#for my writings sake cause even tho there are still things I want to write for noir

[thetreestumptherapist]

I don't really care about the font. As long as it is easily readable for me while I am working. I started some stories in Google docs, but moved them to Microsoft Word and am considering going back for convenience sake and I haven't touched them since I moved them partly because of the default fonts. (I am aware I could change them, but I am too lazy to do so) Maybe I do care after all...

I 100% could write it by hand, and have considered it. The only reason I don't is because editing is more difficult on paper.

I haven't been writing long enough to develop a specific ritual. So maybe my lack of ritual is the real curse?

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. That and Hippopotomonstrosesqippedaliaphobia. Yes, these are spelled mostly from memory. I checked the spelling for the phobia, I did not do so for the osis.

I don't know if it's a superstition really, but your characters are alive and will 100% change the story on you and there's nothing you can do about it if you want your story to come out good and cohesive.

I have two. That I will never get it the way I like it, (I know this is an unsolvable dilemma, but it's still a fear) and that no one will like it or even see it when I publish it.

Watching my story come together. As well as coming up with a solid idea for the next part of the story.

Dialogue, because I suck at it.

I do believe in ghosts. Probably not the ghosts you're thinking of though. As a Christian I do believe spirits do things we can't see, but not quite like the stereotypical ghosts in fiction. Although they are very similar.

Depends on your definition of haunted. Haunted as in I was horrified by it? I can't think of one right now, but I am almost positive it has happened. Haunted as in hung over my head because I haven't finished it yet? Yes, my own writing has done that. As have many stories that I need to finish reading.

I am not sure what that old advice is, and I don't know that I want to. Yes, I grieve the darlings lost. I have not yet killed a darling, but I am a sucker for pain and suffering. It just has to be handled correctly. So, if I ever kill a darling, believe me, it will be felt throughout the story and your life. A darling graveyard is a wonderful idea. Thank you for the suggestion. >:)

The Lorem Ipsum is a cruel and unusual punishment. As for the wishes, gaining the ability to actually finish my work, having the dialogue come out correctly, and having the writing be less awkward. I think those would be my wishes. The ability to finish my work could possibly be replaced with the ability to come up with ideas easier, like no writer's block or something. But they are essentially the same thing.

I don't know what subject I would have difficult writing about. Again, I haven't been writing very long or a lot, so I don't have much experience with it yet. Same with easy.

My lack of physical social life does not allow for me to easily lend books to people. But I can guarantee you I would know EXACTLY who had what book, but I probably wouldn't get them back because social anxiety.

Don't do it to my books and I will tolerate your book abuse. I would love to read in the bath, but I am scared of damaging the book.

The weirdest thing I've ever used as a bookmark would probably be a post it note, or gift card maybe, if I actually used a gift card for that. I am very boring with my bookmarks...

I cannot, to save my life, think of any details to tell you that won't make it into the text. I am sorry. I world build as I write and I'm still near the beginning of the story. My dnd campain tho? That would need a whole post of it's own. 👀

"Knowing how the Sangheili felt about their swords and other people using them, she hoped that given the circumstances they would understand her desperation. She picked two of them up while thanking the Sangheili, both for joining their cause and for the sacrifice they made. Then she left the battlefield, but not before paying respects to all the fallen soldiers, human and Sangheili alike. Some simple words of gratitude spoken over the battlefield was all she had time for." This is a passage from a Halo fanfiction I am writing. The story came about because I wanted to emphasize the Sangheili's focus on Honor and Respect and how their views of humans changed during their allyship with us. The MC's name is Emira (subject to change) and respect is also a core value in her morals. She has not gotten to respectfully return the swords to the Sangheili yet, but that will happen soon. If I can figure out how she is rescued or escapes from danger. The battlefield spoken about in that passage has already been left by the conflict and is inactive when she finds it. The Sangheili she thanks are fallen soldiers, and she took the swords from beside their dead bodies. The passage did not change much during its creation.

I started writing because I love making stories up in my head, but I wanted to share them. The bumps are I always picture them as movies in my head, so turning them into words and having it come out as a well-written story is difficult. I am currently writing fanfiction and short stories, but I would like to turn one of my stories into a novel. I just haven't figured out how and I don't know if I will try to get them officially published or not.

The one true love. Life gets lonely, and they can give me emotional support while I struggle with my writing skills.

I wish I could start. 💀 I have 3 WIPs, all my first stories that I actually started writing. (I consider my dnd campaign a WIP because I am considering turning it into its own fic and it is a joy to work on) I haven't published anything and am getting very annoyed by my lack of progress on all of them.

Another reason why I haven't touched my stories for awhile is because I liked Google Docs' organization abilities better than Word's. With Docs they have tabs inside the document so you can actually have your stories separated with in the same document. Whereas with Word, at least to my knowledge, the only thing separates them is the headings. I should go back to Docs...

My couch? And an ungodly amount of clutter? I watch tv in the evenings and sometimes I decide to write while I do so. I get my computer out and have it on my lap, while I sit on the couch and watch tv, ignoring the clutter caused by my undiagnosed ADHD and complete lack of motivation to do anything related to chores...

People put prep work into their stories? Like, they get prepared to write the story? I just sit down and write whatever I can come up with if it fits my current story. Sometimes I have to tweak things so it all fits together.

I haven't come up with any irrelevant details yet. Everything must be part of the story somehow.

Given that most of my characters are based on me, yes I very much regret going into their heads and I haven't come up with a way to get back out yet. Please send help. I think I took a wrong turn back at Imagination Avenue?

I can't think of a specific character that was stressful. The most stressful situation to write though, has been the wedding reception for my (healthy) romance story. I have no idea what to do with it.

My MC for the romance story has probably been the most delightful. Either her, or Nialith Madgarb, (pronounced nye-uh-lith Mad-garb) from my DND campaign.

My brain is a cesspool for the craziest ideas. I pull inspiration from everywhere. Sometimes I wish the inspiration well WOULD run dry so I could have a moment of peace and quiet, but nay, I am doomed to an eternity of infinite ideas that I simply must run with. I am exhausted.

I have not yet written my dreams, nor dreamed my writings.

"Thank you for reading my stories. It means a lot to have people who enjoy my writing. Or are open to civil discussion about why they don't like it. I truly appreciate y'all"

Do deepfakes count? There is a series called "Master Chief teaches" and it's a bunch of videos of an ai recreation of Master Chief's voice and a script where "Master Chief" teaches you how to do stuff. In the video titled "Master Chief teaches you what to do when things go sideways" he says "adopting a solution-oriented mind helps you stay focused on what is most important during any crisis and that is taking action. Without action there is no movement, and without movement problems remain what they are" "Without movement problems remain what they are" is something I return to regularly when I start feeling overwhelmed by school, chores, etc. I could sit there and avoid the problem until it's so bad I can't anymore, or I could take action and make a move to fix the problem when I encounter it instead of sitting there overwhelmed and frozen. I recommend giving the video a watch, even if you don't play or like Halo.

I like to draw and paint (with watercolor, acrylic, and/or ink), and I have dabbled in cross-stitch, embroidery, and diamond art. I plan to draw some of the characters from my stories. I really want to paint Nialith Madgarb in my inks, but I am still working on mentally designing her character.

"Let's eat grandma"... Use the Oxford comma, people. It saves lives.

I cannot remember a single writing rule to comment on right now. If it works for your story and style, go for it. If it doesn't, yeet it into the abyss. Idk

I know an entire alphabet's worth of star wars character's and then some. This has nothing to do with my ability to write. Also, Halo 5: Guardians and Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out the same year, one in October, the other in December. Again, not related to my writing.

They wouldn't even consider me lol. And if they did, they'd think I was insane. And had severe ADHD. And they wouldn't be wrong...

My writing process is too slow and barely existing. Nothing about it is super weird except for the fact that I bounce all over the story and fill in the missing parts once I come up with a way to do so. As for the cats, they like to think they don't care about us, but they 100% do. And they would die of embarrassment if they knew we know they care.

Nothing. If I feel like giving up, I take a break until I inevitably come up with an irresistible idea on how to continue the story. Rinse and repeat.

I don't know if you mean a poem someone else wrote, or one I wrote, so I shall do both. Robert Frost's Stopping by woods on a Snowy Evening: Whose woods these are I think I know His house in the village though He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year He gives is harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake The woods are lovely, dark and deep But I have promises to keep And miles to go before I sleep And miles to go before I sleep. My poem: Where’s my Neverland?: Where’s my Neverland? I’ve got so much in my hand Meetings and school I know you do too We want an adventure But life forces expenditure Paying the bills By wasting our skills Wish I could read until 2 a.m. But, alas, an adult I am And my days are made up Of working towards a paystub I wish we were kids Lying down in our beds Looking out at the sky Where the stars are not shy People today are depressed and dismayed All the time worrying about being betrayed Worried about being laid off from work And still somehow not giving a "fork" Where is our Neverland? Where is our wish? Of fun-filled times and Mom’s favorite dish? Where’s our adventure filled with imagination and beauty? Of digging in sand to find pirate booty? The answer is simple, and yet oh so sad Those days are gone by, the best days we’ve had Those memories are all that we have Of those days made whole by a laugh But, worry not, for there’s always tomorrow So, please don’t obsess over yesterday’s sorrow Look straight ahead While lying in bed Dreaming of heaven Those days will be back soon I reckon Where sorrows will be traded for unending joy And kids in sandboxes again shout “AHOY” And we can always smell the finest of food And all work turns to play and we know that it’s good

I hope this answers all your questions and confirms that writers are in fact weird. :) And I hope the poetry was satisfactory.

