#i did the bulk of this like. a year ago but i was just procrastinating on doing the write up | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

renjunfromthestars · 4 years ago

Text

more than

Pairing: Mark + reader, Bestfriend! Mark, Childhood friend!Mark

Genre: Fluff, angst, honestly a little bit of crack LOL

Song recs: Best friend + Untitled + Waiting Room (Rex Orange County), Sofia (Clario)

Warnings: Mild swearing and mentions of alcohol

Word Count: 7.0k (my longest fic yet, wow!)

Summary: You’ve known Mark for all your life, and it only takes one drunken night (plus a little intervention with Haehcan) to think that you wouldn’t mind getting to know him a little better...

Notes: The fact that I actually had the patience to sit down and to write something above 3k words,,,,absolutely astounding, amazing, unique, never been seen before…. Mark is a little awk and always works so hard (poor bby), so imagining him as a super stressed pre-med major and oblivious best friend absolutely wrecks me thank you goodbye

----

When you first meet Mark, you’re eight years old, and it’s at church. He’s dressed in his Sunday best: a light blue button up, khakis, and shiny dress shoes. He looks stiff as your mother introduces you two, with his shirt buttoned all the way to the collar.

It’s not that you dislike him, but you think he might dislike you, with the way he avoids eye contact, eyes tracing the floor, your shoes—anywhere but your face.

You see panic flash through his eyes when his mom gently pushes him towards you, telling him to take you inside and reserve a spot in the pews while she catches up with your mom.

He shuffles awkwardly, and wordlessly, you follow him into the building.

The pews are almost empty, with the bulk of them being filled in the front by the old people that usually have nothing better to do on their Sunday mornings. Although your local church is on the smaller side, it feels unusually large with rows of empty pews, almost eerie. You shudder at shadows the walls make with the stained glass, and hurry to your usual spot towards the middle.

If Mark notices your apprehension, he doesn’t say anything. He’s oblivious, actually, not noticing your absence until he’s almost at the end of the rows. When you see him stop and search for you frantically, you stifle a laugh.

He eventually finds you, and after shuffling awkwardly between the pews, makes his way to you.

“This is kinda far, isn’t it?” he murmurs.

“Huh?”

“I mean,” he stammers. “I usually sit closer to the front. ”

You peer at him from the side. “You actually want to pay attention?”

He scratches the back of his head. “Well yeah, isn’t that the point?”

“I guess,” you say, looking at the ceiling. With the sprawling arches and patterns, the designs are pretty, you think.

“You should at least try, it’s kinda interesting,” when you turn your head to look at him he turns away. “Only if you want to, of course.” he adds, fidgeting with his hands.

When you tell him that maybe you will, you see him crack a small smile.

It becomes a routine, almost every Sunday, with you and Mark sitting next to each other. Whether it’s closer to the front or the back, it’s a whole debate. You usually give in, because when you walk in, Mark is already waiting for you in the front.

….

“Do you still go to Church?”

You’re laying on a green bean bag in Mark’s dorm room, procrastinating on the midterm paper you were supposed to get started on, well, a week ago.

You think for a second, hand raised to rub your chin, just to tease him. “What’s church?”

“C'mon dude, are you serious?”

“Barely,” you say, standing up to move to sit on his bed. “You should really get a new bean bag, it’s kinda deflated.”

Mark ignoring you, reaches over from his desk to fluff up the bean bag. “It’s because you sit on it so much.”

“Are you calling me fat?” and before he can defend himself you finally answer him, “I stopped going in like, middle school. It would be hard even if I wanted to, to find a whole new congregation, and I’m just busy. Also, it’s so boring, I could cry.”

Mark perks up. “Not if you go with me.”

You groan dramatically, and Mark chuckles.

“Good to know that you haven’t changed since you were eight.”

It’s just your view on church, that hasn’t changed since you were eight. First thing things first, you were 19 now, going on twenty. You’re in University now, your second year. It’s been a blur assignments, partying, coffee and term papers- you don’t have time to think about anything else right now. Except maybe actually starting your paper but-

Mark interrupts you midthought, breaking the silence. “Are you still with that guy?”

“Huh? Who? Yuta?”

“Yeah,” Mark responds sheepishly, avoiding eye contact.

You roll your eyes. “No, we haven’t been together for a while. It wasn’t that important so I forgot to tell you.”

You can tell he's surprised about how unusually calm you are for talking about your first serious breakup, but he doesn’t say anything, instead just scratching the back of his head awkwardly in typical Mark fashion. “He was an asshole anyway,” Mark murmurs.

“What did you say?” you ask, acting shocked. “Mark Lee? Talking shit?”

Mark, embarrassed, refuses to repeat it.

“I’m just saying, he wasn’t the right person for you.” he protests.

“As opposed to who? God himself?”

“I can think of a few,” he sighs, but you aren’t paying attention, instead laughing your ass off on his bed.

“You’re insufferable,” he says, standing up to open the door. “C’mon let’s go, I’m hungry. I know you’re not starting that paper anytime soon.”

…

It’s a routine, seeing Mark on Monday afternoons for lunch. Not Friday, because you were busy getting wasted, and consequently not Saturday, because you were too hungover. Not Sunday, because Mark had church, and you, well, were busy praying to God that you would be able to finish all the work you’d neglected over the weekend as a result.

“I still don’t understand why you choose the worst day of the week for this,” you say over your Kale caesar salad, pushing the leaves around aggressively. The University had a lot of healthy options, which you were grateful for. Grateful for you were not, were for the student loans you had to pay off every month, the exorbitant amount you partially owed to all the local and expensive organic produce the meal plan featured for the sake of being sustainable and health conscious.You could really give a rat’s ass about whether your salad was organic or not; if your weekends said anything about you, no amount of kale could help you (or your liver).

“It wasn’t really up to me,” Mark points out. “Maybe if you weren’t too busy being-”

“Ta ta ta,” you tsk, waving a finger around. “I, unlike you, actually have a social life.”

Mark frowns. “I have a social life.”

Mark definitely had a social life. He was popular, even. As popular as you can be, being a preoccupied Pre-med with perfect grades. Mark is likeable. It’s not like he doesn’t have the opportunity to go on weekends if wanted to, he just chooses not to, deciding to slave away at biological functions, orbitals, and lab results instead. Even now, as he takes his glasses off to clean them, you notice the imprint they leave on his face from how long they’ve been sitting on his face, and doesn’t take you long to find the dark circles that grace the skin under his eyes: he’s exhausted.

You frown too. “You should really get out more Mark. You seem stressed.”

Mark gives you a small smile after putting his glasses back on, and then resumes typing on his laptop. “I don’t know how going out would make me less stressed,” he says, distracted. “I would only be more stressed, knowing the work I have to do.”

“Yeah, but you're pretty organized.” You point your fork at him accusingly, kale falling to the side. “Don’t you usually finish things early too?”

“Yeah, I do.” he admits, and before you can press onwards you’re interrupted by a girl you recognize to be his lab partner.

Goggles in hand, you can see the marks they leave around her eye area, but she’s somehow still annoyingly beautiful, with her glossy straight hair and long eyelashes, but that’s not why you dislike her. She might be the most stuck up girl you’ve ever met.

“Did you do the calculations yet?” she says, turning to Mark. ignoring you. It’s only when you cough in your seat that she turns to you. “And hello, (y/n).” An afterthought.

“Hello Yebin,” You give her a wry smile. “How's the lab?”

“The usual.” she glances at Mark, who seems to be doing some finishing touches on said calculations. “How’s Chem 2?”

Boy, does she really grind your gears.

“It was fine, I actually placed out because I took it in high school.” Not to mention, it was a class for freshmen, and you were in fact, now a sophomore.

Before she can say anything back, Mark claps his hands in celebration. “Done! Sorry it took me so long, I just had to double check some things.”

“It’s no problem,” and with the way her voice drips with a sickly sweetness, you want to gag. It’s so painfully obvious. “Are you still down for tomorrow?”

Poor Mark, always oblivious, stops typing on his laptop and looks up in confusion. “Huh?”

You silently laugh at the expression Yebin makes when she realizes Mark has no idea what she’s talking about. “For our study session? The MCAT is just months away.”she reminds him.

Mark remembers. “Oh yeah, about that, I was thinking we could also invite-”

“Great!” she chirps, “See you tomorrow!” and with a flash of her white lab coat, she's gone.

Mark scratches the back of his head. “I guess she had somewhere to be.”

You roll your eyes for what it seems like the 100th time this week, anymore and they might be permanently stuck to the back of your head. “She definitely likes you.”

“Who? Yebin? No way.”

“Yes, Yebin, and yes way.” You fling a walnut from your salad over to his side, and he cringes.

“What is your problem?” he grumbles, and resumes typing on his laptop.

You drop the subject, because you know any talk on girls is completely lost on him. As you set aside your salad, you peer over at Mark, palm supporting your face. He’s focused, eyebrows slightly furrowed, with his lips mouthing over silently whatever science journal he was reading on his computer screen.

Mark has always been good looking, you think. You don’t know why you’ve never really noticed it before. His nose bridge gently slopes over his face, and his jawline is sharp, having lost his baby cheeks years ago. He works out often too, although he barely talks about it (maybe out of fear you’d tease him for being a gym bro). And with the way he’s so adorably awkward, It’s no surprise really, that every girl friend that you’ve met of his seems to be completely smitten.

Shaking your head, you snap out of it. It’s dangerous to think of Mark that way, you think. You’ve known him too long.

“My problem? I think you’re the one with the problem here. I’m surprised your hair isn't completely gray by now.”

Mark ignores you, probably mad at the fact you tried to start world food war three with him with a walnut.

“Hey.” you flick at his forehead to get his attention, and he flinches.

“There’s a party this weekend at Johnny’s fraternity, you should come.” Johnny, being both your long time mutual friend (who’s demeanor is way too nice to fit the stereotypical frat boy image, really) who has since stopped asking Mark out of respect for his “med school grind”.

“I’m already planning on it,” he responds, and you’re surprised.

“Since when do you actually accept party invitations?”

“Since yesterday, because I’m tired of Haechan bothering me about it.”

You silently cheer, of course, you expect nothing else from Haechan.

…

“I never knew it was so hard to get booze.”

“It’s not hard if you’re 21.”

Scoffing, you turn your head to face the boy across from you. As if he can feel the burn of your gaze on his forehead, Haechan stops typing on his Macbook and lifts his eyes to meet yours.

“No shit Sherlock, but last time I checked, we both weren’t 21.”

The sun had set a half an hour ago, and despite having spent the whole afternoon together, you and Haechan have had yet to come up with a way to secure the drinks you promised your friends for tonight’s pregame. With both of you being certified schemers representing your respective friends, you guess it wasn’t that big of surprise that the responsibility was left on both your shoulders. It beat scavenging alone, and spending time with Haechan wasn’t so bad either, when you two weren’t trying to kill each other.

It was already late, and Haechan had deemed Ubering to the nearest packer store that sold Soju (the sweet sweet liquid of choice) was too much work. You on the other hand, had dismissed that option for a completely different reason. The issue in question was the flimsy, borderline pathetic excuse for a fake ID Haechan planned to use at the packer store.

“Hey it works!” he protested. “You just act like you’re already legal and they don’t even card you. Easy.”

You roll your eyes as Haechan theatrically reenacts his last trip to the packer store.

“I asked him how he was doing, and he told me school sucks. I say to him, ‘Tell me about it, thank god this is my last year!” and as if to emphasize his next point, he flicks his wrist in the air, ID snuggled between his index and middle finger. “And I was on my way. No issue at all.”

“That’s because he didn’t even see your fake I.D stupid. He would’ve called you out on your bullshit in an instant.”

Out of all the different options available, you could not fathom why he chose his fake ID to show that from all the places in this world, he was from freaking Hong Kong. There were fifty states to choose from, other English speaking countries, and he chose to pose as an international student on a student visa. He could most definitely look the part, but after looking at the ID he proudly slaps on the common room lounge desk, you deadpan. The yellowish tint to the card was way too suspicious to be taken seriously.

“I wish we could just ask Mark,” you sigh, and Haechan looks at you like you’re stupid.

“He’s 20, ya dimwit.”

“I know, that’s why I said I wish. You have serious hearing problems.”

Haechan stops typing on his laptop to shoot you an especially heated glare, and you’re reminded again why he’s #2 on your fight list, right above Yebin. First place was taken by the girl you almost actually fought at that one University party a town over, wherever she is you hope she’s having a terrible day.

“If it were not for the rules of this land, you’d be dead right now Haechan.”

Haechan places his head in his palms, and flutters his eyelashes disgustingly.

“But you love me.”

“Yes, as much as Mark loves social events. Speaking of Mark, how on earth did you get him to leave his cave?”

“It didn’t take much,” and before you can call him out for lying, he shushes you.

“Okay, maybe a few days of nonstop begging.” Haechan says as his eyes dart across the laptop screen. You raise your eyebrow. “And I might have threatened to release pictures from the photoshoot his mom made him take when he was younger.”

“I expected nothing less from your evil, evil, mind.”

He scoffs. “Hardly. Just resourceful.”

Resourceful he is, because Haechan is the one who ends up finding a plug for the alcohol that night.

…

A can of four loko, a bottle of soju, and a few shots later, you should be hammered, wasted even. But after 14 months, 2 weeks, and 5 days into college, your tolerance is pretty high, so you’re really just plain drunk. Even so, you’re a little messy (no surprise). You’re not in a state to be trusted with any errands, so you don’t understand why Haechan asks you to pick up Mark along the way to Johnny’s fraternity.

“Why do I have to do it?” you whine, putting your hand over your forehead, and Haechan only laughs at your dramatic display of despair.

“Because Johnny messaged me that Mark isn’t there, and there’s no way in hell I’m letting him flake on me this time. ”

You point a finger at him, and he stifles a snort when you’re off by a couple inches. “Letting him flake on me, me, me as in you! It’s not my problem.”

But there’s no use in arguing with Haechan, and you know it. That’s why you find yourself stomping your way up the second floor of Mark’s dormitory like you’re in elementary school again, having just been scolded by your mom and being forced back into your room.

You knock at his door impatiently, and it feels like forever until you hear some shuffling, and see the door knob twist open. To be honest, it’s probably just a few seconds, but time is different when you’re intoxicated.

Before you even see him, it smells faintly of shampoo and detergent, so you’re not surprised when he opens the door and you see his hair is still half wet from the shower. He’s definitely party ready, and when you mean party ready, he’s wearing the same loose black tee and grey joggers he wears to sleep. His socks don’t match and you try not to laugh, because it would be a bad look for you, to show up intoxicated, and apparently crazy.

“Oh (y/n), what are you doing here? Oh shit is today Friday? I totally forgot, Haechan is going to kill me-'' He looks at you and then pauses, scrunching up his nose. “Have you been drinking?”

“No.” you say sarcastically, but it definitely falls short of Mark because he looks at you like he does not believe you. Good, because he shouldn’t.

He sighs, and ushers you in his room. It’s dark, with the only light emitting from the little steel lamp on his desk, which is covered with his notes, pencils, a textbook, and some highlighters. When you finally make your way to his bed (with difficulty) he sighs again, and you silently scold yourself for having that mini drinking contest with Haechan. If you thought you could handle your alcohol well, Haechan was an absolute monster.

