#i literally wrote 3 pages of an essay and i am just... LOST

[lost-victorian-sailor]

have u ever been writing an essay and then boom suddenly you're stuck with a deep philosophical question which is much deeper than the original thought that you wanted to put in your essay and then again boom and you're having an existential crisis and everything suddenly does not make sense at all? because i am now

[vandalizingyourschool]

just had the most amazing conversation with my mother

Warning - probably gonna be a bigass post and also mentions of sh and su!cide

Yesterday I had a pretty big relapse after my dad freaked me out about how he probably was gonna influence my future as much as he can (long story) I contacted my cousin bcuz i had blacked out after trying to choke myself and i was too scared to even unlock my room. She listened to my rant and was really sweet and supportive and told me yet again, that there's no point in hoping my father will understand. She then said that enough was enough and that she was going to tell my mom that I need a psychologist asap. And I guess I was opposed to that idea because I just wanna repress all those feelings and pretend they don't exist so I don't burden anyone else. But yeah she convinced me that this was probably the best thing I could do for myself at this point bcuz i can't transition to make a large portion of my problems go away. So yeah I wrote her a 9 page essay at 12 in the night explaining every single thing. Every. Single. Thing. And then five minutes after I sent it there was banging at my door and my mom was outside and she looked like she'd been crying and she told me to give her the keys to my room (which she's been wanting me to do for a long time) and bcuz it was 12 in the night and i was exhausted I agreed and she went back to sleep. The next morning I found out that my lovely mom had been up till 4 yesterday panicking about how she was gonna help me bcuz yeah very serious. I was still too scared to unlock my room door so i was just lying in my bed motionless for 4 hours and then at about 1 in the afternoon she gently opened the door and lied on the bed next to me and hugged me. She told me that everything was gonna be okay and that I could talk to her and she'd help me get professional help. And yeah I thought she was mad at me but idk. Then she finally coaxed me to eat something and then she went back to catch all the sleep she lost last night. I was supposed to study today but obviously i couldn't bcuz of how stressed and distracted I was so now I just feel like I've wasted the day.... But that's fine who cares. An hour ago I just went to my mom's room bcuz i was feeling lonely and she tried to make small talk for sometime but then it obviously deviated back to all of this and she was holding my hand and saying that it's okay, and that unaliving myself has no impact on the people who want me like that. And staying alive is telling them to go to hell (she literally said that) and she said that i shouldn't try to label evrything bcuz it would just feel overwhelming. Feeling are feelings in the end. Also apparently she was diagnosed with adhd at some point but it wasn't that socially accepted before so she hasn't done anything major about it yet?? So apparently everyone in my family except my brother is neurodivergent 😭

My mom's probably adhd, depressed and has anxiety, my dad has narcissistic personality disorder, and I have bpd and possibly ocd. Ok whatever bunch of unnecessary details

She also said that I'd only earn the respect of majority of people by being powerful and being self sustaining. Which is true honestly. And then she said that being gay or trans is perfectly fine and that I shouldn't worry too much about other people validating who I am bcuz i know who I am and that's all that matters. And she said that if anyone tries to hurt me for being who I am she'd murder them. And i literally started crying out of joy here bcuz she's come such a long way since I came out to her as bisexual 3 years ago. Shes become so open minded and I love that for her

Then she hugged me and reassured me that evrything would be okay and that If I wanted she'd take me to a psychologist

I love her so so much

[trickstarbrave]

Hello! I am here to inform you that I would happily read a 10 page essay about Alduin's Bane. Spoilers are a highlight. Your Elder Scrolls lore is incredible and I am frothing at the mouth for more.

oh man now i have decision paralysis i have so much to talk about given the fic is over 150k (somehow. i cant believe i wrote that much) uhhhhhh im just gonna give some bullet points of what i can think of

>originally was going to just be a oneshot centered around the past that would have been the first 3-ish chapters but i liked it so much i had continued it

>hell i had debated actually naming eyja or not for a while lol

>originally fengr wasn't going to be in the story, but i actually liked him the more i thought about him. he is supposed to be the archtypical box art "dragonborn" bethesda markets (except two handed weapons instead of dual wielding). i thought he made a good foil and could help drive some of the character development and give eyja more to connect her to the world and also because i wanted to use him as a foil for another character

>i did intend for sheogorath to be the champion of cyrodiil. not everyone agrees with this theory but i liked it. i also hope i did a better job making the quest more interesting. i was really proud of connecting the weird, seemingly disjointed dream world quests to our main character's psyche and problems rather than being just a cheap joke

>i also LOVE sanguine if you couldn't tell. writing him was some of my favorite stuff. genuine chaos and debauchery. he technically had the right idea

>i had a big plan in mind for a side plot where The Gang currently (fengr, serana, eyja, alduin) run into cicero and the listener who were tasked with assassinating the dragonborn and instead ask for their help to take down astrid who they know is planning on turning on them. this was going to lead to a full blown assassination of the current emperor, but for the life of me i couldn't think of a satisfactory way to connect the plot to the rest of the story without feeling like i was forcing a block through a circular hole so it has been indefinitely tabled. if it makes it back in the story then it does but so far i'm not planning on it. but if you're wondering what happened to our dear little jester he is off helping rebuild the dark brotherhood with his wood elf listener

>in my fic to be mentioned later alduin actually got so angry he ripped off solstheim as a provide from mainland skyrim and flung it off into the ocean during a big ass battle

>i remember some ppl saying alduin could be akin to shiva. whether or not you like this idea or think it is credible i was a lil inspired by the myths of sati and parvati in the loosest of ways

>im still very proud that i made bleakfalls barrow originally designed and built to be eyja's tomb. in functions VERY much as a tutorial dungeon in many aspects with like blatant plot hooks in the form of the dragon stone and word wall that we just dont see in other tombs. not to mention it is very large and in your face, something you expect to be of bigger importance, and delphine wanted the dragon stone for some unexplained reason, so. head dragon priest's tomb it is. but alduin wouldn't actually let her be buried there, which only lead to credence to the mainstream belief that konahrik had defected or betrayed alduin and he had killed her in a rage.

>how she got the mask i just realized i never explained. basically my bullshit reason was she owns the mask. the mask was sealed off to wait for a new owner if one ever came, and then was lost to time. dragon priests arent really supposed to "die" in my telling of events so she got the mask by wandering in and it opened up for her assuming she was the original owner here to claim it. it does not do this for literally anyone else

>alduin kind of fucking sucked at sex. i hint at this in several ways but in their first lifetime he just fucking sucked at it. i cannot fully stress how just bad and clumsy he was. this immortal dragon god of the end of time was a complete virgin and it showed. if it wasn't for the fact he was a god she adored i dont think eyja would have put up with it. but luckily she taught him better.

>they were together i estimate in the ballpark of 60 years prior to her being killed. a very fun time for the people of skyrim given alduin wasnt randomly flying overhead to munch on them

>i wanna work more on serana and alduin's dynamic bc i think it is very funny. she's gotten over her panic into just normal rational fear and questioning her sanity of "wait the actual dragon god??? thats who im traveling with????"