Weird Questions for Writers (because writers are weird)

1. What font do you write in? Do you actually care or is that just the default setting?

2. If you had to give up your keyboard and write your stories exclusively by hand, could you do it? If you already write everything by hand, a) are you a wizard and b) pen or pencil?

3. What is your writing ritual and why is it cursed?

4. What’s a word that makes you go absolutely feral?

5. Do you have any writing superstitions? What are they and why are they 100% true?

6. What is your darkest fear about writing?

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

8. If you had to write an entire story without either action or dialogue, which would you choose and how would it go?

9. Do you believe in ghosts? This isn’t about writing I just wanna know

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

11. Do you believe in the old advice to “kill your darlings?” Are you a ruthless darling assassin? What happens to the darlings you murder? Do you have a darling graveyard? Do you grieve?

12. If a genie offered you three writing wishes, what would they be? Btw if you wish for more wishes the genie turns all your current WIPs into Lorem Ipsum, I don’t make the rules

13. What is a subject matter that is incredibly difficult for you write about? What is easy?

14. Do you lend your books to people? Are people scared to borrow books from you? Do you know exactly where all your “lost” books are and which specific friend from school you haven’t seen in twelve years still possesses them? Will you ever get them back?

15. Do you write in the margins of your books? Dog-ear your pages? Read in the bath? Why or why not? Do you judge people who do these things? Can we still be friends?

16. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark?

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage.

19. Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going?

20. If a witch offered you the choice between eternal happiness with your one true love and the ability to finally finish, perfect, and publish your dearest, darlingest, most precious WIP in exactly the way you've always imagined it — which would you choose? You can’t have both sorry, life’s a bitch

21. Could you ever quit writing? Do you ever wish you could? Why or why not?

22. How organized are you with your writing? Describe to me your organization method, if it exists. What tools do you use? Notebooks? Binders? Apps? The Cloud?

23. Describe the physical environment in which you write. Be as detailed as possible. Tell me what’s around you as you work. Paint me a picture.

24. How much prep work do you put into your stories? What does that look like for you? Do you enjoy this part or do you just want to get on with it?

25. What is a weird, hyper-specific detail you know about one of your characters that is completely irrelevant to the story?

26. How do you get into your character’s head? How do you get out? Do you ever regret going in there in the first place?

27. Who is the most stressful character you’ve ever written? Why?

28. Who is the most delightful character you’ve ever written? Why?

29. Where do you draw your inspiration? What do you do when the inspiration well runs dry?

30. Talk to me about the role dreams play in your writing life. Have you ever used material from your dreams in your writing? Have you ever written in a dream? Did you remember it when you woke up?

31. Write a short love letter to your readers.

32. What is a line from a poem/novel/fanfic etc that you return to from time and time again? How did you find it? What does it mean to you?

33. Do you practice any other art besides writing? Does that art ever tie into your writing, or is it entirely separate?

34. Thoughts on the Oxford comma, Go:

35. What’s your favorite writing rule to smash into smithereens?

36. They say to Write What You Know. Setting aside for a moment the fact that this is terrible advice...what do you Know?

37. If you were to be remembered only by the words you’ve put on the page, what would future historians think of you?

38. What is something about your writing process YOU think is Really Weird? If you are comfortable, please share. If you’re not comfortable, what do you think cats say about us?

39. What keeps you writing when you feel like giving up?

40. Please share a poem with me, I need it.

[lotusarchon]

i just had a idea for Macaque's Successor BEAR WITH ME

Macaque who damn well heard them fucking in the alleyway, doesn't matter if he's in the dojo or somewhere else far far away he WOULD have heard them doing the nasty, so when he sees the reader he starts giving them the silent treatment for a few days or weeks, depends on how nasty we were my man is just traumatized with the image of his unofficial successor fucking his ex (husband) friend's successor in a dirty alleyway in tuktuk NONETHELESS and we're not that bothered since we got together with MK now yay😃 but of course mah boy has to keep this secret so his pookie doesn't get targetted😞 and yeah that's basically it, Macaque giving us the stink eye and going protective monkey mood once his disgust and shock wears off and us eventually going to MK's apartment for a lil date✨ if it's fluffy or not is up to you

Goddamn I went crazy here😦

Given how things went down I don't see Macaque and Successor interacting for a WHILE until s2 (theatre episode) but I'd like to imagine he was recuperating at his dojo and accidentally got an earful of MK DICKING DOWN HIS NOT-OFFICIAL SUCCESSOR?? AND HE'S HORRIFIED?? CAUSE THIS KID WAS A VIRGIN WASN'T HE?? WTF??

Anyways MK knew very well Macaque was around at the term and he purposely fucked Successor so hard because he KNEW the six eared lying fuck would hear >:) what better way to avenge yourself than to fuck your enemy's...kid? Or whatever y'all wanna assume the relationship is hshwhwudje

What I have planned for the au though is that Macaque and Successor don't really talk for a long time. Each interaction they have is Macaque giving them a genuinely hard time, and while Successor does tolerate him s4 for Mk's sake, they don't really interact much. Macaque's still scarred so he's incapable of looking Successor in the eye, but he does try to apologize post s5.

It's just a shame Successor isn't forgive or forget type. Macaque's response to that apology is a broken nose for both terrorizing Successor and giving MK shit because yes, Successor had a grudge watching her bf get beaten up by her supposed mentor :D

I do like your idea tho, so maybe in an au thing yeah, this could happen, but in the actual story, nah, I can't see it. I plan to write Macaque canonically to his portrayal in the show, which is manipulative and very much selfish until the incident with the Samadhi fire, and even then he's a prick still. Successor isn't someone who forgives easily, and while she did once like Macaque as her fave, she doesn't really care that much after personally dealing with Macaque. And I have a few ideas for some more angst too :))

I also really wish for Macaque to earn his redemption with the reader, rather than just apologizing or helping and thinking that's gonna fix everything. Their dynamic is NOTHING like Sun Wukong's and Mk's, and Successor ISN'T MK. She's not forgiving him anytime soon, even if he did help save the world

I want more petty bitch readers and if I cannot find them I'll write em myself :3

[starshifter]

this it it...all the notes for the main fic... wow....

-

This chapter is titled "It Never Ends" in Scrivener….if that tells you anything about how much this fic spun out of my control 😅 whoops. I had zero of this except the very last scene in my plans for this fic. I told my friend he should take me out sniper style if I tried to add even more because I’d already spent two months on writing this and had all my editing to go back and do still. He did not stop me from adding more. Betrayal.

But yeah, there wasn’t originally any Belobog, much less any getting into Blade’s stalking and brief appearance as Smiling Black Dragon. I couldn’t resist the opportunity though, especially since I don’t think that event is very well known? Maybe it was just me who didn’t know though, cause I joined the fandom late.

Did Serval canonically ever visit the Express? I know we had that quest about her planning to join up, but she didn’t go through with it. I don’t know if she ever got around to a casual visit, so I’m saying it still hasn’t happened. Also that Himeko and Welt still haven’t visited Belobog. All for the sake of one dumb joke about people mistaking Blade for Welt cause they’ve never met Welt. I’m not funny -_-

The entirety of belobog: is it rude to ask a hero why they suddenly have horns and pointy ears? Maybe this is normal for people from beyond the sky? I think it should be shared somewhere that one of my edit notes on this fic was: "Make Shard Sword his emotional support sword." Because I am still laughing to myself about that They are both losers. DH had to go to the girls for date ideas because he is a nerd with nerd hobbies. Blade, meanwhile, has no hobbies other than stalking because depression and PTSD. And they want to date??? Tragic.

Dan Heng can be impulsive and emotional (still laughing about Taoran, though there was definite forethought put into that one. Get fucked, shit-breather), but at the end of the day, he’s a very rational and level-headed person. I think I struck a decent balance between these things in that last argument… But I do worry that I’ve made Dan Heng too much of a doormat at times 😭He’s not being a doormat, I promise. He’s just trying to think things through and be understanding. He doesn't like to act before having a decent idea of the full picture.

Also, for all that Blade very much doesn’t worship Bibi, he really puts him up on a pedestal sometimes. Like, damn, son. You know he’s just some guy, and you still think the whole world of him. That’s gay.

And talk about finding the most creepy, stalker-ish way to say “I love you.” Guess that fits Blade tho lmao Also wtf you mean you got nothing else left? Smh, you got all of the Stellaron Hunters at your back and you know it!! Ugh, talk about self-centered and idiotic

I know in my heart that DH’s briefcase is filled with books rather than anything sensible. I know it. The writers of the game came to me in a prophetic dream and told me directly.

Not me pushing my ‘preceptor conspiracy’ theories (…theyre basically confirmed at this point, right? Maybe not the bloomborn scion thing (yet) but the sedition being a set up, yeah?)

Blade has the opportunity to do the FUNNIEST (read: most fucked up) thing on their anniversary (the literal heart presenting thing made me laugh more than it should. Just imagine dh’s traumatized expression and blade not understanding the problem. Kafka said this was what you’re supposed to do… Ah, fuck, wait)

Why is the Astral Express playing the Farming Game? Because it was the first thing that came to mind when I needed a random game to give them. I considered Catan as well, but I didn’t feel like looking up the rules and it’s been a while since I last played. I don’t know how you would cheat at the farming game. I honestly do not. The Nameless are just that powerful.