You nearly screech when Mark flashes a mini flashlight in your face, and he tells you to calm down before someone thinks he’s committing murder. He holds your face still with his index finger resting on your cheek and his thumb lifting your chin. You try your best not to squint when he tells you to, instead focusing on his face. He’s so close, you can feel his warm breath on your face. If you weren’t already so flushed from drinking, you suspect you’d look beet red now.

“Well, your pupils still dilate normally, so I don’t think you have alcohol poisoning-”

The world is moving a little, so you plop backwards on his bed— albeit a little harder than expected because he rushes over to you and looks concerned.

“-but I don’t think that’s the problem here.” he finishes.

Your eyes are closed, mainly because his bed is really comfy. “I’m here to pick you up.” and as if to emphasize your point, you wildly start pointing in all directions, hoping it would land on him.

You open your eyes when you feel him grab your finger and turn it thirty degrees to the left, just stopping at his chest. Your sense of direction must be really bad, because it turns out you were pointing at nothing.

“I don’t think we’re going anywhere for awhile”

“Noooooo” you wail, and Mark lets go of your hand to sit back down on his desk, and unsurprisingly, begins reading his textbook again. How he is able to focus with you in the background, you don’t know, but it must have taken years of practice.

At this point, you decide to take matters into your own hands. You shove yourself off the bed and grab his arms from behind him. His roller chair scoots a few inches before he stops it.

“You’re not exactly making great case for yourself here”

“Stop making excuses!”

You aim straight towards the armpits, and you’re confused at the lack of reaction, so you reach over to squeeze his knee. Almost immediately, he crumples over, almost falling off the chair.

“Can you-” he says mid laugh, “please” he gasps, “Stop that!”

You respond by attacking his other knee, and it’s over. He falls off his chair and you go down with him. The difference is that he recovers quickly, and starts tickling you back in revenge.

You’re sensitive, so it feels like you’re dying. You try to use his arm as leverage to push yourself up, but next thing you know he’s toppeling over you. You close your eyes and wait for your head to kiss the cold hard floor but it never comes, because Mark's hand cradles your head, breaking the fall.

When you open your eyes, he’s closer than ever before, noses touching. Lips a mere centimetres away and in a weird embrace, you resist the urge to close the distance.

Mark has always been good looking, especially now, so close to you. You don’t know why you’ve never noticed it before.

When he pulls away he’s flustered, and for the first time, so are you.

It’s an awkward silence, with you still on the floor as he stands up, rubbing the dusk from his knees. He scratches the back of his head and offers you a hand

“Let’s head out,” he says.

“Yeah, let’s.” you echo.

…

Although Haechan berates you for being more than a little late to the party, he’s overjoyed that you somehow managed to show up with Mark. Not that he didn’t have faith in you anyways, he tells you. It’s just that Mark is married to his Biology textbook, and she runs a tight ship. By the time you reached the frat with Mark, you’ve sobered up enough to enjoy yourself normally,

It’s when you wake up in the morning, that you’re not okay. It’s not okay, because you dreamt of Mark, and that’s weird, because you and Mark were just friends, right? And you always will be.

It’s not a big deal because friends dream of friends. Dreams are a product of your own desires environment, you tell yourself, it’s perfectly normal because you spend so much time with him.

What is not normal, is when you see Mark the following Monday, and are worried about it. You’re nervous the whole time, and it gets worse when you slide the little watermelon filled tupperware container across the table in apology for last Friday. He likes his watermelon cut up into little cubes, you remembered (why do you remember?), and you avoid his eyes, pushing a stray piece of hair behind your face.

Mark, oblivious as usual, doesn’t really notice anything until 10 minutes in, as if your lack of rambling surprises him. Munching on the cubes, he asks if you’re okay.

“Yeah, I am.”

No you are not. You are utterly fucked.

…

“But you need to promise me you won’t judge or make fun of me for it”

“Just say it already, Jesus.”

“It’s just so embarrassing.”

“Oh my god, are you in love with me?”

“No!”

When placing your hands in your face, Haechan grants mercy on you, patting you on the back instead of teasing you further.

“I don’t know what else could be so important that you need to talk to me in person. Unless…. it’s about Mark?”

His hands stop soothingly rubbing your back and instead starts slapping it, waiting for you to laugh along with him. When he doesn’t get a response he gasps. Turning his head sideways to face you, he pries your fingers apart.

“No fucking way.”

“Right?” you moan.

“I was just joking, but I can’t say I didn’t expect it.”

You remove your hands from your face and look at him, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Like, you’ve known each other forever. You spend a lot of time together too. Someone was bound to catch feelings eventually.”

You don’t respond, instead choosing to sulk.

“You know I’m right. You just don’t want to admit it because you’re the loser in this situation.”

Right he is, because you’ve been avoiding Mark for the past few weeks like the plague. You’ve told him that you’ve been busy with your final term paper (you’re not, you’re an engineering major why would you have one?), and although he was a little confused, he was probably also a little thankful because the MCAT was only a month away.

As you tell him about your plight, Haechan listens thoughtfully, “mhming” and “ahh-ing” at all the right places.

“I don’t see how ignoring him helps you at all. I would say to just talk to him about it, but it’s Mark, he probably hasn’t thought about you that way at all.”

“Thanks,” you grumble. “So I’m basically one of the boys.”

“No really, mans might as well be the anemone from Nemo, I’ve never seen him interested in anyone.” Haechan sighs. “This is a tough one.”

“I’m sure I’ll think of something, but I might have to get creative.”

“I’d like to see you try Hyuck.”

…

It’s 9pm Sunday night, and there’s a knock on your door. It’s strange you think, because it’s a Sunday, and it’s a little late to be doing anything.

When you open the door, there he is, Mark Lee in all his 5’9’ glory, with a little bag in hand, in it your favorite milk tea.

“It’s Sunday.” you say, intelligently.

Mark just chuckles. “Yes it is, and your point?”

You step aside so he can walk in, and you’re embarrassed at your current state. For once, you’ve finished your assignments early, so you’ve spent the past four hours in your pajamas watching K-dramas and snacking on honey chips. You must look like a bum.

Mark on the other hand, always looks good, even in some old dress slacks, and an old t-shirt with some holes in it. He smells faintly of antiseptic, so he must have just come from a volunteering shift at the hospital.

“It’s nice of you to drop by,” you poke the straw into the bubble tea. “And thank you for the bubble tea.”

“You’ve been busy recently so I figured you’d need it for the caffeine content, but it’s not like you sleep anyway.” he jokes. “How’s the term paper going?”

“The term paper? Oh right, the term paper. It’s alright,” you lie. “Just a couple of pages left. Beats having to take the MCAT though.”

Mark looks tired, with his hair slightly overgrown and his dark circles hallower than usual. You feel bad—he has a habit of overworking himself; you’re usually there to check on him but lately you haven’t, and he’s kind and thoughtfull enough to bring you something because he thinks you’re stressed.

“Yeah tell me about it,” Mark takes a seat next to you on your bed, head hitting the wall with a soft thump. “It’s going to be all over next week though, I can’t wait. I’ve missed you though.”

Busy silently cursing at yourself for the way your heart flutters at his admission, you forget to respond. Mark frowns, places his hand on your thigh in an attempt to soothe you, and it has the opposite effect—you think you might go into cardiac arrest.

“Is something wrong?”

“N-no.” you stammer. “Just stressed. ”

Mark makes things worse by leaning in closer, gently placing the back of his hand on your forehead. “You’re kinda hot.”

“I am?”

“Yeah, like I think you may be running a fever.”

He hops off the bed, and rummages around in his little black bag, and pulls out a thermometer. He places a little sleeve on the end, and motions for you to open your mouth. When it beeps, he takes it out of your mouth and looks at the result.

“Your temperature is fine, but you should rest. I’ll see you soon okay?” He pats your head. “Take it easy, I know you’ll do great.”

…

You might not have a term paper, but what you do have is a physics final.

The desk area is littered with eraser dust, crumpled paper, and half filled styrofoam cups of coffee that have since gotten stale. You swear to god that Physics was a subject meant to torture, not enrich the lives of college students. At this rate, you were seriously debating dropping out to become a stripper.

Haechan, not sensing your dismay, disrupts your plans to drop out by telling you something that puts a damper on the rest of your day, as if Physics wasn’t doing that already.

“Have you noticed that Mark’s been hanging out a lot with that one girl lately? What’s her name? So-bin, Yee-ben, Ben 10, ”

“Yebin,” you snap. “And don’t ever disrespect Ben 10 like that again. ”

Haechan lifts his hands up, “ I agree she’s a total bitch, but man is she hot.”

“Aren’t you supposed to make me feel better, not worse?”

Haechan’s face softens and for once in his life, looks a little sorry. “All I’m saying is if you don’t do something soon, someone might do it for you. I overheard her saying something about her and Mark going to spring fling together.”

He’s not wrong, but Mark, at Spring fling? At a Darty? Willingly? His idea of a good time was studying.

“You’re kidding,” you scoff. “As if he’d be caught dead at something like that.”

“I don’t know (y/n). He doesn’t really have much else to do now that the MCAT is over.”

Right, the MCAT. He took it last week. You mentally slap yourself for not asking how it went.

“Speak of the devil.” Haechan says quietly, motioning behind you.

There she is through the glass, Yebin, pulling a seat next to Mark, not before sneaking up behind him and planting a fat kiss right on his cheek.

…

Maybe if this were a movie, you’d cry all weekend and he’d make it up to you; But this is real life, so you secretly cry for a week and sulk for the rest of the month, blaming your puffy eyes on seasonal allergies (In real life, Mark can’t make it up to you because he did nothing wrong. He’s also not even aware that you like him, but that’s besides the point).

Despite Haechan’s attempt to convince you that it could’ve been just a friendly kiss, a greeting kiss, a whatever kiss, you insist that you’re done with your little crush, that it had shriveled up and died. Although not so convinced, Haechan drops the subject all together and instead resorts to comforting you in his own way, which mainly just consists of making fun of you about other things.

Mark is a touchy subject, and you’re still avoiding him. Why? You don’t really know. You know it’s not fair to Mark, who is probably very hurt and confused at your lack of communication. Nonetheless, he doesn’t question it, and is so infuriatingly mature with his emotions that you suspect that he even respects it, because he stops texting you after a while.

You feel bad about stonewalling him, leaving him in the dark, but really, what would you say to him?

“Sorry-I-haven’t-been-talking-to-you-it’s-just-that-I’m-in-love-with-you-and-I’m-butthurt-that-you-have-a-girlfriend-of-course-it’s-not-really-your-fault-but-”

You shudder at the thought, because it’s just plain embarrassing.

But really, you’re not the best at expressing your emotions—you’ve never been. Frankly, you’re tired of expressing your emotions because it never got you anywhere. Not with your mom, not with your dad, and definitely not with Yuta, who you dated for a year and half a year just to dump you like you were nothing.

It’s not worth it, to put your emotions on the line for anyone, not anymore. You locked your heart away a long time ago, and you were a fool to let it come out last time, and you like to think you learn from your mistakes.

At least, that’s what you think, until you return home one Sunday night from the library and see a little cup of your favorite milk tea at the door, with a straw neatly balanced on the top.

…

When spring fling rolls around, you still haven’t spoken to Mark, and if your friends catch on, they don't mention it. They know by now that you prefer to deal with things alone, to digest them for what they are and then promptly moving on—you know, like processing a death.

It doesn’t really matter, you think. You and Mark have always been friends, and will always be friends. Nothing more, nothing less. And when you get over yourself, things will be fine.

But really, how can it be fine when your whole world stops every time Mark looks at you?

You try not to dwell on it, even now weeks later. You’re busy getting ready to go out, blotting your lipstick on some tissue paper in your friend Yuna’s bathroom.

“(y/n), you look amazing.”

When you turn to look at yourself in the mirror she’s right; The mascara you put on your lashes really brings out the color of your eyes, and your skin (thanks to Yuna’s highlighter compact) is literally glowing. You feel really pretty.

You turn to smile at her. “Thanks to you.” you tell her, and she gets bashful, pushing you out of the seat and ushering you out the door. You make it down stairs no problem, but she calls you as soon as you walk out the door.

“Yes, I have blotting papers with me, and no, I am not dating Haechan I’ve told you thousands of times-”

“What about me?”

You turn around to find Haechan leaning against the dormitory wall, already waiting.

Embarrassed, you tell her you need to go and hang up the phone.

“How long have you been standing here? Hopefully not too long.” You apologize, but he assures you it’s all right.

“Are you sure your friends are fine with you leaving them early to go with me?”

“Yes Haechan, they’re just happy that I have someone to go with.” you sigh. “Almost too happy.”

He laughs, after looking at you, he pauses. “You look nice.”

“You do too, Hyuck.”

If you didn’t know any better, you would say he seems embarrassed at your compliment.

When you walk into the venue, you’re not surprised at how spacious it is. You’re used to your school going all out, from the kale salads and now, spring fling. They might as well call it spring semi-formal, because everyone is dressed their best.

You see Johnny at the end of the punch table, and he waves, motioning for you two to join him.

“And my favorite couple,” he greets you two, and you almost smack him upside down the head.

“Relax, I’m just kidding.” and he leans in for a hug. “How are you (y/n), I haven’t seen you in a second.”

“I’m good, just been super busy. You were so right, Professor Kim has been really keeping me on my toes in Physics 430,” you laugh. “Every time I walk into the classroom I can feel my life flash through my very eyes.”

He laughs, and you all laugh with him. Johnny tends to have that kind of effect on people.

“How’s Mark?” he asks, and you cringe. “It’s been a while.”

You laugh nervously “ I haven’t seen him in a while either.”

“Oh really. Don’t you see each other every week?”

“Well we used to,” you panic. “Just not anymore because, you know, I-”

“Because you’ve been so busy,” Haechan finishes.

Johnny gives you two a strange look but continues talking anyway.

“Well that’s life. Poor boy’s been studying for the MCAT like his rent is due tomorrow.”

“More like everyday.” Haechan snickers.

Johnny doesn’t hesitate to flame Haechan for his insolence, and begins teasing him for almost failing Calc II (Calc II was kind of hard you admit but that is an admission that will die with you), meanwhile, you’re whisked away by Yuna and her entourage. You glance at Johnny and Haechan, who bid you farewell with a nod of their heads.

It’s fun, you’re having a great time dancing, and eating mini hot dogs on a toothpick (you guess your university had to cut corners somewhere). When Roxanne plays, you and Yuna go wild, nearly knocking over a waiter over with a silver tray. You have so much fun, that you forget that Mark Lee exists until you make eye contact across the floor.

It's no surprise that he’s with Yebin, who looks annoyingly prettier than usual, with her makeup all done and satin dress. She’s pulling him in the opposite direction, but Mark seems to pay no mind, instead staying in place, looking at you. A moment passes, and you see him excusing himself. When he begins to head your direction. You panic.

Before you can even react, you feel an arm wrap around your waist, pulling you close. When you finally turn to see who it is, you’re nose to nose with none other than Haechan.

“What are you doing?”

“Just go along with it,” Haechan whispers through his teeth. Your hands are pressed against his chest, and he grabs one of your arms, placing it around his neck.

“Go along with what? Have you lost your mind-”

Before you can finish your sentence, his lips press against yours and your mind goes blank. He tastes like peppermint and aftershave, with his lips soft in the center and just a little chapped around the edges.