>as far as dragon priests knew it was an open secret eyja and alduin were fucking. the general public didnt know but most of the priests knew. and most of the dragons but they were more confused by the concept of actually having sex which seemed weird in general

actual big spoilers under the cut for people who dont wanna see:

>fengr is, in the next little mini arc we're about to do with curing lycanthrope, about to be revealed as also a dragonborn. i like to imagine that was akatosh's back up plan or something. i wont reveal all of what the revelation entails to keep that fun and exciting

>also to be mentioned: molag bal has beef with alduin and eyja because her mask is actually made of daedric ivory. alduin went "i need a cooler material for her mask to be made out of" and went all the way to a realm of oblivion to kill one of molag bal's big ass daedra. this has lead to much of molag bal's beef with dragons

>several members of the thalmor were investigating the masks (this is canon) and took a particular interest in both eyja's and the time traveling unnamed mask. this wooden mask alduin had made in hopes it could bring eyja back (it failed)

>back to the sati and parvati myths uhhhh part of that has translated to miraak and his motivations. i hope you didn't have "miraak is past life eyja's ex" on your bingo card because you will not be able to check that off. miraak was her father.

>in that regard i had to think a lot about how having kids would be handled by dragon priests. i dont see miraak actually raising any children he had, and he probably had a variety of concubines and wives to sleep with as i imagine most of the other dragon priests did, but no time to actually get attached. so she probably only had some status and little interactions with him prior to this, but boy was miraak mad he couldnt just use her influence for his own gain. idk if i will get to mention all this part in my fic lol

>finding out one of his kids actually inherited his abilities led him down the path to trying to understand what dragonborn were. he thought he was a strange, special existence, but finding out there were more people like him made him wanna find out how they worked. this also invariably led to him experimenting on several of eyja's multitude of half siblings that died prior to him getting his hands on her. also prob wont get to mention all this in the fic

>in this vein i had the idea to make vahlok eyja's other parent but i didn't think it did much for the story so. i might go in the way of "helpful mentor" or just that he didnt fucking suck

[funkymbtifiction]

hey, so i suspect to be a ne-dom (after about one year of research on functions and everything and considering like every type at least once to be my type :)) even though i do not overly relate to ne-dom stereotypes, for example i wouldn´t say i am a good brainstormer...

Lemme just stop you there and say, brainstorming isn't Ne. Anybody can brainstorm. The kind of brainstorming Ne does is conjure up lots of ideas related to whatever is INTERESTING to them. Like, if an ENP is stuck in a business meeting and doesn't care about the topic, they won't have any ideas pertaining to it. But if they sit down to write a story, a character will pop into their head, and then ideas about other characters, and conversations, and possible roles for that character to fulfill within the story... and they will follow this angle for awhile and get bored and then follow that other angle (another idea). It's a space of living inside one's ideas, following them, and discarding them if they aren't working; of constant adaptation to the abstract (non-existing) potential of their mental environment. How SPs interact with reality -- throwing themselves into it and figuring it out as they go and getting the hang of it physically -- is what NPs do on a mental level, by throwing themselves into concepts, ideas, etc. Like starting up a MBTI typing blog when you barely know anything about MBTI, as a way of learning while doing / thinking about it. *cough* *raises hand* It's "ah yes, I'll incorporate this before I've even had time to learn / study it deeper, because I get the Big Picture of it, it matters, so I'm gonna run with it." Intuition, in other words -- not needing the details to "get the gist" and assuming you can intelligently talk about it or at least BS your way through it, so people assume you know your stuff even if you don't.

But anyway, back to your ask.

(but after all they are just stereotypes, so what) and actually relate a lot to se-dom "stereotypes". For example it is said that often se-doms are quiet good at physical activities like sports and might have a natural talent to be really good at some physical activity even when they do it for the first time, because they are so aware of their environment and the current moment. And that actually is something i kinda relate to. I never got a bad grade in sports class because even at all the sports i have never done in my life before i was naturally good at and quick to figure out how it is done. I also never got any kind serious injury in my life even though i would (especially as a kid) climb onto everything that one shouldn´t climb on and jump from everything one shouldn´t jump from. Never even broke a bone, but i do know lots of people who broke a bone without even doing anything particular "dangerous". Anyway, those are mainly stereotypes so i probably should just ignore them, anyway they make me question my type frequently.

Stereotypes have a root in reality for a reason. If you are easily able to adapt to your environment skillfully using your body, you are likely Se. What's more, SPs actively enjoy doing this -- getting out there and trying things, being physical and hands on. I talk about ideas and argue about the Enneagram, my ESFP sister goes sky diving, learned to paint by buying brushes and supplies, and spent all weekend installing the landscaping she designed. ;)

What makes me think i am a ne-dom nontheless is:

- i am usually capable of seeing multiple perspectives, most easily perceivable in philosphy class to be honest. We would have regular discussions about a certain topic and everyone had a different opinion and i could usually see the point of everyones argument. The most frustrating people were those that would state something as a fact or as simply right or wrong without hearing anyone out who might have a different view on that. Sometimes it would literally be that person A would explain something 10 times and person B would still not be able to get it and would only hear what they want to hear, which actually made every argument pretty pointless and might be the main reason why i never actively participated in those discussions myself. At some point it only felt like a waste of time and energy to argue with someone who clearly doesn´t want or isn´t capable of considering any other perspective than their own

This isn't really Ne, it just means you're a perceiving dominant (not a judging dominant, aka, not IP or EJ) and indicates FiTe, with Te seeing the pointlessness of interacting with people who are unwilling to listen or change their mind. Also, very likely a 9 fix.

- my writing style (i guess), i´ll take philosophy as an example again; sometimes we had to write an essay to a certain question where we basically just had to write our opinion and arguments (similar to the regular disussions but written), and i usually would come up with 2 or 3 possible answers so i decided to cover them all and thought that way i would probably write like 3 pages or so. Well i ended up writing ten because while i was writing i suddenly realized that if i explain A i should probaly define B to make it more understandable or to be more precise, but by defining B i also have to mention C and D and that would mean that i should also include E and F and...

Low Te clarifying, adding context, and not wanting to leave out important information while not being entirely sure what "matters" the most to the project or being able to self-edit well.

- one thing i am not 100% sure about; i do like talking about ideas like lately we have been discussing getting a pool (we´ll probably never get one because they are expensive but we like the idea) but there were also a couple of obstacles too prevent that from ever happening but i was like: "yeah that would be cool" and got ideas like a slide that would start at the window of our room so we can slide directly from our room into the pool, or the idea that we could build some cave system and that would be the place where the pool would be so we wouldn´t have to "sacrifice" our entire garden for a pool.

That's a very sensory idea to have. :)

I would have rather discussed a pool again...to be fair i would have probably worried a lot more if i had to go to the appointment on my own but i don´t so i just rely on others and hope they will know what to do and tell me. (what i am not sure about here is if my disinterest in discussing what could possible happen is a se "live in the moment" thing or if it just disinterests me because its too practical and too much related to something actual?)

Drawing attention to what interests you - Fi. Sensory focus. Slight abdication of self, indicates reliance on others - maybe 9 or a 6 core?

- one last thing:  i can see more si than ni inferior tbh. Example: i do not like planning a trip, like making schedules or figuring out what bus/train to take at what time and where to take. I mean i am happy to have some sort of schedule or plan but i do not like doing these myself, even though i can if i have to and sometimes i have to because i have to get somewhere on my own...