Kafka’s relationship with Blade strikes me as more distant than the other two Hunters just because Kafka is like that. She holds everyone at a distance. She’s Blade’s friend, for sure, but she’s the person he goes to when he wants a distraction from his thoughts. She’s not someone he calls just to chat with or hang out. They're working on it tho

No smut for y’all. Like, two thirds of the tag is smut, so I feel no guilt over this. My ace ass does not need to find out if I can write convincing porn yet. (Because I refuse to serve anything except the finest quality smut, but I’ve never tried writing it before, ok? Maybe someday in the future I’ll give it a shot, but this fic has already become far too long)

I fully and truly believe that Blade would not have been ready to accept anything except murder-suicide with Dan Heng if he hadn’t had the Stellaron Hunters to support him moving back towards being human. You know the drill: found family, cold dead hands, etc, etc

I don’t think Blade’s suicidal ideation can be solved so easily. He’s spent too long suffering and wishing for death. That kind of thing lingers. He’s going to continue wishing for death, but now he’s willing to live as well, and I think that’s real progress plus a good place to leave him.

[11queensupreme11]

I need to update my “who would be Percy’s first” with all these new love interest

1. daddyseidon - I am bias, this is me being bias. I still stand with what I said last time. If he’s her first it’ll be easy for to fuck her uncle and cousin. Nothing can lower the incest than doing it first with her daddy. #teamposy especially now that her tutor is gone and she might be home more often without anyone interrupting them. 😆 (but also lnow this dumbass decided to take it slow for her sake…. like I also wouldn’t be surprised by the time he’s ready to fuck her he’s either the third to last yandere to fuck her 😔 BUT im delusional and hoping he’s first)

2. Beelie (love the nickname she gave him) I think once the yanderes start acting up preferably from her dad and uncle I think she’ll found some sort safe heaven with him. Then with chapter 6 on how she made him feel even tho it was a small faction of feelings that he pushed aside I wouldn’t be too surprise if he’s her first time and more on the non-con side too especially when he becomes obsessed w her (cause she did find him redeemable after yknow trying to kill her so if he’ll cling to her cause she’s the first to do so) I kept this part cause I stand with what I said ^^ here especially with chapter 31 there has been lots of progress between these too. Like man was her escape from her dad and being trapped inside her home… now that he’s ‘gone’ I feel like she’ll def try to find a way to seek him out so they can go back to ‘normal’ and he’ll get even more obsessed with her, he’s like ‘omg she missed me so much that she seek me out knowing she may get in trouble with her dad 🥹”

3. Hades - he somewhat already got a taste of that perussy, nothing is holding this man back.

4. Apollo - since he’s a fast burn I think she’ll be a bit more creeped out with his obsession for her that it’ll take some time. Especially if he comes in singing her songs, making her poems, and sculptures about her. the first two were cute now she’s worried when they become a little too sexual 😥 Just gonna add here tho seeing how he literally allows her to do anything to him (stomping on his face) and listens to her (chapter 31 with Pan) I can somewhat see her thinking he’s a good ally of some sort in getting what she wants cause in his eyes he may get some brownie points if does so, of course there are limits.

5. Loki I am stuck between Loki and Apollo being number four. Loki is somewhat like Beeli when it comes to knowing who Percy really is. She can be herself around Loki the same way she is with Beeli. Loki also knowing what he’s feelings are for Percy and reading the doll 😨 he has… like girl I’m not gonna be surprised if you write an scene of him fucking the Percy doll and him getting tired and wanting the real thing. 🚶‍♀️I do see him as 5ish cause he’s also hated by all so everyone is gonna cockblock him and Percy at best. No where to hide now that he’s cape is gone too.

6. Anubis … I haven’t kept up with the manga so I don’t know much about him except that he’s hot. Lowkey wanted to put him first for the shits and giggles cause can you imagine her first being him and when he knots her… like would they be stuck like normals animals are when doing it? Can you imagine Anubis sensing a God’s presence (her dadddys in this case) and being balls deep and not being able to escape?!?!?! He’s fucked.

i really wanted to properly address everything you wrote here but i fucking DIED at anubis' part 😭

"Can you imagine Anubis sensing a God’s presence (her dadddys in this case) and being balls deep and not being able to escape?!?!?! He’s fucked." ASHDGAHFS 💀

with how anubis acts, if that were to happen, he'd just turn to look poseidon dead in the eye and be like "hi father-in-law!!!! 👋😊"

he's a silly lil guy with ZERO shame 😭

[13runningsomething]

Asking some writers/artists I follow:

Is there anything in your fic/comic that you as the author know about, but won't end up in the actual story?

This is a great question! I'm gonna try to answer it without spoilers.

Though ERICA is focused on Raph having Hanahaki, I have been thinking about how the others would deal with it, and what might cause it.

For Leo, it could come from a number of things, just because I imagine that he would bury many of his stronger feelings for the sake of "being a good leader." I've already said in the fic that he knows Hanakotoba (Japanese language of flowers), so he would probably figure out what his flowers mean and confront those feelings on his own, before anyone could even realize he had it. That being said, his primary flower would be a blue balloon flower (yes, I'm colour-coding them), because it's the Hamato clan symbol, and ultimately he's suppressing his emotions for the clan.

[I'm also a bit obsessed with symbolism of it in Tale of the Yokai and Owari so I thought it'd be fun to use for one of the turtles]

I haven't given much though to how Donnie would get Hanahaki, but the first thing that comes to mind is disagreeing with Leo or the others (like end of season 2/Don Vizioso type of arguing). When Donnie thinks he's right, he will think so until explicitly proven wrong, so I could see him quite literally dying on a hill of his own pride (or coming really close to it). Hydrangeas would be kinda perfect for this, because they can mean pride and arrogance, but also apology and understanding. Donnie might know deep down that the others are right, but he doesn't always want to admit it.

With Mikey, I can think of two major causes, but I'm gonna focus on the more likely one: suppressing his childishness. Mikey's inner self is canonically a 6 year old kid in a world of imagination, so if something were to happen that would forcefully make him "grow up" (mayhaps Splinter's death), or he takes his brothers' words about being too immature to heart, the disease would come down on him like an anvil. In this case, his flower would be freesia, and I like to think the colours would become duller the longer it lasts (really emphasize the loss of innocence/vibrancy metaphor). I don't think he would try to hide it from his brothers for long though, if they don't discover it on their own. Mikey's probably the most willing out of all of them to actually talk through his issues.

I haven't thought of anything for April, Casey, Karai, etc, but I did decide that Casey has had Hanahaki in the past. There was going to be a scene of him talking to Raph about it, offering advice on how to cope until he's ready to share his feelings, but I cut it when I couldn't fit it in organically (I might still write it separately tho).

I've also been compiling what's essentially a medical doc for how my version of Hanahaki works (causes, diagnosis, treatment, etc). Some of it comes up in the fic, but I might still make a detailed post about it in the future just because I've put a fair amount of research into it.

[Sorry that this got kinda long, but I hope you like reading it :)

[blorbologist]

Pikelan with the "gestures that gets me on my knees" prompts? If you want a specific one of the bunch, maybe the "you want that, love? I want cuddles tho'", but any of them are fine :]

[Of course! Set in TLOVM, because Makin' My Way happened over the course of a few days - surely some stuff happened over that time, right? Didn't get to smoochies tho, sorry the vibes were not quite that.]

It’s… wait, he needs to count. 

Okay, it’s three days into their trek down the mountain. Scanlan’s feet hurt bad and his back hurts worse, because Pike was stabbed and like hell he’s letting her haul Grog’s scrawny ass around. Even puny like this, he’s still a goliath.

Unfortunately, without those big muscles, there isn’t really much warmth to be found when they dare not light a fire. Like tonight, when they spied some bandits parked on the road they finally found. Maybe they’ll just - dunno - use the river to make more progress tomorrow. 

Man. He’d really kill for Trinket right now. Bear stank, but at least he had one good use. 

Grog passed out within, probably, a few minutes of scarfing down what Pike was able to fish from the river. So it’s just the gnomes, now, against the dark, against the cold.

And - and maybe Scanlan’s a little delirious from hunger, because Grog ate half his serving before he could get to it, and it really should be repeated that it’s been a long fucking few days - 

But? Pike might be coming on to him?

He’d usually cut out the might, because let’s be real, Scanlan Shorthalt is irresistable, and when he is resistible a wink and a song usually get the girls and gents to change their tune. Pike is a whole other beast, though - beyond the fact she could squash him like a bug (wow), she plays him like a fiddle, somehow, and he gets tongue-tied in a decidedly unsexy way. So he really doesn’t blame her for not taking him seriously. Honestly!

So he really has no fucking clue why her hand is on his thigh, and she’s laughing at what he’s singing and listening to what he’s saying, and not the other way around. 

He’s had cause to thank the gods (the Everlight specifically, lately. No reason.) for his darkvision before. Lots of good cause, really, from sneaking out before dawn to - well. 

Scanlan’s pretty sure he mouths a prayer, because this can’t be real. She can’t be real, white hair blue with shadow and gold with moonlight and subtly the richest thing he’s ever seen. 

How are her eyes so fucking pretty? They’re grey. His are grey. No one writes ballads about grey eyes. He’d fix that, right now, except he can’t string words together in his head. He’s still talking, though, but no clue what he’s actually saying. 

Better shut up. He does. With a gulp. 

“C’mon, Scanlan,” Pike prompts. From beneath her lashes - fuck’s sake, that’s sinful. That has to be sinful, looking like that. And he knows sin. 