When you two finally part, Mark is nowhere to be found, and you don’t know how to feel.

“Haechan I-” you stammer. “I need to go.”

You hurry off, and he doesn’t follow you.

…

When you’re outside, it’s cold; the air is brisk and definitely doesn’t help steady your breathing, it only makes it harder. It’s a lot to process, Mark, Yebin, Haechan. It’s a lot, and you feel like you’re in emotional overdrive, with all the feelings you’ve been trying to keep in for the past few months coming back to bite you.

You sit down at the edge of the fountain outside the venue, and you nearly get soaked. It misses you by mere inches, with the ceramic fish looking at you almost mockingly. You don’t care, with all the thoughts running through your head right now, you think you might go insane.

You don’t know how long you’ve been sitting there at the fountain when you feel something wrap around you, warm like it was just taken out of the dryer. It smells familiar, like cologne and faintly of antiseptic—it smells like Mark.

You don’t look at him when he sits down next to you, legs open, hands crossed. And he doesn’t look at you. It’s radio silent.

“So you and Haechan, huh.”

“So you and Yebin.” you echo.

Mark looks at you for the first time, confused. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Oh that.” He shuffles awkwardly. “I don’t really like her like that.”

Your head raises in surprise, and you face each other for the first time in months.

“I thought you guys had a thing.”

Mark scratches the back of his head. “Well we do, but it’s just in her head” he says, and you can’t help but laugh. “She came onto me last week, so I finally set things straight.” Noticing your reaction, he just shakes his head.

“I don’t think it worked though,” he adds.

“I would think, you’ve always been too nice for your own good.”

“I just didn’t want to hurt her feelings, you know?” he murmurs. “I feel terrible.”

“You’re not a terrible person just because you don’t like someone back.”

“Maybe not, but I believe not wanting you and Haechan to be together does.”

It takes a moment for his words to register within you, and even after you process them, you’re not sure what to say.

“We don’t like each other like that.” you interrupt him.

Mark looks visibly confused. “Then you and Haechan aren’t??” his voice falters.

“No more than you and Yebin. I promise you it’s not what it seems like.” you tell him and it finally clicks. You’d have to thank the idiot later. Right after you slap him.

Mark doesn’t question it, not even when you start crying. You don’t question it either, unsure of why you’re crying.

“You’re so stupid,” you sniffle. “I’ve liked you for so fucking long.”

Mark pulls out his pocket square to gently wipe the tears from your face, and places his hand on top of yours.

“You’re ridiculous, you know that? You could have just said something.” his says softly

“I didn’t want to ruin anything. We’ve always just been friends.”

“I think we’ve always been just more than that.” he says, leaning in, hands cup your face gently.

“Just took some of us a little longer to realize.”

....

“That was very nice of you,” Johnny says.

“Yeah. Very nice.” Haechan echos.

“How long has it been, that you’ve liked her for? Three years?”

“Two going on three.”

Johnny lets out a low whistle, and looks down at the younger boy worriedly. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

Haechan glances at you and Mark through the glass, outside the venue. With Mark whispering in your ear and you laughing, you seem so happy; happier than you’ve ever been with him.

“Yeah, I am. More than okay.”

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durotoswrites · 4 years ago

Note

For the writing meme thingy: 🍄how do you get yourself in the mood to write? 🍑 do you/would you write smut? 📒 any fics planned?

🍄 How do you get yourself in the mood to write?

Getting in the mood to write and actually wanting to sit down and start writing are two very different things, but they're connected, so I'll explain both.

To set into “creative mode” it helps me to do these things:

Listen to music that makes me think of a character/situation in my story/stories. I've got playlists separated by character and pairing. Sometimes I also just work on curating those playlists for fun and get my brain going.

Bounce overall ideas off of my friends and husband/editor (but he's my best friend, too 💗)

Reread old chapters or recent ones and future snippets based on what I want to do.

Once I actually want to put words down, I get a little more strict with myself. I get distracted verrrry easily sometimes and I have to fight the urge to open a million more tabs when researching a small detail.

I move to instrumental music (I have playlists for different moods like “emotional”, “soft”, “sad”, etc. I usually listen to “soft” as a general soothing background sound, as I can get pretty dang emotional when I write, especially with the stuff I've been churning out lately.

So, yeah, I need tissues within reach if I get upset. (Wow, I'm not making this sound fun at all, lmao)

After sound has been established, I like to eat a snack (something with protein) because I can be under for hours, lol. Eat it and finish it. Otherwise, I get distracted.

I also like to have drinks available. I always have a bottle of water, but I also like having a hot cup of tea. I think it's the time of year for me to switch to cold barley tea.

I write while seated on a recliner with my feet up. I have my laptop on a lap desk and it's a pretty cozy setup.

I basically try to remove any excuse I have to get up once I start writing, because I am the worst procrastinator I know.

🍑Do you/would you write smut?

Heheh... heck yeah, I do. Waaaaay more than most people realize. Stuff I've actually posted? It's pretty limited. I posted a couple pieces (Let Me Love You and You're Like the Sunshine) a few years ago, but I've been practicing ever since. One of my planned stories literally has what I refer to as a “smut dump” in the draft where I've been experimenting with writing different moods. I like the intimate scenes to play a role in the overall plot or have it be a bonding experience.

Despite that, I do have a shameless Gray x Mary story I should just get out there that has zero plot, just two cuties in love. In my mind it's so naughty and kinky and I get flustered thinking about it (Mary is hot, okay?), but it's probably hella vanilla, lmao. I really am grateful that people have been really supportive about my writing smut despite what I usually write, and they've been so encouraging, too! I honestly feel like the smut I've posted is really stilted because I was so self-conscious about it. I don't feel like they are terrible for first attempts, but I have definitely grown more comfortable writing it.

Will The Shy Newcomer become explicit? I kinda really want it to, but I might separate the chapters for those who don't care for that content. Overall, I'd like to write more and post more, and I want to write more than just male x female smut as well. I have some of those in my planned pieces (more about them later).

📒 Any Fics Planned?

Firstly, I'm super tickled more than one person was interested in this. I copied the answer I wrote earlier.

Short answer: Yes. I also plan to bring more of my stories over from ffn to Ao3.

Long answer under the cut, heheh. I rambled quite a bit.

Ask me about my writing processes and stories!

I have so many WIPs that haven’t been touched in years that I’d like to finish, so new planned fics aren’t posted yet. Some of them have more adult themes than most of the stuff I’ve been writing, so I get flustered sharing them. I’ve been at a crossroads, as I feel that you can’t have growth without changing things up. On the other hand, I feel like a lot of my readers associate my works with a specific “wholesome” feel-good mood. It’s kinda nice to be known for something, although that might just be my ego talking, thinking that people recognize my work as a “type”.

Regardless, in the end, I feel growth is necessary.

I don’t want to leave a lot of unfinished WIPs waiting because they stress me out and I have too many of them already, so I’d like to have a bulk of my new stories with a good chunk written before I decide to post them.

Among those include:

A longfic featuring Pete’s farm in Forget-Me-Not Valley (A blend of HMDS with the FoMT plugin and AWL). It takes place in the same universe as The Shy Newcomer (Claire in Mineral Town) and there are a few overlapping moments, although Pete’s story starts first. Pete’s personality is verrry different from Claire’s, and his story was kind of supposed to be the yang to TSN’s yin. Pete’s best friends in his story are Ruby (not sure if I’m adding Tim yet), Nami, and Rock. Readers will be treated to a poorly-socialized pre-Mineral Town Cliff (if you think he was bad at the beginning of TSN, well… heh… he’s a wreck here).

Another planned unpublished story is a crossover of Harvest Moon and the movie “In This Corner of the World”, based on a manga of the same name by Fumiyo Kouno. It was written as a gift for a friend. I have the entire outline figured out and have slowly been filling it in. My friend asked for an AU where Claire and Cliff have an arranged marriage and live with his family in Akiyama, the hometown I had created for Cliff in The Shy Newcomer. I took the opportunity to expand the characters in his family. I have it written during the same time period and society as “In This Corner of the World”, but had decided to write a spreading disease as an allegory for war, but then COVID happened and some parts of it just got really hard to write. There are also a lot of sexually explicit content as Claire slowly grows and learns from her spouse that it’s okay to express what she wants despite sex being a taboo issue. If there’s enough interest in the story, I’ll post it, but I worry it’s a little too niche for there to be many people into it.

Pastor Carter and Doctor Trent are one of my favorite rare pair ships. I’ve had a partial draft for a story about them for a few years now, especially focusing on Trent growing up and acknowledging that he has an unhealthy addiction for things that he knows he can’t have. There are some more adult/sexual themes in this piece, too, including the main character lusting after a married woman (who also happens to be his patient) and some lemons. (Does anyone call it that anymore or is it just referred to as “smut” nowadays? Haha) I always feel so bad for neglecting the folks at the clinic in-game and wanted to write a piece that focused more on them, Trent specifically. It’s a multi-chap fic, but I don’t think I’m going to let it get as long as some of my other pieces.

I also really want to write a short romantic oneshot for every marriage candidate in Mineral Town, around 1,000 words each. So far, I have one for Cliff and one for Gray. I want to write Claire with everyone, because I think it would be fun to explore all the different personalities.

I have more installments planned for A Single Day, including a day in the life of the following characters, all with drafts in varying degrees of progress:

Anna

Doug

Nora (yes, I’m writing from the point of view of the cat living at the inn)

More to come – I think Lillia and Thomas would be especially interesting to explore

I do still have that Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask piece I’ve been pondering where Link befriends the soul of the deku scrub child while possessed by the mask. I don’t have much written about it, but I really love the world of Majora’s Mask. Such a fun game.

I also think about the lead carpenter’s son in Ocarina of Time and that weird side quest involving the blue chicken and the son being lost to the forest. Then that unique-looking kokiri girl explaining that all who get taken in the lost woods become stalfos. Like, did the guy die? Was he sick? Did he want to die? There’s just so much going on there that would be fun to explore.

I also have played OMORI recently and have like… A LOT of feelings about it. I don’t know what I’d write, but I’m still damn impressed at how well the characters are developed in such a short game.

Other games I’ve had vague ideas about writing for include the following:

The Flame in the Flood: I’m thinking a survivalist/action story fleshing out Scout’s backstory a bit more and her thoughts as she’s traveling. I feel like she’s a very lonely person, but isn’t given the chance to really dwell on it.

Night In the Woods: I’d love to write more about Mae’s dreams and what they mean to her. She doesn’t really talk to anyone about them openly, so it’s really hard to tell her feelings about them in some regards. We know that she’s distressed about them, but I’d like to dive a little deeper. Do the nightmares end after the games does? What about Bea’s new nightmares?

Hades (Supergiant Games): I think it would be fun to write more about the events that take place before the game starts, like Zagreus’s duties in the house of Hades, and expand on the strained relationship with his father.

#ask games #writing #jake-marshall

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starrypawz · 4 years ago

Text

writer questions!

i got tagged by @impossible-rat-babies and you tagged me like 3 months ago and I just found this lmao

but anyway

I’m tagging uh... @sleepswithvillains @semper-draca @riajade01 @heartbrreak @chaniters @antigonick

–

name: online i go under starry for the most part outside of that I go by r̷̲̟̫͎͎̂͋̍͗̋̈̋͑̄̕͜ḝ̶͍͙̙̤͕̻̫̇d̴̡̮͈̼̰͓̯̅͋̏̍̏͝a̶̳͆c̴̯̬̲͈̲̞͍͒ͅt̷̗̣̊̿͒e̴̢͔̝͚͎͔͍̓͛͒̂̓d̶͓͓̠͙͉̉́̔͂̊̉

(actually nah it’s not a big deal if people know my irl name I just don’t use it that much on the internet)

fandoms: I mostly write for FHR, Passenger and Wayhaven as of late, will occasionally write for Fo4, AC: Syndicate, Dragon Age and SWTOR (SWTOR used to make up the bulk of my writing, I’m still very fond of it I just haven’t really played it since 2016 lmao) and will dip in and out of other random fandoms as my mood dictates.

most popular one-shot: Just going off what i remembered to post to AO3 as trying to find everything I wrote on here would be like the actual heck

On AO3 it’s Pride-Full which is the one Good Omens fic I’ve written which was basically ‘Az and Crowley bump into each other at a Pride’

most popular multi-chapter: Uh I don’t really do multi chapter fics so I can’t answer this

actual worst part of writing: uuuh idk really I think it’s just sometimes getting started or the classic ‘i know the scene i want to write I just can’t seem to get it out’ and like when weird small details get you weirdly stuck on something

also just having the like motivation to follow through with stuff

do you outline: I probably should but I don’t tend to i do sometimes write like a line or two for like idea of what I want to get down, but I admit my not outlining it’s part me being kind of lazy part ‘tbh I mostly only write oneshots’

ideas i probably won’t get around to: Uuuh there’s like many things like for example:

There’s a SWTOR AU I have kicking around that’s like ‘Corso’s sister is still around, shenanigans ensue’

Skyrim fic based around my old PC, a thief named Ferret

Skyrim fic taking one of my old Skyrim PCs, Branda and making some like cute af ‘childhood friends to lovers’ content with Farkas

DAI Idea based around the idea I had where I’ve got a Inquisitor that has a child and it’s like they met Keiran yeah probably some sort of like ‘we bump into each others many years later’ type concept

Like everyone I was trying to do a swtor Quinncident fic and it just... I lost steam on it fast

An idea I keep procrastinating for reasons idk why which is set during Far Harbor where it’s like my non SoSu, Jax is like ‘yeah uh my dad’s from Far Harbor, oh hey dad meet my synth bf lol’

callouts: @impossible-rat-babies because your fic is so good and tbh you’re always so supportive and good for idea bouncing and stuff and we’re often like on the same wavelength on so much stuff and it’s good, @daraasum because i mean we’ve been friends for ages by this point and you have the good headcanons even if your angst ones make me NOPE sometimes @dwead-piwate-meggers because yet again we go way back @mihqorio because like honestly you’ve always got such nice things to say about people’s content

best writing trait: I’ve been told I’m generally pretty good at like getting into characters head and apparently quite good at making sort of natural sounding dialogue

spicy tangential opinion:

IDK if I really have anything that spicy but like:

Modern social media has really impacted the whole ‘creator and audience’ relationship on both like ‘fandom creators’ and also ‘published creators’ relationship in a bunch of weird ways and a lot of boundaries have sort of become screwed up as a result

Tumblr really is def not the best platform for like fanfiction and fandom as a whole why did we decide this was like the main fandom platform?

