#i am NOT paying $200-300 for a used copy

[ninashiki]

[davidmariottecomics]

Keep it Forever? Me and Physical Media

Hello friends! 

I swear that this blog isn't just me advertising that I've got some stuff up for sale on ebay (but also, I totally do). 

As I think I've made pretty abundantly clear, I'm a big proponent of physical media. At a guesstimate, I probably own something around 2-3 dozen VHS tapes, 50-ish records, 100+ video games, 100-150 CDs, probably 200-300 DVDs & Blu-Rays, and more books and comics than I could reasonably count. And that's not even getting into toys and plushies and other physical collectables that Becca and I have strewn across the house or in storage. I am a person who likes to own things. And I'm starting to hit the point where I also need to be a person who doesn't own all things I have. 

Why Physical Media Matters

While I'm pretty sure I've written about this before, doesn't hurt to reiterate why I am such a big proponent of physical media and owning the things you like. 

1. You own the thing. This is probably the single biggest point of physical media to me. You own it. Definitively. You can go and pick up this object that you have and use it. You aren't subject to the terms, conditions, and service changes of companies. If I want to watch Bratz: The Movie or play Super Smash Bros Melee or read The Lady from the Black Lagoon, I can. I don't have to see if it's currently on a service that I'm paying for or even available digitally. I don't have to worry about limited time availability. I don't have to worry about increasingly clueless executives who in trying to maintain the wealth of stockholders basically erase projects from existence, nor do I have to worry about changes of ownership or site design or functionality or licensing agreements that can take your purchases and just blip them away. 

2. Preservation. Piggybacking right off of that, some things *only* exist as physical media. Or, at least, only officially do. I mentioned Smash Bros Melee because it's a Gamecube era game that only exists on/was released for Gamecube. The game only exists as long as there are people who have working copies. There are books that I own, that, similarly, are no longer in print and have never been made available digitally. While most physical media can eventually deteriorate, there are things I have had for the majority of my life (and some things that pre-date me, honestly) that're still in really good shape because they've been cared for and it's important to me that these things exist and it's cool that I can do a little bit to help that. 

2.5 - As an aside, I do just want to say that I am in favor of digital archiving as a tool of preservation. Between the things that only exist digitally and the things that can have a longer preserved life by being converted to digital, I do think it's an important part of the preservation conversation too. With sort of an asterisk of just because I think most works shouldn't be lost, I don't know that it means they should be digitally accessible if it comes at the expense of the creator(s). Preservation = good. Piracy = still bad. 

3. Tactility and greater use. This one goes especially for books and comics, but I like being able to hold things. I like having my reading material in print so that I can, y'know, consume it on the beach without wifi or power or whatever. While a lot of my physical media is dependent on technology still, there are certain things that are more usable in more ways/places because they're physical. 

Why I'm Clearing Some Out Tho

On the other side of all of this, there are some very compelling reasons not to keep all my physical media. And these are some reflective conversations I'm having with myself. Some stuff's easy, right? Things that are redundant--whether they're exact duplicates of something I already own and somehow acquired twice or, like with some of my Transformers, I don't actually need 6 mildly different variations of Bumblebee--are easily put as something that can go. But once you get past that, for me at least, a lot of it comes down kinda to the Marie Kondo "does it spark joy" method. 

Potentially unfortunately for me, a lot of stuff either does spark joy, or sparks almost a sort of FOMO. Tied to preservation, there are some things that while I haven't really engaged with them in heck, maybe a decade of owning it, I worry that if I got rid of it, I wouldn't have it when I *do* want it. But there are also some things where I know it is no longer meaningful to me to own this thing, but I think it might be meaningful to someone else. 

I know I've written about this before, but I'm not really a Funko Pop guy. I have owned a few that I've thought were neat. But even the one I'd say was my favorite, I found tucked away because it had been on a low bookshelf behind our living room furniture before our last big cleaning/reorganizing session for that room, and I don't think I had realized that I hadn't seen it in such a long time. It wasn't just that it had been tucked away, it was that I hadn't thought to see if I knew where it was in months and months. And so, we're parting ways. 

It is tough--at least for me--to be at the intersection of genuinely believing in the good of physical possessions (and, yes, I recognize the faults in them too), wanting to be a person who does preserve things, and honestly, believing in some part of me that the reason I have all this stuff is I might want or need it in the future. That there could be a reason I held on to the Steve Oedekirk Thumb movie collection that'll somehow be relevant to my job or to finding a treasure chest or something. But also knowing that I need to make some space. And that I could use some extra scratch. And that there are things that I bought with enjoying them in the future in mind, but that I now don't think I'll ever return to. 

Loss and Regret

Nothing that I'm trying to get rid of do I feel like I'm going to regret parting ways with. But I've heard and--to some extent--have experienced that feeling of great loss in the past. I think all of us have had or know someone in our lives who has had some variation on the experience of "my [parent] threw my [toys/comics/books/important childhood memories] away and I used my adult money to try to get them back." Or, closely related the "I [lent out/went on vacation with/otherwise left the house with] my [toys/comics/books/important childhood memories] and they're now lost forever." 

I've had a couple of those experiences. The summer between my senior year of high school and my freshman year of college, I lent a friendly acquaintance who was going to the same college as me a bunch of my Gameboy games because they had just found their Gameboy and wanted to get back into it, and I was mostly playing my DS and only my Pokemon Gameboy games at that time. I'm fuzzy on the details, because it has been a decade now (whoof), but as I recall, said acquaintance didn't remember to bring my games when they came to college and somewhere between when they moved into the dorms and their first extended trip home, their family moved and the games were "lost in the move" and if they were ever found, I was never told. And there were some really good games that I miss even today. 

Another time, we were living out at the ranch and a lot of our stuff was in storage in the barn (yes, I lived on a non-working ranch and, yes, we had a barn). Now, sometimes that meant things got a little gross. There was dust and the occasional bugs or mice that found their way into things. But overall, it was actually pretty secure. That is, until the barn flooded once. And I lost a ton of meaningful stuff: books and comics and toys. In particular, I remember that the flood lead to the death of my Marvel Legends build-a-figure Galactus, which was quite the loss. 

And my third big loss/purge is when the ranch was being sold, I had to go back to the ranch, and to the barn, and go through and try to parse at least some of my stuff down. At that point, I was in college and knew I only had a storage unit to work with to hold this stuff, and I was distraught with changes to my life around the ranch being sold, so I know there are things that basically got thrown away that I probably could've kept or saved or gotten to someone who would appreciate them, but in a wave of angst and just deep tiredness, some stuff just got tossed and because it's been a while and I was a little hazy at the time, I still don't entirely know what all was lost in that either. 

I bring all of this up because, like I said earlier, I know that I and many of us have that experience of losing the things that mattered. And I know when I posted about selling some Transformers not too long ago, I had a couple people reach out to say "hey, I don't want to see you lose something that matters to you if you just need money." I wanna reassure folks that, no, it isn't just that influencing my decisions here. I'm really trying to be thoughtful in my decisions. So, don't worry. ;D

Next week: Inspired by a conversation on Becca's Twitch stream yesterday (viewer discretion advised on this last stream: there's some language and a spooky drawing and a slip of some NSFW art for a sec), I'm going to talk about manuscript wishlists and like ways to maybe find agents and editors that'd be a good match for you! 

What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Craig of the Creek (Cartoon), Honkai Star Rail (Video game), My Adventures with Superman (Cartoon), Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge (TV show, my friend Sina's in the finale!!!!), The Broken Room by Peter Clines (Book), Crime Scene Kitchen (TV show), Dumbing of Age (Webcomic), It's Walky/Joyce & Walky/Shortpacked (Webcomics), Solve This Murder (Podcast), Batman: Wayne Family Adventures (Webcomic), Praise Petey (Cartoon), Queen of the Damned (Movie), this very cute Superman drawn by Fernando Luis Cruz during a Superman conversation on Becca's last Twitch stream, this hunky boy Superman drawn by Gigi Dutreix on said stream (and the hunky lady She-Hulk too), The Prank Panel (TV show), Chainsaw Man (Manga) 

New Releases this week (8/9/2023): Nothing from me! Sorry! But...

New Releases next week (8/14/2023): Brynmore #2 (Editor) Godzilla: The War for Humanity #1 (Editor) Sonic the Hedgehog #63 (Editor) Toldja I had a bunch in the pipeline! 

Announcements: Becca will be tabling at Cartoon-a Palooza in Temecula on 9/15 & 9/16. It's a cool free all-ages little con, so come on out and see them! I'll be around too, I'm sure! 

Wanna support me? Consider joining my Patreon! Not only do you get the blog, but you get neat extra stuff like Patreon exclusive blogs, sneak peeks on other stuff I'm working on (and sometimes full original comics posted there), and coming up this week, the first of my sharable scripts and pitches! And even more at higher levels! Or, you can buy something from my webstore! Some of the stock on that stuff is running low and not going to be reprinted anytime soon, so prolly a good time to check it out! 

Also, at time of posting, I still have not pulled Kafka in Honkai Star Rail, but when I do (boy I hope I do), I'll let you know.  Pic of the Week: This is just a very nice picture of Nadja. But those Supermans are also kinda the pic of the week!  

[billconrad]

Bill’s Guide to Book Marketing

    I am a self-published author and have attempted to market my books, but the results have been less than successful. So why read a book marketing guide by somebody like me? The principles I will describe still apply, and I have made many mistakes that you will know how to avoid. Remember, you learn more from failure than from success. Does that mean I have learned a lot in my life? Hmm.

    At this point, you have written a book, had it professionally edited, a professional cover designed, an ISBN, an Amazon AISN, it’s formatted for ebook and print on demand. It is for sale on Amazon, Kubo, Apple Play, Google reads, Smashwords, Barns, and Nobel. Wow, quite an accomplishment! The problem is that 200+ people a month also released their first book. (Plus, established books are re-released as “new.” So annoying!) Many new books belong to authors with multiple books, and their readers are eager to read more. YOUR GOAL is to convince people to click “buy it now,” and here are the basic book marketing steps (not necessarily in the proper order):

To get attention, you must attack this problem on several fronts. Let’s start with the most important one. YOU NEED AMAZON REVIEWS! LOTS OF THEM! The first part of the plan is to send a copy of your work to every friend you have. Then, two months later, pester them for a review. This initial foundation of positive reviews is critical to your success.

Put your book info on Goodreads and any other site hosting information about your work.

Get a disposable email account like Yahoo. Search for free book promotion sites and put your book there. They will need a bio, picture, ISBN, amazon link, AISN number, Kubo, Apple Play, Google Reads, Smashwords, and Barns Nobel link. Important tip. I have one file with all this information, including all the links. Note that these free sites will spam the email account you provide to death. Here are a few areas to check out:

Sneaky tip. Go to Barns and Nobel every week and load your book onto all their Nook readers. Perhaps write a five-star review… Perhaps one on each tablet… Perhaps if you are on vacation… Perhaps if you have friends or relatives in other cities…

Should you buy book reviews? I found one site (I will not provide the link because it looks shady) where you can buy Amazon reviews. $300 gets up to 10 (why not an exact number?) badly written reviews. Should you do this?

    I do not recommend buying reviews unless you use a professional review service ($1K) that Amazon will allow a “review transfer.” Also, Amazon will likely find and sue these shady sites. Then Amazon will ban all the authors. Or they could try to shake you down. “Hey, you paid us for a review. Now pay us $$, or we will tattle to Amazon!”

If you read and followed my previous blog, you have written at least 200 book reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. Consider posting these reviews to Barns and Nobel, and Kubo. Your new goal is to get more reviews, and there is a group of motivated people who will do a review exchange. Authors!

    How to find willing (desperate) authors? First, look for new books on Amazon with a few reviews. Then, comb through them to see if they have a website or some other external way (Facebook) of contacting the author. Email/message them and ask them to do a review exchange. This means you offer to buy their book/ebook on Amazon, read their book, and write a review on Amazon and Goodreads. The other (potential) author will look at your 200 reviews and feel they are getting a good deal.

    Is this ethical? Yes, because you are only doing a review exchange. No money is changing hands. Both people paid for the book and are writing an honest review. But, do not contact authors through Goodreads or Amazon because both sites monitor their internal communications for review exchanges.

Look for Facebook review exchange groups.

Keep a log of all your reviews. Keep in yearly contact with your old review exchange authors. That way, you can contact them again when you come out with a new book.

Develop a dedicated website for your work. On it will be your books, your extended biography, a way to contact you, sample pages of your book, updates, and your blog. Many great website hosting companies have great online free website building programs—for example, Godaddy.

    Of course, I chose not to use a free online website builder. Why? I am old school and wanted to make a site on my computer that I could endlessly edit offline. My other motivation was that if the hosting company did not work out (like upping their cost), I could move my = domain to any other web hosting company. Yes, I am a control freak.

    So, my quest began. My first stop was to buy a copy of the gold standard for website development, Microsoft Front Page. To my utter surprise, it is no longer supported. What the heck? Well, I still had the silver standard Corel website creator. Wow, it has become awful. So, I went through every program from Adobe, Google, and many others. Pure junk. (How do companies make their sites? I do not know.) Fortuitously, I found a free program called Rocketcake. It was easy to use, fast, and produced excellent results. The downside is the lack of power. (It did not support splashy features. Only basic website stuff.) But there was an exciting upside. It generates tiny webpages that display lightning fast.

