wound up not showing up because she 'had to go celebrate with Taylor because she got a new job.'  Then she was saying a week or so later how we all needed to get together because she felt like she never got to see us anymore (cause she only works 2 nights a week at this job) and how she really wanted to go camping this summer and we all needed to do that.  Last weekend we went camping again.  We were gonna go the whole weekend but a lot of people couldn't make it Friday night (including her because she had plans with Taylor Friday for Taylor's bday but she said that she'd definitely make it Saturday) and we wound up just doing it Saturday night.  Her snapchat was filled Friday with stuff from her and Taylor and another friend going out.  Saturday it was them in CL (the town our store is at and a town that's like maybe an hour or so from where we were camping).  They were on a boat all day and then went to the bar Saturday night.

Ashley and I were tired of seeing that stuff on her snap story, just tired of seeing all the times she said she’d be at something with our friends and suddenly had plans she couldn’t get out of and then posting 15 snaps of her and Taylor out doing stuff.  (And then saying a week later how she never gets to see us and misses all of us and we never get to do anything together.)  So Ashley and I just deleted her from snapchat.  No big deal, no big fuss, no big call out or anything.  Just a simple delete (which it’s not like this friend ever snapped us anyway unless it was to complain about having to stay late at work.)

I had to stop in at my old store a few days ago and grab something and she was working and she was like ‘oh I feel like I never see you!  we need to get together!  we just need to plan a night to do something!  it feels like it’s been forever since I saw you!’ and I just nodded and said yeah it’s been awhile and left it at that.  (Like, come on, you could have seen me like 3 days go had you just SHOWN UP like you SAID you were GOING TO and not ditched us, yet again.)

Ashley also decided to delete her on Facebook.  Again.  No big fuss, no call out post or anything.  She wound up deleting over 100 people that day, just clearing out people she didn’t talk to anymore and the like.  (I didn’t delete this person on FB, mind you, just on snapchat.)  Last night, a week after her FB friend purge, Ashley gets a message from this friend that was just like ‘uh for some reason we’re not friends on FB anymore?’ at 11 at night.  Ashley was getting ready for bed so she didn’t respond (she just mentioned it to me in passing while we were both getting ready for bed) and figured she’d deal with it today.  Well today at like 9am we got a message in the group chat we had set up for us three that was like ‘ok can somebody explain to me what I did to make you guys no longer be my friend??’

And I just don’t even know how to respond.  Like.  No clue how to even approach this whole thing.  She constantly makes a big fuss over not getting to see any of us or not getting to hang out or come to friend events.  But it’s not our fault.  She gets invited to it all.  She just chooses not to show up or (more often than not) she chooses a different set of friends to hang out with.  And pretty much all of our group of friends feel like this too.  When we show up we’ll all look at each other and be like ‘oh is she coming to this?’ and we all just kind of shrug because we have no clue because she says she’s coming but she never does.  We’ve actually talked about how we don’t really feel like she actually wants to be our friend or hang out because she never bothers to show up to anything we do, whether it’s planned out months in advance or just a quick group chat an hour beforehand.

It’s just exhausting when it feels like we’re the ones putting all the effort into the friendship.  Especially when it feels like 99% of the time whatever any of us plan and invite her to and whatnot gets ignored anyway.

[magicalgirlartist]

This is Sprout, a character for the upcoming Sentinel Comics RPG! She exists entirely because of my tendency to say “aw beans” whenever anything goes wrong. (You can blame Brian from the Letters Page Discord for this.)

Character notes, lies about publishing history, character backstory, and game mechanics (?) under the cut, with deepest apologies to mobile users.

Character Notes

Sprout’s real name is Jacqueline Stock. She was originally created in the 1960′s as a child character for children, then disappeared from comics for a long time before being “rebooted” as a young adult for modern comics. Sprout has no innate powers of her own, but she does have a slew of magic beans which she uses to solve problems and (eventually) fight crime. Most of them just grew vines really fast (and as a kid that was all they did), which she uses to trip, tie up, or otherwise incapacitate bad guys. She can get creative with these, such as using the vines as a climbing rope or a bridge, and they’re the type of beans she uses the most. Other types of beans include explosive beans, smoke beans, slippery beans, and sticky beans.

As a child, Jacqueline’s identity was kept secret via Clark Kenting: Jacqueline had hair that hung straight down, whereas Sprout had pigtails. Sprout also always had a bright green bandage on her somewhere. As an adult, Jacqueline keeps her identity secret by virtue of not having any friends in Megalopolis that aren’t also superheroes.

Publishing History (lies)

Sprout was originally a character created by a different comic publishing company. During her original run, she was a nine-year-old child and her comics were aimed at young children. She mostly solved “mysteries” (such as Someone Has Stolen The Class Pet) and served as a PSA/morality character (with such stories as Nobody Is Going To Her Favourite Candy Store Anymore And They Might Have To Close Because There Is An Untrue Rumor Being Spread About The Owner And This Is Why You Should Not Spread Rumors Kids). Seeing as they were comics aimed at young children, the language and plots were fairly simple. They were generally well-liked and popular among kids of the era.

Eventually she went from grade three to grade four, but her stories stayed mostly the same. Once she hit grade 5 (ten real-world years after her original release), she started actually fighting crime. Most of it was either low-level street crime (purse snatchers, cat burglars, etc.) or the occasional costumed supervillain. Her most notable supervillain was the Ant King, notable mostly because he was the only one who showed up more than once. (He’s a whole other story.)

During this time, Jacqueline’s backstory was never explained. The most the audience got was “she reads a lot and is very smart and also has magic vine-growing beans.” Her home life was mostly glossed over, as her comics tended to focus more on problems at her school and in her (fairly generic) community.

Around the mid-seventies, the company that published Sprout’s comics was going out of business, and Sentinel Comics bought the rights to Sprout, her comics, and her supporting cast. They didn’t really do anything with her right away, and Sprout sort of faded from the public consciousness up until Vengeance. There was a background shot where a character that looked like a mid-teen Sprout, straw hat and sundress and all, throwing something vine-like at a guy wearing a terrible ant costume and a crown. The people who grew up with her freaked out, thinking Sprout was back.

She was not.

Sprout wasn’t really seen in Sentinel Comics again until OblivAeon, where she was part of the Really Big Group Shot of Every Hero Ever and even got a focus panel during a montage of minor and alt-universe heroes fighting Aeon Men. In this one, she was throwing beans that appeared to be exploding. Again, the people who grew up with her (and the huge comic buffs) wondered if this meant she was coming back for real, but they’d been wrong once before, so they weren’t expecting much.

This time, however, she did actually come back. When the Freedom Plaza book(s) were announced, the release discussed some of the characters that would be appearing in the book, and one was Sprout. There was an Issue 0 for the book she would appear in, giving a basic overview of each character’s backstory and where they sit in Sentinel Comics as a whole. As Sprout didn’t have a backstory before, this was the first place her backstory was ever published.

Character Backstory

Jacqueline’s backstory in her original run wasn’t talked about. She was a cool kid who solved problems and captured criminals with her smarts and her beans.

In her Issue 0, she was given a full, fleshed out backstory. It was something of a riff on the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, playing off her name and magic beans.

Jacqueline Sprout grew up on a farm with her mom and older brother Jackson. They lived in a fairly small town, the sort of place where everybody knew everybody else. Every Saturday, Jacqueline’s parents took her and her brother down to the farmer’s market. Jacqueline’s job was to put people’s purchases in bags, but when she was in third grade her parents started letting her handle transactions (with supervision, of course).

One week, Jacqueline was handling a customer by herself while her family was busy with other customers. He was an old man with a funny hat and a nice smile. When she told him his total, he looked sadly at the few coins in his hand and said “Ah, it seems I’m a little short. But I’ll tell you what.” He pulled a small pouch from a pocket of the long coat he was wearing. “In this pouch are some magic beans. I’ll give them to you in exchange for your fine produce.”

Jacqueline, being a fairly gullible child and having read the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, immediately accepted. By the time her parents realised what she had done, the old man was long gone and Jacqueline was gushing proudly about how she was going to climb to the sky and fight a giant. They flipped out, she was lectured for a very long time, and she wasn’t allowed to handle purchases by herself until she was sixteen.