This speaks to low / inferior Te more than anything. Stress over organizing the outside world, nailing down a plan, etc.

[...] And i would assume that this might be inferior si? Also i think if i was a se-dom i probably would not be so stressed by getting on the wrong bus or probably wouldn´t be so obsessed with checking everything multiple times just in case the other 376 times i did i missed something...

You would if you were a 6w7, which you probably are.

I'd say SFP 6w7 with a 9 fix, or an ISFP 9 with a 6 fix. Something about you gives me inferior Te / ISFP vibes.

[kogo-dogo]

I'm not sure how much this would help, but you making the choice to share your works directly resulted in me making an ao3 account, which led to me writing and interacting with some really cool people who are now my dear friends, so i do want to thank you for being a really cool inspiration! Co-op Game Theory is also an absolute blast to keep up with and i hope you have been enjoying my essays cause i like writing them

You don't hafta publish this or anything i just know what its like to be in a slump and wanted to attempt to say a nice thing because you seem like you are in need of nice things, even from strangers :)

You know, I saw this right before I went to bed last night, and I legitimately had to screenshot this and send it to the Alpha-Husband because, like, it made me that giddy. Thank-you. I am glad that you’ve found friends and fun in writing, and I’m actually legit honored to be one of the reasons you went down this path. Writing is fun! Friends are fun! And you are a very nice person who deserves fun. ;;

As for Cooperative Game Theory, I am... actually really excited to know who is behind those long, long comments. You do not know how excited we are to get them. They usually get replied to last because the Alpha-Husband liked to think about how to answer (long comments generally garner long and excited responses from him), and I... don’t answer comments because I’ve been very socially drained lately, but I hope you know we do appreciate those essays. We literally run off to tell each other when Big Long Comment comes. <3

And, you know? It means a lot. Cooperative Game Theory is, like, Alpha-Husband's baby. It’s something he’s been planning even before we met, and it’s something that we lost our minds over last fall. Literally twenty-four hours straight and then some of brainstorming, to the tune of us “going to bed” and then running back to our laptops because we had another idea. There is an entire hidden page on his site of notes upon notes (some of them very out-of-date) where we just yelled at one another for thousands of words, and that’s not even getting started on the fact we sat on my couch, watching a playthrough of Half-Life 2, while he took meticulous notes and I screamed ideas at the side of his head.

I will be the first to admit that he’s the driving force behind 90% of it. Almost everything you read is what he’s written, with some touch-ups by me (and, a few select scenes that are more my wheelhouse). I’m very much an ideas person, because finding the brainpower to actually write has been... difficult since the loss of my mom (but, I’m working on it with this, so! Improvement!). I have dibs on the entirety of Ravenholm, though, since horror is my schtick, lol.

But, I do appreciate the kind words. A lot of hard, hard work has gone into this and it just makes me happy to hear folks’re enjoying it.

TL;DR: I’m sick and medicated and rambling and I just wrote an entire essay of babbling when a “thank-you, you are very sweet” would have sufficed. ;; <3

[norestwithoutlove]

i just finished "to build a home" and it was so beautiful i'm in awe. it's so delicately and carefully written. i really enjoyed it and i'm glad to see the AN at the end that you took something from the process yourself. aside from the compliment on your writing, i also wanted to ask you if you had a reading list? you referenced a lot of works in your fanfic and i was wondering if you had a list spare. i never got to do english at uni but want to make right on it. no worries if not! thank you

hello (this reply is gonna be manic asf apologies in advance) thank you so so much !!!!! im so glad you liked it hahahaha i really loved writing it and it came to mean so much to me <3 you’re so kind !!!!!

YES honestly you’ve asked me the ideal question here hahahaha i adore yammering about literature to anyone who’ll listen!! okay hmm some of the texts that were most formative for me while i wrote to build a home were

- the house in paris by elizabeth bowen (1935): really good, really fascinating stuff on the nature of memory and time particularly in relation to narrative voice. loads of stuff about houses and buildings in it, generally just really thoughtfully written. really good child characters which i think often authors can mess up but the kids in this book are really convincing and empathetically portrayed.

- cloudstreet by tim winton (1991): SO interesting. a really cool exploration of working class life in australia, familial bonds and the complexity of family, community and kinship. sad, often, a little bit of magical realism, and again some really cool stuff on houses and particularly houses as having memories

- beloved by toni morrison (1987): in general just one of the best books ever written. i am unable to stop singing morrison’s praises and i really don’t want to hahahah. she was the greatest writer of this century imo and this book is so raw and harrowing. comes with a big trigger warning for a lot of things so i’d read around it before diving in, but it’s an exploration of the immediate legacy of slavery, its psychological and physical repercussions in the years immediately following its abolition, but also with much broader implications for its heritage in the modern day. it’s such an incredible book. again, it looks at houses and memory and narrative.

- persuasion by jane austen (1817): this one is so good. it’s basically my comfort book, i adore it. big lost lover reunion vibes, lovers to enemies to friends to lovers vibes. so beautiful.

- grief is the thing with feathers by max porter (2015): very short, extremely poetical look at grief and loss at its most raw and complex. i cried a LOT while reading this one. it’s messy, visually, this scrawled book with inky images and type. it’s so good, so cathartic. i have this morbid fascination with it which i think you’re meant to have, because we all have this morbid fascination with death even as we’re revolted by it. yeah. couldn’t recommend this one enough.

- nox, by anne carson (2010): a really really messy text about the death of carson’s brother. it’s this book you have to literally unpack from its box, you have to unfold and untangle the pages and it’s really unmanageable (like grief). the box it comes in is like a tombstone, it’s big and heavy and grey. this one is really expensive though so if you want to read other stuff about grief by anne carson i would say read her translation of sophocles’ antigone. i wept. so much. it’s such a good, thorny translation. if you’re interested in greek tragedy in general, i would recommend the translations of anne carson or robert fagles. and theatre of war do really great productions of the plays, particularly looking at their implications in the modern day.

- king lear by billy shakes. just as a play exploring fatherhood and forgiveness and obligation and grief it’s so good. it’s my favourite shakespeare play. you can get it online, and there was a really good film of it out recently with anthony hopkins and florence pugh

some other literature that i love:

- the swan book by alexis wright (2013): i truly cannot and could not fault it. a flawless book. tangled knots of sentences, an incredible exploration of landscape and trauma, the mapping of sorrow, within a particularly environmentalist and indigenous context. 

- giovannis room and go tell it on the mountain by james baldwin

- a thousand splendid suns by khaled hosseini (2007): brilliant brilliant book

fuck this list is getting obnoxiously long sorry okay:

- any play by tennessee williams - any essay by audre lorde - any poem by r s thomas - any other book by toni morrison

if u want more recs please drop me a message any time !! i love giving em

[crutchie-with-a-y]

Hiya Sophie🥰 how are you? Could I please request Jack Kelly x reader where he’s being touchy and begging for them to love him but reader is busy with school so they don’t give him enough attention? And then Jack gets super quiet and when reader is done with hw, reader feels super bad about not giving Jack enough attention, they treat Jack with cookies they’ve made and talk about this and the two of them end up cuddling the whole night sharing sweet kisses. Jack lays his head on reader’s chest🥺

Hey! I’m doing pretty good, what about you? Thank you for the request! Sorry for the wait, I’ve been a little pre-occupied, but I hope this is something like what you had in mind! <3

“Haha, yeah we’ll see you later, Finch!” You laughed and waved as your friend said his goodbyes and turned down his street. 