    There was another benefit to Rocketcake that no other website builder had. It (accurately) showed how my website looked on mobile devices, and I could tweak the pages to look good on all platforms. Godaddy and other online-generated web pages look awful on small devices. Do people browse the web on their phones? Hmm. Perhaps there was some logic to my crazy decision.

    Then I needed a hosting company and found WHP. Incidentally, WHP is the least expensive, and their service is decent. Coincidence?

Get a Facebook personal account and then make a separate page for your author’s activities. Make it look professional by examining what other authors have made their page look like.

Generate buzz on popular social sites groups like Twitter and Instagram. How does this work? I do not know. Twitter and Instagram are not my scene, but I know there are promoting guides on these sites.

Send out free books/ebooks. Several sites let you post your work for free to generate buzz. KDP select allows you to do this, but in my case, fifteen people downloaded my book and… Nothing.

There are a few (odd) free sites. The deal is that if you post an Amazon review, you get to read more free books. The problem is that all reviews read “…good book… I posted this review to claim the free book on XXX site, and this review is of my own volition.” What the heck? Stay away from those sites. Amazon will eventually take down all those phony reviews and punish the author.

Hire a publicist. I have investigated several and failed to find a good one. Why? When you hire somebody, you need a measure of their success. “You are a housepainter? Can you give me the address of a recently painted house so I can look at it?” Makes sense. “You are a publicist. Can you show me a book that somebody paid you $100 to promote, and they got $1000 in sales? You can’t?” Hmm.

    I find publicists are glorified spammers. They take your $ and send out spam, Twitter spam, Instagram spam, text spam, website banners, or other spammy muck. There is no way they can directly show how our hard-earned $$ leads to reader interest or sales. Plus, spam angers potential customers.

    I read stories of miracle publicists on the Facebook group Writers Helping Writers. After inquiring with the author about them and contacting the publicist, I learned they were riding on the coattails of a successful book.

    Side note. There is a business here, but I have yet to crack the nut that will lead to successful promotion.

Start a blog on your website, Facebook, Goodreads, and any other site you can find. Keep your blog fresh, post at least once a week, and mention your book often. Your topics should be books, writing, life, and light topical subjects—no heavy stuff like politics.

Make a YouTube promotion video of your book. Or beg your famous YouTube friend who knows the trade. The problem is that ~10K videos come out weekly, making it hard to stand out.

There are Facebook groups for authors and books. For example, Writers Helping Writers. Post as often as you can, but don’t be a pest, and do not directly plug your book, or you will be booted off.

There are online reading groups. Tread lightly when you make your plug so they don’t kick you off.

Pay for an advertising campaign on Amazon to up your search ranking. Paying them seems counterintuitive. Amazon is supposed to do this for free because they are the retailer. If they promote new books and authors, they will sell more books.

    Alas, no. Amazon makes you fork over money to up your search rankings. I have not tried paying Amazon because I want 100 reviews first. Nobody will buy an unreviewed book, no matter how often it appears in searches.

Do an advertising campaign on Barns and Nobel or Kubo. They seem to be much better at promoting books.

Keep a record of all your advertising efforts for taxes and understanding what works and what does not.

Last but not least, write more books. The more you have, the more you can market on the same dime. It only takes one success! “Hey, I loved Bill’s book Interviewing Immortality. Why not read his other book, Pushed to the Edge of Success or Cable Ties.” See what I did there? I snuck in a plug. Plug, plug, plug! Everywhere you can! This is a numbers game!

    Unfortunately, that’s all I have about book promotion, and I feel your anger. “There have to be more options. When I search on ‘book promoting,’ I get a hundred hits.”

    Let’s explore what these sites offer. 90% do two things. First, they spam. Do you read spam? Do you want your brilliant book to be associated with that kind of “gray” marketing? Second, they “tweet to 10,000 followers.” How does this help you? Having 10,000 nobody’s Tweet to 10,000 nobody’s. Do these people even speak English? Are computers tweeting to computers? Where is the proof they did what they claim? A computer printout? An angry letter from Twitter telling them to stop spamming?

    When paying for advertising or promoting, understand the Return On Investment. This is the relationship for advertisement payments and your profit. All established marketing companies 100% understand this question, and 40% can competently answer it. If they cannot, you are wasting your money.

    You may find a website that offers to promote your book on their “heavily visited site.” When you pay, you will see your book on their front page. Here is the issue. The only place readers go to find out about what books to read is Goodreads or Smashwords. (Umm, perhaps Amazon.) They do not care about other sites. Those “heavily visited sites” only exist to extract money from authors. If you look, you will see they all look the same, and I suspect one company runs them.

    Many sites offer package deals. A combination of the Tweet/spam/put your book on their worthless site. Or they “manage” your Amazon advertising campaign. Or they “promote you on Google.” You can pay Google and Amazon directly to up your rank and do not need help.

    Side note. If you have a unique title like Interviewing Immortality (see, I plugged my book again), then it will usually pop up first. Having your book for sale on many sites greatly helps. For example, I pay nothing, and my book is the first hit when I google “Interviewing Immortality.” See, I plugged my book a third time. This is a numbers game!!

    I was Facebook messaged today by a guy who wanted to “up my brand awareness.” Here is his run-on sentence pitch:

    I will do a strategic awareness your brand on some high-score social media platforms to increase awareness of your brand, generate real, active, and organic traffic from any country of your choice (USA, UK, Germany, Spain), and so on targeting those who will be particularly interested in the genre of book of your book . You will also gain a wide range of other effective results through my work.

     “High-score social media platforms” = SPAM And the mathematically backed return on investment report is… Did you spot the extra space before the period?

    What about book bloggers? They certainly can promote your work. The problem is that they require $$ without guaranteeing they will even read your book. Plus, they are arrogant and will give you a rotten review even after you pay. If you read/watch one of their negative reviews, you will see their sense of pride as they tear a book apart. Study their online content first, and be careful!

    What about getting your book on a list of “100 outstanding books you have to read.” Hard to say, but it is worth investigating. Make sure you are not paying for this option. Your work should stand on its own.

    In 2021 somebody reached out to interview me on the radio! Of course, I was interested!!! Turns out… For only $60, they would turn my book cover into a 3D animation that loops on a YouTube video. The audio (read by a computer) was me answering (over email) six questions I asked myself.

    I searched YouTube and found several videos posted by the person who messaged me. She uploaded the first in 2015. Guess how many views it got by 2021? Two! This person’s most popular video (an odd religious rant in English and Italian) received eight views. (It was eight because I accidentally clicked on it twice.) The lesson is to be careful. Many people want to separate you from your cash.

    Wait, I know what you are thinking. “Bill probably does not know a thing about internet marketing because his sales are in the toilet.” Well, I am not bragging, but I do.

    The entire purpose of those patents was to define, clarify, justify, quantify, and improve one number. Return On Investment (ROI) And, if my boneheaded partner did not have a mental breakdown because he feared success, I would be a multi-billionaire. Yes, this is 100% true. Did I mention he was a BONEHEAD!!!!! I want to repeat it. John, you are a complete BONEHEAD!!!!! Hey blog readers, thanks for letting me vent.

    I know, not inspiring you. Book promoting is a tough road. More challenging than selling a product or service. I started this journey with the idea that I would instantly get popular (because I wrote a fantastic book), and the checks would roll in. I now understand how profound this fantasy was. Yet, things are not as bad as they seem. You now know the pitfalls, the questions to ask, where to market, and how much effort is required.

You’re the best -Bill

April 08, 2023

 Hey book lovers, I published three! Please check them out.

 Interviewing Immortality is a psychological thriller about a 500-year-old woman who forces a disgraced author to interview her.

 Pushed to the Edge of Survival is a drama, romance, and science fiction story about two unlikely people surviving a shipwreck and living with the consequences.

 Cable Ties is a classic spy novel about two hunters discovering that government communications are being recorded and the ensuing FBI investigation.

 These books are available in soft-cover on Amazon and eBook format everywhere.

[whatdoesshedotothem]

Friday 27 February 1835

6 55

12 10

no kiss rainy windy morning - reading Sir Robert Peel’s capital speech - F41° at 8 ¾ am breakfast at 9 and staid downstairs with A- (till 11) on her receipt soon after mine from Washington’s man (surveyor) of his valuation and proposed manner of the division of the joint property - talked it over - told her how to make out a clear summary on one sheet so as shew at a glance the relative value and contents of every farm etc and wrote her copy of note to Mr Wilkinson about Mr W. Priestley’s ordering the Sunday school boys to stay at home from church on account of typhus fever at Priestley Green Had Joseph Mann with Farrer’s bill paid for the rails I had of him - then Holt came and he and I and John and Joseph Mann and Charles Howarth (at 11 ¼) went Mytholm mill to see the engine pit - with a view to loose the coal there - a stream of water comes off the coal there = ½ the average annual quantity of water in the Red brook at any rate= double the water from the Spiggs colliery falling into the Red brook under Wellroyde house and estimated at ¼ of the annual average of the Red brook water - Charles Howarth right - no chance of loosing the coal at Mytholm - gave up the thought - all went to look at Mytholm damstones above the Stag’s head and thence along Lower brea wood (Mr. George R- who shewed us the engine pit and wheel and Thomas Pearson who happened to join us there followed us as far as Tilley holme stile) - fixed to have the waterwheel put down in the wood near Tilley holme stile and where to put the dam in James Smith’s Ing - waterwheel should be 12ft. - calculate to take up a breadth of ground to work in equal to the breadth of the rim of the wheel (not named)  + 1 yard on each side - suppose the dam to be 20 yards square - the stuff f the drift from Mytholm damstones to the waterwheel to be put in Breackneck cottage garden - and a stuff of the drift from the wheel to the dam to be laid up about the wheel towards Tilley holme - the drift should be done for 4/6 - a good price - but say 5/. said I for easy calculations’ sake and not to be exceeded - Holt thinks the wheel with 2 pumps will not be put down for £200 - then say £300 said I – SW- to meet Holt on Monday morning if he, (SW-) care to leave the ground from Mytholm damstones to Tilley holme stile and thence to the proposed site of the dam -

 SH:7/ML/E/17/0172

 from Mytholm dam stone to where the drift will strike in under the old road to Lower brea will not be above 20 to 30 yards of culvert which according to former calculations will cost stones and labour 10/ per yards in length - suppose therefore 30 yards culvert at 10/ = £15.0.0.

the 2 drifts from the water level to

pit to be sunk at Pump will

pay themselves by the coal got.

Rails for the above 2 drifts supposing

1 ton to do 60 yards in length

Pump-pit sinking about 60 yards deep

 Drift from dam stone to wheel  at 5/. =

Ditto from wheel to dam at 5/. =

water wheel and setting up

 Left the men to return by Charles Howarth’s and Holt and I came up the walk - a great deal has been said about the Spiggs colliery - Stocks has bought Keighleys share - they are talking quite big about my not being able to stop the Loose - S- says they will get the paper I gave them stamped, and it will be enough to secure the Loose forever - I said before Manns and them all I was quite satisfied - I laughed and I said I would put out a few handbills publishing the paper I had given them that everybody might know clearly what is was - if that was enough for the Spiggs people, I was contented - I did not wish to withhold it - Holt thinks he can manage to get Mrs. Machan’s coal but not for £300 - thinks it cannot be had for less than £400 - for Mr. R- knows all about it and will bid up - tho’ he cannot get it for many years - well! said I, we must have it - cannot be settled till April - 1 son not of age till 9 April and one daughter now in York castle for debt - Rained all the while we were out more or less latterly pretty sharply - left Holt to go to the Manns and I came in at 12 35 - wettish - changed my clothes - a little while with A- then wrote all the above of today till 2pm - fair for nearly the last hour - highish wind - has blown the flags dry - at 2 wrote the letter for my father to ‘Mr Freeman Brier Lodge Southowram’  containing copy of letter my father had yesterday from Mr George Higham of Brighouse addressed to him as one of the inhabitants of Southowram who signed the retainer employing Mr H- to resist an indictment on account of road intended?  to be thrown upon the town - business concluded 18 months ago - bill £255.165 - sent in a month ago - no notice taken - Mr H- now insists upon having calls for his money in a fortnight or 3 weeks from the date of his letter 24th instant - say my father is anxious to know what Mr F- and the other gentlemen who signed the retainer will think proper to do and will be particularly obliged to Mr F- to call here as soon as he can as my father’s health does not at present permit his attending any public meeting - read the above letter to my father and Marian and the latter kept me near an hour - John took the letter about 3 ¼ - Had Best collector of poor rate for Northowram - my father paid 1/ for Breakneck cottage last 1/2 year from 1 October 1834 and I paid for Cowgate wood but not pay for the cottages bought of William Green - desired the rates  of the cottages and all the Staups buildings to be put in the names of the tenants - with A- from 3 ½ to 5 25 looking over her summary of valuation, rents and etc of the joint property - snow shower and continued snow from 5pm till now 5 35 - ground white again - dinner at 6 ½ and coffee in about an hour - then had George in my study who wanted to speak to me thought he ought to tell me what he saw not going right in the house  Matthew occasionally takes a glass or two of wine but says my aunt drinks more than anybody in the house he helps to the meat at dinner and does not help fairly  favours Eugénie and Sharp  walks out with the former and plays cards with her after all the rest are gone to bed George does not like to see things go on as they do in this house   thanked him warned him to take warning from all this and added much good advice. Just before dinner and afterwards  read  from p. 155 to 170 Philip on the preservation of health from 8 ¼ to 9 20 had Oddy up nothing more agreeable about Eugénie and Matthew  they sit on each other’s knee in the kitchen and all is sad told Oddy I would try to find them out but if I could not in the course of a fortnight she really must tell me openly what was going on and siding my writing desk till 9 20

[afipiafelis]

Finding an Editor: Part 3

Hiring an editor is proving to be an exercise in patience. I am glad I started looking now. I'm using Fiverr for the moment to identify potential candidates within my budget (eg - $200-300 for 70k words).