When they got home that day, Jacqueline immediately planted the “magic beans” in a pot next to her bedroom window. By the next morning, they had already sprouted, and while she was disappointed that they hadn’t grown to the sky overnight like in the story, that was still incredibly fast. They were producing more kidney bean sized beans within a few days. Jacqueline started harvesting them, and accidentally dropped one on the ground. Upon impact, vines started to grow from it. She freaked out, but they stopped fairly quickly, and she destroyed the evidence before her family found out. She kept the harvested beans in jars under her bed. After a while, she started using them to solve problems at school and in her community under the secret identity of Sprout.

As she got older, Jacqueline started to wonder if there were other things she could do with the beans. She began to experiment with them. She did research into genetically modifying plants, and when that turned out to be not viable from home she turned to alchemy. She set up a basic, makeshift alchemist’s lab in her closet, keeping it locked when not in use. After a lot of trial and error (a lot of error) she managed to create several different types of beans with different abilities. 

After graduating from high school, she moved to Megalopolis to attend university. She was going for her Bachelor of Science in Agriculture. Jacqueline said it was so she could take over the Stock family farm one day, but mostly it was to find new and interesting ways to improve her bean alchemy. Sprout used her beans to help fight against Aeon Men, and when she heard about the Sentinels of Freedom and Freedom Plaza, she jumped at the chance for more ways to learn about the beans she grows and how she can use them to help people.

Game Mechanics (?)

Since we don’t currently have access to full character creation rules, I’m just throwing things around based on what we do know about character creation. Full character sheet stuff will be put here once we have access to the rules.

Power Source: either Nature, Mystical, or Experimentation

Archetype: Alchemist

Personality: Cheerful

Background: Farmer?

Principle of the Alchemist: The first law of alchemy states that to gain something, something of equal value must be lost

Principle of the Green Thumb: You grew up taking care of plants to the point where you know almost everything there is to know about them.

[huntermagazine362]

Notion To Todoist

Notion Vs Todoist

Todoist Integration Office 365

Todoist Notion Integration

Notion Todoist

In a matter of minutes and without a single line of code, Zapier allows you to automatically send info between ClickUp and Todoist. Get started with workflows like: Add new ClickUp tasks to Todoist.Or check out the rest of our guided workflows.Save time with Zapier; it's free to try. Notion calls itself an all-in-one workspace for notes and documents, wikis, tasks and projects, and spreadsheets and databases. Although I still prefer Todoist as my task manager (I wish Todoist and Notion could integrate!), Notion has become my project management software tool. I’ll admit: the learning curve on Notion was a bit rough at first.

Test your Zap and if everything went according to the plan, you should see your email in your notion table. Integration #4: Send Tasks from Todoist/Tasks to Notion. The integration allows you to send tasks from pretty much any Todo app that works with Zapier. Set up a Todo table. Whilst Todoist haven’t totally changed their business model after seeing the rise of Roam, Notion and many more tools – and their expansive set of features, it has created some form of expansion of.

Using modular productivity-boosting solutions such as Notion, Coda, and Airtable may look like a challenge initially. However, you'll gradually figure out the efficient bits while keeping all information and the team in one place. On the other hand, there are proven software like Trello, Asana, and Jira with a single function in mind. If you are confused between Notion and Trello to manage projects and tasks, we'll compare them in this post to help you pick one.

At first glance, both Notion and Trello seem similar. Well, they both let you manage large projects like a pro. But the concept couldn’t have been different.

Notion relies on Project management templates to get started. While Trello follows tried and tested Kanban method to move blocks as the project goes ahead.

In this post, we will compare both Notion and Trello on various factors. The talking points include interface, features, sharing, price, management capabilities, and more. Let’s get started.

Also on Guiding Tech

How to Create a Custom Template in Notion

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Cross-Platform Availability

Notion is available on iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and Web. To provide a seamless experience across platforms, the company uses the same UI on mobile, PC, and web.

My only gripe is Notion mobile apps. Instead of being native, they are essentially web wrappers.

Visit Notion

Trello has the upper hand, for it is available on iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, and Web. It supports all the major browsers too.

Even though both apps are accessible on mobile platforms, the experience is best served on the web.

Visit Trello

User Interface

Notion appears like a broad white canvas. You can add templates to it and start organizing the stuff.

The major options, such as pages and sub-sections, are on the left. The thing about Notion is, it won’t throw every detail at the user. The editing options are available as soon as you use the ‘/‘ command.

Memorizing the useful Notion commands will help you save time later.

On the Trello home screen, you will find boards all the recently viewed and personal boards. You can create a team, add a name, and then integrate relevant board sections related to the project.

You can also change board backgrounds to match the project sentiment and style.

Also on Guiding Tech

Notion vs OneNote: Should You Switch to Notion

Notion Vs Todoist

Read More

Project and Task Management

You can make to-do lists on Notion and Trello. That reduces your reliance on constantly moving around lists from other to-do apps such as Todoist or TickTick.

You will have to use templates on Notion. You can find several to-do templates in the Notion Template Gallery, and you can choose one according to your requirements.

Notion’s weekly agenda template is my favorite to manage small projects, and I humbly recommend it to everyone.

You can give it a relevant name, add a cover photo and icon to get started. Now, add tasks below the weekdays, and as a bonus, you can integrate reminder notifications.

Type ‘/remind’ and add the date and time to get notified on mobile or PC.

As for managing huge projects, Notion offers several project management templates. Among them, Roadmap is my favorite one. To me, the Roadmap template is like Trello on steroids.

You can keep track of ongoing projects, add issues, integrate tags, share it with a team member, and more. Not only that, but one can also tap on the tab and see all the details regarding it.

You can add as many suitable table contents as you wish. After that, you need to integrate tags and buttons to get the maximum out of the template.

Trello popularized Kanban-style project management with drag and drop function, and is sticking to its strength by setting it as the default option.

Trello sticks to the basic board view. Based on your requirements, you can give the board a relevant name and set up the whole thing. Here is how I use it.

I have added tasks to assigned, in-going, in-going, in review, and completed tabs for the Product timeline. I tag the tasks to a relevant team member, add details such as image, description, and conversation in the comments menu.

For bug tracking, I have made a separate board that shows the ongoing projects in the company. Below each project, I add app progress issues, tag the team member, add details and screenshot of the bug, and archive it once it's fixed.

That said, Notion can be a bit confusing and overwhelming folks just starting off with it. The process involves finding the right template for you. Trello has more user-friendly process to get started.

Features and Sharing

Trello relies on third-party integration with other apps. They are called power-ups. The list of apps is endless here. It's neatly categorized into sub-sections in the Power-up menu. I'm sure you will stumble upon something you use daily.

Using power-ups, you can add Trello tasks to Google Calendar as well. Trello also feels visually pleasing with minimal efforts.

Todoist Integration Office 365

Notion is can be your ultimate workspace to organize your information and work of your teams. You can build a subscription tracker, finance tool, book tracking page, and more. The possibilities are endless.

As expected, both the software allows you to invite members to a board or workspace. You will find all the member activities in the notification panel.

Pricing

Notion is free for personal use. As for team sharing, you can invite up to 5 users to a team. The paid plans start at $4 per member per month.

Trello offers the premium version called Trello Gold. With $3.75/month, you get access to all the customization features, add files more than 10MB size, and use third-party integration from the other apps.

Also on Guiding Tech

#productivity='bp-purple>

Click here to see our productivity articles page

Pick One Wisely

Both apps offer compelling task and project management capabilities with the help of templates. However, both differ when it comes to execution. For small teams and projects with minimal timeline, I would advise going with Trello. Notion is more suitable for those who want to organize every possible little detail in one place.

Next up:Notion is a joy to use with Keyboard shortcuts. Read the post below to find the top eleven Notion keyboard shortcuts to boost your productivity.

The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.

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5 Best Project Management Tools for Small Teams

Are you looking to invest in a project management tool to handle a small team? Read the post to learn about the top five project management tools for small teams and startups.

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Regain clarity and calmness by getting all those tasks out of your head and onto your to-do list (no matter where you are or what device you use).

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Todoist Notion Integration

The Verge

Todoist has helped millions of people completeover 1.5 billion tasks in 150+ million projects.

I literally couldn’t do my job or even manage all the business of being a fully functioning parent and spouse without Todoist.

As a software engineer, it’s useful to break down big projects into smaller tasks, and Todoist is perfect for that purpose.