“Oh thank GOD he’s gone!” Your boyfriend, Jack, said as soon as Finch was out of earshot. You and him and about a dozen other friends always walked home after school together, one by one peeling off from the group as they reached their streets. Finch was the third to last to turn onto his street, which left you and Jack to walk the rest of the way to your homes, (which is actually how you started dating in the first place). Jack, who was usually happy to have friends around, had seemed restless to get away from the group today, and once he was positive Finch couldn’t see or hear you, he pinned you against the stone wall the two of you were passing on the sidewalk. He passionately kissed you and for a moment you completely lost yourself in his rough lips that tasted of cherry coke and the cigarette he had shared with Race at lunch. Then you reminded yourself that you had some homework to complete and a test to study for. 

“Jack,” You gasped when he pulled back for air and began to nibble at your ear. “Jack, Jack I don’t have time.” Jack pulled back without removing his hands from where they held your wrists against the wall and squinted at you.

“What are you talking about?” You snapped your wrists forward and glared at him as you began to walk again, him following at your side with the same look on his face.

“I have homework.” Jack stopped completely and you turned back to look at him. 

“The fuck you don’t,” Jack said, obviously pissed at you, and that was rare, so it made you pretty uncomfortable, you had to admit. “You finished your math in class, you told me at lunch. Your history project isn’t due for a literal month and you’re already almost done with your poster. You wrote this week’s homework essay for English on Monday night.” He walked slowly, listing everything off on his fingers. 

“Well there is more math,” You said defensively, as the pair of you turned a corner onto your block. 

“More math? What the-oh my god the EXTRA CREDIT PACKET?!” He looked at you like you were insane and you bit your lip and looked at the concrete. “Y/N, you’re a straight-A student. You don’t need the extra credit. And even if you still wanted it ‘just in case,’“ He imitated you as he followed you up the stairs to your front door. “You literally have all semester to turn it in, and it’s FRIDAY. It’s FRIDAY! Can we not just relax and do couple things for ONCE.” He said, turning around to look at you while you shut your front door behind you. You glared at him. He KNEW how important school was for you and how much you stressed about getting all your work in on time, why was he being so rude about it? 

“I also have science,” You responded, pushing past him and into your dining room to pull your laptop and textbook out of your bag and set on the table. Jack loudly threw his bag on the table in front of you and headed into the kitchen. 

“Please tell me your kidding,” He said, popping open a can of Pepsi. You flipped through your textbook pages angrily, upset that he didn’t seem to get it. 

“No, I’m not kidding.” You said sharply, only turning to look at him once you’d said it, just able to catch the sad, exhausted look on your boyfriend's face. You felt guilty, but before you could apologize, his face hardened again.

“Y/N I WAS UP TILL 3 AM YESTERDAY HELPING YOU WITH YOUR SCIENCE PROJECT. HOW DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING ELSE TO DO?” He yelled, which made you shrink a little as you typed your password into your laptop, but then your blood boiled. 

“YES AND I AM GRATEFUL FOR THAT, BUT THERES A TEST ON MONDAY-”

“ON MONDAY?” Jack stepped up on the chair next to you and sat on the table and closed your computer in an attempt to get you to look at him, but you just crossed your arms and stared at the logo on the top of your computer. “Y/N, please, you can study all weekend for that, when your parents get back? Cmon, right now we have a little alone time and I really need-” 

“Everything to be about you?” You whipped your head up to look at him. His eyes looked hurt, but you weren’t going to take it back. 

“No, I’m sorry, I just, I’m really-”

“Annoying.” You glared at him, and then it was Jacks' turn to shrink, but he didn’t boil back, and you felt a twinge of guilt. “Look, just, just give me an hour.” You opened your laptop back up while Jack slumped over, flicking his pop tab in defeat. After a few minutes of the “tingggggg” noise echoing in the quiet room, you reached over, without looking up from your screen, and placed your hand on top of his fingers to stop the flicking. You kept it their longer then you meant to, and Jack rubbed your knuckles with his thumb, lightly squeezing your hand. You pulled it away abruptly, and wouldn’t let yourself look at the heartbroken look on his face. 

Awhile later your phone buzzed for what felt like the thousandth time from your laptop bag and you couldn’t take it anymore. You ripped your bag across the table and dug around for it in the front pocket. 

“Why the hell do you keep calling me?” You said sharply into your phone. 

“I was calling to ask you why the hell Jack has been active on Instagram for the past three and a half hours?” Katherine matched your tone on the other end. You pulled your phone back from your ear to look at the time and cringed when you realized how much you’d gone over your hour. Jack had walked off into your bedroom what you thought was a few moments ago but was actually two hours ago. You were still annoyed though, and Katherine being so nosy didn’t help.

“I don’t know,  he just is,” You said snarkily. “I’m studying,”

“Your parents are out of town and you SERIOUSLY, SERIOUSLY are studying on a Friday night instead of spending time with your boyfriend?” She sounded shocked, and you didn’t appreciate her judgment.

“Look, Kath, I-”

“Especially after he got fired yesterday.” Your heart dropped.

“Wait, what?” You prayed that you had misheard her.

“Yeah, I guess he forgot to call in yesterday, so when he didn’t show up his boss told him to, and I quote, ‘not bother showing up anytime after that either.’“ Katherine explained exasperatedly. You wanted to vomit. “Wait, how did you not know about this?” 

“Um, ahhh, I gotta go,” You said, standing up quickly and hanging up as you walked towards your bedroom. You slid your phone into the pocket of your jeans and lightly tapped the closed door to open it a smidge. Jack was sitting on your bed, on the phone with someone, his back propped up against the wall, looking out the window with his forearms resting on his knees which were bent up so his feet were on top of your comforter. You pushed your door open a little more to see that he had taken his shoes off so he didn’t get dirt on your bed, which he knew you detested. A small smile pulled at the edges of your cheeks; even who he was upset with you, he went out of his way to please you. He was so selfless. Your smile fell. And because of that selflessness, he had ended up sacrificing his job to help you out. You looked back at your laptops glowing screen in the dark dining room, the blue light reflecting off the cover of your textbook. School stressed you out so much. So, so much. You had always been a very good student, but a slight dip in your performance the semester before had lead to a stern talking-to from your parents that made you absolutely terrified to get anything lower than a perfect 4.0.

You looked back at Jack, who was still on the phone, flicking paint out from under his nails, oblivious to you in the doorway. He gets that, you thought to yourself. Jack understood the pressure from your parents and the immense fearful stress school put you under. Jack was always willing to be a supportive boyfriend, no matter how hard you made it. 

“Oh yeah, no (he’s/she’s/they’re) busy studying right now. (He’s/She’s/They’re) really stressed about school,” Jack said into the phone. “Hey, hey, (his/her/their) parents are really strict and put on a lot of pressure, it’s not (his/her/their) fault. Besides, I’ve never seen you turn in homework once so shut up.” Oh my god, You thought, feeling yourself tear up. He was literally standing up for you over something that you had just argued about, and on top of it, he didn’t know you were watching him, so he did this out of sheer integrity. You let your guard down for a second and let out a loud sniff, and immediately darted behind the door, hoping he didn’t see you. He continued talking to whoever it was he was on the phone with, causing you to let out a sigh of relief. Then you just stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do. You peaked around the door again, just as he started to laugh.