Yeah. I know. You get what you pay for. A "real editor" should cost $1000+. Welcome to the world where not all of us are Times Best Sellers and don't just have $1000+ laying around. Guess what? It's either in my budget or I edit it myself and leave tons of errors. (≡ε≡；)

When your story is likely going to be rejected by any logical publisher, you do your best.

Let's be honest, I fully expect I will lose money on this story if I indie publish. The fact is there is a very tiny audience that will want to read it. If I get 2-3 books sales I will have exceeded my expectations. I'm not trying to throw a pity party. This is the nature of what I want to do. ┐(´～｀)��

Niche audience = not a lot of people = not a lot of profit (if any).

The first editor I contacted is a line editor and proofreader which my dyslexic butt needs badly.

Her skills are listed as: Typographical Errors, Grammatical Mistakes, Run-On Sentences, Tenses Issues, Subject-Verb Disagreements, Sentence Fragments and Lengths, Spelling, Logical Flow and Sentence Structure

She responded to all my questions straight away and finished the reading and editing well within my time frames (48 hours for the first edit and then 72 for the revision). She gave me very useful advice about doing some transitions between the scenes.

"To be honest with you, the story was a bit difficult to follow because there were a series of stories trying to fight for space. Even if there is an interference with another story at some point, at another point, I feel the other story should have a continuation for easy comprehension of the whole story put together."

I admit I didn't fully understand what she meant at first. When I took a guess and added some transitions between the scenes it came out really awesome. She completed the revisions well within my time frame.

The one trouble I have is that she really wants me to give the "you character" the last name which I was trying to avoid. I mean it's technically "your" late husband's last name so I suppose it doesn't ruin the immersion that much.

The other huge advantage to this editor is that she is a woman of color. I'm white AF. My story has characters of every skin tone from freckled redhead to dark brown/black. A sensitivity reader seemed like a great fit. I straight up told her I wanted her to call me out on anything that would alienate people who don't have my skin tone out of the story. That means no "knuckles blanching" or "blushing pink" or "ran his hands through your silky hair".

Overall I'm really happy with her services and grammar. I left her a tip and a very good review which she deserves. All the same, I'm still checking to see how the other two editors go.

[lovesaadiqa]

BBL Costs, Prep + Recovery

Im booked!!  I talked to a few friends who I know either got this surgery or is getting this done.  I wanted one since forever but I wanted my teeth done first.  The deciding factor came down to my birthday plans.  

Originally I was going to do a birthday tour.  First weekend of October in Miami for carnival, 2nd weekend in Atl for Freak Nik, 3rd weekend in Bahamas and finally Nola for the finale.  Well Nola was just hit with a storm so yeah that’s out. Once I totaled up the flights, hotels, food and spending money.. I was like hmm, I can get a fat ass and started this process.  Immediately looked into surgeon and Dr. Pena was my favorite, his bodies come out so mf snatched, he’s located in Columbia.  Columbian surgeons can take out way more fat than American doctors however, the fatality rate is stupid and ultimately the factor that made me choose an American doctor.  

The next step was choosing the surgeon for the body I have and the one I want.  I weigh 151 and im 5′6″ I’m considered a “skinny bbl”.  I started researching doctors in Atlanta (so I could recover at home) and Miami (like duh).  I chose to go with Dr. Desouza in Miami with CG Cosmetics for a few reasons.  First, I love the look of his skinny bbl’s on other women with the same body type, weight and height as me.  Secondly, he was having a special for the end of the year (lipo 360, bbl, jplasma for $6500 for the surgeon I wanted) this almost sold me but it was the surgery date!!  Jplasma is skin tightening procedure to help with loose skin, you can only get this with lipo.  When they perform lipo they created canals under your skin to remove the fat.. well those same canals are essential when getting Jplasma.

Ok so I decided on the surgeon, contacted the cosmetic group and had a consultation which is pretty much just front, side and back view pictures.. I think they use this to make sure you don’t need a tummy tuck prior to surgery.  They also asked me questions about previous surgeries and if i’ve ever had anesthesia.  The next step went pretty quickly, we talked about what would be lipo’d (abs, waist, back.. I wanted inner thighs, an additional 2k, but was advised to wait on my pre-op to decide), when I wanted to book and how I'd pay.  My consult was on August 30th.. I bitched up when she attempted to take my payment.  I am a money hoarder and spending that much money made me feel like I was being financially irresponsible.  I called one of my Aunt’s who I felt wouldn’t judge me and also give me sound advise.  We talked about my fears, why I was getting the procedure and of course money.  My Aunt gave me excellent advice, reassured me and is a professional CNA who offered to accompany me so yeah I dare not turn that down, lol.  August 31, 2021, I called my coordinator (the contact between me and my surgeon) and told her I wanted to book, she asked me when I’d be ready and I requested first available which was 9/20/21!! Excited is an understatement.. I'd be 24 days post op on my birthday.  After I calmed down I paid in full for multiple reasons:  had to in order to secure the date, all surgeries book in this year had to be paid in full, it was the only way to get the discount.. My coordinator gave me so much information I couldn’t see straight (I was also high as shit off life thinking about a fat ass and me in the same sentence).. she emailed + texted everything, congratulated me and we hung up.

I get the emails:  “raise you hemoglobin with these vitamins” I purchased vitamin C $2, folic acid $2, iron $3 and floradix $35 - amazon, I take them as directed on the bottle and start eating my ass off (just to give my surgeon more to work with, lol).  Talking to one of my gf’s I realize I have to be cleared for surgery?!?!  What?  I open my email and sure enough I have to have blood work done 15-20 prior to surgery, it was 9/3 and a Friday.. SHIT!! I fly over to an Piedmont Wellstreet urgent care facility as recommended by my friend (she started this process as well so I was crazy grateful for her experience and that she shared it with me).  Urgent care was full but opened the next day, my ass was in that line at 7:32 am, I was the 13th person in line and they opened at 8.  I get to the desk and my appointment is at 10:30 and I'd have to pay the office visit fee to be seen, it was $155.  I came back at my allotted time and was told how much all of my labs would be.. $302.  My labs were to be processed and faxed to my surgeon by 9/9 because Labor Day weekend so.. yeah.  

I discuss accommodations with my Aunt and realize it’s cheaper, safer and more beneficial for me to go to a recovery house.  I search high and low baby and most of them were booked.. found one regardless with lymphatic massages included called Flawless Recovery House.  This wasn’t my 1st-6th option but the one with availability on my surgery date so I paid a deposit to hold onto my spot.  Total was $1312 for 5 days with 5 massages, I paid a $200 deposit.  Next, I booked my flight, round trip $116 with Delta.  My surgery date is on a Monday, I have to have my pre-op done on the Saturday prior so I booked a hostel from the 18th-20th on booking.com for $66.  I know I could have gotten an airbnb or hotel room but I wanted this experience.  I want to go to Amsterdam and stay in a hostel so I need to know what to expect.  Also I cannot party, smoke, drink or eat before surgery so fuck it.. a hostel will do, lol. 

I smoke big fucking weed and watched someone else’s bbl journey today and realize if I fail the drug test, my surgery will be cancelled and it’ll cost me $1500 to reschedule.  Boy the shit sent me into panic mode like I've never experienced before, only to find out the weed isn’t the issue nicotine is, it slows down your heart rate.  I can smoke weed just not out of a wood or a rillo and nicotine takes 3-4 days to get out of your system so a bitch barely made it.  I just won't be smoking until I get back home lol.  Just to be super informative no alcohol, diabetic meds, cocaine, pcp or anything that will fool with your heart or makes your bleed.  Today is 9/11 and im one week out from my pre-op... my body is a joke cause I haven’t gained a single pound and normally it’s nothing for me to put on weight.  I took my acrylics off, when you’re put to sleep they monitor your oxygen levels with those clamps they put on your fingers and they aren't the most accurate when you have on dark polish or acrylics.  I also cannot wear lashes cause when they go to fill this ass in I'll be laying flat on my face.  I mean my hair didn’t have requirements but I figure since im naked I might as well be bald.. y'all should see me rn, I look very much like a young man but im hype.  I’ll be back later to tell y'all what I pack and purchase prior to my flight.  Imma put the dates at the end of each update.. today is 9/11/21

My surgery group send me list of supplies  that I would need and the cost came to roughly $1100.  Naive me was definitely going to purchase everything on the list from them until I saw Leslie’s (@prettyhaute - on ig) bbl vlog.  I went on amazon and got away with murder.  Below I’ll list what I purchased and the price I paid versus what the surgery center was quoting me.

Faja - I paid $74.69 - Quoted $160.50 || BBL Pillow - $26.99 - Qouted $42.80 || Arnica pills - $8.95 - Quoted $37.45 || Compression socks - $13.99 for 3 - Quoted $10.70 for 1 || Foams - $17.99 for 3 - Quoted $64.20 for 3 || Scar Cream  $$29.82 - Quoted $80.25 || Arnica Gel - $7.92 - Quoted $21.40 || 

There a shit ton of items on the suggested list that I didn't purchase but way more items that wasn’t on the list I still need for instance:

Crocs, benadryll, robe, adult diapers, straws, earplugs, liquid iv, stool softener, antiseptic body wash, avocado float, back board, urinal, pineapple juice, throat calm, 3 moo-moo’s and a massage roller (the crocs are the only thing on this list that cost more than $20).  My flight is at 7:15a tomorrow and im so damn nervous but excited.  I will spend Saturday and Sunday gallivanting around Miami and then body , ody, ody, ody, ody, ody.  I still have to send my entire itinerary to my aunt but I think im all set.  9/17/21

Pre-op was packed but I went on Saturday and was in and out in an hour.  I was charged for a covid $80, 3 post-op massages $150 and a drug test $20.  I went over my clearance paper work with a medical assistant who also took 9 before pics of me.  Keep in mind, your surgery can be cancelled or reschedule if all of you labs aren’t at the surgery center on pre-op day.  I cannot stress how important it is to take your labs with you!!!  Mine were faxed over from urgent care but I was also provided copies which I took with me.  The photos were sent directly to my surgeon to analyze before surgery.  From my knowledge, I was also to be fitted for my faja but that never happened, do NOT leave pre-op without a faja!!! I paid for 3 massages from CG totaling $150 which I regret badly.  I do NOT recommend getting massages from the surgery center.  There are 4-5 different surgeons performing surgeries on any given day and they do at minimum 4 surgeries per day, that’s at least 15-20 different girls with the same surgery and post-op date.  CG had 2 massage therapists to drain 15-20 girls.  I was drained for 9 mins, your drain massages should last at least 45 mins for maximum drainage.  I only used 1 of the 3 massages I paid for and was denied a refund.  That is a huge downside to CG once they have your money good fucking luck getting it back! Ps. Ellie was a royal fucking cunt!!!!!  She told my medical assistant that I didn’t need a faja so I was never fitted for one and woke up out of surgery with a binder on versus a faja like I should have.  I wanted to slap the shit out of her and took the charge on the chin but I wanted my surgery so I refrained.. I was put on a 12 hour fast and contacted an hour after pre-op with my surgery address and time.  My fast started at 7pm the day before surgery and my surgery time wa at 6:30a, there was a $300 for showing up to surgery late.  All I could bring to surgery was compression socks and a faja (that I didn’t have), I was instructed to bathe with dial (the orange one) before surgery to make sure my incisions weren’t infected, no lotion, perfume, deodorant, makeup, nails, lashes, no jewelry/piercing or hair products and no personals ie, purse money, wallet also you will need a companion or surgery will be cancelled.  I’ll upload all my paperwork at the end.   Surgery day arrive at the surgery center at 6:15 am how about the entire fucking staff was late!  Bitch I was outside in Miami alone with compression socks on and a moo moo, LIVID.  No one arrived until 7:10 am, baby I wanted to kill everyone but fuck it, it was go time.  I’m escorted to a room, changed into a paper gown, piss tested, my labs were reviewed again and finally my surgeon comes in!  We were in the exam room alone which was weird cause I was asshole naked but he kept it 1000% professional, he asked me what I wanted and I say “the fattest ass” he looked me dead in my eyes without a single hesitation and said “it’ll heal like a diaper”  LMAO.  I showed him areas that I wanted lipo’d to death and he marked me up, I didn’t aka e picture of my mark ups but shit was rolling by then, he walked out I put my paper gown back on and the anesthesiologist walked in.  I expressed my biggest concerns to him, I didn’t want to die and I didn’t want to wake up during surgery.  He explain why the drug test was so important because certain street drugs will have adverse effect with the anesthesia.  My anesthesiologist walked me up to the surgery room and I hopped on the table, they put massage boots on both of my feet and inserted an iv, the mask was put on my face and my heart rate went to heaven, I wanted to shit myself bro.  The anesthesiologist told me to make a tight fist, I asked what time it was, 8:08am.. I woke up to a nurse helping me into a wheelchair with a binder around my waist and I was scream crying because my entire body ached, I didn't know where I was and the anesthesia is no hoe.  I was escorted to my recovery house’s transportation van and taken to my damn bed.  