Wait those are more fandom opinions rather than like ‘writing opinions’ on writing opinions front uh

It’s perfectly fine to use said, and tbh things like ‘said quietly’ have a different tone than say ‘whispered’

A lot of writing rules that aren’t things like ‘Spelling is important’, ‘Paragraphs are important’ are to me more like an author’s personal preferences rather than being super set in stone and acting as if there’s some sort of like set in stone ultimate list of writing rules isn’t really helpful everything is highly subjective

It doesn’t really matter if you’re writing a super cliche premise, because hey that’s your take on a super cliche premise doesn’t matter if your fandom is full of coffeeshop aus, it’s your coffeeshop au

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mysticsparklewings · 4 years ago

Photo

On The Edge

It feels like it's been quite some time since I sat down and got to work on a more involved mixed-media project. And in plenty of ways it has, but I have been working on other artsy projects behind the scenes, which I should be posting sometime soon, I hope. Anyway, this artwork had to be moved to the top of my priority list and also my upload schedule (some of those other projects are already finished, just back-logged) because this is my entry into the Arteza Awards hosted by, shocker, Arteza, and the deadline to enter was the 24th. I actually started working on this piece a week or two early, but me being me, I procrastinated and only just barely got it posted to Instagram with the appropriate tags (per the contest rules) with about 20 minutes to spare. Then again, maybe that's a good thing because I've been known in the past to pull some of my better work out of thin air at the last minute. If that proves the case this time, it would certainly be to my advantage. Anyway. There was no set theme for the contest. The main rules were that you had to use Arteza supplies and they needed to be visible in the image posted to Instagram. I understand why, but I normally don't photograph my art with the supplies because I can usually get more accurate colors and proportions with a scan, and you can pretty much always see the details way better on a scan. But considering the prizes on offer, I wasn't about to let that stop me. I figured I'd just post the supply image first, then add the scan so you could swipe to see it. That way I could have my nice scanned version and still follow the rules. (Also, since they specify Instagram is the main platform for the contest, I'm assuming it doesn't matter if I don't post the supply picture everywhere else. If it does...whoops :P ) For reasons I don't think I should get into here, I knew I needed to go for something kind of high-impact when you first glance at it. But it also needed to not be too involved, lest I be working on it well after the entry window closed and my efforts become somewhat less valuable. I'm not exactly sure how, but this led me around to a concept I've had floating around in my head for a while: A girl (because I am one and know I can draw them better) standing on a mountain top, that looks as if she's one step from free-falling. Originally, I dreamed up this idea hoping to make it into an acrylic painting, but (aside from that fact that I didn't get around to executing the idea until now) I do not own Arteza'a acrylic paints (though I have wanted them for quite some time--It just hasn't happened yet) and also acrylics are not my strongest suit, so now did not seem like the time for an impulse-purchase that could compromise the integrity of my work and therefore my chances in the contest. Although for the day I do get my hands on their acrylics, I now have a solid idea to use to test them out. ;) The Arteza supplies I do have at my disposal are their tube watercolors, woodless watercolor pencils, and 72 expert colored pencils. Which as I learned the last time entered a contest hosted by Arteza, is a fairly limited variety as to what I can actually do. The watercolors by far as the most versatile and my personal favorite of the three though, so they're what I used the most of here. Also, somewhere between deciding to run with my standing-on-the-edge idea and actually doing it, I also decided to add-in the wings in this constellation style I've used somewhere infrequently but am very fond of. As a result, the whole concept has a very similar feel to me as this artwork that I found here on dA years ago and fell so in love with that it spent a good few months as my desktop wallpaper. Obviously, the two images are very different, but to me the idea of the wings is similar: Their structural integrity to fly is questionable, as the wings in the original image appear to be made of glass. Maybe it matters, maybe not. Same thing here: Maybe the wings are really there and just look like a constellation, or maybe this girl just stood in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time. Is the girl even there? Is she real? Can she die? Does it matter if she falls? Would she choose to fly at all, whether the wings work or not? It's sort of a Schrodinger's Cat situation, and something about that is really intriguing to me. Anyway. I started out with a digital sketch this time, mostly to iron out the kinks with...well, everything. I knew getting the right pose would be difficult, and I actually had a pretty different one of her looking out over the edge, maybe clutching her chest or something, originally, but I just couldn't get it to work the way I wanted to and I really struggled to find references for it, so I went with the pose you see here, that I found references for by accident while looking for the other one. I have to admit, seeing the final product I think this pose might actually have been the better choice anyway. The mountain/cliff/whatever I was also having a hard time finding references for, at least for exactly what I wanted, so in the end I had to mostly wing it. I think it turned out okay, though. The wings were probably the most challenging part to plan because I wanted something between traditional butterfly/fairy wings and something that stretches out farther like bird or bat wings. I toyed with the lines for a long time until I got something I was happy with, and then I actually went in and did the constellation lines for both sides by hand instead of doing one side and making a flipped copy, because I wanted to make sure I kept the overall shape of the wing on the (our)right (her left), as after all the warping I did to get the original lines, I wasn't sure I could replicate the process again. I also drew 2 or 3 versions of a simple dress over the figure before giving up because I wasn't happy with how any of them were turning out and decided that I would instead preserve her modesty with magically misty cloud-things. Although, it's kind of a shame because that ended up mostly hiding the one piece of hair clinging over her left (our right) shoulder. :P But once the digital sketch was done so I had some idea of what I was doing, it was time to move on to the traditional, actual artwork. I cut a piece of my 100% cotton paper down to size (nice paper because I didn't want to be held back in that regard--go big or go home, as they say) and then held it up to me screen to trace my cliff lines into place, and some vague markers for the figure and her wings. My idea from the very beginning was to make the galaxy largely with watercolor in such a way that it gives the wings color and focus, without having to actually color all the individual segments. This means lighter colors towards the main area of the wings, and getting darker as I moved out/away from them. Now, because it has been a while since I was painting with watercolors regularly, I did set aside a smaller piece of the same paper and busted out a practice baby galaxy before diving into the final. I learned very quickly I was going to have to be extremely careful with my placement of this orangey color and black, less either of them ends up mixing with colors they weren't supposed to and leaving me with a big muddy mess. (The practice piece did survive though and I'll be posting it some other time.) Before I could get to the fun part [the galaxy] though, I painted the mountain with a mixture of black and blue, which actually went a lot smoother than I thought it would. It took several light layers of blending out the paint built up slowly, but ultimately I'm pretty happy with how the color for it turned out...Even if it's still kind of up for debate how much it looks like a "mountain" or "cliff-edge" or not. With that out of the way, I cut some paper to act as a mask for that section and then spent far too long going back and forth, putting down layers of color and blending them out, dabbing color on and waiting for it to dry, rinse, repeat, trying to get the Galaxy portion just right. I was actually having a fair amount of trouble getting the right color balance, and as sometimes happens with these things, I was pretty worried about how it was looking before I went to bed that night. (I had procrastinated just long enough that I had 2 nights to do this is; the bulk of the painting took place on night 2) But the next day, once it was fully dry, it didn't look so bad. It did need just a few more touches before I went in and added the splatter/stars, though. So I broke out the colored pencils, which I really should have done sooner because they were much easier to blend out and had a bit more covering power over the watercolor than...more watercolor because watercolor is often transparent and there it can be hard to cover with it. Admittedly, I still had more worries about the "naked" galaxy, but then I went to splatter town with the white, added a few pointed stars, and as it usually does, that really brought everything together and made it look a lot better. Never underestimate the power of a good splatter-fest! ;) I must say though, I underestimated the combination of the white watercolor and white colored pencil together when I moved on to the figure and wings. I was trying very hard to not use my white gel pen (because the rules for the contest didn't say if it was okay to use non-Arteza supplies in conjunction with Arteza supplies or not) and so I was sort of bending over backward to find another way with my limited resources. (Although I assumed using a lightbox to see the lines underneath the paint, as is a normal practice for me, wouldn't really matter because it's not like you can really tell from the final product anyway.) Still, even though a mixture of paint lifting, the white colored pencil, and the white watercolor were better than I expected, I still ended up having to punch the lines up a bit digitally to get them to pop the way I wanted them to. But oh well, at least it made a nice glowing effect and mostly worked for the cloud-mist covering. :P Overall though, I do really like how it turned out. If it weren't a little on the small side I might actually consider using it as my new wallpaper/banner art everywhere. Maybe that's a conversion project of some kind for another day? Point being, I'm pleased. I probably won't place in the contest because I'm just too small of a fish in this pond, but I made some pretty art and it was mostly fun, so no harm done. :) Actually, if this could maybe be the excuse my brain needs to get back into posting regularly, that would actually be really great. I miss it, despite what my most recent journal entry and my spotty activity levels might lead one to believe. If it is, I hope you guys don't mind seeing some crafty things thrown into the mix! :D ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings

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superstarjeonghan · 5 years ago

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The “Rona” (Entry # 2)

It’s been a while since I’ve written an entry, and let me tell you that there has been a lot of things that happened over the past couple of months. I’ve been having less breakdowns, which is amazing. I’ve also been going out with friends, keeping up with school, spending more time with family (there is actually an unfortunate situation that happened, that led to that instance but I’ll talk more about it later), and surprisingly, I’ve met a couple of people who ended up becoming some of my closest friends.

It’s 2020 now. Which I thought was great, because 2019 was a shit storm (refer to “the_void_entry_1”). Oh, but little did sweet tiny me know that 2020 is far worse. I mean it started out well. I’ve been coming to class regularly (the shear strength that I had to have just to make myself get out of bed is enormous, but I had to do it for the *gags* “learnings”). It was all fun and games, cause the only reason why I attended classes in the first place was to go see my friends and learn something (I guess) to pass the courses. Then out of the blue, I started to like studying again, which is surprising even for me. I got the hang of the lessons, I had answers to engineering problems that I never knew I could do, and I started doing projects and papers days before the submission, which is big because I am a huge procrastinator.

Everything was going well, up until the “rona” showed up. (I call it “rona” short for “corona” please don’t let it confuse you with my friend who is also named Rona, she’s an amazing girl and I adore her, anyway.) Countries and cities all over the world were declaring lockdowns left and right. I thought little of it because I didn’t want another panic attack coming my way, but the situation got bigger and bigger, until our country declared a nationwide lockdown. Grocery stores were packed with people bulk buying canned food, toiletries, and basic necessities, classes were suspended which forced them to do online classes, and streets were guarded heavily with law enforcement officers, soldiers even. First I thought “Online classes, cool. It’s easier to pass the courses when we take online exams because, the internet answers everything!” (yeah I know that’s a shitty thought, but at that time I didn’t know that thousands of people are going to die, and I’m not mentally stable to handle that. Also, the internet does not answer everything, I still had to do manual solving to answer those tests cause the professors made it super hard, I thought I was taking the board exam! *flailing arms angrily*)

As days went by I got super anxious because it finally sunk in that my parents were medical professionals. They need to work. They are required to. I started to worry, but I can’t show that I’m worried because my little siblings are going to worry too. Plus, I’ve always been like the strong independent woman that they’ve come to love but my oh my, this strong independent woman is going to puke because of anxiety. I “tried” to show them that I can handle things in the house when they (parents) are gone. And I told them (little sis and little bro) that everything is going to be okay. “No need to worry.” I say to them as I held back my screams of terror. It’s so damn hard to pretend to be strong in front of your younger sibs! (Panganays rise up!) But we need to do it. I need to do it, because mama raised no bitch.

Stuff about my friends on the other hand went, okay? I guess. I got to hang out a lot with some of them, but my original friend group… Let’s just say that I haven’t had the time to catch up. Not just on stories, but also on studies? Maybe because I’m way behind them now. They’re taking up higher studies while I’m still stuck in my current studies. It’s my fault, though. I am clearly fucked up and I can’t keep up with what society wants students to be in this day and age. I’m a slow learner, I guess. I give up easily, and that I know is true. Long-story-short, I fail a lot of subjects because I lack self-control and I’m dumb as fuck, that’s why I haven’t graduated yet. Now that I think about it, I’ve been studying for 5 years, non-stop. I take classes every semester, even during the summer, I try to enroll for school, and yet… I’m still here. But I guess that’s for another entry.

But, something did happen this year that made it a lot more bearable. Remember the people I said that became some of my closest friends? Well, kids. This is the story about how I met your mothe– (How I Met Your Mother reference!!! I’m so sorry, I’ve been binge watching a shit ton of series to appease the mental breakdown, so please bear with me.) This is the story about how I met the… uh, I don’t know what to call this group, but the group chat name varies from “GYULISANATICS” to “PUSSY GANG”. I’ve met this people online, through stan twitter, and they are one of the funniest people I know. I adore them so much, and I just want to protect them at all costs because they are so precious (even though they are completely savage when it comes to twitter fights). I’m going to talk more about them in a separate entry (I think I’m going to call it “the_gang_entry_3”) because there will be a lot of interesting and hella funny stories to tell about this people. Anyway, I’ve been inactive on stan twitter (on social media in general, like literally the only two apps that I open now are Netflix and YouTube) and I feel like I’m missing a lot. I kind of want to jump in on their conversations but I’m afraid that I wouldn’t know what they’re talking about and I’ll just feel out of place. Like my original friend group (stated in last paragraph).

There was this one time not too long ago, where a feud started on stan twitter where the “gang” was pulled into and everything was in chaos. That time, I was just in bed binge watching “Why R U”. When the last episode ended, I turned on my twitter notifications (I turn off twitter notifications when I’m watching so that annoying notification tab doesn’t pop up) and immediately, my phone started vibrating non-stop. I got notification after notification after notification. So I decided to check stan twitter, and OH. MY. GOODNESS. I didn’t know why my timeline was flooded with selcas (a “selca” is a slang for “self-camera” which originated in South Korea, it is also known as a “selfie”). I checked my DMs and the chat was going crazy. I didn’t understand what was going on so I called a dear friend named Din. I asked her what the heck is happening. Why does my timeline look like that one scene from Spongebob where all the tiny Spongebobs in his brain were running around, panicking, and everything else is on fire? She calmly explained it and told me everything. Sparing no details. That one and a half hour conversation was full of opinions on who we needed to side with. At that time, I really wasn’t sure on whose side I’m on, because everything was still so confusing for me even though Din tried to explain and re-explain everything when I tried to ask questions (and they were a lot, sorry Din.) At that time, the mother in me really wanted to say something, like give advice or tell them that everything is going to be okay, and that they don’t need to listen/mind the people that show them hate (which I know they already knew, because they are strong women as well). But I couldn’t, and I don’t know why. A part of me thought that maybe the thing that I’m about to say is going to rub off in a bad way? Or maybe they’ll think that I’m just being active because of the fact that there is a fight going on and I’m just in it for the “tea”. So I didn’t say anything. Even though I told them that I was going to say something. Now I don’t know if they’ll ever get to know the reason why.

This fucking lockdown got me so fucked up that I’m overthinking the littlest of things.

Well, that’s it for entry 2. I’ll write again soon.

Lastly, I do hope that help is given to the people who need it the most. And remember that it’s okay to not feel okay amidst these series of unfortunate events. There are always people out there who can listen to you… who can help you. Don’t be afraid to reach out.

(I haven’t proofread this entry so if there are any mistakes, I’m sorry. Lol)

#diaryblog #it's been so long #this took two pages #i'm sorry if it's long

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theamberfang · 5 years ago

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Journal 300: Clarity

Winding Down

I think my interest in Hearthstone is beginning to wane. I spent more time watching stuff on YouTube that wasn’t even related to Battlegrounds. And even when I did decide to look into streams of the mode, I didn’t immediately feel like I wanted to play it myself. Based on my recollections of becoming stuck on things, this is actually a remarkably short duration.

Thinking about it though, this is the first time that I’ve really been mindful of the process. It’s possible that, in the past, I had simply kept on with playing certain games because my hyperfocus had established it as a routine. I do recall how I tended to stop playing things when I became outright bored and/or frustrated, and I imagine there has to be a period in-between when I was still somewhat enjoying myself, but I didn’t need to keep playing—I just hadn’t been thinking of doing anything else.