I kept track of all my school tasks in Todoist and, in 2016, I became the first one in my family to obtain a bachelor’s degree.

Todoist has revolutionized the way we run our small business by helping us simplify projects and coordinate tons of details.

Trevor Stephens

General Manager at Topline Builders

Notion Todoist

Read more

Todoist gave us the focus to scale our company from 2 to 75 employees, $12M in VC financing, and 350+ happy enterprise customers.

Todoist helps me organize all my writing projects. And that makes it an indispensable tool both in business and in life.

A task manager you can trust for life

In the 14 yearsand 87 days that we’ve been building Todoist, we’ve never considered selling out or becoming acquired.

Our team is committed to staying independent and earning your trust for as long as you need our apps.

Learn about our long-term mission

[they-are-there-upon-his-head]

Hi, I just really need to talk about modern AU great Comet hcs Please love me

an unprompted ask?? for me??? this is the content I signed up for

so yeah i’m just gonna make a big ass list of headcanons lemme know what you think,,, i love modern au so much so this is also a long post beware!!!

these are random as hell but are heavy on the Andrierre, which is good and bad because I love this ship but also I haven’t read War and Peace so some of the Andrey headcanons might be dead wrong

and of course feel free to correct and/or add on to this list! I’d love to hear what you guys have to say about this and I’m always up for talking about Great Comet

so let’s begin

 Anatole is a picky picky picky eater, he’ll only eat very specific things like That One All-Natural Organic Overpriced Brand Of Mac ‘N’ Cheese™

9 times out of 10 Helene is going to or drinking Starbucks

Dolokhov will eat ANYTHING but he still ends up going to Taco Bell way too often

he drinks too much Mountain Dew

Pierre keeps his shirt on at the beach/when swimming

he only leaves the house to walk to the local convenience store and buy snacks, and the liquor store to buy booze

Marya loves couponing

Dolokhov prides himself on his cool sneakers

Sonya plays the ukulele

she wears a lot of scarves and flannel and loves autumn

Andrey owns a lot of soft gray sweaters

Mary has a really old ipod nano that has like ten songs on it but she listens to it and dances while she cleans in the morning when her father is asleep

Helene wears athletic wear (track pants, cool sneakers, etc) for the aesthetic but isn’t much of a fan of working out

Andrey goes for a run every morning

Natasha uses the dog filter on Snapchat way too much

Balaga wears a weed hat and weed socks

there’s a 99% chance Anatole has texted “send nudes” in the last 12 hours

Pierre has a lot of t-shirts with random bands on them

Marya loves strong coffee

Natasha and Sonya share a room that’s decorated with fairy lights

Andrey works a bunch of jobs and has really weird hours

lucky for him, Pierre never sleeps

so they often go to the local diner together at 3am and get milkshakes and cheese fries

Pierre fucking loves cheese fries

Sonya had a weeb phase

Dolokhov is still in the tail end of his emo phase tbh

Anatole secretly loves Buzzfeed quizzes

Balaga is an uber driver

Sonya watches a lot of Food Network and HGTV

Natasha loves The Bachelor

Dolokhov watches roast videos

Pierre once watched vine compilations for 13 hours straight

somehow word got around that Dolokhov secretly has an embarrassing tattoo (something along the lines of “I love my mom,” perhaps?) but when confronted about it he turned bright red and vehemently denied its existence

Helene wears those Aesthetic™ shirts with random French words on them from like Forever 21 or something

Dolokhov wears Timberlands and track pants and snapback hats

he also wears his socks pulled up high like your friendly neighborhood fuckboy

Natasha has worn the same pair of Uggs for a long time

Balaga unironically wears Crocs (often paired with his weed socks and oversized denim cutoffs)

Dolokhov takes snowball fights very seriously

Andrey can drive but he hates doing it

he bikes to work and around the city

Mary also hates driving, but that’s because she’s deathly afraid of it

Pierre bought contacts but never uses them, he just wears his glasses instead

Dolokhov is really into sports, both watching them and playing them

his favorites are soccer and basketball

he forces Anatole and Helene to watch some games with him and they hate it

they just rate the players’ attractiveness instead and end up talking and wolf-whistling over all the commentary

Dolokhov is annoyed by it at first, but always ends up joining in and marveling at the muscles on these guys! look at those fucking biceps

Natasha visits Pierre once in awhile and brings some gifts and food (usually baked goods that her and Sonya make)

they just sorta hang out and talk and eat, sometimes Pierre makes tea for them and they have a little tea party

Pierre’s very awkward but Natasha is good at diffusing the awkwardness, mostly by talking a lot about nothing

one time she convinced him to let her paint his nails and honestly??? Pierre kinda liked it

he wanted to tell Andrey about it but Andrey still doesn’t seem ready to talk about Natasha

Pierre’s ok with it though, he’ll give it time. Andrey will come around eventually.

Mary swears by medicinal teas and herbs for almost every ailment

she also collects flowers and dries them and hangs them in her room

Dolokhov does parkour

Balaga runs a meme account

Marya has everything you could ever need in her purse, including napkins, Advil, hand sanitizer, wet wipes, tampons, pepper spray, tweezers, Beyonce’s entire discography, the whole city of Moscow, etc

Pierre has a lot of books on the French Revolution

one Valentine’s Day, Andrey got Pierre a locket with Napoleon’s face in it and Pierre was so confused until he opened it and he just looked so pained while Andrey laughed

honestly Pierre thinks it was actually really fucking clever and it’s kinda sweet that Andrey noticed how into the French Revolution he was

also, he had never seen Andrey laugh as hard as he did in that moment and that made it all worth it

Pierre’s favorite TV show is Gravity Falls, though Ancient Aliens is a close second

he also watches reruns of Jeopardy a lot and is surprisingly good at it

sometimes Andrey will watch it with him; Pierre gets all the history stuff and Andrey gets more of the pop culture questions

Helene listens to Lana Del Rey, Dolokhov has a soft spot for twenty one pilots, and Anatole is always a slut for some Britney

Pierre listens to Radiohead and other depressing existential indie/alternative rock

Natasha is a sucker for a good love song, Broadway musicals, or any happy boppy pop song tbh

Sonya loves folk music and anything with string instruments

Andrey is partial to some good 90s grunge rock (Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Weezer, etc)

Marya listens to pop music of the 70s and 80s music, stuff of the “good old days”

boy oh boy can she GET DOWN to Dancing Queen

Mary thoroughly enjoys Christian rock

Andrey secretly loves to dance, he’s one of those people that just kind of loses himself in the music and is just completely in the zone while dancing

honestly??? Pierre’s jealous because 1. how do you relax while there are people around you and 2. how the hell does Andrey still look cool

Pierre is either too self-conscious to dance or he just kind of nods his head to the beat, that’s all he’ll do

(unless he’s alone in which case it’s WILD)

Dolokhov’s dancing is basically just jumping with some fancy footwork once in awhile

Anatole and Helene twerk. c’mon of course they do

one time Natasha tried to teach herself how to twerk and Marya walked in and grounded her for a week

Pierre thinks The Shawshank Redemption is the pinnacle of cinema and will fight anyone who thinks otherwise

Natasha sings in the shower

Anatole loves chick flicks and has a crush on Ryan Gosling

he forces Dolokhov to watch shitty romcoms with him as revenge for Dolokhov forcing him to watch sports

but I mean they’re all curled up on the couch with their arms around each other and Anatole’s crying and Dolokhov’s laughing at him and they’re eating ice cream and takeout from the one place that Anatole actually likes and it’s just them because Helene’s knows that this is just Too Much™ so she left and she’s basically the voice of reason in their friend group and it’s really quite the experience

Pierre was in a really shitty cover band in college

Balaga is always high

Sonya loves oversized sweaters and leggings

Dolokhov has his ears pierced

Helene has a nose ring

not a day goes by when Anatole doesn’t quote Mean Girls

Mary owns a lot of those wooden blocks with random little quotes on them (you know the ones – they’re in any given Marshalls and dearly beloved by suburban wine moms), like “Be happy” and “Jesus loves you” and “You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy chocolate”

one of Andrey’s many jobs is waiting tables at Applebee’s. Pierre has visited him there a couple times and boy did Andrey look dead inside

the only reason Andrey works so many jobs is so he can afford his own place because his father is a piece of shit