I chose Flawlesss Recovery House with Ms. Opal.  I paid a $200 deposit before 2 weeks before surgery and the balance the day I left.  I opted for a 5 day stay.  I loved it there bro and couldn’t imagine trying to recover at a hotel or air bnb!  There were nurses there 24-7, I was roomed with one other girl but the house had a total of 4 bedrooms, one of which no one occupied and the door was always shut but my room was the only room with 2 beds, the others had 3 beds.  I had a call button, it was love, the nurses came expeditiously when I rang it.  They made 3 home cooked meals per day and I don’t eat meat, they accommodated me with no hesitation.  I loved it man.  So couple hours after surgery I attempted to use the bathroom on my own and blacked out, the anesthesia is really fucking strong and took an entire day to wear off (for me), the nurses helped me pee in a cup until then.  Post op day 9/21/21, I went in to make sure I looked good, got a faja finally and received that lousy as drain.  Back to the recovery house I was able to walk finally w/o passing out and in went my foams, I also could pee by myself with the use of a urinal.  I was constipated for 2 days, first bowel movement was on post op day 2. I paid for an independent massage therapist named Tatiana, she used a ultrasound machine to massage me so I cancelled her.  When I took my faja off for my massage it was washed and dried by the time I was done, I took a shower and put my faja on with my foams.  I cancelled Tatiana because don’t let nobody use no machine on you until you are at least 2 weeks post op, hand massages only.  All the girls were getting massaged by the literal best massage therapist (in my opinion) her name is Brittany, I could cry she was EVERYTHING, I was tender but she put the painful massage theory to bed!  She taught me how to drain myself and how to open my incisions without the q-tip looking thing.  In 45 mins she drained 5 of those doggy pad things worth of fluid off of me.  I received 4 massages in 5 days.  I left on Saturday 9/25/2021 on Sunday, back in Atlanta, I received my 5th massage and that when I was told I have not one but 2 seromas.  I swear on everything I love it was because everyone wakes up from surgery with a faja on but not me (Fuck you Ellie, lil bitch) I had on a binder (its what they use for tummy tucks).  The lady who did my 1st massage in Atlanta was Bri, not gone post her ig cause she did a damn good massage but when I asked her to syringe drain me the good sis stuck this long ass needle in my seroma but could get the fluid out, cancelled her too (the massage was good asf tho but nah).  Tired and tried I bit the bullet and booked a packed with Dream Body ($455 for 5 massage, I think, don’t quote me look it up on there site and follow them on ig)  because they are the biggest name in Atlanta, Jayda Wayda goes to them.  The  most painful massage yet, yes Michelle lil ass is so strong but she will get the fluid up off you.  She made me tear up bad and no matter how much I screamed or even tried to push her off of me she understood the assignment, Michelle helped me get back into my faja after my massage and told me my faja was too big and to have it altered.  She recommended a lady on ig @siri2sir but to know me is to know I altered my shit myself.  Allow me to tell y'all, I look good asf!!!!!!! 10/4/2021 

[corpsentry]

behind the taylor swift gundam was in fact another, smaller gundam: a brief inquiry into the events of june 2020

so back in june this year june and i got together and we made this motherfucker of a story with this motherfucker of a thread to keep track of it all. but you already know that! and i’ve already got one foot and three elbows in my grave, so i’ll spare you the long-winded stuff. you wanna know how i wrote 93,035 words in 4 weeks? i’ll tell you how i wrote 93,035 words in 4 weeks-

-by linking you guys to copies of my planning documents because i feel like those words speak louder than any words i can offer in the present day. these are long documents. but they are also historical artifacts. very interesting. very weird. very, uh, full of cussing. so anyway, here’s

BIG DADDY: THE ORIGINAL PLANNING DOCUMENT

for those, like me, who have no motivation left in life to do anything and rely on summaries from others to acquire new knowledge, it all started with a single line.

prince of a fallen kingdom atsumu tries to kill hinata but falls in love with him instead

june, april something, 2020

with that in mind i tested the concept out with a few paragraphs of text, which you can find at the bottom of the Big Daddy document in the graveyard segment, accidentally sold my soul to the image of hinata with epaulettes, and then worked backwards, structuring an entire plot around two images:

a) hinata getting the shit beat out of him, with snark b) hinata and atsumu dancing in an empty ballroom under the stars

if you want a betrayal, you have to have something worth losing. if you want to fall in love with someone you don’t know, you have to meet them. if you have to meet them, there has to be a reason for that meeting, and so somewhere in between atsumu became a sword instructor and hinata the prince with daddy issues. june and i used this method of glancing anxiously over your shoulder to see what you’d missed to fill out the blanks in the story, after which i tacked up a bunch of post-its, typed out the plot, consulted june, typed out the plot again, and then broke the characters down into a bunch of questions, like ‘what do they want?’ and ‘what do they have?’ and ‘what are they afraid of?’

with the plot more or less ironed out, i decided it was time to start writing, and then i decided that i was actually too scared to start writing after all, so instead i set a couple of timers using classroomtimers.com (15-20 minutes long) and i sat down and i wrote about the world that hinata and atsumu inhabited.

each warm-up was 300-500 words long, and for the first few days, i’d write one before getting into writing the story proper. later these evolved into simply picking a scene from the story and launching straight into it, which became useful for opening those scenes later when i got to them organically.

then i got lazy! so i stopped. but these shitty little exercises were really useful for me because, unfettered by plot, convention, or any kind of tradition hovering over my shoulder, i was able to fuck around loosely enough to realize what i wanted this story to be. it was a very contrived kind of trial-and-error, an exploration of the characters, the story, but most importantly, the tone.

RESEARCH, PLANNING, AND VICTORIAN BOUGIE FASHION

this is a loose map of the castle and Important Locations within it, which i drew up at the start so i could keep track of where everything was and how i could get my characters from point A to point B. i wanted the story to have Some kind of internal logic, you know, even if that logic amounted to ‘a compass would function normally in this world whereas kageyama tobio would not’.

99% of my planning and organizing within those five weeks took place in this lovely dotted cat journal which my sister gave me for my birthday and i repurposed into a metaphorical Diary of Suffering while working on juno. i used it for everything from keeping track of narrative threads to clothing consistency checks, but the main purpose was this: each day at about 10 pm i’d crack open the cat book to a fresh page, stamp the date and the day of suffering at the top, and then write down a list of things i wanted to write, address, or fix today. then i’d sit at my laptop and write like a madman until about 7 in the morning. with breaks, of course, for sitting in the bathroom and staring at the wall and sitting in the kitchen and staring at the wall, but mostly i was writing. and complaining about writing. you were there, you probably remember that.

anyway, here are some pages from the cat book.

aside from the fact that my handwriting is complete shit, you can see that i made zero effort for any of this to be presentable. it was mainly a way for me to keep track of my thoughts because i have the attention span of an ikea wardrobe and tend to forget things as soon as i think of them. the lack of structure also mirrored the way that i went about writing juno. while i did proceed, for the most part, in chronological order, i had a lot of weird and useless revelations during lunch, which by this point was happening around 2 am, and in the 5 minutes before the exhaustion finally hit and carried me down to hell. i changed A Lot. again, to understand exactly how much the story evolved from day one onwards, please consult the big daddy document.

in the meantime, here’s something else.

once june sent over hinata and atsumu’s character designs i sat down like the fucking fool i am and spent 2 hours poring over a document about victorian and other fashion movements of the past so i could assign a noun, adjective, and verb to each element of their outfits. i don’t know why i did this. i certainly could have not, but i attempted to make sense of their ‘fits from a logistical perspective and that went into the cat book too. everything went into the cat book. the cat book is a relic of the past now, stuffed with artifacts such as the birth of oikawa tooru, and also his demise.

MEDIUM DADDY: EDITING, PROOFREADING, AND CREEPY MURDER CATS

i finished writing on june 26th, 2020, approximately a month after i’d first started planning, somewhere around may 27th or 28th. at that point i had about 90,000 words’ worth of story and no sanity left whatsoever, so i took a day-long break to stare at a wall and listen to taylor swift’s enchanted on loop.

and then i made a new document, which you can look at using the link above, and i laid out everything i had to do. i’d discovered a fuck ton of plot inconsistencies and general errors while writing and lying awake in bed at 9 a.m., sleepless in seattle, and now that i was free of the demon egging me towards the first finish line, it was time to Deal with them. i speed-scrolled through the draft, which was 200+ pages compressed into one google doc, because i like to tempt god’s wrath, and fixed up all the plot issues over the course of a few days. this was the fun part.

the actual, hard editing was the extremely un-fun part. i reread the entire thing, paragraph by paragraph, line by damn line, from start to finish, paying especially close attention to awkward phrasing, incomplete dialogue, and moments which had fallen flat in my haste to get on to the next one. this was really fucking terrible. i spent more time lying facedown on the floor than actually editing anything, but after a long time (about a week), that, too was done.

SMALL DADDY: TITLES, SUMMARIES, AND GOOD FUCKING BYES

i spent a good eighty days thinking about the title, though hilariously enough we ended up with something that was a blend of our names. june + elmo = juno, which is, all things considered, pretty perfect, but the process of picking the title was Hell, and i Did Not Come Up With The Title until about 2 hours before posting. you can take a look at the haphazard clusterfuck of my title-selecting process in small daddy, which is linked above.

so the title was a last-minute choice. so was the summary. and the chapter divisions. and actually all the songs in the playlist for juno. the day we dropped juno onto planet earth like a newborn baby pitched out of the sky, i spent an hour hunched over my laptop, cutting my 213 page google doc into chapters based on nothing more than a Vibe. two days before that, i also attempted to voice-act the entirety of juno, an affair which ended at the 20,000 word mark with a sore throat and the kind of exhaustion one typically wants to sleep in a coffin for 23 years to get rid of. so in all honesty, i did very little editing, which is why there are definitely minor typos and/or mistakes hanging out somewhere on that chunky ao3 webpage. but whatever.

my attitude by july 5th (was it july 5th? or 4th? somewhere around there) was basically whatever. anything so i could get finish this damn thing, chuck it out of the window, and never see another google doc until the next century. i’ve been asked a few times how exactly i wrote at a rate of roughly 2000-3000 words per day for four weeks straight, and my answer has always been this: i died. what died, you ask? my soul. my spirit. my Will To Live. i’m a creature of fixations, and juno was my fixation for june. will i ever be able to do this again? would i recommend this experience to anyone? is god real? the answer to all of the above is probably no. juno was a fever dream, and so is my cat book. and so are all the lattes i had. and so was my 9 am to 4 pm sleep schedule.

but what we made is real. the research, oikawa tooru, the 4 am conversations in which i was like ‘how the fuck do i end this’ and june was like ‘jade proposal’ (the proposal was her idea. all rise for twitter user atsuhinas. she is the mastermind behind all of the Inch Resting moments in this story; i just flapped a korok leaf in her direction and made sure the air circulation was working properly) are real as fuck, and looking back, there’s a lot i’d change, but i’m lazy. and college is starting. and anyway, i did write 93,035 words in just under five weeks, four if you don’t count the week of Editing Hell, so i think that’s pretty cool.

thank you for reading this to the end, and for following us on our journey through the enigmatic taylor swift gundam fic which quite literally consumed my entire twitter account for the five weeks i spent working on it. retrospectively speaking i really was butt-obsessed so i am frankly incredibly impressed with everyone around me for putting up with a Husk of a Man for a month. thank you for doing that. thank you for indulging my vague tweeting, and our butterfly dns, and for reading 93 thousand words of gay fanfiction set in a high fantasy world with epaulettes and galettes. on behalf of june, once again, we are incredibly grateful for all your support.

if you have any questions about specific aspects of the writing process, or anything you’d like to know in general with reference to JUNO, feel free to drop me an ask through my tumblr inbox, or through my curiouscat over here. i’m aware i didn’t cover everything, but there’s frankly too much to put in a tumblr post without passing away somewhere around the 56% mark, so let me know what’s on your mind, and i’ll try to answer that to the best of my abilities. but anyway, before i go, here are some

TAKEAWAYS

one: don’t try to write 93,000 words in five weeks. seriously don’t fucking do it you will end up jittery and sleep-deprived and you will leave all your friends on read for a month. pace yourself. set realistic goals. you wrote 2k this week? that’s fantastic. you wrote 4k in a day? you absolute motherfucker. i hope you’re taking a long fucking break tomorrow. your story will not run away from you, but if you run too fast, you will get tired, and then you will pass away.