(He’s not a man his mother would be proud of.) 

Apparently he’s gone catatonic, because Pike nudges him. “The rest of the story? The boat, and the fleece? What happens next?”

He has no fucking clue. Scanlan swallows. “I - let’s head to bed,” he says. “It’s late.”

“Yeah,” Pike replies, not looking the least bit tired. “Let’s.”

And she doesn’t move.

Or she does, but it’s not away, to curl up under one of Grog’s arms, as far from his armpit and as close to his body heat as she can manage. 

It’s into him. 

Silver is too weak a word, platinum to cheap, for what he sees in her eyes. 

“Scanlan,” she says.

He gulps. Really appropriate comedic timing. “Yeah?”

“What happens next?”

Maybe, now - just maybe - he can… they can… scratch that might? He’s reading this right - right?

So he gives it a shot: he leans in.

Pike rests her forehead against his and his stupid little heart might give out there. 

And then.

She fucking.

Winks. 

“You want me so bad it makes you look stupid.”

Scanlan sputters. “I - Pike - you -”

“Oh, I don’t mind.” She grins, cheeky little - “It’s a good look on you.”

He reads something he shouldn’t, then. That earnest devotion she has in prayer, and how she shutters herself off from talking about it too much around their party of godless friends. And Vax, now, especially, and whatever the fuck he has going on. A fire blazing, banked low.

Yeah. He gets scared. 

“It’s late,” he repeats. And, because he can’t resist trying his shitty luck: “we might need to cuddle for warmth, though.”

Pike snuggles into his side. He definitely feels warmer, already. And she looks at him a little coyly, and he doesn’t need a fire anymore. “Can I be the big spoon?”

He feigns indignity. Which is, let’s be clear, really fucking hard around the huge grin he has.

Mildly spicy prompt game! Ft. ships I want to write more of <3

[sproouts-jpeg]

@c4ndytr4p i’m thinkin abt that ask u sent me a while back on my thoughts on a hypothetical chibiusa spinoff. i finished reading the series just yesterday, so my thoughts on the ending are still very fresh! thus i thought id use that to expand on your idea!

the ending of sailor moon left me dissatisfied and wanting more! it felt as though the story takeuchi wanted to tell in the final arc was cut short due to some sort of time constraint. the first half of the stars arc (introducing the starlights, galaxia’s sailor animamates, the moral conflict surrounding fighting other fellow guardians, and losing the inner senshi in battle against the animamates) was well paced in the usual manner that she writes. but as soon as the outer guardians go to their castles to gather information on where the animamates came from, they are all very swiftly taken out, and hotaru disappears/dies along with them with no explanation despite not being attacked. this is where the plot very quickly speeds up, leaving no time to further consider the moral conflict, or the exploration of the expanded galaxy of fictional planets and stars from where the animamates originate, as it is revealed that for some reason the princess kakyu the starlights have been searching earth for was under the care of sailor chibi-chibi (who also just very randomly appears). and then usagi can no longer ponder the whole “can the starlights be trusted” conflict, as they’re the only people who can help her get to sagittarius star zero! usagi’s confrontation with sailor galaxia is also incredibly brief, as they only exchange blows once before galaxia’s backstory is revealed and she’s immediately betrayed by chaos (who is shoehorned in and his merging with the galaxy cauldron is completely unexplained despite that being an important thing that would’ve definitely been discussed more in depth had it not been introduced in the penultimate chapter). and then usagi jumps into the cauldron, sacrificing herself to purify the cauldron for the sake of the entire galaxy, while chibi-chibi (who’s also there) all the sudden turns into SAILOR COSMOS just has to info-dump lore and reiterate what just happened to the amazoness quartet (cause she brought them there for some reason even tho they didn’t do anything except watch chibiusa die, btw chibiusa also traveled back from the future just to die to fuel more emotional catharsis for usagi) cause it made zero sense!

OK IM GETTING OFF TOPIC HERE. TLDR: THE PACING IS WACK AND THINGS ARE JUST HAPPENING JUST TO GET SHIT OVER WITH AND NOTHING ELSE

what’s most important in this moment to me, and why i dislike the ending, is why usagi chooses not to destroy the galaxy cauldron like chibi-chibi/cosmos told her to. chibi-chibi wants to destroy the galaxy cauldron cause even tho it’ll stop new sailor guardians from being born, it’ll also stop all those villains the guardians have faced from being born as well, thus ending the constant cycle of struggle between dark and light and end usagi’s responsibility as sailor moon that plagues her so much. but usagi recognizes that destroying the cauldron would only lead to stagnancy, no more new stars or planets or sailors, no more growing or learning! and she would rather have to face off hoardes of evil over and over again if it means Usagi gets to grow and learn and live and love with her family and friends!! she has learned that all this adversity makes her “promised” future of crystal tokyo uncertain (as the big bads have been shown to have the power to alter the future) so she wants to take it upon herself to BUILD and EARN that future!

so when she purifies the cauldron and tells the guardian of the cosmos crystal that she doesn’t want to reset the timeline and instead wants to go back to earth and continue living her current life, WHY DOES SHE SEND THEM TO THE 30th CENTURY INSTEAD OF THE 20th??????? TO WHEN CRYSTAL TOKYO IS ALREADY ESTABLISHED????? so then usagi and her friends don’t get to grow up, achieve their dreams (wtf happened to ami wanting to be a doctor, rei wanting to be head priestess at her grandpa’s shrine, makoto wanting to run a bakery, minako wanting to become an idol????) , or work towards establishing crystal tokyo themselves! ALL THE WORK HAD ALREADY DONE FOR THEM THIS WAY!!! AND THEN USAGI AND MAMORU GET MARRIED AND IT JUST ENDS???? LIKE NOTHING ELSE MATTERED??? LIKE THESE THEMES THAT WERE VERY OBVIOUSLY ESTABLISHED MEAN NOTHING????

if i had to change only a single thing about the ending of sailor moon. only one. it’d be that. i’d have guardian cosmos send usagi, mamoru, and the rest of the guardians to the 20th century, where there’d then be a few vignettes of the girls continuing to go to school, fooling around at shops, studying hard, getting boyfriends, baking and singing and maybe even graduating and going to college and LIVING AND LOVING GROWING UP. and some kind of sequence or small panels interspersed about the beginnings of how crystal tokyo is established (cause how tf does an elusive team of magical girl heroes come to establish and rule an entire kingdom in modern tokyo, like there’s already a govt there??) ok and maybe then and ONLY THEN, cause ik takeuchi always planned to end it with their wedding, can we flash forward a little more to mamoru and usagi getting married in crystal tokyo. i don’t think that would’ve been hard to do.

im genuinely curious has anyone heard anything or read any interview about naoko takeuchi’s thoughts on the final arc? cause i genuinely do think the weird pacing and ending might have to do with something weird going on in production! like i wouldn’t find it hard to believe if the ending was rushed due to like financial constraints or something else going on with the publisher.

[helluvapurf]

First-Impression thoughts on Hazbin Hotel's "official" first ep, now that I checked it out on YT-

*Spoiler warning below for those who didn't see it yet-*

-Great to see Charlie & Vaggie again, still a wholesome lil supportive pair whilst having their own quirks/things to do on the side. Esp with Vaggie spending the whole time back at the hotel reshooting a whole commercial for Charlie's sake, awww :3

-Pleasantly surprised by the twist of Charlie's mom being the figure she was most inspired by to make her dream come true, along with her love for singing. Curious to see where Lilith's whereabouts could be if she's been away for so long?

-The new voices were... a mixed bag, I suppose? Mainly in the line/tone-deliveries for certain characters (& I guess I'm still moreso used to the OG pilot's portrayals lol), but I can see the good attempts made from those like Charlie & Alastor.

-I... don't know how I feel about the way Lucifer's backstory was handled? Like, yeah its interesting hearing of him & Lilith genuinely connecting over their "rebellious" natures (& thus fleeing from Heaven's wrath/staying in Hell to be together). But then, the whole thing with Lucifer apparently being some "doofy, misunderstood dreamer who only wanted the best for Humanity, got bullied by those mean ol' angels, and didn't meaaaan to spread Sin all across Earth~ 🥺🥺" ...ehhhhh, felt kinda lame imho 🤷‍♀️. Not that I mind giving nuanced/sympathetic angles to a character's development now & then... but with someone like Lucifer (who mind you, is meant to represent the "Ring of Pride" on top of his Hell-ruling duties), I guess I kinda expected more... "bite" to his portrayal, I guess? .3. But idk, maybe that's just me... (*Tho admittedly, one could argue that perhaps he and/or Lilith were simply lying in that storybook to make them look less "bad"... idk, given HB's track record with Stolas' writing and since both shows are made by the same people... part of me can't help having my doubts ^^; *)

-Adam... ooooooh boi .x.;; Ever since I saw his leaked design I've always been rather... "mixed" about him, and now seeing him on-screen & talking I... don't really get the concept behind him? I mean, yeah I'm all for a fun, chaotic-jackass type when done right (hell I still consider Blitz among my faves to this day lol). But with Adam apparently being the big leader behind Heaven's army, AND was even the "original" Adam from biblical times... how tf did he get the chance to be allowed in Heaven if he not only helped curse humanity to sin (aka: sharing Forbidden Fruit with Eve), but on top of him currently being a horny, misogynistic loudmouth? 🤨Discounting that is also the fact that his whole design vibe just... doesn't really give me "holy army leader" vibes, but more-or-less just Blitz in some weird angel cosplay lol 🤷‍♀️. No shade to those who genuinely do like Adam though (and I'll admit his song was surprisingly catchy lol), I just... feel like his whole personality/design vibe could've probably fit better to a fallen angel-type character (or even a demon-angel hybrid if you wanna play more into the Heaven vs. Hell conflict), someone who only takes up the "Adam" title as an ego trip to enact his revenge against Hell... or, something like that idk; my brain's tired lol. (*His sidekick Lute seems pretty cool tho, she kinda reminds me of Tempest Shadow from MLP in a way .3.*)