Pierre offered to help with the financial aspect of it but Andrey wouldn’t let him pay for it

still, Andrey ends up sleeping over Pierre’s a lot, not that Pierre minds

Old Prince Bolkonsky exclusively watches FOX news and he yells at the TV a lot

he eats the same thing for lunch every day: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which he makes Mary prepare

fun fact: Mary is allergic to peanuts

Sonya works at an ice cream parlor and brings home desserts for Natasha and Marya

Marya loves chocolate ice cream, Natasha prefers vanilla with rainbow sprinkles

Sonya is a butter pecan kind of girl, if we’re getting into it (and we are)

Anatole likes French vanilla (it has to be French), Helene likes coffee, and Dolokhov is partial to death by chocolate (or something similar)

Bolkonsky has to have peanut butter ice cream, Mary likes strawberry

Andrey prefers sorbet, but if he had to pick, he’d go with pistachio

Pierre’s favorite is cookie dough

Balaga probably found a way to make weed ice cream tbh

Mary loves scrapbooking

Sonya writes fanfic

she loves to read and wishes she lived in a Barnes & Noble

Andrey and Pierre play video games together and they’ve gotten really good at it

neither one of them likes intense fighting games but they do really like Mario Kart

Andrey plays as Yoshi and Pierre plays as Bowser

Pierre tried to teach Natasha how to play but she kept falling off cliffs

her favorite character is Princess Peach

her and Sonya dressed up as Peach and Daisy for Halloween once and it was really cute

Pierre has worn the same black hoodie for two years

Natasha runs an aesthetic blog

she also writes poetry on said blog

one of Andrey’s coworkers keeps accidentally calling him Andrew and it makes Andrey so irritated

the Kuragins can’t swim

Dolokhov tried to teach them but it didn’t work because Helene’s bikini kept falling down and Anatole wouldn’t go under water because it would ruin his hair

if Andrey goes over Pierre’s during the day, he’ll help him clean the house because Pierre has no motivation to do so

about once a month Marya will stop by and remark how disgusting the house is and before Pierre can even defend himself the whole house has been vacuumed, the windows are washed, the laundry’s done, the clothes are folded, the shelves are dusted, the bathroom’s scrubbed, the beds are made, and there’s fresh flowers on the kitchen table

then they hang out and complain about people to each other and it’s a grand old time

Pierre’s really grateful to Marya, but she refuses to take a compliment

let’s be real though, she relishes in watching Pierre keep saying nice things about her because she keeps denying them and he feels obligated to make her agree

Pierre has a shitty Toyota Corolla from the early 90s that has no AC and is being held together by duct tape and he’s afraid to drive it but too attached to sell it

Sonya has a folder on her laptop that’s just pictures of Tegan And Sara. that’s it

Marya doesn’t know how to whisper

Pierre loves the movie theater but will only go if Andrey or Natasha go with him

after the whole Anatole Fiasco™ Natasha and Sonya blocked Helene on Instagram so she kept making fake accounts until they accepted one of the follow requests

Andrey takes Halloween very seriously

Pierre bites his nails

Helene taught Anatole how to do makeup and now he won’t stop contouring

Anatole takes an obnoxious amount of selfies

Sonya’s wardrobe is almost exclusively from Target

Pierre spends an embarrassing amount of time on Wikipedia

Marya had a flip phone up until a couple months ago when Natasha and Sonya convinced her to get an iPhone

Marya hates it because she doesn’t know how to use it and it makes her feel stupid

but Natasha’s teaching her how to use it and it’s kind of growing on her, it’s just so practical and functional and now she has a pretty red case for it that matches her nails and

Marya goes and gets her nails and hair done every couple of weeks, it’s her mandatory “treat yo’ self” ritual

Anatole pretty much only wears pastel colors

Dolokhov pretty much only wears black (or very very very dark gray)

he has a black jean jacket decorated with lots of pins that he wears all the time

there’s a skull pin and one that says “Jesus hates me” and a Blink-182 one and an Obama one and a gay flag one and an eggplant emoji one and one that says “I love my boyfriend” and it’s fucking iconic

his favorite shirt to wear it with is his Batman shirt

Dolokhov likes DC better than Marvel, Pierre’s the other way around (is that what the duel was fought over??? lmao)

Anatole doesn’t care but he thinks RDJ is hot

Andrey likes both and doesn’t understand why everyone’s so angry about it

Helene has an extensive collection of bralettes

Natasha hates pants and only wears skirts or dresses

Sonya doesn’t think she’s very good at drawing or painting but she still does it anyway because it makes her really happy

Pierre once said “love you” while talking on the phone with Andrey and he didn’t know what to do so he just PANICKED and chucked his phone across the room but he forgot to hang up and it turns out Andrey didn’t even hear what he said after all

ehhh hopefully this is pretty good? it was fun to make and made me laugh while writing it but let me know what you think!! and please add on to this post, i need more modern au headcanons hhhhhh

[ahouseoflies]

The Best Films of 2017, Part II

Part I can be found here. I should have mentioned the films I haven’t seen, which include BPM; Faces Places; The Square; Coco; Thelma; Last Flag Flying; Roman J. Israel, Esq.; Wonder Wheel; Jane; and I, Daniel Blake. Long-time AHOLs also know that I’m in the fifth year of a self-imposed five-year break from superhero culture, so I haven’t seen Logan or Thor or whatever else. With that: ENDEARING CURIOSITIES WITH BIG FLAWS 87. The Great Wall (Zhang Yimou)-  Zhang Yimou's The Great Wall has a lot in common with Wong Kar-Wai's The Grandmaster. Both are high-concept international co-productions that bear just enough of the filmmaker's signature but feel unfortunately cut to ribbons in the editing room. Computers have made us all a little worse at our jobs, Zhang included, and his spectacle is achieved despite CGI, not because of it. I liked watching a boulder's journey through the stages of being catapulted, even if it eventually landed into a physics-negligent pit of cartoon monsters. By the end, the picture is more bloodless, sexless, and simplistic than a game of toy soldiers, which makes it seem just as child-like. It's a forgettable sort of fun, but it is often fun. 86. The Ghost in the Shell (Rupert Sanders)- A bit more comprehensible than the original but far less beautiful. It's a shame that visions of future exteriors haven't improved or at least changed since Blade Runner. Big advertisements. Got it. (Also, we have telepathic walkie-talkies, but people sleep on the floor?) There are a few good ideas drizzled around. If people can basically toggle back and forth between languages, why not hire a famous actor who doesn't speak English for one of the supporting roles? Speaking of acting though, Johansson is pretty bad in this, hamstrung by the whole playing-a-robot problem. (She looks as good as she ever has though, which is saying something.) She could have taken some notes from Michael Pitt, who brings some edge and skitter to his cybernetic replicant or whatever they call it. 85. Wilson (Craig Johnson)- It hits the notes that a Daniel Clowes property usually does: misanthropy, formlessness, begrudging acceptance at the end. I laughed a few times and appreciated the huge left-turn at the two-thirds mark, but I didn't think it amounted to much. 84. Patti Cake$ (Geremy Jasper)-  Other than the Basterd character, there's nothing really broken about this movie, but I'm selling on anything with double-digit dream sequences. 