two: you don’t have to know everything about your story before you start writing. in fact if you have a single camera shot of two characters holding hands under a rose garden awning, i think that’s fucking wonderful. if you look at big daddy, you’ll realize that my initial plot draft, and all the ones following that, are not perfectly aligned with the final version of juno. i improvised over half of the scenes in this motherfucker, and to be completely honest, some of the improvised scenes were the best. fucking oikawa tooru was improvised out of nowhere. he only got written in way later, around chapter 8 or something, because i realized i needed a plot device and a source of information to keep the playing table from toppling over. i Sat Down one day and was like ‘okay, it’s time to write oikawa into the introduction. because he matters now. he didn’t matter last week but now he does, and soon he’s going to be the fulcrum of the entire story, because it’s like that with oikawa tooru’. it’s okay to change your mind halfway. it’s okay to go back and rewrite entire scenes or segments. it’s okay to highlight 4 pages of fresh, sentimental writing, and hit delete. writing is a fluid process, and you Will make discoveries as you progress through your story alongside your characters. be understanding of that iterative process. be kind to yourself.

three: You Are That Motherfucker. you, me, your dog, your dog’s friend, your dog’s enemy, all of us are that motherfucker. i never thought i’d be able to write anything longer than the great big map, which was a much simpler, linear story in which the other main character did not appear in the current timeline until like the eighth chapter. juno was different. juno was the motherfucker, and i was scared shitless of it, and to cope with that fear joked constantly while writing that it’d never see the light of day.

but it did. it was a rocky process, and i was awake for 48 hours after posting it because of the sheer adrenalin stuck in my skull, but i got through it. and i wouldn’t have been able to do it without june, who stepped in when i flopped over facedown on the floor and dragged me to my feet like the badass friend she is, and without everyone else in my life, who put up with me talking about The Thing that i couldn’t really talk about, but juno’s up there now. forever, or until the internet collapses and civilization goes extinct. and if the nineteen year old clown with the attention span of an ikea armchair and an a level certificate from hell wrote the 93,000 word long thing, so can you. i mean this completely unironically and with every ounce of genuine emotion i can summon from the cracked asshole of my heart.

writing is hard. writing is scary. writing is an investigation of the world around you and therefore, by extension, yourself, and that kind of honesty is freaky. it’s like going skinny-dipping next to the president’s mansion. who’s going to see you? what if they take a photo? what if you lose your spot at university?

but don’t think about that. our world is overrun with stories the way cereal bowls are full of cereal, but it’s those stories that keep us all sane in the disgusting day-to-day muck of reality, so think about your story. what’s haunting you today? what message do you want to leave printed in font size 666 comic sans across the southern hemisphere of the planet? what will you be tomorrow?

a writer. you’re going to be a motherfucking writer.

[nickcifonie]

In 2021, Anyone Can Make $ Playing Video Games!

I grew up playing games like Risk, Monopoly, a little Chess... and still remember buying my first computer somewhere around 1986 solely to play a computer game on. It was an Apple IIc, and that first game was some type of Pirate Adventure. I wish I remembered the name. It wasn’t all that good, but still, I was hooked!

Since that first adventure, I’ve spent thousands of hours as well as dollars playing just about every type of digital game that has followed! PC games, Atari, Wii, mobile games... you name it, I play it! I’d always generalize the cost (to myself at least) thinking “some guys play golf 3 days a week at $100 a round... I play computer games”.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it! However, the story has changed...

“Pay to Play” has become “Play to Earn”!

If you would be to search terms like “crypto games”, “blockchain games”, “make money playing video games”, and others, you’d find some really incredible statements. Today, quotes like the ones below are becoming more and more common!

“I made $400 last week playing a computer game” “I just sold my RPG character for $200 profit”

“I was offered $1k for a skin for my laser rifle of doom” (I made up the “laser rifle of doom” part)

“I bred my pet thingamajig yesterday and sold the baby!” (it’s digital, for those of you wincing)

In 2021, thanks to the blockchain, there’s a growing community of gamers who are making real dollars daily, mining, fighting, shooting, jumping... all while playing the same type of mobile and PC games that you had to PAY to play just a short while ago...

...but let’s start at the beginning.

You paid $172,000 for a what!?

Yes... all the way back in 2018 a CryptoKitty named “Dragon” was sold for an incredible $172,000. (300 ETH) Don’t be too surprised, it’s justified! It’s an adorable digital image, or “NFT” of a cat, after all.

It’s a lot of money, but for NFTs and blockchain gaming, flipping a Kitty today may as well be considered the stone ages. It’s still a record, but while you can still get started collecting these digital felines for as low as a couple of dollars, big-dollar trades still happen daily.

On the flip side of mortgaging your home to buy a digital picture of a CryptoKitty, Bored Ape, or CryptoPunk, you may feel better if you begin your adventure into making crypto (it’s real money, dear!) by playing a video game where you can “make money” instead of spending it.

I’m not saying owning a CryptoKitty or any of a plethora of “Avatar NFTs” we see popping up on various exchanges isn’t one way to do it... I’m saying to me at least, as a life-long gamer I’d much prefer playing a mobile, console, or PC game to collecting pictures in a digital wallet.

So what the heck is an NFT?

I could go into a long explanation... but since this article is about gaming and not cryptocurrency, I’ll tell you an NFT is a “non-fungible token”, and leave you google it if you really want to dig in deep. I do want to share more, so I’ll ‘splain it as simple as I can for you Lucy!

A CryptoKitty, as stated above, is a type of image called an NFT. (the collection is called “CryptoKitties) It’s a digital picture of a cartoon cat. There are thousands of different ones that have different shapes, colors, expressions and traits. (kind of like a real cat, but eats less)

The difference, is only one of each design is actually a legitimate “CryptoKitty”. (or a legitimate whatever type of image it happens to be) To be clearer... each NFT is a “one of a kind”, so if you’re thinking “but can’t I just make a copy?”, nope you can’t.

I mean... you “can” make a copy of it if you really dig the design and want it on your desktop, but it would only be a copy of that particular NFT, not the real McCoy! Ok... so what makes one real, and the rest fakes? The blockchain.

Now, I’m going to be true to my word and keep my promise of not making this an article about crypto or the blockchain, so just know this: the difference between an image that is an actual NFT, and a copy of one, is there is an underlying digital code that designates the real thing.

So real in fact, that artists are creating or importing their paintings and creations to the web as NFTs, numbering them as they would a lithograph, and selling their entire collections. So if you are an art fan, check with your favorite creators... you may be surprised to find all of their “works of art” on an online marketplace!

NFTs are viewed on certain marketplace websites and digital wallets where the copies cannot be displayed, so that is how we know one is real, and the others are not! Having said that, sure, there’s more to it, but just know that there’s a 100% secure way of knowing an image is a real NFT.

In addition, there can be more than one NFT with the same identical image. However, each has a unique underlying code, so even if they look exactly the same, they are not! Look at it like the playing cards or comic books of old... there may be 1,000 created (or “minted” as it’s called in NFT land) but they will each be numbered 1 to 1,000.

And guess which is more valuable.....? I knew you’d get it!

And these NFT’s make money how?

You’re getting warmer! There are a lot of different types of games coming out these days where you can make money playing. There are RPG’s, MOBA’s, Shooters, games in first person and in third, dungeon crawls... you name it!

If you’re thinking “how did I not know this!”, I was the same until recently! I have been gaming almost daily since I stepped into Ultima Online back in 1997, and I can’t even begin to tally how many hours and/or dollars I’ve invested into gaming.

Now, our hobby pays!

After 30-something years, my wife still thinks I’m bonkers... but I got a totally different look from her a few days ago when I told her I sold my game character for well over $200. Legit. I sold two more yesterday, and another this afternoon.

Some of these only cost me $10 or $15, some much more. Some are free. I sold another NFT character last week for $1,950, and it was sold on the game’s website, not on the black market.

So not only can an NFT be a picture of an Ape, Vegetable, Duck, or Stripper on a pole (we’ll leave it at that) but it can be a character in a game, a weapon, a mount, armor, or more.

One game is giving away free pet turtles with each character. For the uneducated on “pets” in computer games, it’s not the kind you keep in a bowl in your bedroom. It’s a companion that fights with you in an online game and may shoot fire from its eyes, heal you, or similar.

Soon after being handed out for free, they’re now selling for around $60 each.

So an NFT can be an image, a video, music, a meme... or even a shirt or shoes! But we’ll leave the NFT clothing explanation to another article. ;)

Remember that rare skin you paid out the nose for a year ago in Apex? Or the L33T character you built up in Fortnite or Warcraft? If you’re no longer playing that game, it’s money under the bridge. And you don’t own the bridge!

In this new breed of blockchain games, you could have LEGALLY sold that character, skin, weapon, land, house, mount, or whatever it was when you tired of the game. For a profit. Maybe for a LARGE profit.

Yes, in the past we were able to find ways to get around the system and dump our pixels from time to time. We’d sell the account on the black market, or cut a deal with someone like a drug dealer on a Chicago Street corner. Then we’d over who went first...

“You give me the account and weapon first!” “No you give me the money first”.  Sometimes the deals even went through. Others well... let’s just say half of the parties walked away happy.

I made good money when after 4 years of daily playing I sold my Ultima Online account for somewhere around $2,000, but I needed to find a trustworthy “go-between” to broker the deal. Even then, I was sweating it!

With today’s crypto games, not only do the games provide the platform to buy, sell, or trade your character and items, but it’s encouraged, and done with good old U.S dollars! I’ve made $ playing 4 or 5 different games already this week, as well as flipping (buying low and selling higher) NFT characters!

How else can I make money playing games?

The way you earn varies from game to game, but each week seems to reveal another new strategy, platform, or idea. Many are new strategies, and while some have “triple A” 3D animation and graphics, others are simpler and use basic one-dimensional graphics for the gameplay.

Some of these games are actually tied to a token on the blockchain. The game developer creates their own token, not too unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, and it can be bought or sold on the open market as well as used in the game as currency.

Could you imagine if back in League of Legends, Guild Wars or Final Fantasy, when you were ready to move to a new game, you could sell or easily convert your gold to cash? Some of today’s blockchain games encourage it!

Not only can you now buy and sell characters and weapons, the gold in the game can be traded, bought, sold, or saved like real currency, stocks, crypto, or collectables. Never have I been as excited about PC and mobile gaming as I am today!

As an example, I am doing some work for a new game that will launch soon called Pepper Attack. Pepper Attack has its own token or coin... called MYTE. It can be used in the game as currency, but also be traded like Bitcoin. A lot of today’s blockchain games offer this same benefit.

Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to mine I go!

Just by owning an NFT from the game, you can login on a daily basis and click “mine” earning real-value tokens passively. Your Pepper goes to work like one of the 7 Dwarves mining MYTE, and later on you can convert it to other tokens or cold, hard cash.

There's more to do in this particular game as well. Like any good RPG or MMORPG, each pepper has a unique combination or skills like attack, defense, evade, hit points, and more. As an example of the possibilities, if you have a high attack score, other characters will be able to pay you in MYTE to “train” them, raising their score as well.

In addition, these NFTs have unique physical traits, some are common and some are very rare. This game in particular have toons that look more like anime-ish elves with weapons and a stem... I have to admit the artwork is really spicey! (see what I did there?) Other games are of course totally different.

Some people will simply collect these NFTs/characters as an investment, like playing cards or comics. Others will use them in the game, and still others will do both. Either way, they can be held, or sold for a profit!

Unlike the games of the past, when you’re ready to move on you don’t walk away and lose all the $ you have spent for characters, skins, weapons, potions, and other items. When you’re done, you’ll be able to sell your character and items... possibly for a profit... maybe a lot of profit... and move on.

These are not your father’s computer games!

As we move ahead in the genre, we are seeing AAA studios coming out with big-dollar productions, like Blankos, Mist, Illuvium, Ember Sword and others. Some of these games actually let you buy the land you build on!

Did you have your own house in Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, or Archeage? What if you could have used It as a shop and been paid in dollars for your wares, rented it to another player, or sold it for cold hard cash at a huge profit down the road?

In many of today’s games, not only is it common, but extremely hard to come by, and quite expensive. Not only are people paying thousands of dollars for a plot in some of the games that have land, but they’re paying it many months before the game is even released.

They do it, because in many cases they know that they can easily 2X, 10X, or even 50X their investment a short piece down the road. Seriously? Seriously... and the early bird catches the worm!

Other games with lesser budgets are more graphic-based, but have super earnings potential as well, and are just as fun to play. These include Splinterlands, (a card game like Magic!) Crypto Blades, Axie Infinity and more.

Regardless of if the new blockchain game of your choice is a RPG, MOBA, a card game or racing game... the fact that you can put some coin into your pocket playing adds a whole new element. It’s heckafun making money playing a game!

The early nerd catches the worm!

In many cases, if you can catch a game before it releases, the land, characters, weapons, and other items... in most cases all NFTs... can be grabbed at a tiny fraction of the future value.

Of course, always check out the game details and team first, and be confident it’s a good place to put your money. Not all games are made the same.

If you’re lucky enough to find out about and partake in an early sale, for example, like grabbing a character NFT or two in   “Pepper Attack”  before the late September launch date, you may be in for a real treat!