-Nice to see more of the old Hotel gang again, esp those like Nifty she was a cute :3 (her whole reaction to the camera honestly being a whole mood lol)

-Did not expect to see Brandon Rogers pop up voicing Katie Killjoy of all people, buuuut I guess I can see the amusing comparison potential to that one CEO persona of his lol

....Aaaaaand yep, that's about the gist of my first-impression thoughts atm .3. Dunno if I'll be sitting down to watch the whole season of Amazon's Hazbin atm (*'cause like, I do have Amazon Prime, buuuuut I rarely ever use that to watch shows (save for some classic cartoons here & there lol) .w.; *), but I'd say it was still generally a decent watch for what it is imo👍(+any chance to see my girl Vaggie again, the better~ x3💜)

[crowfromfoggyforest]

Okay watching season six is torture for my Rumbelle heart. (For context, i'm on s6e4 rn, so i can only talk about their relationship until that point.) Most importantly, i've always kept defending them, but now... i'm starting to think: How can they possibly end up together after this? Are the writers actually destroying Rumbelle like people have said all along? Is S6 just a retcon of their previous development?

But you know me, i'm always trying to find an in-universe explanation. And i think i found one that at least partly explains what's happening:

The baby is the worst thing that could have happened to Rumple and Belle.

Hear me out. I know the baby sounds like good news for them at first - a chance to start over as a family. But in reality, it just brings out the worst in both of them. Well, not objectively the worst, but traits that stop them from being together.

Aside from fear, Rumple's biggest motive has always been to protect his loved ones. That can lead him to doing the wrong thing because he would do anything to protect them. And with that baby on the way, his protectiveness is only going up. When he lived with his first son, he ruined their lives, so now he wants to be a better father for his second child. Although he loves Belle, Bae / his children have almost been the most important to him, probably because his own parents left him. So in summary, more than ever, he's doing everything to protect Belle and their baby - even if that means harming others or acting against Belle's wishes.

Belle, on the other hand, has been trying to put herself and her own feelings and needs first. Before that, she has tried to love Rumple despite everything, but now she's come to realise that - because of his trauma, and because he won't ever become a good person -, he has often ended up causing her harm, and she's still hurt by that. So even before the baby, she had decided to get away from him at least for some time, for her own sake. And now there's the baby. And like Rumple, like any mother, she would do anything to protect it. So she has to ask herself if having Rumple in their life is really the safest thing for them. Now, if nothing else had happened, she would have maybe come to the conclusion that she needed Rumple so he could protect them. But then there's Gideon disguised as Morpheus, visiting her in a dream and convincing her that because he would do anything to protect them, he will only cause them harm again. He speaks directly to her fears and wounds. So her still being hurt by everything Rumple has done and her wanting to protect her child are enhanced by what her unborn child tells her, leading he to a drastic conclusion that she maybe wouldn't have come to otherwise: She needs to keep herself and their baby away from Rumple.

So these two things - Rumple wanting to protect their child and Belle wanting to stay away from Rumple - clash in s6e4 and make each other worse. Especially because Rumple's protectiveness actually almost kills Belle and the baby, confirming her fears. With their strongest motives - both seperately being understandable - being so contradictory rn, they can't be together if there isn't a major change.

So my answer to the questions i mentioned above is: What's happening isn't bad character writing or a retcon, it actually makes sense. I'm still wondering how the writers will fix their relationship tho.

[longeyelashedtragedy]

gimme a whole speech on the writing of visited upon the sons, pls

ok! i hope you mean this for real and aren't going to laugh at me for giving a whole long serious answer (omg sometimes the 'i was a weird kid' instinct kicks in) but i assume your kindness 💙🤍

random trivia: i almost never write with music on, cause my head is so wild about music that it's too distracting, but i wrote this with "money" by pink floyd on repeat and i'm honestly not sure why? (i also wrote "digestif" listening to motorhead...not sure why either but u gotta roll with it)

where to start...

i wrote a really big chunk of the beginning while standing under some scaffolding waiting for a freak summer downpour to end so i could go get iced coffee. that's my favorite way to write--in a weird place on my notes app full of autocorrect mistakes and other things like that because i'm so in the zone that my brain is going way too fast for my fingers to keep up.

i was sooooo Absorbed in fact that i didn't realize until a couple days later that i had written it really oddly without realizing? You know how in 3rd person pov even if you're writing one person's perspective and you're in their head so you know their emotions, thoughts etc, you still narrate with the character's name? Like...Mason chokes on the the sip of water he was trying to take.  “Uhhh…that’s kind of fucked up?” he manages to squeak out in between coughs.  This is making him think things he doesn’t want to think doesn’t want to think doesn’t want to—He coughs again and runs his fingers nervously through his fluffy hair. that kind of thing? what i realized is that i had written this POV really strangely and tho frank is the POV he never refers to himself by name? is that a thing? i was like "well that's weird" and tried to fix it but the fic refused...it made the POV feel too distant when the point of the fic is that he's increasingly lost in his own mind. the closer you as the reader are to that, the better. i trust my writing instincts like--if i instinctively wrote that way then it must have been for a reason! (note that the middle section is written in the "traditional" 3rd person way which again just--felt way better because that section is soooooort of a coherent narrative--which is also kinda done for a reason)

however this meant i had to repeat mason's name WAY more than sounds natural so it wasn't confusing, and if i just Did that with no explanation, that's the kind of thing i'd pick up on as a reader and would consider to be unforgivably bad writing. so, i called it out directly in the fic, and gave it an in-world reason, which then actually became the fic summary 😂 (Mason, his Mason—It’s the repetition that dulls the emotions (some people would call that repression, wouldn’t they, but that word implies something wrong with one’s mental state and there’s nothing wrong at all) My fic my rules!

this fic was written really in like, 2 or 3 days of writing. it was nearly impossible to just write little bits here and there. this pov was very demanding of my full attention because i also had to disappear into franko's mind to write it and it's hard to just like, do that when you have 10 spare minutes. because of this i almost gave up on it because it felt like i'd never be able to regain the momentum of the first writing day and also--also--i struggled with the structure SO HARD. my initial plan was to have the fic start out normally, and then intersperse frank's memories with the present, and each time he re-joins the present from a memory he gets more and more fucked up. (and of course, mason is clueless to it at first, and then he's all ?????) you can see lil remnants of this throughout--i think mostly in the beginning when he pours the rosé. (His fist clenches around the bottle as he pours and Mason catches that too. For fuck’s sake, he’s not supposed to.) Initially, the first section of the memories section--Dad getting too worked up about young!frank wanting to drink something pink--was going to come right before that, so there was a direct context--oh, he's remembering that while he pours. BUT--

that happened to work there, but i realized if i kept doing it like this i was going to be imposing something way too restrictive on the rest of the fic. i'd have to create each bad memory and then make the corresponding "present day" section relate to that memory and there'd be no way to make that happen naturally without seriously forcing some part of the story, and who wants that? this got me so stressed out especially as the (self-appointed) King of the Flashback that i wondered if i should just leave them out altogether. somehow i decided to write all of the flashbacks i would want to have in an entirely separate document, and then just write the "present" parts all at once, and then decide how i'd want to combine them.

2nd trivia point: because of this, this was one of the only fics in recent memory i've ever written relatively in order from start to finish. usually i write a beginning and an end and then fuck around in no order in the middle till it's done.

i can't quite remember what happened next, but i think i then did skip a bit to writing the end, and suddenly my mind wanted to develop something that came up earlier in the fic, at the beginning, where he refers to the feeling of something pursuing him. i think i meant that more in a vague sense at the time, and wasn't going to explore it, but (maybe something from @new-berry inspired me? possibly?) considering how fucked-up i wanted him to be at the end vs the beginning, and how coming out of a dissociative episode your relationship to yourself and to the world around you can be really wonky and fucked up--at least in my personal experience--i realized what if i could make that concept a lot more Real, and put in the imagery of a ghost in the room. but what kind of ghost? well, obviously not an uwu scary ghost, but you can come to your own conclusions as to what he thinks is "haunting" him.

this meant that i could write that last paragraph, which sincerely is one of my fav endings i've written in a long time, and as often happens when i write endings, the whole fic then made sense to me. and i realized instead of writing scattered memories and having frank's behavior in the present Escalated, i was going to drop the entire memories narrative into the fic in one big chunk, creating a story within a story, and have it be so all consuming that he completely loses track of what is happening. (which i feel like is an especially wild thing to do while you're having a Sexual Encounter and thus leaves mason rightfully disturbed--love me some Wretched Sex!!! sorry!)

i had a couple people tell me they completely forgot what was supposed to be happening while they were reading it, which made me so happy because that was what i wanted!

when i see this mf i see a dude who is so tormented and repressed and shaped by how he was treated as a kid. his dad made football his life so oppressively (in some ways) that he has, as he's said, no hobbies other than football and reading and now that football is no longer a good place for him there's just nothing left. add that to the fact that he clearly has never ever really healed from his mom's death in 2008 (and you can say a lot about his disingenuousness and lack of accountability as a coach, but the extended part about how he dealt with grief and loss on the diary of a ceo podcast was so fuckin real and it was a bit wild to see a famous person be so open) i feel like someone like this has a mind like a haunted house and can't quite go about things "normally." i wanted to create this feeling in the fic.

the best writing experiences turn into therapy sessions and when i was done writing i realized that i was expressing something about myself through it, which is how uncomfortable i feel in situations with a lot of very cishet expectations, as someone who is VERY not het and stealthily very not cis. i had already known this of course from conversations with coworkers, but this fic made me realize how much i fucking resent it--how much anger i feel toward it really--which was...interesting to learn about myself i guess.

anyway that's visited upon the sons for ya. i'm sure i left something out, but i feel sad that i'm no longer writing it, cause it was one of those experiences that make me think writing is fun. i always think writing is fun, but you know what i mean?