83. Colossal (Nacho Vigalondo)- The ending, both the final act and the final note, went a long way to save what was a tedious sit for me. I appreciate the big swings that everyone took with this budget and material--Sudeikis once again gets to show impressive range. But this is an hour of material stretched to an hour and forty-nine minutes. 82. Rough Night (Lucia Aniello)- Hide-the-body movies never work, but what makes this one disappointing is that there's a daring, original corrective somewhere on the margins. You can tell from the comparatively tame bachelor party or the unexpectedly positive threesome that this movie has refreshing ideas, but both the Machine and TV visuals from a TV director shaved the edge down. No one wants to hear such a thing about a sorely-needed female-driven comedy, but Paul W. Downs is the funniest thing in this. 81. Beauty and the Beast (Bill Condon)- Shout-out to the morons protesting this movie's gayness but not realizing that the original was always an allegory for AIDS. These live-action remakes are all around the same quality, but this one feels especially bloated, with really dicey CGI. Things get borderline boring in between the musical numbers, but, man, do those numbers hold up. There's the title track obviously, but songs that would be throwaways in something else--"Gaston," "Be Our Guest," "Something There"--are BANGERZ here. The real IP is the music, and Disney is just going to get each generation's Josh Gad to sing them forever. 80. Darkest Hour (Joe Wright)- This movie reminded me of The Imitation Game in the sense that it's a staid presentation with a solid structure that feels cheap whenever it zooms out beyond its back rooms. The grander version of this, which Joe Wright in some ways already made, is probably just as unsatisfying, but it wouldn't have the pinnacle of goofiness that will hereupon be known as The Underground Scene. I’m a bit bored of this type of film. Darkest Hour might be worth seeing for Oldman's performance, which is a true transformation, absent of any actory vanity but invested with some real myth-making. Churchill gets introduced with just his hat, then lit by just a match, then lit by a shock of sunlight. Oldman is very good in his scenes with Scott Thomas, so it's a shame that her character disappears for a half-hour at a time. The more troubling thing to note is that there are many men in this film who are so English that they can't pronounce their r's. If you catch it eawly, it's a weal distwacting pwoblem. 79. The Fate of the Furious (F. Gary Gray)- Since some of the dumbest stuff is some of the best stuff*, I'm not going to get caught in the web of assessing how much sense The Fate of the Furious makes. But I can say that this entry is the least intentionally funny of the series, and other than "the White girls' soccer team is the Monarchs," it loses some of the class undressing of 6 and 7. From the endless scene-setting to the overstuffed character roster, this is now more of a comic book than a movie, an exercise in being a plot without being a narrative. *- See: the "make it rain" sequence, Statham swinging the baby carrier through a gun battle, Rock redirecting the missile with his bare hands.

78. Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press (Brian Knappenberger)- The first hour, centering on the Hulk Hogan/Gawker case, is compulsively watchable, even if it doesn't shed much extra light for anyone who followed it when it happened. Terry Bollea explaining that his penis is shorter than ten inches while Hulk Hogan's, the character's, is not: That's what I signed up for. When that case veers into the bizarrely vengeful, pretty much when Peter Thiel comes in, Nobody Speak becomes something else. The final third pits the sensitive, diligent bullpen of the Las Vegas Review-Journal against billionaire liver spot Sheldon Adelson, who bought their paper to suppress it. Then, of course, the doc expands to Donald Trump's vilification of the free press. If that sounds like a straight line, it doesn't come off that way in the film. The Hogan/Gawker stuff, which takes up the majority of the running time, feels unresolved after all the tangents. 77. The Reagan Show (Sierra Pettengill, Pacho Velez)- I'm cringing for the next five years, in which I'll have to judge a movie's success based on how subtly it invokes its mandatory Donald Trump comparisons and allegories. They're coming. In general, it's kind of sad to see how much more literate people were even thirty years ago, even as they populated a medium we all agreed was low culture. This documentary feels sharp at first, understanding something essential about the way Reagan owned his own persona. With the American Right treating him like some patron saint, it's also helpful to remember how much pushback he got at the end of his second term, for something that would be, like, the fiftieth most controversial thing Donald Trump would have done already. (See?) When the doc gets to its own fascination with Reagan's Star Wars program, however, it basically loses its thesis. As lean as it is, it still sort of stumbles to the finish line. 76. Beatriz at Dinner (Miguel Arteta)- I appreciated this portrayal of a culture clash way more than I liked it. For a while the characters are highly specific. (The delivery of "It's 6:13, Kathy" made me laugh out loud.) Then the plot turns into "Oh, so we're talking about Trump's America, right?" (See?) Here's a critique that's catty every time: This film has great ideas about class and race if you've never thought about class and race before. 75. I, Tonya (Craig Gillespie)- Oscar is calling...for the fat dude playing Shawn Eckhardt and no one else. If Allison Janney wins for doing the thing she always does over Laurie Metcalf's fully realized human, then it's a huge mistake. Successful in some of its comedic goals, especially in its depiction of northwestern goons, the shame of the working class, and period detail. (I laughed out loud when I saw the Girbaud tag on Gilooly's jeans.) Unsuccessful in most of its other goals--if I'm even reading the film correctly in my assumption of those goals. The most obvious one is the slippery nature of the truth, and that idea is handled clumsily. Gillespie goes to great GoodFellas-aping lengths to grapple with perception--having characters break the fourth wall even though there are already voiceovers and to-camera interviews. That talking to the camera comes up a few times in the disturbing scenes of domestic violence, which do humanize the characters because the other elements of the film can't, but they distract the viewer with their blitheness. The most puzzling angle of the film is the Hard Copy reporter, played by Bobby Cannavale in yet another example of his agent not knowing how famous he is. It's a missed opportunity in a movie full of them. 74. It (Andy Muschietti)- I don't get why people went nuts for this. The ensemble avails itself pretty well, despite all the sitcom-y dialogue. (Dialogue that, based on the Stephen King that I've read, is probably faithful to the book.) Some of the visuals nail the distinction between surreal and unreal--my favorite is the children's TV show that sporadically drifts into the murderous. But the movie just kind of hangs there, all the way to its interminable ending, satisfied with its own literal presentation of events that seem to be metaphorical. As I understand, It--however It manifests itself--represents the death of childhood and the emergence of an adult banality of evil. But the movie engages with that level as little as possible, and maybe that's why people are going nuts for it. This is a scary movie if you're a child, and most of the moviegoing public seem to be children. 73. Before I Fall (Ry Russo-Young)- I mostly watched this because I think Zoey Deutch is a Movie Star, and if I'm going to be there for her Speed, I have to be there for her Love Potion No. 9's as well. I appreciated Before I Fall's brevity, but the premise offers a lot more fun than the film is willing to have. In the end the balance was off: It had to be either more moralistically PG-13 or go way darker. For example, just like in Groundhog Day, the character realizes that she'll live out the same day no matter what she does, and it triggers a nihilistic phase. But rather than going on a shooting spree or stealing stuff from a mall, she just, like, wears a sexier dress and talks back to her parents. Good swing, kids, but I'm waiting for the crazier version.

72. War Machine (David Michod)- There are some standout moments in War Machine, many of which are thanks to its impressive cast, but I don't think the film is cohesive enough for me to recommend. I know what Michod is against--counter-insurgency, military hubris--but it's harder to figure out what he's arguing for beyond some sort of level of transparency. The war sequence near the end feels at odds with the tone of everything else, even though it benefits from the Nick Cave and Warren Ellis score. In a similarly frustrated vein, I feel as if I know exactly who Glen McMahon is, and the script's greatest strength is how sharply it draws him, but Pitt's studied performance adds distance to it. It's as if all of the film's comedic nature is supposed to come from how people revolve around his straight man, and that expectation is too much to put on his shoulders. There's more than a little Bud Turgidson in the voice Pitt affects, but the difference is that, as mean as this sounds, I always believed George C. Scott when he played a smart person. 71. The Trip to Spain (Michael Winterbottom)- Diminishing returns. 70. Downsizing (Alexander Payne)- There's a meta-effect to the structure of Downsizing. Its characters decide to shrink themselves, finding unpredictable challenges in the process, and the film similarly gets more problematic as it focuses further into each of its four legs. The first part, the outside world, is when the film is at its most cutting and well-observed. It still lays its points on thickly--dude at the bar asking if downsized people should be able to vote, for example--but the questions are worth asking. The second part, Leisureland, the bourgeois subdivision lil' Damon lives in, is more satirical and less satisfying. (I do love that downsizing ends up being such a gauche pursuit though. Payne has always had his finger on the pulse of people with poor taste.) The third part, which takes place in the downsizing slums, is a sharp, unfunny left turn that discards characters but at least develops the protagonist further. And then the wheels come off in Norway. At least we got to hear Udo Kier say, "I do love my boat." 69. Okja (Bong Joon-Ho)- Since Okja is such a unique movie, I feel as if people will overpraise it as a way to brand themselves: Its poster is probably going to be in a lot of dorm rooms. But there's a lot that you have to look past in order to recommend it. In general, I find that Bong's English language work has a bizarre mixture of muddled themes being presented in direct ways. There is some sweetness here--most of it due to the amazingly detailed rendering of the pig--but too much of the comedy doesn't work, and the ending feels a bit easy. I liked most of the stuff with the Animal Liberation Front, and I kind of wish they had been the focal point of the movie. Can I say, as my main takeaway, that I'm worried about Jakey G? He is so big here, so out-of-tune with the rest of the film, that I blame Bong for not reining him in. At the same time, I keep making excuses for Gyllenhaal, claiming that his parts are under-written, but at a certain point, you have to point the finger at him if there's such a pattern of bad performances emerging. I didn't see Everest, but this is his fourth brick in a row. Help us, Dan Gilroy. You're our only hope. 68. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos)- An interesting swing that ends up missing for me. Excepting The Lobster, Lanthimos's works seem obsessed with family dynamics, and he plays some interesting games with this family's perversions. Farrell's character's story about his father dovetails with his somnophilia, which seems to inspire the way his daughter offers herself to her object of affection. From Anna's medical past to Steven's alcoholism, these characters seem to have full lives that have been in motion long before the events of the story. But I kind of suspect I'm worshiping at the altar of auteurism, and I wouldn't have half the respect or patience I do for this film had I not known who made it. The dialogue and performances are purposefully flat and stilted, thus creating an off, eerie quality before we know why we should be unnerved. But what if the performances are just, you know, bad? The film also creates a premise that concludes in an inevitably unsatisfying way. I don't know what I would have done instead, but I'm not a genius filmmaker who gets the benefit of the doubt.