There are plenty of new titles coming down the pipe that look to be fun, have great communities, and offer earning opportunities. A web search will find services and websites that will keep you on your toes and alert you of upcoming blockchain game releases, marketplace opening, and more.

As we look forward, the future of gaming on the blockchain is really, really exciting! Not only are the games getting better and more fun, but they’re getting better at making the economics work more smoothly as well.

The games are not without challenges, as they need to be made to sustain themselves economically over the long haul. In addition, they need to have higher levels of security (thanks blockchain!) and of course, work without becoming “pay to win”. Thankfully, the new breed of developers have risen to the challenge!

The next time you look for a new game to add to your phone or desktop, or just want a change of pace, look to a game that pays to play! Your wallet might thank you.

Another perk, is your husband or wife will appreciate it as well! Instead of hearing “are you going to play that stupid game all night again?”, you may start to hear things like “I’ll put the kids to bed tonight sweetheart, so you can get online and play”.

One can only hope...

Author - Nick Cifonie

Nick is a lifelong gamer, who cut his teeth at the local Chicago arcade playing Tetris as a teen. Better known as Znick or Deacon Z, Nick became a Game Master in Ultima Online in 1997, ran a large multi-game guild for 15 years, and now spends his time in the “play to earn” arena. Professionally, Nick is a writer and 4-decade marketer working with the  Pepper Attack team, as well as others. Nick is also a Catholic Deacon.

[clickoreview]

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[utilitycaster]

I saw a theory that Caleb was feebleminded during his time at the asylum and I have some doubts:

This ends up not being important to my argument since I just assume one (read on) but does anyone know the over-under on whether feeblemind’s 30 day save is made with your base intelligence (non-feebleminded) or with the INT 1 from the spell? Because here’s how it shakes out for me:

If you make the save with the intelligence from the spell (INT 1) that means most characters, even at high level, could never save against the spell:

a L15+ caster, ie someone able to cast a L8 spell, has a minimum DC of 14 and that’s if they have a 12 or 13 casting stat. More realistically they would have a DC of 18 or 19 (maxed out casting stat). If they have a DC of 18 or 19, only the following people would be able to ever save:

-Druid, Rogue, or Wizard (proficient in INT saving throws), of at least L5 (proficiency is +3) with a nat 20 if the DC is 18, or of at least L9 (proficiency +4) with a nat 20 if the DC is 19.

-Monk of at least L14 (proficient in all saving throws).

-someone within 10 feet of a L6+ paladin who has charisma of at least 16 (Aura of Protection granting a +3), with a nat 20, for a DC of 18; CHA of 18+ will do it with a nat 20 if the DC is 19.

-someone under some other spell or effect I can’t think of that boosts saving throws by a raw amount; advantage will not help because without proficiency, the -5 to INT is not enough, even with a nat 20.

-this seems extremely broken. I mean it might be true to the rules but that seems just...super fucking broken. Anyway, L1 Caleb cannot ever save under this scenario unless a L6 Paladin is standing next to him at the moment he makes the save.

If on the other hand you use your base intelligence, even a low-level wizard has an decent chance of breaking free (L1 Caleb’s INT saving throw was +6). Now, you could get around this by casting feeblemind every 29 days instead so the saving throw never takes effect; however this opens up two other issues:

-if you ever get detained for over 29 days this could go really badly; it’s not like just anyone can cast a L8 spell in your stead, and how does that conversation go? “Hey! You can copy this EXTREMELY SKETCHY spell from my spellbook! Now, if I’m unable to get away next week can you pop by the asylum and just like, do it to this 20-something? Cool, thanks.”

-Feeblemind does 4d6 damage which has a not unreasonable chance of killing a L1 wizard outright and will almost certainly put them into death saves (L1 Caleb would have had 8 HP and an average roll of 4d6 is 14; it’s pretty easy to hit 16), so that’s a pretty big risk. Either you’re skimming regularly off the top of your health potion allotment for your wizard assassin network to keep one (1) wizard alive or you regularly have to call in a cleric who can keep a secret and pay them for at least a 300 GP diamond and eventually it’s going to get almost impossible to resurrect your charge and who has the time when you’re running a wizard assassin network AND you have to teach?

-that last bit has given me some major Prince Humperdinck and Count Rugen vibes huh

Now, I will assume the first case for Feeblemind rules is true, broken as it may be, since otherwise Caleb would almost certainly be straight up permanently dead (that’s over 120 castings of Feeblemind, using the 328-day Exandrian calendar and 11 years with a casting of every 29 days; I am trying to figure out the exact probability of rolling at least a 16 on 4d6 but I know it’s more than 10% which means Caleb would have likely been killed at least 12 times; per Matt’s resurrection rules this would almost certainly have failed by now unless perhaps you’re using true resurrection and like, I think Trent does care a lot about having his hands on Caleb and experimenting but between my point above of having to have backup plus not infrequent reimbursement requests for 25000 GP worth of diamonds and a L17 cleric or druid on speed dial? Not very subtle manipulator of you).

In that case, Greater Restoration requires a L9 cleric with access to 100 GP of diamond dust, AND the spell clearly states that it ends one effect, so it will not hit both the feeblemind and the false memories in one go. Our options here are:

She’s L10, has 200 GP of diamond dust, and casts Greater Restoration twice.

She’s L11, possibly has 100 GP of diamond dust but not necessarily, and casts Heal once (Feeblemind) and either Greater Restoration or Remove Curse once (Modify Memory).

She’s L9, has 100 GP of diamond dust, and casts Greater Restoration once and Remove Curse once

in conclusion: that’s a lot of ifs ands and buts, I think the effect on Caleb may have been something else, RAW Feeblemind seems SUPER broken, and if you unlike me recall how to calculate and integrate the probability density function for a discrete variable hmu

[spacexmagicxandxsheepxbleats]

Personal Request

 //: Do, any of you guys have experience with Patreon?

I think it was last week/weekend I re-blogged a personal post of mine about setting one up, but I have to admit I’m a little lost @ - @;

I’m looking for any tips and such on how to best set it up... There’s an explanation of what I’m doing and why is below the cut (.   .  ); and I’m more than happy to explore any other suggestions on sites that may work better for what I’d like to do...

So, what I would like to do...Is create a Patreon to fund a book I’ve been trying to work on for the last couple of years. I’d like to treat it like a ‘web comic’ and try to release a chapter with some art work a month.

Obviously you can pay like idk $3 bucks a month for the basic chapter and a one time thank you note then like, $8 a month for the chapter + Art Work specific to that chapter... idk maybe make a 10$ one where you get chapter + art + creator content (sketches/notes/etc) and then make one that’s about 15$ for chapter + art + an exclusive art print + idk buttons? something physical..? or if you want the actual book you can make a one time payment of 30$ to reserve a hard/soft cover release of the book or you can get an Art book? (I’ll need to look into what it would cost to have hard copies made and how much soft cover vs hard cover would be so I have no idea how much that would actually be @ - @. It would also have to cover like, shipping which is idk, maybe four bucks..?) the Hard Copies would probably have to wait until I hit a certain amount of money per month, like a goal of at least 200-300$ ish? (ok, I did a quick google and lightning press has anywhere from $3 bucks to $10 bucks for paper and hard cover books...so I could potentially charge less for a hard copy...?)

Like, honestly I need direction on whats reasonable for pricing. Would I be charging to much or under charging? What are some things that I could look into to add to the packages to make them more interesting and worth while to people while not busting myself in the process..

Between work and off line life, I’ve literally only gotten as far as the first chapter... The rest of the book is kinda all over the place....in notes on scraps of paper that I jotted on at work, notes scattered in about three different notebooks, I have idk how many word docs on my phone/laptop that have information on them... doodles...omg I have STICKY NOTES FOR DAYS!!!

The First Thing I’d Like to Do: Is launch my Patreon before May so I can get a head of the changes there making to the accounts. ^ While I do this I can start to sift through my garbage and start organizing things... combining documents, pulling things off my phone, transcribing notes from paper to word...getting a preface written and a cover image of sorts figured out...(Honestly my ‘cover’ right now is a VERY BAD doodle of the two main characters on a scrap of paper smaller than my hand and my other photo is of Gizmo making a derp face (@_   @ ); ....)

I know it will take some time to get this on a go status as far as releasing content and such... not only that but I have like a hundred bucks to pay off on my phone yet before its mine and I can switch to pay as you go and I have a loan that I need to pay off. 

So, in light of all of that...The next two months (April and May) I’ll be using most of my paychecks to pay these two things off. April is the last month we will need to pay rent and electricity for our old place (yes...we’ve been paying rent for two apartments since we moved out in November...its a long story...) then I can focus on saving some money in order for me to quit my job or drop to something part time closer to home...

I’m going to be 110% honest with everyone who reads this post: I’m drowning... mentally I am keeping things together with a used piece of wet tape, a broken rubber band and some Elmers glue... The last time my dad was over he literally chewed me out over how many different otc sleeping pills I had... I haven’t had an anxiety attack bad enough to send me to the ER since ninth grade and last year in March I had one that was brought on by work that corporate refuses to pay for and I haven't been the same since... I quit all of my prescribed medications cold turkey my sophomore year of high school because I was fed up and done with how they made me feel, with how many I had to take and the fact that the doctor just couldn’t F-ing Pick One to keep me on... I do not want to go back on pills...I will apply for disability before I put another pill in my mouth... (I Do Not want to go on Disability...there are people out there who need it so much more than me...).

Therefore, if I’m going to quite my full time job, I need something part time or a way to make this idea of mine into a reality because..I don’t want to be a bum...

So, Please and a Thousand Times Thank You for any and all help or resources you can point me to so I can start my journey on the road to being ok again~

[oldnintendonerd]

Season 3 in full swing - But first... the Pre-Season

Alright, I’ll admit it, I’ve been slacking here. It takes time to write these up, and time is something I have not had as much of as I’d like. We made it to the very end of 2018 in the last blog post, and we had a whopping $103.68 in the game hunting money stash. I’ll tell you what too, it gets even better. One of my first finds of 2019 was at the Goodwill, and it wasn’t even a game, but boy did it help the game hunting money.

A decent condition TU-2 Tuner pedal from Boss. I actually have one of my own and didn’t need one at all, but at TWO BUCKS? I couldn’t pass it up, knowing it’d have to be easily $40 at minimum, without even looking it up. It was a little dusty, and had a few dings and scrapes, but man, these things are tanks. Anyone familiar with this will recognize it as really good condition. I’ve seen them with massive amounts of rust and nearly no paint left and they still work like a charm.

Little before and after for you here:

Sold that son of a bitch for a cool $58.99 on eBay. After listing fee, PayPal fee, and shipping we add $44.06 to the game hunting money, totaling $147.74. A new record high!

That was in early February. Deep winter is terrible for finds, and it wasn’t until late March, on the 22nd, until I found even SOMETHING. A Wii sensor bar for $0.99 at Goodwill. No pics of that, it’s a sensor bar. It’s... yeah. A sensor bar. I needed them though, I have like 6 extra Wiis. Been waiting to get a couple complete systems so I can sell, or mod and sell each one. In any case, totaled $1.06 out the door. We drop to $146.68. Moving on.

March 26th, once again, at the Goodwill. Knocking on Spring cleaning’s door and I spot a blue Dual Shock 2 controller. Sitting in the toys section, not electronics. Not by the video games. In the toys section. This is not the first time this has happened, finding something game related in the toys section. Last time I think it was a few actual PS2 games.

Tiny bit of dust in some of the nooks and crannies, but man is it in good condition. Sticks are 9/10 easy, and buttons are nice and crispy. My new favorite PS2 controller right now. This one set us back $3.99. Or, $4.29 out the door. This takes us to $142.39.

Great find, I only had one DualShock 2 controller when I found this, so really couldn’t have been better timing. Having two again makes the system feel whole again somehow.

Moving into April, we ran across an unusually valuable title. Now I don’t mean it is worth $100 or anything, I just mean it is one that you would liken to be being something along the lines of maybe $5 complete.

Wheel of Fortune for PS3 - Found at Goodwill 04.12.2019

Again, not a hundred dollars but it was still worth $13.95 on Pricecharting. Usually that tells me it is a least worth a play. So I snagged it. This was Goodwill again, so $2.99, and $3.21 out the door. Takes the hunting money down to $139.18.

on 04.15.2019 I hit a flea market. Really not much there, one guy had a completely obliterated Sega Dreamcast I didn’t even look twice at. That was it, other than a guy with a small bag of DS and GBA games. He wanted $30 for the whole bag, and I’d never heard of any title other than this one...

Snagged it for $4 just by itself. It looks like its going for about $12 loose, so I thought that was acceptable. I don’t have a DS to test it on (yet), but cartridges almost never fail really. So fingers crossed this one is fine. Takes us to $135.18.

A couple weeks later, it is still not yet really Yard Sale season. There has been a sprinkling, and by this time I have visited a handful, but with no luck finding anything. The next find is still a thrift store find. I’ll admit I probably paid more for this than I should have, Pricecharting has this one at $5.69 complete. I paid $3.92, which brought it to $4.20 after tax.