Another contributing factor might be how Hearthstone is something I had already played a bunch of in the past. I’m savvy now to the way the daily quests make me feel like I’d be “missing out” by not playing in a way that I wasn’t years ago. Even the new single-player stuff, with all of the new bells and whistles, is still fundamentally the same game I played a ton of before, so my interest there is fading pretty quickly.

Also, Battlegrounds, the mode that drew me back in the first place, isn’t all that complicated—there are only so many build paths. The most intriguing thing about the mode is the selection of heroes, but with the random offerings, I can’t consistently choose the ones I want to try going wild with. While I might still find some enjoyment in improving at the mode, I do feel like I’ve experienced the bulk of what it has to offer—for now at least. I am curious about how they’ll expand it, so I’ll keep my eyes on the game to see how it develops, but I don’t actually need to play the game in the meantime.

Schedule

I’ve been avoiding marking my daily schedule by the hour for awhile now, and I’m starting to think that it was a misguided decision. Indeed, even with my focus on Hearthstone waning, I still found myself procrastinating things until near the end of the day. Thinking it through, I did handle most of the year just fine with the hourly schedule.

Now, I’m thinking that NaNoWriMo was a unique case, because being “late” to my writing sessions was what began to stress me out specifically. One element of NaNoWriMo that may have been getting to me was the deadline; I knew that I only had until the end of the month, so I really felt like I was “wasting time” if I wasn’t abiding by my own schedule. Another element was how I kept looking at the statistics provided by the NaNoWriMo website; I’m sure it’s useful for some people, but day-after-day of seeing how I was behind I was was very stressful. Lastly, the fact that I told people that I was participating in NaNoWriMo made me feel overly obligated to write—I’m including the way I was posting my writing on this blog too.

Basically, the degree of importance that I had put on NaNoWriMo—despite my in-text efforts to remind myself otherwise—made me more acutely aware of any sort of procrastination. Really, I was stressing out over anything related to the challenge: the scheduling was just one small component of it all.

So, I’m going to go back to having timestamps so that I can better wrangle myself away from YouTube. If the past year is any indication, I shouldn’t care too much if I’m “late” to working on Khan Academy or whatever, but the framework really helps me structure my day.

Wrapping Up

Tomorrow is Monday, so I could write an “Extended Outlook,” but I feel pretty committed to just waiting until next month for it, even if I’ve dropped out of NaNoWriMo this year. I just don’t feel up to it, so I’m not going to force myself to.

Oh, and just to put it on record, I did take a shower today. I even managed to wash my whole body, though the heat was waning by the end of it. Still, I should probably endeavor to shower twice a week instead of once: Thursday seems like a decent day for it.

I didn’t get around to any research on ADHD, but the scope of that goal is probably too big. It’s past midnight at the moment though, so I’m not up to trying to break it up into something smaller.

Tomorrow’s Tasks

Dance for exercise; 1000

Khan Academy; 1100

NaNoWriMo?; 1300

Journal; 2000

#daily journal #personal

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colombia-chan · 6 years ago

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Ad idem

This is late I know, I really do. Stupid procrastination got to me! But this is my little one-shot of the second half of the MCLUL Christmas 2018 event involving my Evie and Castiel, and a Cameo of Evie’s cousin Lyndis, which here she is for quick reference.

But anyway please enjoy!

“God damn it. I…Hate...The…Cold.” Lyndis hisses out over chattering teeth, arms wrapped tightly around her form as she and an amused Castiel step into the all but empty Cozy Bear café. “Never again, I fricken swear Castiel, never ask me out in this weather again.” She glared as Castiel laughed at the pink haired woman’s shivering form.

“Hey, don’t look at me like that. It’s not my fault if you suck at staying warm even in all those.” He teased looking the soon to be twenty-four-year-old over as he took note of the winter bulk that was the outer pieces of her clothing. “Scarf, Hat, gloves, and multiple layers of clothes how’s it that I’m still warmer than you with less on.” He laughed as Lyndis flipped him off.

“Oh, screw you! We all can’t be natural heaters.” Taking a seat at a table farthest to the cafe’s doors Lyn glared as she struggled to keep from shivering. “Fuck you, and every other man and woman with your stupid cold resistance.”

“Yeah, no thanks.” Castiel huffed as he tried to and failed if Lyndis’s strained smirk were anything to go by, secretly search for a familiar brown-haired waitress of the cafe. “I rather not, no offense but you’re not really my type Lyn.”

Smirking Lyndis was finally able to stop shivering. “Oh, and what is your type, hmm?” Leaning forward on the table pink met grey eyes as she smiled amusedly up at the man she called friend. “It wouldn’t happen to be a wholesome little girl you used to date who’s all grown up and a waitress at this oh so humble establishment.” Castiel glare made Lyndis laugh, “Oh god, don’t tell me that’s why you pulled me away from my apartment.” Almost doubling over she grinned up at the red-haired man, “It is! You dragged my butt here just, so you’d have an excuse to see Evie!”

“Shut up!” Castiel snapped, “I just got home from a holiday trip with my parents, the only reason I asked you out is to try and destress from that.” He partially lied, hands clenched into fist as his friend continued to laugh at his embarrassment.

“Yeah right!” Lyn snorted as she leaned back in her seat, “You forget Cas, I may never have dated you, but you did date my cousin.” Smile sympathetically at Castiel Lyn shrugged, “And you’ve pretty much been my best friend ever since our last years at Sweet Amoris. So don’t you dare try that whole, tough and cool, front on me. Cause I’m not falling for it.”

Castiel’s gaze couldn’t help but soften at this, sighing in defeat as he rested his face onto his hands. He really should have seen this coming, it had been years now since his main source of friendship had been Lyndis. Even after Lysander left, even after Demons passing, even after his and Evie’s break-up, hell even after her and Nathaniel’s splitting, Lyn had still been there in some way. She had been, even with all the drama and new responsibilities placed upon her, remained his friend, and in some ways… his extended family. He almost winced at the thought.

Remembers how in someway that could have been true, how open to family Lyn was, how… how open to it Evie was, and more then likely still were. His eyes glance down to his school bag, and his mind is drawn to an item held inside. ‘Damn it…’ He thought.

“Lyndis!” Looking up Castiel watched as dark-haired man dressed in the cafes uniform came up to Lyndis, face flustered, obviously nervous to all hell and Castiel could not help but feel he had maybe met the man once before. Was it at the beach a few months back, he knows most of the gang was there, but his mind had been torn in two separate directions that whole day with his career and Evie.

“Oh, hey Hyun. How’s it going?” Lyndis nonchalantly replied, looking up at the man with a slanted smile.”

Looking around Hyun’s eyes landed on Castiel for a split second as he sent him a polite nod of acknowledgment, before looking back at Lyndis with a smile.

“Oh, I’m fine. Never better really, I went to see my family recently but since we don’t really celebrate the holidays we didn’t do much outside catching up.”

“Well, that’s nice.” Lyn smiled before her eyes quickly glanced over to Castiel, “I see you’re no longer stuttering.” She hummed as the Asian man became flustered much to Castiel’s slight curiosity. “Am I not pretty enough for you today or is it the lack of my uncle Philip perhaps.”

Was Lyn really teasing this guy, was she even interested to begin with this guy, Lyn wasn’t known for just randomly flirting with people right off the bat and stuff. Looking over at Hyun Castiel couldn’t help but feel somewhat confused, he didn’t look like Lyn’s type and if anything Castiel was sure Lyndis was still somewhat stuck on Nathaniel, and that the blonde idiot was just as much stuck on her even with his decision to leave her all those years back.

“I… Um…” Looking away Hyun groaned as he became dejected. “I’m sorry Lyndis it’s not that you aren’t, I mean you are but… and your uncle was… and Evie.” Castiel’s eyes became sharp here, noticing the change in pitch when he said her name, how his eyes glazed over in a love-sick way, how he struggled to meet Lyn’s eyes. “Was I that obvious?”

“To my uncle and I… oh definitely.” Lyn shrugged, “But to Evie…” Lyn had to look Castiel directly in the eyes to say this, “No.” A lie, Evie wasn’t so oblivious to people’s emotions and feelings, let alone things directed at her. And Castiel knew what Lyn was implying with all this. What Hyun was saying even without blatantly stating it.

He remembers his days back in Sweet Amoris then. Remembers Kentin and how he used to look at Evie, how he used to talk to her, about her, and try to be with her before he moved on. Castiel remembers the annoyance and jealousy he felt, when even when Evie was his, she was still being sought after by Kentin and that surfer. He remembers how guys looked at her, and how he hated it, remembers how his jealousy and possessiveness sometimes led to fights between them. He looks at Hyun and he feels it all again, and she isn’t even his to justify feeling this for anymore. He just feels annoyed now, he watches as Lyn orders for herself and him, watches as Hyun leaves, and hates how for the rest of the time they wait for their order the feeling of possessiveness and frustration over his and Evie’s relationship still lingers even though their now more. Haven’t been for years.

“Do you need a smoke?” Lyn quietly asks after Hyun places down their drinks and leaves. Her eyes are focused on him but Castiel's is just drawn to his drink as he tries to calm the storm in him.

“What was that?” He tries to calmly ask, hands clenched to the side of his coffee and he can’t help but remember the day he tried to help Evie out at the café when he’d first learned that she worked there.

“Do you mean the small talk or Hyun’s oh so obvious crush on Evie.” Lyn bluntly replied, taking a sip of her own coffee before looking away from her friend as he stood to leave.

“Forget it, I don’t—”

“Need to know any of this?” Looking back at Lyndis with a glare she didn’t even seem to care to look back up at Castiel as she solemnly stared down at her drink. “You do though.” Looking up at her friend she smiled supportively. “You idiots, three years later and you’re still pining for one another even when you try to lie to yourselves. I swear it’s like watching paint dry, talk about painful.”

“Lyndis.”

Shaking her head Lyn didn’t set a determine stare upon Castiel’s form, “If you don’t act now. If you don’t do anything again, like back then. When you ran instead of trying to fight, you're going to regret it Cas.” Looking away from her friend Lyn hands shook in frustration, “You’re gonna lose her for good.”

He leaves without a word, doesn’t really need to with the glare he sends, and Lyn doesn’t stop him. Silently watching as he leaves, brushes Hyun off when he returns from the back and doesn’t see Castiel with her. Pays for hers and his drinks before finishing her own and leaving, she’s done her part, now it’s up to them.

He walks to the college campus in frustration, Lyn’s words continue to ring in his head and the past won’t stop hitting him as though he’s haunted by Christmas past. He huffs at this and glares up to the campus dorms as he enters the colleges' plaza. His hand twitches at his side and he can feel the few stares of both fans and bystanders alike turning to look at him. He ignores them though and makes his way to the campus library, he sets out his things. Tries to sit down and study, but his mind lingers, his eyes pulled to his bag every now and again and Lyn’s words won’t leave him.

‘You’re gonna lose her for good.’

It’s frustrating and stupid, and he hates how she’s right. ‘What the hell am I doing?’ He makes his choice and pulls out his cell.

Evie is alone, and she is contemplative, in her arms she carries a gift, but she’s torn on what to do. Does she give it to Lyndis and hope she passes it on to Castiel as she’d done for the past years since her and Castiel’s break up, or does she swallow her fear and try to do it herself. Quietly she down to the university’s plaza, staring at the snow on the ground and heart longing for someone she knows she should have moved past of. The familiar feeling of wanting to cry is there, how pathetic is she to have not moved past her first love when she had so foolishly let him go, to begin with.

Shivering in her place she stops mid-walk, it so cold outside, yet she feels even colder inside. Maybe she should contact Rosa, or Alexy, maybe she should call up Lyn and finally tell her cousin of the internal conflict she’d been having. Her parents had just left not that long ago alongside her aunt Agatha, and Lyndis and her, Lyn’s, half-brother Leo had all returned to their respective apartment further away. Yet she still felt alone, still felt cold even after the wholesome visit, even with some family still in reach.

Her phone vibrates from inside her pants pockets, and she is torn from her thoughts, she leans herself against a lamp post and pulls out the device. She thinks it’ll be her mother, or Lyndis, somewhat hopes for Alexy and Rosa, maybe even Lucy or Chani to talk to. Instead, her heart skips a beat, her stomach twists into knots, and leaves her weak to the knees. “Castiel.” She reads aloud opening the text as she clutches her gift closer to her chest. “Hey, little girl. I don’t know if you’re around. I just got back on campus, feel like getting together?” She doesn’t know what to think, is it a joke, was it for real. It was Christmas day didn’t he have other obligation, just got back was he away. So many questions ran through her mind, yet as if on autopilot she replied. “Hey! Yeah, I’m on campus, too. Everything OK?” She almost wants to slap herself for it, it sounds so forced. So cheerful, she didn’t like how fake it sounded, how wrong it felt, it didn’t sound like her.

Castiel glared at the message before him, something didn’t feel right with the response. He could only wonder if maybe like him, Evie was in as contemplative of a mood as him.

“Yes, Mother, everything’s fine.” He decides to jokingly replies, he hopes it helps, maybe to calm her nerves or even cheer her up, before sending the rest of what he needs. “Seriously though, if you’re free, meet me at the library, we…” He stops mid type, and his eyes return to his bag, taking a deep breath his finishes the text, “to talk.”

It doesn’t take long for her to appear, she doesn’t respond to his final text she just appears. Hands behind her back, dressed similarly to Lyn minus a hat and of warmer shades of color. Her eyes avoid him, and she seems hesitant, he honestly feels the same… yet he can’t show it.

“Hey…” She finally looks towards him, “Merry Christmas!” and smiles nervously.

“Same to you.” He responds, “What are you doing spending the holidays here?” He is cool with how he responds, still unsure of what it is he should do. Even though she’s here, even though their talking it still feels like he’s that sixteen to seventeen-year-old who doesn’t know what to say when it comes to her.

Sighing loudly her smile became slanted as she leaned back on her heels, “I see the Christmas spirit hasn’t made you any friendlier.” Her smile becomes warmer then, and he can tell she’s more relaxed as she stares down at his seated form with violet eyes. “Might I point out that YOU are the one who ask me to come.” She teases, she isn’t mad though, she’s open, understanding even without knowing that even he is unsure. “But to answer your question, my parents and aunt came to visit Leo, Lyn, and me.” Removing one hand from behind her back she timidly played with a strand of her hair, “It was… actually kind of nice.”

“I see…” Castiel hummed, playing dumb as he remembered the conversation between Lyn and Hyun earlier in the day. “Personally, I just got back from a long family weekend. I’m relieved to be back here.” He sighed as he heard his Ex giggle in amusement.

“Knowing you, you’re probably exaggerating.” Smiling she rocked back and forth on her feet. “Your parents must be proud of you and your budding career!”

Turning his gaze away from her smile, that damn proud smile that said she understood more then she should, that she still knew him even better then she should. He tried forcing down a blush. “Pretty proud, yeah. They’re a pain.”

“If you say so…” She shifts on her feet, and Castiel can’t help but scold as he noted her continue to stand.

“How about sitting down a couple of minutes?”

Blushing brightly Evie stuttered slightly, “Y-yeah, sorry.” Sitting down Castiel curiously noted that she still seemed to be hiding something as she sat down before him at the table. “How was studying going?”

“Fine,” He lied, how could it be fine when his mind was being filled with too many thoughts of her, and Lyn, and Hyun, and the past. “I’m just taking a break.”