[bleedsunlightandichor]

[ RA MIKHAIL ] has arrived at Arcadia and is a [ 32 ] year old ESCORT, who can be mistaken for [ RAMI MALEK ]. [ HE ] is said to be [ PANSEXUAL ] and quite [ OPTIMISTIC, PASSIONATE, OBSERVANT & OVERSENSITIVE, CLINGY, SELF-INDULGING ], and into [ PET PLAY, BEING DOMINATED, BODY WORSHIP ], but despise [ PAIN PLAY, HUMILIATION, SCAT ]. They arrived at Arcadia on [ JUNE 2017 ].

Name: Ra Mikhail Age: 32 Role: Escort Pronouns: He/Him Sexuality: Pansexual (with a slight preference for men)

Appearance:

Height: 5′9″ Eyes: green Hair:

Piercings: none Tattoos: none

Personality:

Lives to please basically sums up his entire existence. Ra loves making other people happy and will go out of his way to put them before himself if he sees the chance. He sees himself as someone lesser, even if he’s appealing on a physical level, he’s meant to make sure they’re happy before he worries about himself.

That being said, he doesn’t like to be talked down to or treated like a child. He expects to be treated as an equal, as an adult because he always has been. Overall, he’s super friendly and nice and loves everyone on sight, but is also occasionally shy if he’s approached by someone rather than being the one approaching them. He doesn’t like to have control, but likes to feel like he does. He loves to be given anything vaguely shiny and told that he’s pretty.

Background:

With a successful surgeon for a mother and a brilliant, world renown author as a father, Atum-Ra was bound for great things at a young age. To make sure that those great things were achieved, his parents made the collective decision to home school.

As such, he was never really surrounded by other kids, being an only child, and he was forced to either grow up very quickly or risk having a lonely childhood. Eager to please his parents and meet their expectations, Ra jumped into his schoolwork, doing as much extra as he could in his free time, occasionally jumping the learning material for one or two grades at a time. Considering his progress, his parents were thrilled. Ra got his GED and began college the fall of the year he turned 14, having almost no clue what he wanted to do. He took online classes or had his parents drive him to the nearby campus every once in a while for tests he had to be physically present for.

Already used to not hanging out with friends and putting all of his effort into pleasing his parents, his professors at school were very impressed with his intelligence. Ra was even more thrilled because he’d made someone he wasn’t related to proud. With that mindset, he booked as many classes as he could into a day, starting at 6am, and ending as late as 9:30 or 10 at night. He also included evening classes on the weekend, though he kept his days free for studying.

It was around that time that his parents’ marital troubles started. They’d wake him up yelling and Ra would get out of the house, go for a run, do something to get away from it. Ra signed up for summer classes the next day, keeping up his hectic schedule as much as he could. Four semesters later, his parents were talking about getting a divorce and, wrought with anxiety, Ra didn’t want to go home after his classes, instead heading to his adviser’s office. He didn’t really have a major, just taking any classes that he was particularly good at or anything that caught his eye, so he and his adviser only really met once a semester, long enough for him to pick out new classes, the woman asking if he’d thought about what he wanted to major in, though Ra always just shook his head and hurried out.

When he arrived, she was with a student, so Ra just took a seat in the small office. They weren’t long and before he could really think about what he wanted to talk about, Ra found himself across from the woman. She asked how he was doing in his classes, how he felt about his grades, and, inevitably, if he’d thought anymore about his major. This time though, Ra just shrugged and told her he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, but he wanted to know more about his options.

Excited, the woman pulled up his class history and a few universal degrees that could lead to numerous different jobs in case he changed his mind later. Considering his brilliant mind, the teacher had no problem in pointing out that he already had all the credits he needed for a bachelor’s in biology, except for one class, but he could do that in the next semester, graduate, and go on to med school.

Ra had considered being a doctor before and liked the idea, so he asked more about different med schools. It wasn’t until she started mentioning schools across the country that had great medical programs that Ra immediately clammed back up, shaking his head. He didn’t want to leave his parents’ house. When he got back home, his mother was no where to be seen. His father had locked himself in his library and Ra wasn’t sure if he planned on coming out anytime in the near future.

Two days.

Ra lasted two days in his house. Two days with his dad ignoring the world. Two phone calls from his mother saying she loved him and she was sorry, but she needed better and right now, better was on the other side of the country, but he could call anytime and maybe even fly out to visit for his birthday or something. Ra sent an email to his adviser, signing up for the last class he needed and asking for her recommendations for the nation’s best med schools. The fall after his seventeenth birthday, Ra moved into his first official dorm room, even if it was private and not technically in a dorm.

What he hadn’t expected were the money troubles that came along with it. With his mother gone and his dad in between books, Ra really had no one providing for him and his father burned through his child support checks to pay for Ra’s college fees as it was. So Ra, brand new laptop - a gift from his mother - in tow, began searching for nearby jobs.

Five interviews passed without much success, though it wasn’t until a saleswoman at a store told him, “you’re pretty enough, yeah, but you’re a bit of a pushover,” that he gave up the search, ending up hanging out with one of his few friends in his new school, Benji. Benji jokingly suggested him doing internet work online, as a camboy for some sex site or something. They’d pay big bucks, especially since he was a virgin. They laughed it off after, but the idea stuck in Ra’s head and he started messing around the webcam on his laptop.

It took three weeks for him to break down and pull up a few different websites to search for job descriptions. He was expecting them to say yes, after all, there was no reason to say no, but what he wasn’t expecting was the reaction from the masses who browsed the site daily. Ra quickly gathered a small collection of followers who were eager to watch him touch himself every night, over and over again, always suggesting something new or even buying new toys or clothes for him to try out. When he graduated head of his class at the age of 20, Ra was almost self-sufficient, living off of the money he made online.

He made it through a two year internship in New York City, but never failed to miss a broadcast. He’d hate to let his fans down.

After his internship, Ra settled in as a physician at a hospital near his father’s house in New Jersey. And there he stayed. For almost a decade, Ra was a practicing doctor by day, camboy by night. He tried, several times, to date, both men and women, but each and every time his obligations toward his online audience always won out over his obligation to a dinner date.

He’d accepted that it was the best he was gonna get.

Until a coworker found out about what he did in his free time and brought it to the attention of another coworker and so on until the entire hospital seemed to know about his online habits.

Word managed to reach a member of the board of directors of the hospital and they quickly came to the decision to let him go because of it.

Reeling, Ra was left with no where to go. His father had gone on a trip through Europe with his latest girlfriend and he had no actual connections to his surroundings, once he’d lost his job.

Originally, he’d started looking for jobs as a doctor, but then word had come as a job as an escort at Arcadia.

He’d be able to still do his online shows and he could actively work on cultivating physical relationships with other people, rather than just his toys. After working past his initial anxiety about the idea, Ra jumped on the chance to experience something new.

Kinks:

Pet play

Being dominated

Body worship

Exhibitionism

Orgasm denial

Marking (scratches, hickeys, etc.)