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception - Found 04.28.2019 at VoA

I don’t mind paying a little more for games when they have been tough to find, or if they are going to my collection. This one is both. The Uncharted series, ever since I found out about it, and that it was generally well received and liked, I’ve been looking for copies. I knew they were cheap and the only time I’ve run across any copies was at GameStop, and they were $4.99, and disc only. I’m like I am not paying $5 plus tax, for a disc only game that is worth pretty much exactly that CIB. I want the box to put on the shelf! So when I saw this in the thrift I grabbed it anyway. Still under retail price, or at least what I’d pay on eBay to have one shipped. Most were around $10, give or take a dollar. So half price? Not bad, and in decent condition.

The $4.20 takes us to $130.98.

Now, we are at least into the current month. I walked into The Salvation Army store on May 9th and spotted this...

A Sega CD. Not easy to find or come by, especially in the box. However, not being a Sega guy (obviously), and because of that, not having looked at prices for Sega CD really ever, let alone recently, I guessed at it being worth about $100 to $120. I thought the condition of the box was a little rough to be asking $69.99, so I left with only the photo on my phone.

Later that evening I looked on eBay sold listings and was a little surprised. Ones without the box were going for what I thought the CIB one would be worth. I posted the shot I snapped above on my Instagram and asked my followers their opinion: Would they have picked it up?

Overwhelmingly... yes, they would have!

So I stopped in the next morning after they opened and asked to look at it. It was indeed CIB, though the box had seen better days. Even the carton inside had a few rips. but it was all there, and still held everything securely. I asked if it had been tested. The guy at the front said yes they test everything they get. I said oh, you guys have a Genesis to hook to this? Could I see it work?

That was met with a blank stare. Another guy that does the testing actually admitted that it was not tested. So I said how about $40 then, since I’m taking a risk here. They said they can’t adjust the price, only the manager can do that. I asked if the manager was in and after a little chasing, they found her and she came up to the front to talk to me. I explained that this is an add-on system, not a stand alone console and it is not tested, I’d like to get it for a little cheaper to account for the risk I’m taking if I buy it. She lowered the price to $49.99.

I bought it.

Everything is there, the extension piece, the adapter, the manual, both RF shields, and the plate used to attach the extension. There was even a game in it!

The disc is VERY rough on Ecco, but it does play. I know this because a co-worker helped me out, gave me his Genesis and it fired right up on the first try, and booted the game with no problems. I tried a few more times just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke, even let it run for a while, and played a bit of it. It did struggle here and there because of the scratches, but otherwise played fine!

Could not be happier. I plan to clean it up a bit, as you can see it does have some dust and grime on it.

But once that’s taken care of I think it will be a great looking Sega CD. I will probably offer it up to Instagram first before trying it on the ‘bay. if anyone is interested please let me know on Instagram, I’m just @oldnintendonerd.

The price isn’t set yet, I am thinking somewhere between about $175 and $200. The last one that sold on ebay went for $300 shipped. better condition box though, so that’s why i’m thinking somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 to $230 shipped. I’m open to opinions if you have them, comment here or DM on IG.

This purchase, after tax was $53.74, taking us down to $77.24. however, this was bought SOLELY to flip. I do not collect for Sega, so this is entirely for profit to help buy more Nintendo stuff. I have no problem with Sega, I do not view it as trash or anything, I just didn’t grow up with it, and my heart belongs to Nintendo. There is only so much room in my home, and in my budget, so it must go.

We’ll call it there for this one, hopefully I’ll have another post up much sooner than every three months or so. Summer months should yield higher finds so I can detail stuff here more often. I hope.

2019.05.29

[pinkgameboys]

Oh yeah I posted it on Twitter since I have a bigger following there and it was a d0n@tion post because I'm pretty fucked rn but uhhhh over the weekend apparently some worthless cuck piece of shit skimmed one of our cards and used it to spend FIVE FUCKING HUNDRED DOLLARS on a big dinner and a night out at the bar. 200$ at texas god damn roadhouse and 300$ at a fucking shitty grody downtown bar. We've been dealing with the bank trying to get it all refunded and once we get it back we're closing the account. But it's been a fucking nightmare.

We found the first 200$ charge that fully drained out account on Saturday night and then found out our bank has ZERO customer/fraud support outside of lobby hours and there is ZERO way to dispute charges through the app or website so we just had to sit and wait until Monday morning. Go in monday, blah blah they swiped a physical card supposedly and since we have our cards it must be a fake copy. Cancel that card and wait for a refund.

12 hours later we get that refund late last night and cool okay I guess we'll be okay. Wake up this morning to see that the 4 charges totaling 300$ went through now. Call cops and file a police report because now we're gonna be filing criminal charges against this guy as best we can. Back to the bank, find out that those charges were put in on Saturday night they just didn't go through because we didn't have the money to cover them but once we got our refund and I got one of my work paychecks, we now had enough money to pay those charges. File the report for the refund, cancel my card too and pull all the remaining cash out. Go to Wells Fargo to open a new account and we have to come back with an appointment because they're understaffed.

Oh also my paycheck has been the exact same since I started but this month is 110$ short and I've yet to get an explanation for why.

So anyway now it's just a shitty waiting game. Oh and another oh also, this all happened a few days before our power bill is due which means that's now gonna be a major hassle to deal with because both cards are cancelled and we don't have a new account yet. It's due the day after our Wells Fargo appointment and getting our power shut off due to nonpayment can get us evicted. I'd guess they might make an exception for us like they would if the power company had a sudden issue and wouldn't take payment but that doesn't really help how stressed I am.

And one more oh also, the paycheck I'm short on is the one for my car payment. Since I'm short, I don't have the money to pay my car payment this month until this gets fixed with my work. Fucking cartoonish levels of bonkers.

[pegasus-ghost]

I made two personal vows.

Vow of silence.

Vow of ‘being wary of my spending’

I need to actively change my ways if I want to go to heaven. And I noticed that I would sometimes say bad shit without realizing, as in making negative comments on random things.

I hate that about myself. I don’t realize that I did this, and when I started realizing it, I feel disgusted with myself. Because I know how it was developed. It’s a bad habit I accidentally copied from my dad because he always does this and I hated it when he does it. But due to trauma, I tend to fall into his negative ways. You know, like, if a father is an alcoholic and abusive, chances are the child will be traumatized and eventually grew up alcoholic and abusive too. It’s a psychological thing.

I fucking hate that about myself when I realized it. And I know my family felt irked when I did it. Because when I confessed to Liam that I tend to do this which reminded me that dad would also do it too, Liam was like… “Oh, yeah. You’re right.” Instead of denying it.

So yeah. I told Allah that I need to change that, hence the vow of silence. Every time when I felt the urge and realized that I was going to comment something negative, I would actively and immediately shut up, and literally ACTIVELY refrain myself from talking.

It’s easier said than done.

You know, my brothers and I would usually video call each other and Liam would always be the one to vent out to us in the call about his work problems and how shitty his coworkers were that drove him nuts. Adam would vent about his fiancé sometimes. And I would listen. Back then, I would also chime in and support them and add my own stories, and comment negatively on the topic.

But now? Recently in our video call, Liam vented as usual. And I literally had to just smile at the camera and actively, ACTIVELY shut the fuck up. I had to actively remind myself to shut up and don’t comment whenever I felt the urge to respond to him negatively.

Sigh. It makes me wonder sometimes if listening and supporting Liam who’s shit talking about his coworkers would also mean that I’m sinning? Although I’m not the one initiating it? But if I don’t participate in listening at least, I’m gonna appear like this asshole holier than thou person who is not supportive of his brother.

Also makes me reflect, all the shit talking Liam was doing, those are literally major sins that the angels are jotting down, and those could be the very thing that would drag him to hell. Sigh.

It’s not right to NOT listen and support him but it’s also not right to listen and support him. So all I could do was listen and smile and just made brief general comments. I would now let Adam be in charge of the response over Liam’s venting because I wanted to shut the fuck up due to my vow of silence.

And yes. Also, vow to not spend too much.

Last week, I spent WAY TOO MUCH. I had to pay over 300 bucks to the hospital due to charges that wasn’t covered by my insurance from the surgery. I spend 200 plus bucks buying decent clothing (because I rarely buy clothes so when I found the ones I like, I immediately bought them). I also spent like a few hundred bucks on religious books. Not to mention like hundreds of bucks spent on food, gas, and Knick knacks I bought here and there. And since I am actively trying to do good, I’m starting to be more generous to my brothers and paid for their meals whenever we eat out, which is usually EXPENSIVE AF. Spent like few hundred bucks on that too. Like 300 bucks on Chinese food, 200 bucks on sushi, 200 bucks on Korean food.

My brothers realized that I was being too generous with my money and even commented that they don’t understand how I can treat my money like running water.

Well first of all, I do it because I can afford it. I no longer focus on dunya, so I told myself that all my cash and savings are meant for sadaqah to my family, and to be used, not to be saved like there’s no tomorrow. Because rezqi comes from Allah. So when I have extra money, I didn’t mind spending it on my family be it eating out or buying stuff for them. I see it as sadaqah for Allah.

This month? I need to watch my spending and I should only spend on what I need ONLY. No more Knick knacks. No more clothing. No more expensive food. Just stay at home, and watch TV. It’s not that I began to mind spending and wanted to focus on dunya. Allah also mentioned in the Quran that one should be generous but not TOO generous. I realized that I was spending way too much, not just on sadaqah, but on shit I don’t need.

So this month I need to start refraining myself.

Insyaallah Allah will help me with this. I’ll start with two vows first and actively refrain myself until it eventually turns into a habit. Then I’ll focus on a new vow to improve myself in the name of Allah.

Thank you Allah for guiding me.

[whatdoesshedotothem]

Wednesday 11 September 1839

3 ¼

11

F61 ½° at 4 ¼ am much rain in the night and sandy road .:. 6 horse off at 5 6/.. at Kyrkstad at 6 55/.. I hot and much bit in the night

K- to Bolstad 14 w.

Njölbolstad 13 w.

Helsingfors 68 w.

St. P- 480 w.

the woman had not been able to get us any Swedish money .:. agreed that she should take a 10 Rubel bill and be answerable for 6r. for the horses and take 4 towards her own bill and I paid her (at the rate 40sk. rigs per rubel) for the 2 remaining rubels

7 eight sk. banco notes i.e. 1.5.4+0.2.8 given over – very civil good tempered looking woman – much pleased we were so satisfied – remembered Handbook and his friend very well – said they had given her a small bit of money which she kept for their sake – I happening to have my 3 silver ½ dollar banco silver pieces in my pocket gave her one of them (that has a hole thro’ it) and desired her to keep it for I should ask to see it again sometime – Better rooms and house at Keala [Kealanoja]  last night but better eating here – Rain again and off in the rain at 5 6/.. – I slept most of the way – all forest till 6 55/.. when fine and sunny, and stopt to change horses /4 again) at some distance from the station house (did not even see it) near a small cottage where the red square headed mile post is set up – I got out for a few minutes very usefully the village must be near the station house on our left – scattered farms and cottages about – a pretty opening – very pretty country – wide winding wooded hill enclosed valley – a bit of forest again (young wood) in about hour+ - but good road – sandy land – but the road hard gravel like an English park road about 12ft. wide as usual, but sometimes less nice country all along to Bolstad at 8 ½ - stopt again in the road so[me] distance (left) 200 or 300 yards from the station house – walked to it – to see the direction post – could not find one – poor place – I think we could not well sleep there – the people 2 or 3 men and a woman

SH:7/ML/TR/13/0030

September Wednesday 11 at breakfast a little fish (apparently salted?) and boiled potatoes 2 rigs dollars a ton dearer here than at Stockholm – at last it was agreed that the woman should pay for our 4 horses from here 15 ½ w. to Everby [Ofverby] = 3.72 and the young man (her son?) gave me two 20kop. notes + one 75 kop. + two two-kop. copy pieces + two ½ sk. banco pieces for 4kop. = 5 Rubel – 5 kop. no wonder Handbook complained of their accommodation for the night – that is not the place to stop at – all Finnish commerce with Stockholm .:. all their money payments among themselves are in Swedish money but they are obliged to pay the taxe for posting in Russian money .:. are obliged to receive it for their horses – their wood (salmon) butter all goes to Stockholm but now they have the douane to pay = 2 rigs dollars per 60lbs. and being obliged to sell their butter at the Swedish price as they did before without duty they of course now lose this – and so equally the whole of the duties paid by them to Sweden is now a loss to them – the village of Bolstad not apparently very near the station – nice country – off from B- at 9 2/.. and at 9 ½ pretty lake and unpainted cottages and hamlets dotted here and there – green basin valley and lake and rounded wooded hills – in about 10 minutes more or ¼ hour come down upon the water wood bridge and cross it at one end where it looks river like – very pretty hereabouts rock and wood and water and villages and farms or cottages – a good deal of wind which curly the water – corn cocks as yesterday but now 9 ¾ it is rye – steep pitch up from the bridge and sandy road – at 10 ¼ moss-rocky forest – uphill and our horses hardish passed – all along sandy – pretty country – very pretty drive – at 10 50/.. at next stage to Finns 12 ½ w.

Helsingfors 39 and St. P- 451 w.