(footnote: my fic that i've been referring to as 'bitter mutual cheating' takes place around 2 months after this one, and it's from mason's POV and he reduces the whole upsetting experience to one line (Frank sounds panicked, and there’s only one other time that Mason can remember hearing him sound like this–that night with the West Ham jersey where Frank seemed to go kind of crazy and he had to tell the guys in the dressing room that it was his sister’s cat who had scratched the shit out of his back) which is just kind of a fun mindfuck for me. 7000+ words of agony but all mason even was aware of was...that, lol.)

(OH, i forgot! in the last line: Holding his Mason tight like it loves him, that word "like" is important. is he realizing--just for a moment--that his "love" for Mason is just kind of a placeholder for something else? someone else? we'll see...)

[linklethehistorian]

Total Eclipse (1995) — A Movie Review by linklethehistorian (Post 4/4)

(Continuation of review placed under the cut for length and spoilers; proceed at your own risk.)

The Takeaway

Having watched this film somewhere upwards of about forty times upon reaching this section of the review (and still likely about to watch it just one time more afterward, in order to gather the clip compilations mentioned earlier and check for any possible errors in my writings here), the one thing that I can say with absolute confidence is that Total Eclipse (1995) is a pretty mixed bag of both good and bad elements.

On the one hand, the cast, the vast majority of the acting, the sets and filming locations, the wardrobes, the music, the chosen color palette, and at times even the quality of the dialogue for the film are all extremely excellent, but on the other, the pacing suffers greatly, the types and timings of the scene transitions are often extremely disorienting or just plain appear unpolished, the timeline of events is often vague at best, and the writing, when it’s not showing off its high points, is otherwise extremely awkward and unnatural, absurdly edgy merely for the sake of it, or just plain unbearably bad.

Most notable and important of all, though — at least, to me — and what makes me personally label it as a “bad movie” despite that I have admittedly enjoyed some other films and different story-driven media much less, is its conscious decision to go far above and beyond the standard “based on a true story” statement to tell us that everything within it is, in fact, 100% real and accurate to the life stories of those portrayed within and taken directly from their letters and poetry, only to then get so much of it so abysmally wrong that at times it is deeply difficult and disorienting to follow even for someone who has dedicated years of their life to studying Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine’s history in multiple languages.

There were numerous times while watching and writing about this film that I had to turn back to several of my many different notes and sources just to make doubly sure that I wasn’t going crazy for thinking, “hey, that’s not how [event] happened, right?” because the movie doubled down so much on that particular wrong narrative that it bordered on gaslighting — if such a thing was possible for a film to achieve.

…And I have to be honest: I don’t get it. Outside of the theory I have already posited before about wanting to move heaven and Earth to give the film what it deems a happier and more romantic end, I truly don’t understand why it was even necessary to go to such lengths when, in reality, the original, genuine version of the events they are claiming to portray were actually much more interesting than whatever the movie’s interpretation had going on with it.

The most tragic thing about this film being so awful is that it had every opportunity not to be; not only did it have everything going for it in terms of talents, but the premise itself was genuinely great. The true life stories of Verlaine and Rimbaud and their affair are extremely fascinating, dark, intense, and dramatic subjects that would lend themselves more than extraordinarily well to a movie on the big screen — at least if done correctly, with great care taken towards accurately representing those it involves, but the writers here instead decided that it was more important to rewrite and ‘dramatize’ those events and the causes behind them than to care if it was a fair and respectful portrayal.

If this was a completely fictional story about fictional people, then it would be different; I would still personally find it vomit-inducing and creepy, and thus very much not for me as an individual, if it romanticized abuse and demonized a victim while painting the main offender in a pitiful light, but as long as none of it was real, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal — just one of the many fucked up pieces of media that exist out there in the world for those who look for and want it.

But this isn’t fiction; this is supposedly meant to tell a real life story about real life people who actually genuinely lived on this planet at one point just like you or I, and despite this particular movie having become practically impossible to find through any safe and reputable source in very recent years, I have unfortunately legitimately encountered many people whose formative opinions on Paul and Arthur were largely based in one way or another on this film and the very untrustworthy things it alleges — which is honestly the main reason I decided to write this review in the first place: to use my acquired knowledge to clear the air of continued misinformation as much as possible.

…Then again, you do get to see Leonardo DiCaprio pretending to be a dead poet who is pretending to be a dog or a goat at least a few times within this movie, so maybe it all evens out in the end. …I’m kidding, of course — about it evening out, anyway; you do actually get to see that, and David Thewlis pretends to be a goat too, briefly.

In all seriousness, if you don’t care about any of the above historical inaccuracies, and you’re just here to see your favorite actors, or you’re looking for a movie that’s really good at making you feel uncomfortable, then you’ll probably actually get a good amount of enjoyment out of Total Eclipse. …Or if you’re looking for a good second-hand embarrassment simulator — you’d get a lot of that out of this film, too.

Even in spite of everything I’ve said in this section — and the fact that every time I watch it I feel my soul slowly draining out of my body while I sit like a deer in the headlights — it’s not like I can stay away from this film for whatever reason, either; it feels like I make the very inadvisable decision to make the journey over to my preferred website of choice and try to watch it at least every other month even when I’m not writing a review, so…yeah, I’m not really one to talk badly about its watchability.

Anyway, that’s my review of Total Eclipse (1995). If you made it to the end of this, congratulations!!! — …Or…my sympathies; whichever may be most fitting. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great day that is hopefully not haunted by the mental image of Arthur Rimbaud barking and panting in a mirror or crawling around in a field bleating.

[Click here for Part 0: Preamble]

[Click here for Part 1: The Good]

[Click here for Part 2: The Bad]

[writebackatya]

My favorite fic of yours

Toss-up between 'Indi-Quack!' and 'Home For the Holidays!' I don't normally read stories where each chapter are one-shots focused on different characters and scenarios, but I absolutely love yours! You are fantastic at keeping everyone totally in character, while bringing your own extra brand of chaos (including in dialogue/interactions and scenarios, such as characters like Della and Gandra smoking weed) into it that still feels totally natural! And I love how you make certain characters who share parallels interact and and share scenarios (one of my favorite things about DT is looking at all the parallels between certain characters and thinking how interesting they would've interacted on the show; with such a large cast, especially by the end of the show, it's not hard to find similarities between certain characters; and I love that you enjoy thinking about that too).

The best character you've written for

Both Della and Gandra! :D Both individually and when they interact!

The best ship you've written for

Fendra! I may be much more of fenro shipper, but I love how you write their relationship! You really make their different personalities nicely contrast and bring out the best in each other.

My favorite chapter in my favorite fic of yours

Ooooh, that would be 'What'd I Miss?!" in Indi-Quack! Della and Gandra's chemistry is just... I have no words. Sheer perfection. They are a joy to read interacting, and I wish more people would write them as friends. So much incredible potential. And I loved Gandra and Gyro kinda getting along, and Gandra giving her the benefit of the doubt in leaving her in charge of the lab- even if that was mostly for Fenton's sake, which is really nice in itself (I'm sure Gandra must have appreciated that he was willing to give her a chance in trusting her, especially since the last time she was there she knocked him out and teamed up with Beaks to break into his lab- and hell, both she and Beaks could have used that opportunity to steal his plans and prototypes if they wanted to- which resulted in his lab being utterly destroyed), and Gandra apologizing for everything (even if that was partially the weed making it easier). And I enjoyed Gandra apologizing to Della about her role against her family in F.O.W.L., even tho she wasn't trying to hurt them.

Something I remember vividly from reading one of your fics

Fenton FREAKING THE FUCK OUT when he took weed without realizing it; it was so in character, and I laugh just thinking about it! :D

Wow, Shy thanks!

To this day I am still in disbelief how well both Indi-Quack! and Home for the Holidays! did when they were first released! I love writing for those two and cannot wait to continue writing for them when I get my groove back!