Collars

Frottage

Limits:

Pain play (severe)

Humiliation

Scat

Bodily fluids

Blood play

Severe bondage

Rape fantasy

Wanted plots:

Netflix and chill

Having someone else on a cam show with him

Having someone who has seen his online stuff see him in public and recognize him

Sex with him pinned against a wall, too bothered to actually finish taking their clothes off because he’s had a plug in all day as a surprise and he mentions it to the other in a somewhat public location and, uh, surprise

Obligatory public sex

Call him “pet” or “love” and watch him start to sweat, lmao

[masksandtruths]

Bless Your Heart-Part 2

A/N: Welllll, looks like there will be more parts to this than I had originally planned. Yikes. Bear with me, because I'm trying. I just get so caught up in it that I don't want to stop the story. This part doesn't even include the prompt I chose for @deanjensengirlmaggie's strange pairings challenge, and for that, I apologize. However, I hope that you enjoy this next piece and want to say thank you to anyone that has taken the time to read this little fanfic of mine.

Warnings: Language, mentions of vomiting and gore

Summary: Dean and Sam are finally on a case in paradise...otherwise known as San Pedro, Belize. Several tourists have gone missing from Ambergris Caye just as the town's biggest festival of the year is ready to kick off, and it has the locals spooked. As the boys try to figure out what is snacking on the travelers, they run into a few members of the opposite sex that may or may not make this job a bit more difficult (but at least hotter) than most...bless their hearts <3

“Well they obviously had no issue becoming friends,” Dean observed as he looked towards his brother clearly enjoying himself with Y/N’s companions.

“Yeah,” Y/N agreed, “Shels never really does. She could make friends with a brick wall.”

“Sam is kind of like that too. Works out well in our line of work. Makes people just open up to him.”

“So what do y’all do, if you don’t mind me asking? Probably the kind of thing to ask before you shove your tongue down someone’s throat, but oh well.” Y/N shrugged and looked over at him, eyes dancing with amusement, waiting to hear his reply.

Dean sighed and went with their standard, vague explanation. “We work for the FBI. Down here because of the missing tourists, but that’s really about as much as I can say without earning a good ass chewing from that lumbering pile of hair over there. Sorry.” He nodded towards Sam who was throwing yet another shot back with the girls.

“No, I totally get it. No need to apologize. I wish I could tell you I was some super cool detective, but alas I’m just a lowly entrepreneur,” Y/N responded with a dramatic sigh. Dean snorted at her performance and asked about her business, genuinely curious for a change. Normally this was just part of the game to get a chick in bed, but this was different. He wanted to know all about her he realized with surprise...every stupid, silly little detail. 'God, I should kick my own ass for acting like such a fruit loop about some girl I barely know,' he thought to himself. But then her tone shifted to one more serious and passionate, and he snapped out of it. Her eyes brightened as she proudly described how she started her small marketing business in her hometown doing little things for family and friends and grew it to the point where she now had to employ three people just to keep up with the workload.

The conversation flowed back and forth easily from there. He liked cars and rock music, so did she. She was a proud, self-proclaimed nerd, his inner nerd showed itself occasionally. She rode horses, he could barely get on one but loved westerns anyway. She was artistic and loved books, he chose to leave that sort of thing to his brother. He’s a natural born fighter, she avoided fighting at all costs but had plenty of backbone when the situation called for it. She had a small family, his was smaller. And on and on it went until the bartender announced last call. By the end of the night, Sam was falling head first into bed after his drinking match with Shelby and Taylor. Dean, on the other hand, was falling head first into something entirely different.

The next morning Sam stumbled out of his bedroom, hair disheveled, clothes rumpled and looking like the epitome of a hangover. Dean glanced up from the Belizian newspaper he was reading while drinking his cup of coffee. “Morning sunshine,” he said in a loud chipper voice.

“Not right now dick wad. My hair hurts. Coffee,” he demanded.

“Your hair hurts?” Dean barked out a laugh as Sam gingerly touched his fingertips to his wild mane of hair. “Jesus dude that must be the most painful hangover ever. Your hair basically makes up 90 percent of you.”

“Fuck you, Dean. Give me 15 minutes to get ready.” As he turned to walk away, Dean swore he heard him mumble something about “freaking Texans” and their “stupid ass alcohol tolerance.”

Thirty minutes and a wild bumpy golf cart ride later, a green faced Sam and a thoroughly amused Dean were staring at a half-eaten, pin hole riddled, decaying corpse. The examiner told them the results confirmed the man was in fact one of the missing tourists, and the small puncture wounds were the cause of death.

“Well at least the poor bastard wasn’t alive while he was being munched on,” Dean said as he looked over the file.

Michael Frederick. Caucasian. Male. 36 years old. Five feet and eleven inches tall. Brown hair and brown eyes. Reported missing by the group of friends that had accompanied him to the island for his bachelor party. Found in a marsh on the southern side near the old Mayan ruin archaeological site.

“What a shitty way to go. Worst bachelor party ever.”

The examiner nodded his agreement as he bent over the body and focused on something resembling a nasty cotton ball stuffed into one of the victim’s wounds.

“What the hell is that?” Sam asked as he stood over the examiner’s shoulder.

“I have no idea, but I’ll send it off to the lab for testing and should have something back by the morning.” He reached his gloved fingers into the sore to pluck out the fibrous object, which to Dean’s delight, caused Sam to turn an even deeper shade of green.

The boys thanked him and stepped outside into the Belizean sunshine and fresh air. Sam immediately pulled his sunglasses over his eyes and took an unsteady breath as he tried to calm the rolling in his stomach. Dean, never able to turn down a chance to torture his oversized baby brother, let out a low whistle. “Whew, man, did you catch a whiff of the stench coming off that guy? That was awful. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that smell.” Sam’s bitch face came out to play as he realized exactly what Dean was doing. “And geez, all those holes? Limbs shredded and gnawed on? Wonder what he did to deserve that kind of death?” No reply from a stone-faced Sam, so he continued. “And what the hell was that cotton stuff in the one wound? Just gross. Dude, when he stuck his fingers in that rotting flesh I thought I was going to lose it.” Dean earned a small gag from his brother at that one, but Sam regained control. Dean pressed on, scrunching his nose and making a disgusted face. “Oh and the sound it made as he pulled that thing out…Buh-huh-huhhhh. All that soggy, stinky junk still stuck in it. Hey what do you think that slimy shit covering it was?” And with that, Sam doubled over and emptied the contents of his stomach in the street.

“Jerk,” groaned Sam when he finally quit heaving.

“Bitch.” Dean smiled. “Maybe you can get the girls to teach you how to handle your drinks, Sammy.” 

Another half hour later, the boys carefully made their way down the raggedy ass walkway that led to the Marco Gonzales Maya Site where the body had been found. It looked like it had been pieced together with every scrap of driftwood and trash that washed up on the island over the last decade. Definite safety hazard.

“Man, back in the states OSHA would shut this down quick. You are one clumsy moment away from falling on your ass into this swamp and being some lucky gator’s main course.” Dean wiped at the sweat running down his face as he studied the uneven boards beneath his feet.

“Dude, don’t even pretend like you care what OSHA would think about anything. Safety isn’t exactly your middle name.” Sam called out from a few steps behind his older brother. “By the way, maybe you should have brought your trusty mosquito spray. I can’t tell where your jacket ends and the insects begin.”

Dean slapped at his back, causing a grey cloud to rise up and fly away momentarily before settling back into position to continue their task of trying to find a vulnerable piece of skin to attack. “Why do you think I decided to leave this jacket on, Captain Smart Ass? You think I did it because I enjoy sweating my balls off?”

Sam just shook his head knowing that anything he said would send his brother further into his little hissy fit about the heat and humidity and “pterodactyl bloodsuckers”.  The walkway dead ended into a soggy piece of land surrounded by more mangroves and dotted with small trees and other scraggly vegetation. A few of the trees bore a small laminated sign with directions to one of the several Mayan plazas. “Well Dean, you made it all the way here without being carried off by bugs or falling into the swamp, congratulations,” chided Sam.

“Yeah and apparently so did our vic.” Dean pointed to the police tape around a section of land to their immediate left that was butted up to the water. “Too bad something even worse was waiting to chomp down on the poor bastard.”

Sam drifted over to the area and did a quick scan, immediately noticing more of the fibrous material similar to the stuff extracted from the man’s wound earlier that day. “Here is some more of that cottony shit, but I don’t get where it is coming from.” He looked at the surrounding trees and plants. “I don’t see anything around here producing anything like that.”