“Hahaha, yeah me too, I haven’t had dinner yet, I’m starved.” For a moment you felt even more guilty, knowing he was waiting for you to eat, but then you felt a light bulb click on over your head. You headed into the kitchen and began to quietly open and shut cabinets, gathering the ingredients you knew you would need to surprise Jack. Your boyfriend was often fairly mysterious, but one thing everyone could tell you about him was his obsessive and at times even frightening love of snickerdoodles. As you quietly dumped cups of flour into a bowl, you couldn’t control the small giggle that escaped your mouth as you remembered what an important role snickerdoodles had played in your relationship.

“You have some snickerdoodle crumbs on your lips,” Jack had said after diving into the cookies you had made for him on his birthday. But before you could reach for a napkin, he had stopped you. “Actually, let me take care of that.” And the next thing you knew you were having your first kiss with Jack Kelly. 

You carefully pulled the pan of cookies out of the oven and slid them onto a plate. You clicked the oven off and picked up the plate, your hands protected by polka-dot oven mitts. You knew you should probably wait for them to cool, but you were too impatient. You walked over to your bedroom and bumped the door open with your hip. Jack’s phone call had ended awhile ago, and he was laying on his back on your bed, his knee propped to support the notebook he was drawing on with the stub of a pencil. He looked up when you walked in, and quickly set aside the drawing materials.

“Snickerdoodles?” He looked at the plate and then back up at you. “I always welcome humankind's best invention but what is the occasion?” 

“A sincere apology,” You said, you had practiced what you were going to say while you were baking. 

“Oh no, I’m sorry, you don’t have to-” Jack started, shaking his head.

“No, I do.” You said, setting the plate on your comforter and gesturing for him to take a cookie. “I was being a self-centered asshole, and for that, I am so deeply sorry.” Jack began to shake his head again as he slowly broke his snickerdoodle in half.    “No, I was.” You said, sliding your hand under his chin and lifting it up so he was looking you in the eye. “I am so sorry about your job, Jack. That was completely my fault and I take full responsibility. I promise I will call your boss and try and talk him into taking you back, and if he won’t I will find you another job. A good one, that you like. I promise.” Jack set his cookie back on the plate and turned his head away and swallowed hard. You moved the plate to the floor and reached your arms around his shoulders to pull him closer to you.

“You are just so selfless. Truly, the sacrifices you make for everyone else, without a second thought amaze me. If you lost your job to help me with a science project, I cannot imagine the other things you have given up to make other people even the slightest bit happier.” You heard Jack choke into your shoulder, and you planted a soft kiss on his head. “You are the best person I know, Jack Kelly.” And with that, your boyfriend let out a broken sob and his shoulders began to shake as he cried. You slowly leaned back on your bed so that Jack’s head rested on your chest and his tears dripped onto your T-shirt. You rubbed his back and kissed his head, careful to be delicate. Eventually, his sobs stopped and the two of you sat in connected silence. 

“Where are those snickerdoodles?” Jack sniffed. You laughed.

“They’re on the floor.” You lifted your arms so he could lean down and get them. He picked the plate up and set it up over your shoulder, grabbing the one he broken in half earlier. He kissed you sweetly before laying back down on your chest and nibbling on the cookie contentedly. You looked down at him with a warm smile on your face and in your heart. 

“I love you, Jack.” 

“I love you too, Y/N.” 

[mc-slowwalker]

hahahahha that’s funny lol (saying that the author of the common enemy fics is c!dream) but yeah common enemy definitely won’t fix the issues cause it’s the cycle of violence that they have to break and that definitely will not be fixed easily

woooo syndicate supremacy (I’ve finally learned how to spell syndicate correctly through our conversation lol) they’re definitely doing better than other people on the server and I love that for them! oh yeah either or both c!tommy and c!dream definitely need to reflect on the fact that they’re both make eachother worse. I absolutely loved how that fic handled that aspect of it because closure and freedom is exactly what I want for c!dream and c!tommy more than anything. yeah exactly!! which is why I don’t like the idea of c!dream dying either cause it just leaves everything unresolved. I doubt that’ll happen in canon tho

yea!! can’t wait for the angst! cc!wilbur just posted on reddit about ghostbur so we’ve already got some more of it 😔✌️which also reminds me that I’m sooo interested to see how c!dream is like once he’s out of prison because so much of the fandom believes different thing and there’s no way that he’s gonna be better or changed cause he’s had no opportunity to plus he’s been through terrible torture for so long and I can’t wait to see the effect of that. which also reminds me that I’ve seen lately that a lot of the fandom seems to think that c!dream was put in the prison as a punishment when it was less about that and more about the fact that he could revive people and that his last canon life would have been taken if not for that fact. a lot of the fandom says he deserves the prison but not the torture as a punishment but that’s not why he was put in the prison and if that was the case literally every other character would deserve the same punishment as well as they’re all characters that have done bad things. I feel like my typing is just getting more and more rambly and less and less well punctuated lol sorry

oh yeah those fandom rules definitely make sense. especially as someone who has been in online fandom spaces for like a long time and has seen all the tumblr discourse lol. like yeah those rules were actually not bad and don’t send death threats or harass people shouldn’t have to be said as much as it is in mcyttwt. I really do wish that the young people in this fandom realise that they’re allowed to just have fun and do what they like in fandom

I think that taking into account the fact that a character is a minor is definitely important I just disagree with the way that a lot of people use it as such a final argument that doesn’t leave room for discussion. yeah I’m the same like when I was younger I used to think I was so grown up but like I’m 18 now and I realise that that’s still so young even though at 18 I’m an adult. basically like the “child” argument is not so black and white either like instead of a defence I think it’s more something that should be taken into account when discussing a characters actions and I definitely agree with the characters you’ve added as people who that can be extended to. and yeah like in real life the minors would face soo many more consequences it’s kind of funny like everyone would but with it being such a prominent topic of discussion it’s funnier applying real life rules to dsmp is often so funny. I agree c!tommy should 100% pay taxes that would be hilarious

ooh yeah the three life system interesting cause at first glance you’d think it makes them worth less but evidently not and I do wonder how the characters see it. like you said with c!foolish and c!puffy it was traumatic to take a first life but for some it just seems as chances and the last life is what actually matters. who it’s against and also circumstance I think matters. I also tend to brush off c!tommy taking two of c!dream’s lives but I also tend to brush off the canon lives lost during the first l’manburg war as it was war and c!dteam and co were just better. I suppose I’m an everything but l’manburg apologist because of its foundations ig although I can still understand and acknowledge it’s importance to the characters such as c!tommy. I’ve seen it said that c!dream deserves prison because he took two of c!tommy’s canon, amongst other reasons of course, but so many other characters have taken canon lives and how do you determine the consequence of that in the dsmp cause in irl it’s very different and in the dsmp so far there really is no consequence for murder. like for example c!punz took two of c!wilburs canon lives (I stan him for that I’m a punz simp what can I say) and other characters have taken canon lives too. hmm I wonder what determined the severity of crimes on the dsmp cause the one character that’s in prison wasn’t actually put in there for his crimes.