“Oh…” There is a tense silence for a bit, neither speak, neither really look at one another, and it feels like the relaxed atmosphere that they’d achieved had vanished away. Trying to lighten the mood again Evie recounts the events of her parents visit, and Castiel actively listens with interest, in some parts to avoid opening up himself and in others to collect his own thoughts and nerves.

It seems to work though as Castiel ends up loudly laughing near the end, “You know I knew Lyn mom was weird, but I never realized she was that weird.”

Laughing along with him Evie simply shook her head, “Tell me about it, I love my aunt and all but… Oh well, let’s just say I’m glad I’m so used to it by now.”

“In any case, sounds like she spoils both of you…” Smirking he can’t help but feel warm at the more relaxed atmosphere that surrounds them, or her more loving smile that reminds him of their past time together. “In the end, I’m not sure you need another present.”

Evie’s smile falls, “Another present?” She becomes confused, the hidden gift on her lap becoming heavier as she’s reminded of it. “That’s…” She interrupts herself as she sees him pull out a package from underneath the table. “Cas…”

“Here,” Holding the gift out he smiles honestly. “This could be useful.”

Her grip tightens on her gift hidden on her lap, “…You’re not serious.” Her heart is racing and Castiel chuckles as he notices the blush slowly creeping up her face.

“Oh, very. Merry Christmas, again.” He states, and Evie almost wants to burst into tears as she pulls out her own gift from underneath.

His eyes slightly widened at the reveal, but his heart melts when her smile becomes the warmest and most honest since their reunion months ago. “Merry Christmas again.” She repeats, and they exchange packages, they say no more. Both opening their respective gifts only for them both to burst out laughing at what they get. Wool Scarfs. “I guess great minds think alike.” Evie jokes holding up her new black scarf as she looks at Castiel.

He holds up his own one, a nice dark shade of red looking at it though he can’t help but shake his head amusedly. “Yeah… what are the odds.”

Without thinking she rises from her seat, moving around the table to kiss him on both cheeks. Castiel is left in shock and feels as his scarf his draped around his neck, looking up though he’s met with a smile he’s missed. A private smile once shared between the two in their youth as Evie stares down at him longingly. “Thank you.” A final quick kiss to his lips cheeks a light red and she flees. Scarf in hand, heart racing, she runs both excitedly and embarrassed all the way back to her dorm, and Castiel is left cursing silently into his new scarf fluster and giddy. Yet the two are still left longing and tentative for the other, both still unsure of what they are, what they will be… but at least for now they know, they are of the same mind, and longing.

#mcl #my candy love #my candy love university life #sweet amoris #sweet crush #Corazon de Melon #amour sucre #amour dolce #evie x castiel #mcl castiel #my candy love castiel #onshot #my candy love university life castiel #my candy love evie #my candy love university life evie #amor doce #csabitasbol jeles #christmas 2018 #yes this is late to the party i know

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thecrackedbead · 3 years ago

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Etsy store OPENS NEXT Sunday... or 'Tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll do it tomorrow. *Fuck it.*I'll definitely do it next week.'

I have an official announcement to make on the status of my shop:

The Cracked Bead will be open at Etsy with merchandise by this Sunday, January 23, 2022.

So, I planned to have merchandise on my Etsy store up and running a while back but was unsatisfied with how much stuff that I have ready to sell and thus put it off. The *natural* response to this realisation is to hunker down and start producing things in bulk.

Uhm, yeah. 'Natural'. I'll totally did that. Yep, I was on it. I totally planned to that the next day. Shame that I psyched myself into that mindset... two... thirty... or more times. So, I had a bit of a problem there.

---

This is totally not me. I have no clue why I added this... In fact, I didn't add this! It totally just popped up in my post for no reason and I was extremely confused by it.

---

The reality is I have a massive bit of a problem when it comes to procrastinating. I have a long history of coming up with ideas and failing to follow through. Not because I didn't genuinely want to do those things but for other reasons. Now, what reasons are these? Time to play therapist with myself, I guess.

Reasons why @thecrackedbead keeps on putting off getting her shop going:

I can be extremely distractab--- Ooooh shiny!

I am not fully confident in the quality of my work and am worried that it won't be worth buying.

Care waaaaaay too much about what people think about me. Seriously, for all that people say that you should not care what others think about you, this is only partially true. Caring about what others think is a major reason we are not dicks to each other or run red lights, etc. The trick is not caring too much and I suck at that balancing act, and on my worse days the that desire can be like a black hole. Logically, the jewelry that I make are not technically me, but a part of myself goes into them. So if people don't buy my jewelry, I feel like they are rejecting me.

Fear of failure.

Expanding on #1: even when I have sat done to work on a project, I often by a new idea.

Other commitments. <- Self explanatory.

I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO REASON THAT I CAN THINK OF BUT IT STILL SCREWS ME UP!!!!

So how to tackle all of this?

No clear idea. However, getting some product finished is better than none.

My worries as to quality are definitely overblown. I have jewelry that I have made for myself and others that I made years ago and has held up to things like being put in the washing machine multiple times. If something I make breaks or the purchaser doesn't like, they can of course return it.

Yes, I don't feel like my work is that nice at times, but I know that family and friends and at times complete strangers have complimented my work. Just because the stuff I produce doesn't automatically sell does not reflect whether or not it is likeable.

See 3.

Maybe only put out the things that I need for what I am currently making? Maybe have a notebook to draw in nearby for any ideas that come up?

Therapy. Confidence exercises. Meds. Etc. Unfortunately there no miracle cures or guarantees.

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I maaaaaybe recognize a bit of myself in this.

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But overall...

JUST LAUNCH THE FUCKING BLESSED STORE

I definitely do have some merchandise ready to sell. I can worry and stress until I am blue in the face, but I'd regret never trying and if I never try, I will never succeed in anything in life. Thus, I picked a date and I am going for it. To quote Brandon Sanderson's excellent Stormlight Chronicles:

The longer you live, the more you fail. Failure is the mark of a life well lived. In turn, the only way to live without failure is to be of no use to anyone.

I suppose that 'anyone' includes me.

#beading #esty store #procrastination #mental health #mental wellbeing #coping

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fatherfunston · 6 years ago

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Nine Years Wasted

Today is the ninth anniversary of my marriage to Michael. We celebrated this morning with a coffee date where we spent quite a bit of time reading, together but separately.

It put me in mind of a series of wedding-planning decisions we made nine years ago.

Following the tradition of the Episcopal Church, we didn’t have many decisions to make about the actual wedding service, but the liturgy of the worship is complemented by the liturgy of the reception with its mountains of decisions: How and when will you enter? How/when/what will you eat? Cake? For the future Funstons, food decisions were easy, the bulk our reception planning went into one thing: PLAYLIST. We had one commitment to ourselves: we wanted a reception where people actually danced. (And they did!)

In the modern American wedding, the beginning of the playlist is the most important. For those ceremonial dances, we wanted all the heteronormative stuff: Father/Daughter and Couple’s First Dance, we added a Mother/Son dance. For the parent/child dances, it was easy for Michael to choose Bobby Darren’s Beyond the Sea and I decided on The Bangles’ Walk Like an Egyptian, each their own story. Having established those relatively quickly, we got to work on our First Dance, after much back and forth, we settled on a slow version of Pete Townshend’s Let My Love Open The Door. It was the right decision, a song that, apart from being lyrically beautiful and sung by the lyricist to my favorite band, played a prominent role in a crucial moment of our courtship. However, we didn’t settle upon it easily. I had many ideas, but my favorite was a song called Waste by the band Phish, from their 1996 album Billy Breathes.

Even if it wasn’t the song we ultimately picked, it has stayed at the forefront of my mind in the last nine years as the poetic ideal of the relationship I strive for with Michael and has come to speak to my understanding of that other main relationship in my life: Jesus Christ.

“Don't want to be an actor pretending on the stage; Don't want to be a writer with my thoughts out on the page; Don't want to be a painter cause everyone comes to look; Don't want to be anything where my life's an open book,” sings Trey Anastasio quietly over simple, beautiful acoustic guitar. The chorus continues, “A dream, it's true, but I'd see it through; If I could be wasting my time with you.”

The love song carries the sentiment throughout: I don’t want to do the normal work thing or to chase success, I just want to waste time with you. From acoustic guitar, the song’s energy builds, electric guitar and drums thrumming, until it ends with the nine-times repeated refrain: “Come waste your time with me.”

Nine years ago, I wanted to proclaim the truth of those lyrics while dancing with Michael after making our solemn commitment before God. As much as I loved her and looked forward to building a life with her, I was really looking forward to continuing to waste time. Today, I understand this truth in a more expanded, experienced way… in a world of sanctified busy-ness, tracking ten different calendars, and lists of groceries and Target-runs, nothing is more important to my marriage than finding time to waste time with Michael.

It’s easy for me to waste time alone. As a third-degree black-belt procrastinator, you might say I’m a professional. Michael and I are individual people with individual tastes so we often do our own thing; I do NOT want to be a part of her 25th re-watch of Friends and she does NOT want to slay Valus Thuun or Xol, Will of the Thousands, again and again. Pursuing our own interests and time-wasting is important for our mental health and for our relationship, but it’s also an easy rut.

Discovering the ways that we can waste time together is harder. Wasting time together requires a bit of planning, perhaps some strategy, but nothing is sweeter. Having worked and worked to make the household run, intentionally finding time to be with one another without expectations is one of the ways we manifest our love. Thank you, Michael, for wasting time with me.

Intentional time-wasting isn’t only useful in romantic relationship. A time-wasting mindset is a powerful thing to consider when we think about our relationship with our triune God.

As I look at the landscape of our practice of faith, I see piety that closely mirrors the values of our world. Christ tells us that his followers “are not of the world” (John 17.16), but often our praxis ends up looking pretty worldly. Worship is at a specific time and place using a specific rubric. Formation is about attending a class taught by, or at least reading, an expert. Our service of Christ in the world maintains the power structures and social distance that engender systems of oppression and marginalization in the first place. Our “religious life” looks a whole lot like our “normal life.” It’s busy and scheduled and formulaic; it works, but it also feels like work.

But the God who tabernacles, incarnates and abides with us wants nothing more than for us to choose to waste time WITH God. All the study and regimented worship draws us into the presence of God; it is good and holy. But Jesus came into the world that we might no longer only serve and worship God at a distance. Jesus came that we might fall in love with him, that service and worship might spring from a relationship of true love. And what is love? Love is the authentic desire to waste time with another.

Wasting time with God may require a bit of planning, perhaps some strategy, but nothing is sweeter. In the quiet spaces of nothing-else-happening, God speaks. God might even sing the end of the song to us, “So if I’m inside your head, don’t believe what you might have read. You’ll see what I might have said… to hear it?

Come waste your time with me. Come waste your time with me. Come waste your time with me. Come waste your time with me. Come waste your time with me. Come waste your time with me. Come waste your time with me. Come waste your time with me. Come waste your time with me.”

#episcopal #anniversary #waste #wasting time #wasting time with god #marriage

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yoanxue · 8 years ago

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Hello everyone! I recently finished high school (just about 3 weeks ago, actually) and I figured I’d make a list of things for those of you just entering, or even just looking for some advice in general. :^) Some bg info is that I went to a 4-year, public high school in California, so some of these tips may not apply, depending on where you are in the world.

- Let friendships happen. There’s no need to actively look for friends or be super against meeting new people in high school; it all happens pretty naturally. Be open minded and you’ll meet some people you never thought you’d ever know! :^)

- Join clubs that you’re interested in. If you join a boring club you have no real interest in, chances are it’ll look pretty bland on college apps (if you so choose to include it). My advice is to join a couple clubs and dedicate yourself to them so that your involvement can actually mean something. That being said, you can also try to join an academic club like NHS or CSF (California only) that will add some shine to your grades if/when you do well.

- Learn how to study. This might sound like a no-brainer, but I need to emphasize this! I truthfully never really studied(!!!) until my sophomore year of high school (same time I started my studyblr!), which is pretty crazy. Before then, I was privileged enough to pass every honors class I took with A’s, but once I got to high school, I was scrambling to get my life together simply because I didn’t know how to study. Freshman year was that sort of rude awakening that I NEEDED. I realized that life wasn’t always going to be that easy for me, so learning how to study for high school is a crucial piece of advice.

- Get a planner. Doesn’t have to be fancy. My school sells pre-made planners for $5 every year, so the initiation to become organized wasn’t that hard. But for some of you who need a little something to stay on track, get yourself a notebook where you can write down your daily assignments and USE. IT! Memory isn’t foolproof, unfortunately, so a planner can really save your life in the long run. Plus, you can chart out how long you have/need to study for your next exam.

- School food sucks. I don’t need to say this twice. Learn how to pack a lunch, buy granola bars in bulk, and carry a water bottle everywhere to save yourself from that midday hunger. A pack of chips in the vending machine isn’t worth $1, and you have more options if you shop outside of school, anyway.

- Deal with teachers. More often than none, you are going to have a teacher you won’t like. However, rather than complain about how bad they are at teaching, find a way to study yourself so that your grade can stay above water, no matter who your teacher might be. And if you find a good teacher, then great! Become friends with them. You’ll find that many teachers are really unique and willing to get to know their students on a friendly level. If you do well in their class, too, they’ll probably even be willing to write those dreaded letters of rec in your senior year!

- Don’t rush into dating. I’m sorry I just had to say: there are so many more fish in the sea that is OUTSIDE high school, so there should be no reason for you to want to rush and find a bf/gf. But if you do, then be smart about it!

- Your locker is a base. Only sometimes hungry? Got allergies? Need a makeup retouch throughout the day? Stash your PopTarts (yeah I did that; bought a few boxes and kept them there throughout the year), tissues, and cosmetics in your locker so that you can always have some backup support. Your future self will thank you.

- About standardized tests....Yeah, I know, I hate them too. You can talk to your counselor about when/if to take them when the time comes around. However, when I say that, I mean that if you plan on taking the SAT junior year, start prepping the summer after sophomore year. There is really no reason for you to start preparation in your freshman year, because chances are, you won’t understand anything yet!

- Talk to your counselor. Your counselor is there to help you decide on what classes to take or what career to pursue. It’s their job to help you! Personally, my counselor was a cranky old lady (sorry) who was often impatient, but she did still listen to what I had to say, and she helped sort out my classes. Also remember that they’re there if you need a mental health hotline, or if you just need to talk out your stress.

- Don’t procrastinate. Easy to say, much harder to do. But if you use your planner and spread out your work little by little, it’s much less painful than to do a five page essay in the wee hours of the morning it’s due. Same goes for college apps! For example, the UC essays are due at the end of November, but you should get started on them at the beginning/mid of October, because you’ll want to do a LOT of proofreading. That being said...

- Get friends and teachers to help you. Friends offer another mind, and teachers can help you with the nitty-gritty of things. Sometimes, teachers won’t have time to help your bigger assignments like essays, but you can still ask them for tips and advice here and there. Trust me, it really helps when you know what exactly you’re supposed to be doing.

- Take note of the syllabuses. It’ll save your life when the semester is coming to an end and you can check back to see what counts as an A in the class, or how much that next test/final will affect your grade. Every teacher is different, after all, so extra credit can’t save you all the time. You’ll also want to make sure you have a means to contact your teachers, whether it be e-mail or phone so you can ask them questions when school is out for the day.