And I know say this a lot, but keeping characters in character is very important to me because I feel like a lot of these stories would be nowhere near as good if they weren’t

Something that I always hate (in general, not just fanfiction) is whenever a character in a story gets drunk or high and acts nothing like themselves but instead act like a generic drunk or stoned person. Because when you do get in that state, you don’t turn into a new person. Your guard is down and a filter is turned off. What I’m saying is, be wary of the people who ever use the excuse “That wasn’t me, I was drunk/stoned” because they’re hiding something or ignoring a part of themselves

Anyway, yeah I love those two anthology stories cause it just gives me an excuse to come up with different stories relating to a topic for these birds interact with one another. I like to think of Indi-Quack! and Home for the Holidays! as two sides of the same coin

And I love writing for Della and Gandra! They’re both chaotic in their own way and there’s no way they wouldn’t get along! I hope to see more people write and possibly draw stuff with those two together. They’re great characters

Honestly seeing that the biggest supporter of Fenro say they love how I write Fendra is quite possibly the best shipping related compliment I’ve ever gotten

And yeah, What’d I Miss?! is a story that took me longer and even came out a little longer than I expected but I’m really happy with the results! And honestly, Gyro trusting Gandra more than Della to take care of the lab just makes total sense to me mainly because Gandra has a little more at stake there compared to Della. Glad you loved that chapter! I loved writing all the different dynamics for that one and LP’s cameo at the end

And oh my god, Fenton’s freak out was a lot of fun to write and something I can see clearly in my head. I’m happy left an impression on you!

[winderlylandchime]

At this point you are all in this with me and i am officially making this man everyone’s problem. He came into my home office while i was on zoom and asked for a pen and paper only to later find out that he made one of those mind maps. It’s about Britin and there’s bunch of arrows about what all he thinks could happen in the future seasons, to how Britin is connected and there’s a section for Ethan and everything. He then gave me a 10 minute presentation while I took a break. It made zero sense but he swears it does. I wish I could send you all a picture of it cause one arrow that leads out of the middle (which he named ‘beautiful bastards’) is just called ‘what the actual fuck is going on’ and under it, it says ‘idk bro, we need more context.’

The summery of his presentation that was interrupted by his alarm for pills and him going ‘for fucks sake i cant have a minute with my thoughts anymore!’ (I fear he has had too many minutes with his thoughts) was basically: Britin is connected, he doesnt know how BUT(!) they are stuck together forever even if it all goes to hell. Which he says won’t happen bc their connection is too big and no type of idiot would ever fuck this up. (Can you tell how hard it’s to keep a poker face?) Justin is linked to Brian and Ethan and also for some reason Ted(?) he has yet to make sense of that one but he swore that once he makes sense of it, it’s gonna blow my mind. Ted and brian are also linked with dotted line and he said and i quote ‘it has some weird potential cause i like how he calls him Bri like me’ only other person linked is Daphne (she is also dotted linked to Brian bc he likes them together and thinks they could be besties IF daph doesn’t disappoint him with Ethan. He thinks she will help Brian win Justin back) now here are his theories of what could happen: -he thinks that to get back together they should be put in a situation where Justin has to pretend to be Brian and Brian would be Justin (he watched an ep of White Collar where they did something similar so he got inspired but in his words he ‘made it gay’) the gay part is: role reverse sugar daddy/Justin would be forced to spend Brians money on Brian (this made me laugh bc of you) and somehow that would lead to them fucking -justin hits michael bc he still kinda hates him and he needs it to happen BUT he wants mikey to hit Justin back for Brian (since he can’t do it) which leads to Britin making up -justin breaks up with ethan bc of his ugly facial hair -justin and brian cheat together on ethan, he hates cheating but is willing to look the other way for them -brian hits ethan bc he hates his smug face and he wants Brian to hit someone -brian wins back justin and i quote ‘bri and i have yet to decide if we are okay with this one tho cause Bri is more than a consolation prize’ And for the Ethan points: there are only 4 thing’s written under his name: -i hate him, -he has a dumb goatee that makes no sense, like how does he shave that?(this was an entire 5 min long rant), -he’s not even good at playing that fucking ukulele -i hate how he talks when he says french stuff

My new favorite bit of his is the refusal to acknowledge that Ethan plays violin. Yesterday he told our mom that he plays the triangle. And i feel like it’s only right for you to know that: 1)he taped this paper on the wall next to the tv (it is an empty wall and then just a random piece of paper in the middle of it and that is all..) and 2) he did ALL this before 9 am.

I was going to send you this after we’d get back from the doctor later today but I am literally writing this while “working” cause he came back in the room to get more markers without saying a word and i am just hoping i don’t find any more papers taped on my wall when I get out of this meeting.

We welcome this man as all our problem. He’s got people going back and rewatching Ethan scenes to see if his theory that Justin’s artwork was an image of Britin. We are all in this together.

He’s gone full conspiracy theory. Too many minutes with his thoughts is right. I’m dying.

But also his theories are not entirely wrong - Randy and Scott have said they thought Justin and Ted would get along. And of course we know that Brian hires Ted for Kinnetik and they become bros. And Daphne is Britin’s biggest shipper. She DOES help them get back together. And there is hitting with Michael involved over Justin. And there is cheating involved in Justin and Ethan breaking up. He is not wrong, anon, is the point.

Cracking up about the reverse sugar daddy situation.

Dyinggg over refusing to say he plays the violin. Kind of how his beloved Bri Bri refuses to call Ethan by his name.

I’m sorry your wall has been defaced with this conspiracy theory map. But also impressed.

[llycaons]

ep13: oh, the misogyny

wwx is finding a way to DISCREETLY get the formation to rest for lwj, who is walking on a broken leg, and still jc is like 'what the fuck did you do now' like damn jc he can't do anything right. makes that post about jc hero-worshipping wwx and copying what he does and idolizing him even funnier

wwx and jc gossiping about wlj is so mean. of course she can't carry a sword, she never learned how! she was a maid. they're clearly judging her for sleeping her way into a position of power, but I see you wen chao I know it's more on you than on her

wwx falling down/out of/off things. first of many!

this is a really pretty shot ngl the water is lovely

wlj being positioned as the jealous, spiteful mistress using her power to harm a Good Woman is so shitty. they both were treated (in this arc) as one-dimensional tools to support the arcs of the men around the. wlj I know the writing did you dirty but you will always be a legend to ME for miss 'ghosts don't exist'

interesting moment - it's actually lwj who steps in to defend mm with jzx. wwx looks like he wants to, but jc shakes his head and wwx ultimately stays put. it's cool to see lwj and wwx trade off scenes that establish them as willing to defy authority and risk attack for the sake of protecting the vulnerable. it makes their ideals and goals feel truly mutual and balanced rather than wwx coming in and inspiring lwj to have a moral code (as is sometimes interpreted by fans)

this fight scene is genuinely REALLY fun and well-crafted. jzx and lwj have some sick moves, as do jc and wwx

WEI WUXIAN ICONIC MOMENTS. god I love it when he points out the hypocrisy of the great sects and the cultivation world. why is this scene never talked about! it's literally one of the best from him in this arc

again a TRAGEDY that this significant moment between them chalks up to an angsty subplot for wwx and lwj later on. it's a fucking good aspect of their relationship and it does compel me like lwj drunk-branding himself is INSANE and I'll never get over it but the misogyny 😭

wwx shot three arrows at once and took out wlj and mm's two guards without hitting mm herself LEGEND

she is literally the only wen with an understanding of how politics work

FAMOUS LAST WORDS. my dude you just locked the teenager who's going to torture you to death in a cave with the weapon he's going to use to do it

this is literally such a fucking funny joke. slept on. also wwx does take serious situations seriously but he also sometimes does this. I don't even blame jc for being like 'are you serious right now'

YOU ARE BOTH SO USELESS. SCREAM

of COURSE mm is the one to slip and cut her hand and release blood to awaken the monster. of course it had to be her

I'd say that she deserved better but honestly after this her arc really rules and she's one of the few characters to get a happy ending so I can't be too mad

this scene is wild. lwj jumps in and THROWS wwx behind him like 20 ft

jc yelling at wwx to be careful and promising to come back. aw man

also WHY ARE THEY ALL LEAVING. wouldn't it be much easier to kill the false xuanwu if they stay and work together? I don't think wwx even expected lwj to stay with him. he was really ready to stay there and fight it off alone and maybe die in the process. he's unwell!

okay this has always bothered me. WHERE DOES HE FIND THE STICKS THEY ARE UNDERGROUND

that underrobe is so beautiful purely on an aesthetic level ugh he has such good taste. also I like that you can see his bare skin under it like HOW hot was that branding iron jfc

EVIDENCE!!!! EVIDENCE for my 'wwx is intimidated by lwj's earnestness and his fears around commitment/the strength of his own feelings cause him to avoid his feelings because getting too attached/too serious is scary for him even tho deep down he craves it'

wwx casually asserting getting scars/being injured as a...sexy and impressive sort of triumph of masculinity (?) as a young teenager vs. his devastated expression seeing lwj's scars as an adult. he has so much to learn

this translation is so weird. just say inedia?