hahahaha yeah I just can’t wait till we finally don’t have to reach that much

ahaha fair enough I just sometimes type too fast and autocorrect never seems to know what I want to say and I do not have the brain power to proof read a single thing I write. also I type out the asks in notes and after I sent the last one I was like damn that was really long and pasted it into pages to check. and oh my god this one is over a thousand words that’s like longer than one of essays I wrote for my philosophy final exam😭😭 I am so sorry

I will say though that I am quite enjoying this discussion cause it’s the most in depth discussion I’ve been able to have about this

I saw the angst wilbur put on reddit that mother fucker (affectionate) I actually have a rewlly weird relationship with wilbur’s meta lore. Things I accept: sally is a salmon, fridge mom, all the characters being morally gray. Things I don’t accept: whatever he was trying to do with character ages, also saying revivebur was straight when c!tommy saw him and quackity making out like nice try king. One of my biggest issues with the sever is that I get so easily attached to mobs/npcs in dream smp and they die so easy so Im always sobbing,,,, if anything happens to shroud, yogurt, michael (notchill), or fran I’ll mcfucking lose it

For c!dream getting out of prison I see there being only two routes: 1. he’s worse by a lot more evil more fucked up or 2. He’ll be actually too fucked up/tired/traumatized to do shit. Either of which is gonna hurt the sever so I’m looking forward to it personally

Other real life things I think should be implemented into dream smp: jury duty, required 3 life insurance, dentsits, and OSHA

I do think the rebellion against c!dream (in the final control room) is really interrsting in that c!tommy/c!punz was about to organize a bunch of the server against dream? I know c!tommy has amazing puppy eyes tm but c!punz was able to organize a big group of people, half of them didn’t really have that much against dream (other than the l’manburg people) and were only there on more vague terms. Like c!hbomb and c!ponk really didn’t have shit against dream but still helped in getting him into prison

I feel like we’re always gonna have to reach a little bit and oh shit 1,000 words? Bruh half my classes require that and I have yet to actually right that much. it’s way easier with stuff you’re passionate about and with all the content dream smp has gives way more to analyze

[a-cai-jpg]

if you’ll stay with me, we can rewrite the rules of the universe

"does she have to go away? can't they just live together happily?" - director son, melo is my nature

there's an idiom in chinese that i think about a lot.

天下没有不散的酒席

the first time i heard it, it was season 2 of a drama i loved as a kid--three years old, sitting too close to an old, heavy color television, my cousin warm by my elbow, and my grandmother's voice drifting in from the kitchen.

(it's a technicolor memory, filtered a little yellow with age.)

season 3 of this drama is something i try to never watch.

first of all, they changed the cast, and even though leo ku is a beautiful man, he couldn't replace the legend, alec su.

(we don't talk about the new female lead.)

second of all, shit hits the fan and the character i loved the most becomes the character i hated the most.

third of all,

the idiom becomes true.

(there is no such thing as a banquet that never ends.)

see, the drama is about two girls who meet each other in historical beijing and become sworn sisters despite being polar opposites of each other. where one is gentle and demure, the other is reckless and brash. one of them (guess which?) happens to be the long-lost daughter of the sitting emperor. the other girl promises to help her reach her father. after a series of unfortunate events, the emperor crowns the wrong girl as princess. season 1 is about the fake princess sneaking the real princess into the palace, their struggles with palace life and figuring out a way for the emperor to recognize his real daughter without executing his fake one, and them falling in love--one with the 5th prince and the other with a son of a palace official.

eventually, the misunderstandings are addressed, and the emperor realizes he loves both girls too much to have harm come to either of them, so he recognizes both as his daughters. more things happen, but eventually, the two girls get married, and it's happily ever after.

BUT.

but they decided to make a season 3.

(in hindsight, it makes sense, because the non-blood related princess could have never lived a happy life caged in the palace, but it's nice to dream ok)

season 3 ends with the non-blood related princess and the prince she marries (my childhood crush) leaving the palace for good, and thereby giving up the throne, to live in yunnan. many, many years later, a carriage arrives at their tea field, and it's the emperor visiting them during the last years of his very long reign.

even writing this really poorly-articulated synopsis can bring me to tears. it's not an ending i can watch without crying.

(i can still see the ending in my mind's eye. the scarf around her hair, the basket of tea leaves by her side, the sound of children laughing and the carriage rolling to a stop. they see erkang first. yongqi and xiao yanzi greet him and their laughter is wild from happiness. but then erkang lifts the curtain to the carriage, and the emperor steps down from the coach.)

(the moment yongqi drops to his knees and says 皇阿玛 is usually when i start bawling.)

(the end end is them riding the carriage together, singing, and the words 全剧终  appear on screen, and you can almost fool yourself into believing that the carriage just continues on until they are back in the palace, ten years into the past.)

i like endings where everyone stays in one place.

senior year of high school, i watched a drama where the ending was a group of friends, who had bound together to conquer evil, literally all going their own ways and the main character dying, and i was so traumatized, i cried for three hours, shakily typing up my english essay through a curtain of tears until 6am in the morning.

when i finally went to bed the following night, i rewrote the ending in my head.

maybe because i was so tired, or maybe because the pain was too raw and not something i wanted to face, i managed to convince my sleep-addled brain that the drama actually ended with the female lead gathering the remnants of the male lead's soul, finding an elder in the snow-capped mountains (which is the setting where the drama leaves us), bringing him back to life, and the two of them returning home, where their friends have gathered to welcome him back.

this remains my most successful daydream yet (nightdream?), because i can still see the fabricated scenes play out in my head, the imagined emotions on the actor's faces, the ghost of a soundtrack playing in the background.

there's still a very, very large part of me that likes for everyone to stay in one place. 

but maybe it's getting used to reality, or maybe it's me viscerally feeling how difficult it is to stay in a place for too long, i've slowly started to accept people dispersing.

i used to not understand those scenes in dramas where old friends who have moved away come to visit the main character for just one afternoon, because in my head, i would always think wow, i would've had them stay. my friends would've stayed the week.

but see, time doesn't move in a way that lets us stroll in the past for a very long time. now, i'm grateful for the hours taken out of a night to meet with familiar faces and make plans for a future we know might not happen. i swallow the faint wrenching feeling when we bid goodbye, and continue my own solitary journey home, and through life.

but in the end, we move through the world alone and with nothing.

there's still a very, very large part of me that likes for everyone to stay in one place, but i'm guilty of leaving.

you'd think after four years, i'd be used to not knowing what home is, but i'm still a little scared of going away.

i don't know what i'll do with my room when i do. i don't know what to do with the posters on the walls (magazines cut-outs from high school still posted above the living room desk that has long not been mine), or my mountain of books that spill into every room in the house, or my keyboard sitting heavily above my bureau, or my guitar stashed by my closet, or my upright.

i don't know when i'll play my upright again, and that thought in itself really hurts.

i used to do this thing where i count the number of hours i'll be able to spend time with another person. i used to do it with my grandparents and it's honestly the most painful exercise of all time.

i try not to do it now, and as i write this, i'm actively pushing the process out of my mind, because i know i'll be able to calculate the number of hours left i can live in this house.

in my final story for my creative writing project, someone says this to the main character, "You were banking on us to preserve this idealistic vision of the past--to stay the same--so that when you got tired of being an adult, you could return home to us. But, we were growing too. Maybe we were growing in tandem with each other, but out of sync with you."

this is a line buried in the text among many other sentences that i think are a lot more beautiful. but, this is the line that took me over two weeks to write. for the first time, i tried to put the anxiety and regret i felt for four years into words. 