- Use your summers wisely. If you can, take a preparation class for that math class you really need help in, or that writing class you know you’re going to have trouble with. The summer before junior year is a great time to take an SAT/ACT preparation class as well. If you plan on taking a subject you’re a little less knowledgeable in, previewing the subject content is also a great way to make sure you won’t regret not changing your schedule sooner.

- Accept high school for what it is. High school isn’t like the movies. It’s not drowning in drama like you think it might be, and the lockers (at least in my school) were not nearly big enough to shove a person in. Don’t be too disappointed when the school dances aren’t as glamorous as they’re made out to seem. But do enjoy yourself. You’re here for four years, so you might as well! Go out with your friends on weekends. Treat yourself to some ice cream after school on a Wednesday if you did really well on that test you were fearing. Because even though everyone says so--and it really doesn’t seem like it when you enter--high school will be done in a flash.

I could include so much more, but there really isn’t enough time. Thanks for reading, and feel free to ask me any other questions! :^)

#studyblr #study guide #high school #tips #advice #study tips #studying #studyspo #schoolblr #school #yoanxue #study

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narahalara · 5 years ago

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a mini update to myself about my life that ive been procrastinating on for a week now lol

instead of reading my article that i have a quiz on tmrw im gonna type this cause ive been meaning to type this but been delaying it idk why.I wanted to write this i think cause i havent really updated myself in awhile, and i think it be good to look back on and reflect for future me to read or skim through if I am still the same LOL.

Ok so the last couple weeks, i actually got really stressed and sleep deprived and i was having a lot of high and low days. like some days ill be on fire and super productive and happy then other days i can barely get out of bed and was so tired. I was sleeping at like 2-3 am straight which is actually not normal for me cause yes i am a granny that sleeps usually around 11-12ish. Anyways, I was tired from studying for my exams, like i was pulling these all nighters, to the point where on wednesday last week, i burnt out literally. i had 2 midterms the next day (halloween) but i couldnt do it anymore so i just prayed that all the info i had studied would be retained and i slept at like 7 pm and did not wake up until 9 am the next morning so i felt like i temporarly died or hibernated for 14 hours lol but it helped me recuperate cause i was dead tired physically and mentally. Then I had my midterms, and thankfully they were “ok” they were still hard ofc but for the most part I dont think i failed so yeah. and then for halloween my roomies and i had dinner together and we drank and made desserts it was so cute and nice as like a treat for finishing those midterms.

so after that i got a chance to settle down cause for the weekend i only had to study for my final midterm that was this monday, and thankfully the material is pretty straightforward. The test was multiple choice and it wasnt hard, but there were some questions on the student presentations and i skipped that day cause it was wednesday when i fell ill and couldnt go to class :( so hopefully i can get at least a B but thats ok.

In addition to this, i also had to skip my gym session on wednesday which at first i was a little sad about cause i have been pulling a really good streak since like late june lol, but i really pushed myself on friday and sunday (and even today which is tuesday lol). and but heres the kinda like woah idk how i feel about thing like half happy but half concerned. i dropped 8 pounds this month unintentionally. which i have some theories? i think its 1) i walk ALOT back n forth from my apt to campus 2) ive been pushing myself pretty hard at the gym 3) i eat a lot but its really healthy like example salmon and brown rice and a ton of veggies, but think there has been a deficit in calories on some days?? idk like i dont think im eating less but maybe i am?? 4) ive been FAMISHLY HUNGRY LIKE ALL THE TIME LIKE RN I AM HUNGRY EVEN THOUGH I ATE DINNER A COUPLE HOURS AGO, idk why im sooooo hungry even though i eat alot but im not ganing weight.

Like my normal weight this year is 117-120 lbs. but now its like i wake up 110 lbs and by the end of the day im only like 112-113 lbs. like i havent seen those numbers since freshmen year of high school. and sometimes i wake up famished and fatigue, like a lil weak until i eat smth. idk, maybe i need to start eating snacks throughout the day. in all fairness i have been just eating like 2 meals a day but there like BIG. maybe i need to change it up. I have noticed i lost weight it my stomach which is nice, but i think i did lose weight in my legs which im sad about cause its really hard to grow my quads/hamstrings and glutes cause when i lose weight thats usually the area that will be targeted first which i do not like. so i guess i have unintentionally cutted this month lol so i might as well try bulking which is mean im gonna have to try to lift heavier (yikes im still trying to fix my unstable n uncoordinated ass lol) and eat a lot more than i already am even though i thought i was eating alot. ok for example this morning i ate an omellete that contained 3 eggs, mushrooms, tomato, spinach, brocolli, and a bunch of cheese with orange juice. then for lunch i had a blaze veggie pizza (since i dont eat meat) with a salad. then for dinner i ate baked salmon with mayo and a whole bunch of veggies WITH CHEESE and more juice, and i even had bang pre workout for my gym session today and a cup of coffee to keep me awake during my night chem lab AND I AM STILL HUNGRY RN MY STOMACH IS GROWLING AS I TYPE THIS LIKE WHAT. so yeah im just hoping i do not drop anymore like this is fine, once i start going below 110 thats like a danger zone and i probably should ask someone professional if this is normal haha.

ok next im deciding if i should go home, but i think i will because 1) need to do laundry 2) running out of food 3) miss my sissies 4) might wanna see my 8th grade loml LOL 5) allow me to reset, cause i feel like today is officially the ned of first half of fall quarter, like from this point forward its officially a new start again in a way since the finals are not “cumulative” for the most part. like i am resetting.

also as i said ive been having some highs and lows which has been kinda hard cause on the days im really happy i know that im gonna hit sadness again, and i do but then i get ok like its been really huge fluctuations lately, it can also possible be due to daylight saving but i dont think thats a huge factor cause this has been happening weeks before daylight saving (also my sleeping schedule is messed up lol)

i think i’ve just been busy lately with trying to balance school, work, volunteering tasks (yes i finally worked the courage to do health related stuff LOL like im getting training in a few weeks but i was stressing cause it interferes with my night labs but shoutout to my hella chill ta who said i can go to his other section i just gotta notify the professor so praying that it works out) and i know i am still in that not really sure what i wanna do in life but this is like a good thing i feel its stepping out of my comfort zone), and self care like going to the gym eating healthy, trying to give myself rest and breaks, remind myself to socialize even though im so introverted i know i still need human contact etc. so yeee.

ok last thing i dont wanna really write about but whatever its part of this. remember self when you said by one month you will be completely and utterly over him and you can move on with your life. well the first half happened, yeah your highly superficial stupid unrealistic emotions are gone but literally down 90% of my healing im talking like late october hes gotta hit me up again and you know me like i cant resist LOL i hate me whatever you know its fine its better i think im in a better place/my head is better screwed on and i know what i want which is nothing LOL like i still maintained my other side bois i didnt completely stop talking to them just to talk to this one kid like i did couple months ago and i feel like my mind is more occupied with other things lately (even if unfortunately some of those things give me stress) but yeahhhhhh but we were supposed to meet up but it isnt even happening honestly i think i might just keep moving and searching for another to just mess around with cause honestly i cannot wait forever so yeah.... future me forgive me in advance for being weak LOL

ok i think thats all for the most part right now im feeling good, I know lifes not always so happy and productive, but i have to remind myself theres always gonna be good days, and with every bad day is a day closer to a better one. so you got this narah! OK NOW I NEED TO READ MY ARTICLE CAUSE I ACTUALLY DO HAVE A QUIZ ON IT TMRW AND I DONT GET IT end rant here

#vent

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dreamsofgaia · 8 years ago

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There are people who believe that time is a human construct, and to an extent, I agree. The Gregorian calendar, indeed ANY calendar, is a human invention. But the tides, the seasons, and planetary cycles are not, and their passage can be quantified and measured. Time is a measurement that we humans use to illustrate how ordered and structured the universe is. Yes, there is chaos, but there is also structure and order at its core. Everything has a place, a reason for being, a purpose, and life span.

Time itself is infinite, but also limited and constrained by the cycle of birth and death. Billions of days have passed since this planet came to be, and hopefully, billions of days will pass before she ceases to be. But she WILL eventually cease to be. This planet will live, and it will die. Gaia is not infinite, nor forever.

Some things within our universe might appear to be eternal, but nothing lasts forever. Even the universe itself, will eventually meet an end.

I don't have a lifespan that will encompass billions of days. I don't have a lifespan that will encompass millions of days. My lifespan will be incredibly short by comparison, and I want what remains of it to be a life I can look back upon without regret.

I have goals I wish to accomplish within my lifetime. We all have goals or work to meet an objective or our lives lose their meaning. Some people want to travel and see the world, others want a high-powered career and financial freedom. Others, like me, want something a little less 'thrilling' but just as fulfilling and rewarding.

It often shocks people when I tell them that I have no desire to travel. I see pictures of far off places, and I imagine what it would be like to be there, but I have no real compulsion or desire to do what needs to be done in order to make it happen. If I don't travel before my time on this planet comes to an end, will I feel regret?

No.

Do I believe as some do that I would be more aware, more compassionate, more grateful, more knowledgeable- a better person in general - if I were to travel and meet the people of different lands? Yes and no. I believe that exposure to different cultures does change us. It does have the capacity to make us better people, but is becoming a better person in a manner others feel is important of greater import than achieving a personal goal that may also better me?

No.

From 2011 to 2013 I had several experiences that forced me to take stock of my life. I looked at my life, and the years ahead of me, and determined what was most important to me.

In 2013, the most important things in my life was my relationship with my partner, my family, and the tarot. I knew then that I am happiest when I am creating. I am happiest when I am painting. I have to create. I have to paint. I have to write. It's so fundamentally a part of me and who I am, that I can say that it is not just what I do, but also who I am. My purpose, now that my kids are grown, is to create.

When my relationship ended, I dedicated my life to creating. I vowed that it would be my sole focus above all others. As harsh as this may sound, I love what I do more than I ever loved my partner. The only thing I love more than what I do are my other two creations - my children.

With this said, can you understand just how important what I do is to me? In many ways, I was presented with an opportunity to save my relationship many years ago if I created less and gave more of my time to my ex. I was not asked to do so, but if I had been asked, I would not have been willing to do so.

I adore my children. There is no person on this planet that I love more than them. But if either of them were to ask me to give up what I do, for whatever reason, I would say no.

Even faced with poverty and financial struggle, I will NEVER give up what I do.

My goals are very simple - to paint and write, and to own my own home. To paint, and to create a secure, shrine to creativity. These are my goals. These are the two things I invest my time in.

We all invest time into our goals and passions. But what I do is more than a goal or passion. Painting and writing are an extension of me. Without them, my mind becomes ill and does not function properly. With them, my mind is healthy and functions well.

So what does this have to do with time?

I came to my creative path later in life. I did not begin my career as an artist until I was in my early thirties. I am now in my late forties, and still have so much I want to both learn and accomplish creatively and artistically. But as I grow older, I become more aware of just how little time I have left. Even if I were to live for another thirty to fifty years, I am now entering the latter half of my life and while I hope I will be able to continue to paint and create right up until I pass, I also know that in the latter part of my life, I may, due to age and infirmity, lose my ability to paint and write

So, again, my time is limited.

I am not sure if it is vanity or feeling that I have a higher purpose to fulfill, but I want to leave a legacy. I want to create something that continues after I am gone. I want to know that when I go, I have touched people's lives in a good way and helped them to better understand themselves. I want to leave here knowing that I fulfilled my purpose.

Do you want to know what frustrates me the most? It's being aware of how my time is limited, and experiencing situations and circumstances that use that precious commodity. It's having a 'creative bucket list' that encompasses at least fifteen different projects, and knowing that I won't be able to complete them all in my life time.

Precious - that is exactly how I see time ... it is a precious commodity. I don't have a lot to offer, so giving my time to something or someone, is one of the most valuable gifts I can bestow. If there is something that makes me want to cry, it's being forced to do all of the things that I don't enjoy doing at the expense of spending time on the things that I love.

It's having large chunks of time eroded by fear-inspired procrastination and non-productivity and, worse still, third parties who want me to perform a task for them, but then who want what I do to add beauty to their world but won't pay me for what I create and believe that they are entitled to it anyway ... or those who devalue the years of time I have invested in learning my craft. The former is the product of my inherent anxiety, while the latter represents many external sources of stress that add to my personal fears and worries.

Fear is a demon who consumes time. Fear has us doing everything we can to alleviate it, and yet even as we fight to dispel our fears, it is winning, because we are forced to do the things we have to do, at the expense of the things we want to do.

Just recently, I had not one, but several people respond to a post about how we artists are often treated by the population in general. The uneducated and ignorant, believe that what I do is ... easy. Worse still, others believe that what I do is unnecessary. Art serves no worthy purpose. It does not save lives. It does not fix the plumbing or wiring. It serves no practical purpose. A painting sits upon a wall and people look at it. It sits on the wall and collects dust.

Now, I do understand and accept that art is subjective. We each take from a painting something that is both personal and unique to the individual. It does not save lives like a doctor can save lives, but I do know that it has and does save lives in more subtle ways. Artists like me, work to create beauty. We strive to add beauty to the world. Sometimes, the paintings we create give those who are struggling to cope with the ugliness within the world, something to hold on to. I know, from what others have told me about there experiences with my work, that my paintings have changed lives, and have opened people to emotional and spiritual healing.

In the year since the tarot was released, I have received many emails and messages from people who are grateful that I created the tarot, because it has and is helping them to heal and change their lives.

I have had people message me to tell me that my poems and stories, my words here on Facebook, have made them feel less isolated, and less alone. My story has given them hope, and courage, and strength to go on, and by "go on" I mean LIVE.

For all of the letters, emails, and messages I have received, I am certain that other artists, especially those who work as I do, have also received their fair share of thanks.

So please, do not waste my time, or your own, in trying to tell me that art serves no purpose, or tell me that it does not change or save lives. Do not tell me that what I do is a waste of time or unimportant.

It is not. Art plays a crucial role in human civilisation. A key role.

I measure worth by the time invested. I know others do not, but I do. If I love something, I give it, whatever it is, my time. If I have one source or cause for regret, it is that there are some things, for example people ... friendships ... which I wish I could give more time. I love my friends. Deeply. I would give them the world if I could. I would give them every spare moment if it were not for the fact that these days, every spare moment I have must go toward creating, because my fear of not being able to pay my bills and save for a home of my own, has the bulk of my time now spent on the business side of my craft.

While those who would usually buy are not spending money on art because of the global fears that now grip us.

What frustrates me is the current imbalance. There was a time when I could and would happily invest my time equally in creating and selling. These days, it feels like I have to spend more and more and yet more time looking after the business side, and doing what I can to make customers happy - giving THEM my time.

Over the last year, I have implemented a few 'rules' and changes to restore some balance, like printing and packing and doing the mail run once a week Wednesday and Thursday, and devoting the rest of the week to 'creating'. But even then, that time devoted to creating does not translate to painting time. It is often devoted to product development; ways and means to generate the much needed income required to pay for the time I am painting artworks for the next deck.

At this moment in time, I feel that for every minute I can dedicate toward working on the next deck, I have to give ten to other things in order to have that one minute of painting time.

But is this imbalance enough to make me give up ... to quit ... to find an easier, more reliable source of income? No. It's not. It never will be either, because I remember how dead inside I was in the time when I was not painting. I had other things, many things, to fill my time with, but I was living half a life ... an empty life.