Dean picked up a piece and examined it. “Reminds me of the fluff that exploded out the back of that fucking teddy bear’s head when he tried to off himself. Remember that, Sammy?” He smiled at the memory of one of their crazy cases and looked at his brother.

“Yeah man I remember, but that doesn’t do us one damn bit of good. We need to find out exactly what that shit is. I don’t even know what the fuck to research as of right now.”

Dean didn’t know where to start either if he was going to be perfectly honest with himself. “Well let’s take some pictures and get out of this swamp. We’ll find a bar, grab a beer and ponder on it a bit.”

Sam pulled his phone from his pocket to snap a couple pictures of the scene as he reluctantly admitted to his brother that alcohol didn’t exactly appeal to him at the moment. “Dean, man, I’ve got the bubble gut.  I don’t know if I can handle drinking right now. There’s a very real possibility I’m still only about half way sober.” Just thinking about it caused another wave of nausea to roll through his stomach.

“Hair of the dog, Sammy. Come on, don’t be a punk ass. There’s a lobster burrito and a Belikin calling my name, and I can’t think on an empty stomach,” Dean called as he turned and started to make his way back down the long walkway towards the golf cart.

“Since when do you do the thinking anyway, asshole?” Sam retorted as he put his phone away and followed his older brother. “Let’s just hope your dumb ass can quit day dreaming about Y/N long enough to actually help me solve this thing before someone else ends up looking like a pincushion.”

“Ha…ha…ha, the little brother has jokes, but at least I’m not the one that puked in the street this morning after spending the evening drinking with a couple chicks,” Dean shot back sarcastically. Sam made a vulgar gesture in his direction and spit some other insults his way, but truth be told, not one lick of it registered in his mind. Just as the sasquatch behind him had predicted, he was already back to his thoughts about a certain someone with enough brains, beauty and “bless your hearts” for the whole damn island…and suddenly his feet started stepping over those old uneven boards a little faster.

Tags: @duherica @dancingalone21 @deanjensengirlmaggie @abbessolute @hazelgreen86 @nerdwholikesword @melissaj616 @ilostmyshoe-79 @iwriteaboutdean @iwantthedean @deansdirtylittlesecretsblog @kittenofdoomage @oriona75 @winchesterprincessbride @winchester-writes @littlegreenplasticsoldier @supernatural-jackles @supernatural-jackles @daydreamingintheimpala @lizwinchester16 @misssamericaschavez @transcendentalones @goldenolaf25 @superkraftklub @unadulteratedstorycollector @whispersandwhiskerburn @leatherwhiskeycoffeeplaid @bringmesomepie56 @nichelle-my-belle @tardis-full-of-fallen-angels @we-are-band-sexuals

[vitmelbourne]

Obtaining Appropriate Multimedia courses in Australia

An increasing number of people showing interest towards Multimedia and it is due to this reason that there is a recent spurt in the institutes offering Multimedia courses. If you happen to reside in, count yourself lucky as there are several good institutes that offer certified Multimedia courses in Australia. It is up to you to decide which Multimedia courses in Australia you want to get enrolled in as the facet of Multimedia covered by different courses varies. Let us have a quick look at the different Multimedia courses.

Multimedia is content that uses a blend of various substance structures, for example, content, sound, pictures, movement, video and intelligent substance. It includes two meaningful words - multiple and media. Multimedia now a days are used in theatres, advertisements, fashion and gaming. It basically includes following elements –

·         Text and Sound

·         Text, sound, and still or animated graphic images

·         Video and Sound

·         Images and Presentations

Mostly Smart phones today are embedded with multimedia. A computer that we use in our daily work is a multimedia device. In every website this technology is used. Most of the website and social networking websites uses multimedia to add effects and better appearance to the site. Sound files, pictures, animations, video footage etc, are commonly used to give attractive look and feel to a webpages.

What Actually The Multimedia Courses In Australia All About?

An all embracing Multimedia courses in Australia course provides you training on graphics, which also include the training of using some special software's, such as the Adobe Photoshop, Coral Draw and Adobe Illustrator also in web multimedia software like Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe Flash with a good knowledge of HTML5 and CSS. A main part of this curriculum is the story boarding, which helps the students to orchestrate the message well, that they want to commune using the multimedia.

Diploma or Degree in Multimedia?

All those who crave to make a career in the field of Animation and Multimedia can go for either diploma or degree courses in Multimedia courses in Australia. The institutes and universities offer degree courses in Multimedia and Animation. But, pursuing a Multimedia courses in Australia course can be taxing to your pockets. Also, it takes much more time to complete a course. So, Multimedia courses in Australia is preferred over a degree course. It is of a shorter duration, does not cost you much and there are many professionals who have done only diploma courses but are at the top rungs of the industry.

Where this course will take you?

After completing the course and acquiring the right knowledge and skills, one can be engrossed at the different levels such as the, web designer, E-learning designer, Instructional designer, visual artist, digital film animator etc. In recent times this industry has become one of the highest paying industries, and salaries in this field are almost on parity with the software industries. In fact there is high demand of animator not only in the domestic market but also in International market.

What All You Are Taught In The Multimedia Courses In Australia Course?

All the jobs offered to you as a Multimedia professional will require you to have a technical knowledge. It is due to this reason that getting enrolled in Multimedia courses in Australia or elsewhere is essential. When you are enrolled in the course, you would be taught things like website designing, development, 2D animation, video editing, 3D animation, interface design, motion graphics, visual designs and much more.

What is the Minimum Eligibility?

If you want to pursue a  ourse in Animation and Multimedia you have to be 10+2 pass and for the Master's degree you need to have a bachelor's degree in hand. Your technical knowledge will be an asset. If you are good at sketching then pursuing a degree in Animation will be a great idea.

What All You Need to Take Care of?

Of Course, there are plenty of institutions and Universities that offer degree courses in Multimedia courses in Australia. But, it is better not to get overwhelmed by the choice available before you. Since it is the question of your career, you need to be extra cautious and choose only the right institute. Here are a few pointers that you need to pay heed when you are looking for getting enrolled in Multimedia courses in Australia or elsewhere.

·         Is the institute certified and affiliated to the reputed Universities?

·         Does the institute have a good placement record?

·         Is the faculty professional and well-qualified?

·         Multimedia courses in Australia is updated as per the industry standard or not?

Use of Multimedia in Entertainment: Contribution of Multimedia in entertainment is more as compared to other fields. This field is the point from where the multimedia starts. Listening music, playing games, enjoying videos are some of the activities in this field. In fact with the coming of internet this technology have a wider spread in this field. There are lots of software and utilities available in the market for example - photo editing software, video editing software, games and more that contributes to the multimedia in entertainment.

Use of Multimedia in Education: It includes the use of text, video, sound, graphics into the learning environment. Most of the colleges are having digital libraries, students can explore all variety of information through this. A lots of learning e-libraries and materials are also present over the internet on a single click. Presentations are always helpful for better understandings.

Distance learning is now become possible with use of this technology. Multimedia technology in distance education helps a lot. With this we, can learn online either by sharing videos or conduction seminars online. There are many applications or websites that gives the facility of online lecture like Skype.

Use of Multimedia in Medicine: With the multimedia technology, now doctors are able to do major surgery and operations easily. The do operation by seeing over a Television screen an do accordingly so there is a less chance of risk. A doctor can have facility for virtual training for the new doctors appointed. Major growth is in the field of research. They are able to examine or simulate how human body is affected by a particular disease.

Multimedia Presentations are the best mean of showing and understanding something in a clear way. With the help of presentations we include images, videos and sounds to explain which are the worth thousand words. Presentations are made the fast and memorable. Presentations are profitable mostly in businesses especially training a employee in the company that lowers the training cost and improve the quality of training sessions.

The remarkable advantage of presentations is the use of multiple media in a single video. For example in Microsoft Power Point videos, animations, images are added in a single slideshows, no need to have separate knowledge of video editing. Second thing is there is no paper work needed to explain, all stuffs we can made online and can be shared in multiple platform.

Concerning the development of technology, the use of Multimedia technology is further developed. The technology is making his grip almost on every field day by day and making his presence on every human from an illiterate to the highly educated once.

 For getting more information visit here VIT - Victorian Institute of Technology

14/123 Queen St, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia

1300 1717 55 (or) support@vit.edu.au

 #Multimedia courses in Australia #Multimedia courses in Melbourne #Multimedia courses in Sydney