(that sort of reckoning is akin to pulling out your chordae tendineae through your esophagus and wrestling them into something worth presenting to the world.)

see, i want to experience the world, get to know foreign lands over the period of a couple of years, call the hidden corners of large cities home, visit mountain tops and build a life there, but i don't want the world to change.

part of it is because if it does, i'll never get to know the world. the japan i'll see in the future will never be the japan i saw last year and the japan i missed this year.

part of it is because life is a long, tiresome process of getting used to the new. as i grow up and out of this two-story condo, i am constantly having to digest this larger, more nuanced picture of the world. but, sometimes i get tired and i want to fall back on something familiar.

sometimes, that something familiar changes, and you're left utterly, completely alone.

i'm more used to this process now. i'm no longer so bothered by it that i balk at the idea of my parents moving.

i still feel unsettled when i think about the coming four years and the years after that and the notion that really, this bed i'm sleeping in is not going to be my bed anymore.

and this time, it seems like it will be permanent.

i was watching this variety show with a singer i like very much yesterday night, laughing and crying, and wrote this next bit in chinese.

i'll translate it here.

hua chenyu is a very peculiar existence in my heart.

i don't particularly love his voice, but i view his music as a sort of standard for all pop music. he has changed a lot since 2013, when he first debuted, but he still has this aura of aloofness, maybe because of his single-minded obsession with music.

but, when i saw him lift his head to look at his college bandmates on a large screen, over a webcam, the love and happiness in his slightly reddened eyes were indisputable. in that moment, the look of nostalgia and wistfulness in his gaze suddenly made me think that he's grown up a little, aged a little.

(this following part i wrote in english)

they performed a song they used to play a lot in college over some sort of webcamming interface.

but, see, there is a difference.

i used to think that it didn't matter how far away my friends were from me, because technology has taken distance and shrunken it to a few lines of text or a phone call. but, there's something irreplaceable about the voice of a person you love without the tinny grain of the mic, about the warmth of another someone next to you that you can lean against. 

sometimes, we are lucky and for a few years of our lives, we have someone who can understand the messy scrawl over a few pages of our stories. sometimes, we are lucky, and that someone takes up chapters and arcs.

(isn't that a very nice thought.)

(华晨宇在我心中是一个很神奇的存在。我并不是特别喜欢他的声音，可是我就是会以他的音乐为目标，为典范。他从2013年 刚开始参加快男到现在 变了很多。但他一直有一种拒人于千里之外的感觉， 也许是因为他对音乐的执着。可是当我看见他抬头看着在屏幕上的大学乐队成员。。。他泛红眼里的爱和快乐是不可忽视的。在那一瞬间 他眼中的留恋突然让我觉得他好像长大了一点，老了一点。)

(i'm like weirdly proud because i couldn't have written this two years ago. see, reading in a different language really helps you learn that language. too bad my students never LiStEnEd.)

(i realize i talk about this creative writing story a lot. it's because it is my story. the story of me and my largest 心结. something like that.)

(maybe i'll post it one day.)

(or maybe not.)

song rec: kevin oh - mortifying love

glossary: the first drama mentioned is 还珠格格 (princess returning pearl erkang = son of the palace official, married to the blood related princess yongqi = 5th prince, one of the most tragic existences in chinese history xiao yanzi = the princess returning pearl, the non-blood related princess, married to yongqi 皇阿玛 = in the qing dynasty, princes and princesses who were sons and daughters of the emperor had to call their father by this greeting 全剧终 = the end the second drama mentioned is 古剑奇谭·(legend of the ancient sword) 心结 = literally, heart knot. i don’t know how to translate it, but i liken it to the freudian concept of a fixation...? 

[i-rove-rock-n-roll]

I just found my writing from elementary school. (Ages 6-10 mostly, though some of this came later)

Such hits as

Raindeer Trouble (corrected by the teacher as Reindeer Trouble) a one page story where Santa’s reindeer are sick, then have a miraculous recovery, all taking place a week before Christmas. I wrote it in either first or second grade, if memory serves me correctly (which I doubt it is)

Monkey Madness-written maybe a year later? Basically there’s this witch that hates the superhero Underdog’s guts (I had just seen the live action movie and loved it) and her plan was to make a super powered monkey to hypnotize to do her bidding. Her end goal was to become world leader and have everyone dress up as scary monsters for Halloween, rather than superheroes and “something else good and sweet”. Whatever that means. Then she started kidnapping people with the monkey’s help and turning them into real monsters. Eventually the monkey starts asking questions, like, “can you carve carnivorous cotton candy into kittys (kitties)?” (Idk wtf that even has to do with the rest of the plot but he gets sulky cause she doesn’t make him a cat at one point) There’s more gems in this one, plus a really wacky fight scene. This one was most definitely second grade, since a few words are in cursive, which I had just started learning. I also remember drawing a “cover” to this one, but idk where it is now.

The next one is Super Horse Heros (Heroes). I basically wrote down the stories my gram used to tell my sister and I when we demanded bedtime stories. An old horse wants a new life, and has to do 3 good deeds before his fairy god horse will turn him into a ‘“unisus” (unicorn/Pegasus combo). After that, the unisus saves a bunch of horses who were kidnapped and shipped to a glue factory. Then they became the Super Horse Heroes, saving children lost in cornfields (aka my sister and I) and flying off into the sunset.

I also found 2 essays in this folder-one about The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, and the other a 12 page paper on the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe which I used to apply to college.

Also a drawing of the Moirae and a spinning wheel that isn’t half bad.

Back to the writing!

Let’s see...a type written version (I used to have a typewriter before SOMEONE broke it one time when I moved) of Reindeer Trouble.

Oh! Here’s a gem! It’s titled: A Bad Toddler Finds a treasure at a popular amusement park. He finds literal treasure, fame, fortune, and an old boot.

The Adventures of Pretzel Man! With a little drawing in the corner. (I used to have a Nabisco pretzel looking doll, that was the inspo) He sells pretzels by day apparently and also fights crime. His enemy in this story is creatively called Taffy Laffy, who turns people into Taffy Zombies, and—

This story is unfinished. WHAT? I was actually wanting to know the end!

Ugh. Anyway, let’s continue

This next one is called Turkey Terror: a turkey’s life from my point of view. Basically this kid gets turned into a turkey (but they still have their own head??) it’s also 2 days before thanksgiving. The turkey kid’s name is apparently Sheldon, who makes friends with a chipmunk named Chippy...who is a total backstabbing liar leading Sheldon to an ambush in a cave, where he gets a bullet to the head, only to wake up and find it was all a dream...

WTF PAST ME?? WHAT—

More drawings in here, terribly proportioned gangster from the 20s...some drawings I did of phantom of the opera (I, uh, copied some drawings I liked by other artists at the time with the sole intention of just sticking them on my wall because i apparently forgot what a printer was)

Drawings of flowers...drawing of my dog’s eyeball for whatever reason...