I may struggle at times. I may worry and fret. I may wonder how I am going to survive financially from week to week, but I have no real choice except to keep going, and to have faith that my time is best invested doing what I love, and doing what I can in order to continue to do what I love.

It is the only way I know I will leave this life with no regrets when my time is done. What I do IS not just a choice ... a career ... it is ME. It is me, doing what I can, in every way I can to be true to myself in the time that I have left.

I would much rather value and honour the time I have remaining by doing everything necessary in order to fulfill my reason and purpose for being.

So please, read this and remember that I give my time to others where and when I must, and sometimes I give my time to those who pay the bills more than to those I love and whom I would share space and time with.

I have often felt guilt when I read little memes that say if you love someone you will give them your time. That is true, but sometimes we find ourselves unable to give the time we want to.

It's like Patreon ... I have limited time and funds. Right now, I would love to pledge not $100 a month, but one hour a month to each and every one of my friends. Unfortunately, if I did this, I would have only a few days per week to devote to either painting or running my business. So, at present, and because so much of my time is now invested in 'survival', I can only devote a couple of minutes here and there on some, but not all, of my friends ... or upon interests that take me away from creating or business.

I am lucky to have friends who understand this, and know that if I could be more present in their lives, that I would be.

But in this moment, I have been shaped into the person I am by time, and time has revealed that there are things I need to do in order to be happy and healthy. I need to create. I need to paint. I cannot go and get a 'paying job' because it would kill me. I am not exaggerating. It would kill me as surely a bullet to the head. It might take a little longer for me to die, but die, I would.

I would rather devote ten minutes to pushing and promoting and selling in order to get that one minute for painting, than give it up and 'get a real job'.

I would rather use what time I have left creating beauty and doing whatever I need to do in order to make it happen. It is what I will give my time to, and if it means giving ALL of my time, then that is what I will do, because my willingness to sacrifice in order to create is equal to my love and need to do so.

And I will do so without a single regret, because I know what it is that is important to me.

#artist angst #healing #mentalhealth #love #time #personalgoals #ravynnephelan

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airoasis · 7 years ago

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Entrepreneurial motivation: 6 important elements to move into action

I’m sitting here, cup of tea in hand, at the end of the first week back from school holidays. Usually at this time of year it takes a while to get moving. However, using my usual entrepreneurial motivation factors, techniques and tools, I’d already launched myself into planning events with fellow local entrepreneurs, assisting corporate clients with unique projects and invitations going out for a mastermind for women who have been in business 3-5 years before the week started.

Things feel good!

How are you feeling about what you’ll be achieving this year? This week on Facebook and Youtube I talked about planning and goals, but at some point you have to take ACTION. Otherwise, we end up with virtual shelves full of half started ideas, a wall calendar brimming with tasks that never get done and clients never truly understanding how it is we can help them.

I have a few strategies I use to help me move beyond PLANNING and step into ACTION. I want to share those with you today in the hope it will help YOU have your best year, because for many of us 2016 just wasn’t what we hoped it would be when we stepped into January 11 months ago.

Before we dive into the actionable activities you can do to help with motivation, find out what style of motivation suits you best to allow you to remain motivated year-round in this quick, fun quiz:

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Your 6 Entrepreneurial Motivation Factors

And now, here are some action items to ensure what you do this year is purposeful and meaningful, not simply another time wasting task.

Let’s begin:

Turn Your Big Picture Vision Into An Actionable Plan

Don’t just make big, grand quarterly and yearly visions and plans. We can spend a lot of time doing those things. The key is to get down to the day to day tasks.

I didn’t realise that having the ability to zoom out and look at the big picture vision and then zoom into the step by step actionable tasks to allow something to come to fruition was unique - but apparently I’m one of those rare people that can do both when it comes to creating digital campaigns, product launches and soulful sales funnels.

So if you lean more towards one than the other, be sure to align yourself with someone who can balance out that big picture vision or that detailed plan.

Surround Yourself With Positive Influences

The turning point for my business was when I joined a mastermind. Suddenly I was accountable to this small group of women. I stopped making stupid excuses for not doing things, because this supportive group of women would call me out. They knew. Heck, they admitted to having the exact same issues.

But that first year in a mastermind, what I achieved was phenomenal. It was my biggest income year and a real lightbulb moment that all the courses in the world won't get me to where I want to go. I already know enough. What I needed was support, accountability and some gentle guidance.

I'm not into the butt-kicking style of coaching. It's not my style as a coach and not how I tend to respond as a client either. Finding out what your style is and then aligning yourself with the right people can go a long way to helping you reach your goals in a way that lifts you up, rather than tears you down.

You Know Enough Already

I love this quote I saw on Facebook earlier in the week: I can spend money on learning, or I can spend it on doing. I plan on the latter.

We often each follow a similar path when we come into business. Firstly, we try and do it alone. Then we move into “Bright Shiny Object Syndrome” where we feel we need to buy every course under the sun because we believe we don’t know enough.

Next, we invest in a coach or mastermind that allows us to move forward with accountability and support and so we can stop second guessing ourselves. Lastly, we reach a point in our businesses where we now know how it all works but also understand that there are certain areas that aren’t our zone of genius so we outsource them to others to do.

Where do you sit right now? The big concern is when we sit in the Bright Shiny Object phase for too long. It’s expensive and only 2% of people ever finish online courses. If I’d saved up all the money I spend on digital programs and instead invested that into a mastermind earlier, I would be a lot further along in my business.

Automate The Things You Don't Love Doing

Much of our time each day is wasted procrastinating over the things we don’t want to do. The reality is, there is so much in our everyday activities we actually don’t need to be doing every day.

Like posting to Facebook, attracting traffic to our website, gaining leads for our email marketing system, converting subscribers into clients….These might be tasks you think you have to do manually every day, but there are ways to schedule and/or automate these things so you can take them OFF your daily to do list and focus on the things that truly light you up. I’m guessing marketing isn’t one of the things you got into business for (unless, of course, you’re a marketer like me and love the stuff).

Make a list of all the tasks you do in a given week, and define which tasks you're doing daily that could have better systems around them to give you back more time. Even something as simple as bulk creating and then scheduling your social media in one afternoon can save a lot of time. The time it takes to get the energy to do a new task is where we lose time. If we do a given task in one sitting, we can achieve much more.

Tap Into Mindset Tools

I used to think mindset work, meditation, ho’oponopono, EFT, crystals… all that stuff… it was just woo woo to me. But, in understanding the different ways I often hold myself back, I now know the importance of mindset work to overcome those blocks and fears.

You only need to pick one activity. Sometimes it’s as simple as reading the right book to get you motivated, to stop that little negative voice in your head and have you ready to take action. Or it’s listening to the right meditation to quieten your mind and allow you to easily move into a difficult task with calm and quiet.

A friend and I were talking about the power of the mind this week. Back in my journalism days, I had no issues whatsoever walking up to the biggest celebrity at the time and then asking them all sorts of questions (sometimes personal). Because there was nothing personal in doing it. It was just a job I did.

A fellow journalist always used to tell me it wasn't her chasing after the police sirens or walking up to interview the angry politician. It was someone else. Because in "real life", she was too shy for that. Yet there she was, every day, right in the thick of the day's breaking news.

Yet, as soon as we own our own business, we take things personally. Where we could pick up the phone and call the head of a global organisation when we were working for that multinational company, as business owners we now struggle to get the courage to email the so-called internet guru of the moment or pick up the phone to a nearby business you just know you could help.

We need to find the tools and techniques to become braver in business. To help us switch from taking our businesses personally so we can do business as we would do for someone else. In the book I wrote, , Fairbrother Constructions CEO said: "I wouldn't have taken half the risks I did if it were my own business".

Do you take everything that happens in your business personally? How do you shift out of fear and leap into brave action?

Ensure You're Regularly Celebrating

This can feel weird to many of us, because we’re just not used to celebrating our successes. Take, for example, the fact that earlier in the month I discovered I’ve been featured on one of my idol’s, entrepreneur Melanie Duncan’s, website. And, until this blog post, I haven’t bothered to share that with anyone. Sure, I did a little dance in my office - by myself. But I didn’t shout it from the rooftops, like I really should.

Part of it stems from a post I put up on Facebook last week about people who always show their highlights reels. The majority of us then end up comparing that to our own low lights - and it makes us feel like we’re not good enough.

I don’t want to be one of those people that tries to tell others my life is perfect. Because it’s not. But a note (more to myself than you) is that you need to have balance. You need to share the vulnerable Facebook posts amid some celebration posts too.

The act of celebrating can spur us on to greater heights or pull us out of a funk when we feel stuck.

Motivating Entrepreneurial Stories

Whether it’s a blog, a book or podcast, I’d highly encourage you to follow a few entrepreneurs who are where you want to be and who also embody the style of entrepreneur you want to become. For me, it's those who take a holistic approach to business and life. It's not solely about the dollars, but about making an impact on others' lives and doing something that's fulfilling and on purpose.

Be wary of entrepreneurs who sell you programs guaranteeing a certain figure by a certain period of time. Everyone's business is different. But listen to those who are doing things in a style that resonates with you, who you can learn the good and bad lessons from, and who you may just get the opportunity to meet or work with too.

When I'm struggling to get started, I find reading the stories of others inspiring. It makes me realise what's possible and that it's not always a smooth road.

Know Your Why

When it all boils down, if you don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing, it can be super difficult to stay motivated. If you haven’t already done some work on your why, then I highly encourage you to do so. This was a difficult one for me when I first started in business, because the truth is that I fell into a business. Someone gave me a nudge and the next thing, here I was. I never set out to start a business.

Now, I’m clear about wanting to not only create a certain type of lifestyle business for myself and my family, but also to help others create more systemised businesses to achieve more ease and leverage in their own businesses and lives.

I have huge empathy for women who are knee-deep in overwhelm and feeling burnt out from their business. Because that always flows onto other areas of their life.

What about you? What's your style and how do you go about staying on purpose, even when you get the wobblies or bright shiny object syndrome creeps in?

I've put together a short quiz to determine the best method to keep you motivated, moving forward and on purpose so you can achieve your goals this year. Of course, a combination is always good, but this will hone in on a core strategy you can use… starting today!

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doodlewash · 5 years ago

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Hello from Boston, Massachusetts! My name is Christina Yee. Wow, let me just start by saying how thrilled I was when Charlie from Doodlewash contacted me about being a featured guest artist. And how much my heart sank when I realized I have to write about myself. All of a sudden, I am feeling mute. I’m at the beginning of my art journey and I really feel like I have nothing exciting to write about. And then I realized, this was exactly where I was one year ago.

After a few months of doodling around with my watercolors, my husband mentioned casually that my work is good, and maybe I should post it on social media. I thought, what a great idea and maybe I can even make money doing what I am passionate about. That would be amazing! Then that feeling of dread dawned on me. I would need to let people know that I can draw and paint. This would mean that I have to show other people what I do so they can see that I can actually draw and paint. I was paralyzed.

I was so afraid of what others would think or say, when they see my art. Or worse, I was afraid that if I posted online, it would be met with crickets. I procrastinated for months. I know I’ve overcome difficult challenges before, but this one was especially hard to get past. This was very, very personal. Art has been my passion all my life.

I had turned to art for stress relief. It was my little piece of heaven. It was me. If I showed my work off and the response was negative, I knew it would shatter me. But I had bigger goals for my art, and for myself. I needed to take this little step (albeit big in my mind) so I can then take the next step and move forward. I needed to do this.

I’ve always said to my kids that anxiety is caused most often by a feeling of not being prepared. So I finally took a dose of my own medicine and worked on breaking down those barriers. Over the next couple of months, I built up my network of supporters. I shared my art with them, and asked for feedback. Little by little, my anxiety calmed and my confidence grew.

I also gave myself a due date: January 7, 2019. School vacation week would be over, the kids would be back in school and I would have time once again for myself. When that time comes, I would share my art “to the world!”. It does not need to be “perfect”, I just need to do it.

January 7, 2019 came. I posted a quick sketch I did of a tiger along with the progress pictures to my Facebook page. It was met with such an amazing response. I would check it every hour (ok, maybe a few times more frequently than that) and there would always be more likes and more comments. The feedback was so overwhelmingly positive that I couldn’t even remember what I was stressing about. I was already thinking about what to share next.

These days, I still fret over my content but I no longer have anxiety over my artwork. I still have my network of supporters, but I’ve also started to work on building up a community of like-minded art friends and supporters online. I do my best to do some sort of art everyday and I try to hold myself accountable by posting as often as I can.

Time is my biggest challenge as my family comes first, and oftentimes, that takes up the bulk of the day. So I do what I can to squeeze in time for a quick sketch. I usually pack a little travel kit with me so that should I find myself with a few extra minutes, I can take advantage of it. I have two travel kits prepared: one for pencil drawing and one for watercolor painting.

For pencil drawing, I have:

Pentel Graph Gear 1000 Automatic Drafting pencil, 0.3mm (2B)

Uni Core Keeps Sharp Mechanical Pencil, 0.5mm (4B)

Faber-Castell pencils (2B, 4B, 6B) (I love my mechanical pencils but nothing beats a real pencil.)

Blending stick

Artist kneaded erasers

Faber-Castell Grip Trio Pencil Sharpener (sharpens beautifully and holds your shavings so you don’t have a messy car!)

Strathmore 400 Series Drawing paper

For watercolor painting, I have:

Derwent Art Supplies Waterbrush (this brand is living up to its reputation so far. the body of the brush holds the water so you don’t need a separate holder for water; and best of all, these brushes don’t drip!)

My own custom paint pans

Paper towel

Winsor & Newton watercolour aquarelle paper (5×7)

Field Artist watercolor notebook (5×5)

Hahnemühle Watercolour Book (A5)

I try to have a subject ready so I don’t sit there thinking about what to draw. I usually reference the many photos on my phone that I’ve taken that I thought would make for a good drawing or painting. For the past few months or so, I’ve chanced upon these art challenges that gives you a daily prompt and that helps tremendously when you have a mind block. The Doodlewash monthly challenge is one that I had been following along with the longest and one that I find the community to be most engaging and supportive.

For my bigger projects, like commission works, I reserve those mostly for work at night when the house is winding down for bed. I would turn on my audiobooks or podcasts and put in some uninterrupted time. My good old favorite supplies for these are Arches 140lb paper, Winsor & Newton 140lbs cold pressed watercolor paper, Silver Brush Limited – Susan Louise Moyer Basic, and Mijello Mission Gold Class.

And that’s it. That’s my story. I made it to the end! And now I’m ready to take my next step. Thank you for reading. And if you see yourself in my story, remember to jot down what it is that you’re afraid of and then come up with ideas on what you would need to do for you to overcome that fear. It doesn’t need to be perfect. You just need enough to take that step.

Christina Yee Instagram (Daily Art) Instagram Facebook

GUEST ARTIST: "Take That Step!" by Christina Yee - #doodlewash #WorldWatercolorGroup #watercolor #drawing Hello from Boston, Massachusetts! My name is Christina Yee. Wow, let me just start by saying how thrilled I was when Charlie from Doodlewash contacted me about being a featured guest artist.

#WorldWatercolorGroup #animals #artist #beginner #doodlewash #drawing #featured #inspiration #painting #sketching #still life #watercolor #watercolour

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spookyenemyperson-blog · 7 years ago

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