[agendratum]

i knoooow i shouldn't think too much about my rook just yet, cause again still not enough information to plan anything properly, but i just thought about this added motivation of being, you know, the warden commander's child, THE hero of the ferelden's kid. like "my mother fought for this world, i can't let her down now, i can't let him destroy everything she fought for so easily". and how this could very much create a very special bond between my rook and davrin, who is himself a grey warden and a dalish elf, you know, just like my rook's mother (in the scenario of me actually going through with this headcanon, if the game allows me this freedom). he would of all people there know of the warden commander and what she means for the world. and of course what wardens should do for the world. and yet at the same time both him and my rook, again, would still be elves, even tho rook would really not be that much dalish at this point, growing up with a city elf other mom and also rivain pirates. but still this not-god they would be fighting with would want to supposedly create a new better world specifically for their people, and this is definitely something for them to ponder

tho i guess, would rook in this scenario really consider elves "her people" or would the gang from rivain be her people. for me it's kind of difficult to think where even her mother, ruth, the character i spent all these years in my head side by side with, would stand in regards to this problem. ruth starts the origins very much with the "dalish elves are my people" headspace, and slowly expands the "my people" definition as the journey goes on. (one of the reasons of the difficulty being, well, the fact that i played origins and da2 so long ago, i don't remember many details, just the vague feelings, but anyway) grey wardens become her people, at least the ones from ferelden, the og gang are her people, the city elves are at least the people she should do something for. besides, she would keep in contact with leliana, and leliana is in inquisition, and inquisition learns a looot about the elves' real past. and i imagine leliana would pass this knowledge on to ruth, seeing that to be important, and like, what would ruth even do with it. it would make sense. it would make their lives be based on terrible terrible misconceptions. it would suck. it wouldn't just much for the present. it would change so many things. but would that move her?

i do think tho that she wouldn't want the current world destroyed, given that is the one world that she saved. that's the only world there is to be in

and i also think, that rook would very much idolize her hero of the ferelden mother, very much see her as *the hero*, but she wouldn't know her that well or be that close to her. they wouldn't have that much time together through rook's childhood. yes, ruth would visit, ruth would teach her, but she would also be a typical parent who spends the bigger part of a year on business trips, prioritizing work and the cause. rook would be looking up to her a lot, but would she feel the connection, and therefore would she feel the connection to the dalish, or would it feel more like she *has* to feel that connection, but there is actually none

much to think about

when the game isn't even nearly out and like i don't have any info on how the rook character creator will work but for my own sake i'm writing all this shit down i'm locked in i- shouldn't be locked in on who my rook is gonna be oh nooo 😭😭

[fizzingwizard]

and now a before-bed stress rant

I don't even remember if I bitched about how this term has begun. Suffice to say we are more understaffed than ever, and are relying on so many new hires, some of whom are lit fresh out of college and have zero experience working with young kids. And the thing about where I work is, when I first joined, there was a general policy that new teachers, unless they're very experienced, do their first year at the less busy schools.

Now the bar for experience is low: I was specifically moved to the school I'm at now after my first year because I was then considered "experienced." But IMO that first year really does make a difference. If I'd started at my current school, which is our company's biggest and busiest, I bet I would have quit like I've seen multiple first-year teachers do here. It's so much less stressful to learn the ropes at the smaller schools - which still have plenty going on! I found my first year very hard! - but at least I had room to make mistakes and figure things out. Here, the fact is we get by on the details. Everyone needs to know their part inside and out. That is what the company didn't value and why we're in such a jam now. They didn't value the workers who busted their butts for years, instead insulted and blamed them, and are now surprised that everyone except me and one other teacher quit. (Two are hanging on as subs, but one was at least partially, hmm, begged? bribed? lol. and they will both leave for good soonish)

The new teachers are having a rough time. I was out sick for two days recently, and while I wasn't there apparently there was some meeting in which a bunch of grievances came out, and someone even cried. It's only May for heaven's sake x'D the hard part is yet to come. we haven't even begun school events...! But that's how it is - the new teachers have just had so much dumped on them and had to hit the ground running because we don't have time for them to learn. It is fucking stupid. They are all great and really working so hard, but when me and a couple more experienced teachers brought up that we are exhausted and have child safety concerns because we are having to do too much classroom management on our own, the new teachers took it personally. Of course we assured them none of this is their fault (it's the company's!!!) and they are good people who took us at our word. But that kind of stressful feeling doesn't just evaporate. We need to find our rhythm, and in the mean time it is very difficult to hash out repeat problems without causing hurt feelings.

Now these past two weeks make it difficult for me to believe I was on a break in the first week of May lol. Part of that is getting sick. I had a great first week back, then the kid with the seizure thing happened - and the next day I had a fever. I got such a bad cold and in the end completely lost my voice. But I only have a few days of PTO left for the whole rest of the year, so I didn't want to use it all up. Plus, this week one of my coworkers was going to be off the whole week, and another off two days. Being so understaffed, we really can't afford teacher absences unless they're really necessary. So I've been going in, but most of the time I've feel tired, brain foggy, and congested. (For some reason the kids are all uber healthy tho lol)

Usually you get sick, lose your voice, and it comes back after a few days or a week. But it's been two weeks and I still can't talk about a whisper. I sound like a chain smoker. My hope when going back to work was that my coteachers would take over the talking. But I felt doubtful because I have two classroom coteachers, one I've worked with for a few years and she is just not a loud or talkative teacher, and the other is one of those new grads who's never worked with kids before. The first coworker did try her best. She's really amazing in so many ways. But it wasn't nearly enough help. I still had to talk so, so much. And that coteacher has so much writing in Japanese she needs to do during the day. While she's doing it, it's just me able to lead the kids. The new coteacher just doesn't know what to do. Anyway, she's been out this whole week and we've had a rotation of subs.

So I got sympathy from work, but really nothing to help my voice actually recover. There's no sub who could teach for me. I'm straining my voice every day and it's making me uneasy, although I know it does sometimes take longer for your voice to come back. I'll go to the doctor if it's still bad this time next week. But I really wish someone at work would have had a way I could get a little extra help during this time the kids can barely hear me unless I hurt myself shouting. I've completely lost all soprano notes lol.

Instead, work, while unintentional, has been even worse for me than it would have been normally. Because of the teacher absences, we've had that rotation of subs - but by subs I mean random part-timers, random admin, and random teachers from the older kids' school stopping in to help for a while and then leaving. These are good, helpful people - they just don't know the kids, don't know their personalities, don't know the behavior strategies that work with them, don't even know their allergies/medical info. It's so much pressure on us regular teachers even when we're healthy and have our voices. We should have actual subs who are trained in the school routine, but we don't. Once in a while, not being able to find a sub and having to rely on a non-teacher is just the reality and we have to accept it - but this has been happening consistently for over a year, on top of ever so many teachers quitting, and I've heard it's not just at my school but across all schools. Low pay, hard work - go figure!

I really needed someone with a voice and I have not been able to get it. Some coworkers and I were talking about company shadiness and I pointed out that although we work X hours, we only get paid for Y of them. So every time we work more than Y, the company is getting free work from us. (Overtime is on an approval-only basis and you never get it if you ask for it - company has to ask you. Doesn't matter if it's because the company assigned you too much to do.) Since we almost never get even half of the unpaid time available to take a break during the day, and nearly always have to work through it, it's pretty much like our hourly pay is less than it actually is because it's divided over the X hours instead of the Y hours. But the company doesn't tell you that :) because you COULD take the break if you want :) it would just mean you aren't able to finish your work at least without taking it home :) :) and then you'll get fired! :) :) :) absolutely nothing shady about that no sirree

if you are not paying me to work for you during a certain time... then I should NOT BE WORKING during that time. or you should pay me.

i mentioned to my coworker that the understaffing bugs me because when i was hired i was assured that regardless of teacher student ratio, there would be three teachers in every classroom. i wasn't surprised that that wasnt true for really small classes (I once sat in on a class with three teachers plus me as an observer, and only two kids x'D it was definitely overkill. it was because the other kids were out sick... but still they only totaled 6 :P). However, when my coworker said that sort of thing ("as long as we're still in ratio only two teachers is fine") I had to say "yes but the amount of work and duties we have is for three teachers, and no adjustment is made to the work load if you have only two" and then the coworker was like oh no i totally agree it's for three. And now imagine you have just two teachers, one of you is brand spanking new, and the other is a random admin because your usual coteacher is out sick... and you have three teachers' worth of work to do and twelve one-year-olds to take care of. and one-year-olds are feral. so are twos and threes. but ones in particular bc they have no sense of self-preservation and some of them think biting other kids is just a fun way to kill time.

and NOW imagine that same situation and cast AND... you have to lead these one year olds who can barely walk without tripping (or at all, in some cases) down several flights of stairs for an emergency drill. OMG. it is freaking chaos. i honestly don't know how we do it.

and on that note... here's how we do it: by the grace of god go I. It's not JUST luck. We are all hard workers and we care so much about our students. But we are only human. I keep trying to impress on the upper management that more PREVENTATIVE measures need to be in place, and that starts with actually staffing the school how it's meant to be staffed. But I doubt anything will change unless something big and awful happens. And I don't want something like that to happen, of course. That's why we scrambled to cover the company's ass - not because we care what happens to the bigwigs, but because anything that goes wrong is probably going to involve a kid getting hurt. I would much rather the company just fix things and not have to have some traumatic scenario play out first. Also might as well mention that, despite all our warnings, if anything does go wrong, it will be the teachers' fault. Maybe the company will take some sort of hit, but we exhausted, overworked teachers will be the ones whose jobs and reputations could get ruined. I don't want kids to get hurt, and I don't want me to get hurt.

It has me tearing my hair out over how silly and avoidable it all is. Just stop undervaluing pre-K teachers. Your whole line to sell our school is about how vital early education is and how you have this specialized curriculum about learning through play. Then you treat the teachers like we're babysitters. Despite all the lesson planning we do, and all the art project, science projects, sensory activities, grading, paperwork, school events, and more, that are required of us. Lol. If I'm a babysitter, I'd like to have a babysitter-level work ethic. I babysat when I was a teenager so I know. Put the kid on the couch with a movie and stick some chicken nuggets in the microwave, make 20 bucks an hour. BTW, these days babysitters often make more than that, and guess what, I get paid almost half that hourly x'D obviously more consistently! but still.

you know going into pre-K that this is what the pay's like, but I def wasn't prepared for how much work unrelated to watching the kids would fill up my unpaid break time, is my point.

anyway when will my voice come back from the war :P