Öfverby (pronounced Everby) – small unpainted house – but probably might sleep tho’ not good - but the woman a decent woman – off at 11 – cocks of corn out here – rye I think – very pretty – rocky wooded hills and scattered unpainted little cottages and so red – the village of Ofverby (its neat little church at the foot of the hill just beyond the station) seems

September Wednesday 11 seems widely scattered in patches – winding pretty valley – round hilly and rather sandy – in ¼ hour (11 ¼) foresty again – several of the bare rocks today very white – all granite

the Fins a stupid looking people – here and there a red house but the red seems to bespeak a certain degree of [afflict] – the being better off than common – and here as in N. and S- the [?] (contamine) is growing as a weed among the rocks – we have not seen it as weed elsewhere because the land kept too clean – no weeds seen – now at 11 50/.. another wooded pretty lake right – and A- and I have just had a little of our Keala [Kealanoja] coq du bois that we brought away in paper – very good – many hamlets scattered about today – the country today seems more populous than yesterday? – at Finns at 12 13/..  

to Grahn 14 ½ w.

Helsingfors 26 ½ w.

St. P- 438 ½ w.

might sleep but not perhaps good place for it tho’ the civil woman came to say she could change a 5 Rubel note

nice open country about here wooded in the distance – 2 or 3 cottages near the station house – and large village or two of unpainted houses little distance (left) – rather pitchy last stage and at = off at 12 34/.. from Finns out with a steepitsh pitch from here and then pass thro’ a few houses and over 3 [?] bridges the unpainted cottages very picturesque dotted all round about interspersed  with patches of fir wood and wooded hill and well cultivated vale – now at 12 ¾ a little sun forest light – little pretty vale just below us right green rye and corn in cock (probably rye) not much oats grown in Finland? cottages or barns dotted up and down – fine foresty peopled drive this stage at 1 ¼ unpainted village in the widish basin vale little distance left of road and good yellow house and one or 2 red houses near – all looks well hereabouts – and slow at 1 20/.. descending and at the bottom of hill another pretty little lake near (left) – the openings and rounded dark pine wooded hills very picturesque – much mammelonné [mamelonné] rocky hill and bare and moss covered rock and boulder in our forest and sandy road now at 1 1/2 – here and everywhere much more Scotch fir than Spruce – this forest now at 1 ¾ the best as to size of trees (but none large) we have passed thro’ -

SH:7/ML/TR/13/0031

September Wednesday 11 in Finland – it opens out and we stop at Grahn at 1 57/.. nice little single house on a little [eminence], looking dry and comfortable – I should suppose one might sleep there as well as at Nyby or better? – the wide valley on plain studded with houses, farms, barns – the proportion of red increasing as if to denote our approach to the capital Helsingfors 12w. distance – large [?] beautiful lengthy finely wooded wooded island lake right sweeping along the wide valley – road hilly but tho’ rather sandy, good – forest covered rock alongside (left) – have written, or rubbed out pencilling, or read Handbook (article St. Petersburg) all this morning except added up the whole but 1 or 2 pp. of the Swedish account – since leaving Götheborg [Gothenburg] It seems (vide p. 174. 2nd vol.) that our pastor on board the steamer was M. Edouard de Moralt minster of the reformed church at St. P- and ‘the learned editor of an edition of Minuties’ Felix’ – probably Handbook knows him and sent him his book en cadeau? now at 2 20/.. road very sandy in the forest – at 2 40/.. gentleman’s house right – very pretty – a company of soldiers pass us – forest and break – very pretty – at 2 ¾ pass (close) broad shallow lake – at 2 55/.. Helsingfors church in sight – whitewashed like several other large neighbour buildings – church a fine object – fine looking town with its beautiful fjord – forest and break till now 2 55/.. that we emerge to bare Götheborg-like [Gothenburg] scantly wooded rocky hill – and gardens and houses marking our approach to the capital – at 3 at the water – beautiful view – cross good wood bridge – and at 3 ¼ at the Hotel du Nord – the fine dressed woman who came to us could do nothing – must wait for mademoiselle how should we stay – there was a room au 3me – I got tired of this work and drove off to the society’s house fronting the harbour – settled

September Wednesday 11 there very comfortably at 3 ½ - 2 nice rooms and lodging for the servants at 6 rubels a day – au 3me? but good – ordered dinner at 6 ½ and A- and I out at 4 10/.. – took John – to the botanic garden –

Stymphoricarpus [symphoricarpos] racemosus (snowberry bush) in flower

Vïburnum [Viburnum] Lentago a little like prunus padus but with broader leaf

V- dentatum (leaf something between the hazel and syringa leaf?)

Lonicera caprifolia [caprifolium] (as called by the gardener) the shrub I observed at Åbo with a little orange coloured berry, looking a [specie] of honeysuckle

Populus canescens (white abele)

P. cardifolia

Delphinium.  several specie large beautiful blue flower – a little in the style of aconite – have often seen it in a pot in the window in these northern parts

Lythrum, several specie pretty pink flower in spikes 6 or 8 inch long – narrow leaf – would be pretty (to give colour) at Shibden and hardy enough -  

Asclepias incarata [incarnata] (in flower – pinkish – pretty would do at Shibden)

Phlox several specie pretty little genus-pink and white – in flower like a smooth sweet William – 6 petal flower – the white very common in England gardens

Borago officinalis – pretty blue flower – 5 petals woolly stern and leaves – whatever will do well out of doors here, would do at Shibden – much wind today must be very cold, and exposed in winter – the garden garden divided into small compartments for the flowers, and sheltered by hedges the tall ones of lilac, and acacia, and Norway maple and the low ones of Spiraea calcifolia [salicifolia] – try this hedging plan at Shibden with along the middle a hedge of Spruce firs – or Sycamores? a very pretty hardy looking mespilus? or [?]? with clusters of hawthorn-like (but larger) red haws – Inquire for this –

In returning about 5 ¾ set John at liberty and A- and I sauntered into and about the handsome new not finished church – a Greek cross with 4 Corinthian porticos and pediments – then stood some while listening to the military band and came in at 6 ½ - dinner at 6 ¾ soup, mutton cutlets, sort of

SH:7/ML/TR/13/0032

September Wednesday 11

sweet omlet, and afterwards a sort of roll pancaky thing for dessert – no mead now – too late in the season – had plenty in the summer - .:. had each 2 cups of coffee – then siding had Grotza – then wrote the last page till now 10pm. very fine day – a good deal of wind all day but this afternoon particularly, and particularly here – a very handsome town – fine day F61 ½° now at 10 ½ pm

[justtryingyaknow]

Hey it's me the anon from earlier... I'm glad to hear you got a round 2 and are feeling a bit better! My au idea was basically that the Reds and the Blues are rival newspapers and that they are battling it out to become the main newspaper locally. You could add in some other factions if you wanted to of course. Idk I just like the concept and I think you have really creative ideas so I wanted to send in the request. Thank you for your time :)

Hello anon! Here is a very casual, slightly longer than expected response to this! I did take some creative liberty because, as recorded, I am a plot whore and I love you’re AU idea but couldn’t find a way to condense! So still rivals, but over more casual setting! Thanks for the request and I hope you enjoy!

Grif’s fingers hover over the keyboard. He’s acutely aware that Simmons is leaning over his shoulder watching his screen, assessing his every word. The sweat on his face forces him to push his glasses up.

“Just type a damn word, Grif!” Simmons breaks, causing Grif to smash the keys ending with a jumble of letters on the otherwise blank document.

“I can’t type when you’re watching me like this! It’s too much goddamned pressure.” Grif pushes back and storms to the box of donuts he brought in this morning.

“You can’t eat right now! You’re going to get the keyboard all sticky with jelly!”

“It’s my keyboard, I can cover it in as much stickiness as I want.”

“What was that?” Donut removes an ear bud perking up.

“Fuck off, Donut!” Grif growls around a mouth of boston creme.

“Yeah, fuck off Donut!” Simmons echoes.

“Fine, at least my segment is written.” Donut pops the ear bud back in. Simmons can’t argue with him about that.

“Just write the fucking segment, Grif. Literally anything. It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

“If Grif’s writing it, it’ll never be perfect.” The team has really done it now. Simmons stands up straight watching Sarge raise from his chair where he’s been sitting quietly (for once). “So, if you want to be the reason we don’t make it to print this week, and there by making us lose to the damn blues, well, be my guest!” His spit flies out, coating Grif/

“Why don’t you just write it, if you’re so freakin’ perfect?” Grif reluctantly tosses the donut, now covered in Sarge’s spittle.

Sarge looks at the computer, as though considering it as a possibility. “Oh? And then I could make ya dinner, and wash your clothes while I’m at it?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Grif makes his way back to the chair.

“Then I could tuck you and your little sister into bed, give you kissies on the forehead?! Huh, soldier?” And there was the spit again.

“I already sat down, just let me type!” Grif swiveled the chair and immediately started cranking out a feature on a new dog park.

“Simmons! Report!” Sarge stands, power posing in the middle of the workroom. He delights in watching his worker bees buzz around; Donut getting ahead on an entertainment piece, Lopez checking the weather and business information, and Simmons red in the face checking the layout for the hundredth time that day.

“Everything is in; we just need 500 words from a certain lazy fatass who put off the article assigned to him two weeks ago.”

“200.”

“You did not write 300 words in just that time.” Simmons sputtered and rushed back to Grif’s computer. “Oh my god.”

“I’m a fucking prodigy, Simmons. Bask in my glory.”

“You did nothing all day!”

“Don’t fight the muse, man… Oh, and grab me a coke.”

“Fuck you. And even if he finishes right now, can we get it to print in time?” At the close of his question, Donut is strapping on rollerblades.

“I can do this, years of rolling around with a bunch of guys is paying off!”

“[Please, just say you were on a men’s roller skating team.]” Lopez doesn’t look up from his computer, only sighing to express his continued discomfort with the rest of the team’s shenanigans.

Across town, the rival newspaper team’s boss pores through the final copy.

“Did you… make this figure up? The average person owns 4 and a half dogs in Blood Gulch? That cannot be possible.” Church sips his coffee while staring at the statistic.

“I did the math, asshole. Caboose counted the dogs in BG and I divided it by the population.” Tucker sips his drink, which is definitely not coffee.

“Do you know anything about outliers? Caboose has like 10 dogs dude. Do you know how much he’s going to skew this shit?”

“So what, do you want me to take it out?” Tucker crosses his arms.

“Eh… You think someone’s going to call us on some bad numbers?”

“My numbers aren’t bad! My numbers are good. I have the best numbers, like 6!” Caboose sips his orange juice out of a mug, trying to fit in with everyone else.

“Yeah, we know. Thanks, buddy. The movie review is good this week, by the way.” Church turns to face him. Tucker would call him out on the kindness, but he knows that Church (despite being an unending asshole) has a somewhat soft spot for Caboose. Caboose beams.

“Ok, so we sending it to print or what?” Tucker is still standing by. “You know the reds probably are running to the shop right now.”

“When did you care about the stupid rivalry?”

“I don’t. I just like the way they all get pissed off, man. It’s fucking comedy gold. Simmons gets all red and starts yelling at Grif, you know he’s all ‘GrIF” Tucker fakes a voice crack, “ This is your fault!’ And Sarge’s face gets all scrunched up and he starts threatening us.”

“You know, it is a pretty good time. Alright, 4 and a half dogs it is. Caboose, take this to the printing press!”

Tucker and Church watch Caboose take off. Neither are in a hurry, but they do want to be there to watch the Red Post’s team explode (like they always do). Church locks up the office front when a pink figure speeds past them.

“Oh shit! Donut got skates?” Tucker watches him speed up to catch Caboose. Neck and neck, they speed toward the printing shop with a paper copy in hand.

“Why don’t we just email it, I fucking hate walking down this stupid street every damn week.” Grif’s voice comes through the office door across the way. Sarge spots the Daily Blue’s Letter team and whips his head toward the race.

“Hoo boy, get ‘im Donut!” Sarge takes off running, and something snaps in Church as he starts speedwalking to keep pace.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” Tucker waits for the reds to cross the street and join him. “You idiots actually have a paper this week?”

“Did you idiots even fact check your’s?” Simmons quips back. Tucker looks at the ground, the thought of half a dog running in his mind.

“I’m just saying; it does take a team of 3 to do what you guys do in a team of 5, and we’re always on time. Because Blue’s Letter’s got it baby.”

“What possible joy do you get out of this?” Grif says from the back of the group. “It’s just a fucking job.”

“Who do you think actually made it to press first today?” Simmons pushes his glasses up to try and get a better look, but the fore group has disappeared inside the building. Before anyone can wager a bet, Sarge emerges, triumphant.

“Glory glory to the Red Post! We got in first, cheers to Donut, the wheeled wonder!” Sarge hollers while pulling Donut out the door.

“It was a good run, Caboose!” Donut comforts. “I haven’t had that much fun edging out a guy since last week!”

The staff reunites, Grif and Simmons shoving Tucker lightheartedly while Lopez stays beyond the fray.

“Yeah, yeah, but now you’re just a bunch of assholes standing on the sidewalk screaming, so who’s the real winner.” Church pushes past everyone.

“Ugh, fucking Reds, cockbite!” Grif shouts.

“Drinks on Blues! To the bar!” Sarge starts the chant.

“To the bar!” The rest of the reds respond. The group makes their way to the only bar in town, forcing everyone to suffer through Sarge’s 10 verses of his Red Post Salute song.