Heaven or Hell: Gateway to Another World (keep in mind I was going based off of cartoons but I think my complete lack of understanding of religion is why I would up majoring in it)

More writing, some based on the imagery I got from songs I was listening to... one page thing I apparently wrote about the death of Jesus (???) once I had seen and been awestruck by Michaelangelo’s Pieta (on screen unfortunately, I’ve never seen it in person)

A paper with only one line on it saying “Mrs. Jenelle Hartson née Deveroux was always the first to tell anyone she was a crazy old bat”

Okay.

Oh no! Well, not no, but well—

Basically scrap paper bits of To Kill A Mockingbird from Boo Radleys POV. The whole thing would up being like 15 pages and was turned in for a school assignment. I think I scared the teacher with how long it was since he only asked for 2-3 pages. I have the whole thing on here somewhere in all it’s terrible glory if any of you want....

Bingo! Found a bunch from a wip I really liked like, 6-7 years ago! (So early high school) Scientist named Phineas Lancaster develops a way to jump between universes, is being pursued by the government, and winds up running into himself, but a deadbeat version who dropped out of college after a horrible accident. Let’s see what gems are in here....

“Phineas Lancaster, resident bum and professional alcoholic of the sprawling town Rock Falls, woke up feeling as if he had been slammed into by a bus. He hadn’t, but for a minute he’d thought he’d wandered into the middle of 32nd Avenue during Rush hour. Again.”

(Phineas, realizing he was kidnapped by a dude he doesn’t realize is himself from another universe) “His captor smiled at him in what he must have thought was [a] friendly way. Phineas was now more irritated than before when he noticed the flashing white of his captor’s teeth. ‘no way those are real’. He scowled at the man. ‘He looks like he popped out of a freaking toothpaste commercial’ he’d been abducted by a real like infomercial buffoon. Lovely.”

“I love your place.” He hated it. “Very homey.”

“He’s even got a nerdy voice, Janine. I can’t have a nerd for a twin.”

“Say hello to the guy that decided to kidnap me. He had some sort of weird spaz attack and, being the kind and loving soul I am, couldn’t just leave him in the middle of the desert to die. Ergo, he’s here.”

“I got us a lift from a very nice gentleman who is currently searching for Glenn Miller. He gave me his card in case I either found Glenn or if I need another lift, since he’s going to be in town for a few days.”

“I bet you’re a dentist. Dentists are evil.”

(When drunk Phineas not smart phineas is abducted by agents)

“All I wanted to do was stop by the Dollar Store for some Gummy Bears. I just had to get kidnapped again. Yay me, I could set a record.”

“Aaaand cut! Try it again, maybe with some more threatening looks this time, you might make me wet myself if you try hard enough.”

“Gee, i don’t know, I think I was too busy running for my life to ask, ‘I’m sorry, do you want to exchange numbers so we can do this again sometime? Maybe meet for tea?’”

“How ever did you make such a realistic looking doohickey?”

(One Phineas to the other)

“I totally got mom’s humor. You got dad’s shitty ability to make a person die of boredom.”

Road tripping to Golden Earring (and trying not to murder Phineas when he starts singing)

...guess I got a lot of stuff to play with now! Happy early birthday to me!

[suburbanmetaldad]

What can I do for you?

Here, friends, is my super power:

I can create an entire book — a good one — quickly, with very little help.

You want a book with your name on it. I can make that happen.

Maybe you typed up a draft, and you’re not sure where to go next.

I can take it from here.

And anything smaller than that will be cheaper and faster.

Get on the schedule while you can.

Following are more details about me and my work.

Follow are links to different things D.X. Ferris makes & does. 

I am D.X. Ferris.

I grew up obsessed with music and reading. I went to school for writing. At the time, I thought I couldn’t create things. I didn’t know it yet, but I was wrong. I tried to quit. Writing wouldn’t let me. It kept pulling me back in. 

Once I figured out how to do what I wanted to do, I made up for lost time. Now I’ve covered a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction for Rolling Stone. I endured a career-ending injury. I’ve been to the Pentagon on business. I’ve written books with & about some of my iconic heroes. Communication is my business, and business is good.

I do a lot of different things. 

I am an award-winning writer, editor, manager, publisher, teacher, speaker, cartoonist, maker, co-author, ghost writer, and overall communications professional. To me, those various & sundry processes are all part of the same sphere — and here’s the common thread: Communication is the art of organizing information. That, friend, is what I do. I can do it for you. And we can make some money together.

I have written/co-written nine books. My personal record is four new books in 16 months.

I cut my teeth as a rock & roll journalist. Then I successfully transitioned to hard news. Lately, I’ve been creating motivational literature and self-help books. I write very effective press releases & promo material. I write & storyboard short videos. I’m writer for a documentary I can’t talk about yet.

I get around. I teach college. My CV includes work for dozens of publications, including Rolling Stone and Alternative Press (America’s two top rock & culture magazines). I’ve also written for leading outlets such as The A.V. Club and Decibel. I write and stage communication seminars. 

I have been to the Pentagon and National Air & Space Museum on business. I have been backstage at the Vans Warped Tour on business. My body of work includes book-length oral histories. 

I have collaborated with certified Grand Masters, civilians, and high-profile musical & Hollywood creative types. I have had Almost Famous moments on the side of the stage at European festivals. I wake up so early it hurts. I make money for my partners.

I am a 33 1/3 author. An Ohio Society of Professional Journalists Reporter of the Year. And a third-degree black belt (in Taekwondo). Also a 32° two-time WM/PM.

Let’s do some good work — and then let’s do some good with what comes from it.

Click the following links for my...

Good Professional Wrestling: Full Contact Life Lessons From the Pinnacle Performance Art The Good Advice From... series is now officially a franchise. Volume II features a foreword by Diamond Dallas Page, motivational icon, founder of health & wellness movement DDP Yoga, and WWE Hall of Famer. Professional wrestling is the toughest business. It is a form of competition built on collaboration and cooperation. Every successful wrestler has a diverse skill set that can help you get over too, no matter what your business or lifestyle. Filled with short chapters and useful advice, this browsable motivational manual features inspirational quotes from dozens of wrestling icons. Each is followed by easy-to-read analysis and actionable tips that can turn a life around.

I collaborated with Darren Paltrowitz on this one-of-a-kind positivity handbook. It breaks down the habits, skills, and strategies that your favorite superstars practice — and you can too, starting today.

Good Advice From Goodfellas: Positive Life Lessons from the Best Mob Movie It’s the last — or maybe first —  motivational manual and self-help guide you’ll ever need. 320 pages, paperback; Kindle ebook also available, cheap. At 145 short chapters, it’s the perfect airport/travel book. This unique meditation & reading finds teachable moments in all your favorite and quotes and scenes from this beloved, seminal movie. If you know what to look for, Goodfellas covers all the same evergreen topics as your favorite business podcasts and startup seminars... but it’s a lot more fun. No, seriously.

Co-author of motivational/how-to Masonic leadership manual

Co-author of parents’ motivational guide to kids’ martial arts

I am the most prominent, prolific non-marquee contributor the music-writing/music journalism textbook How to Write About Music, from the brain trust running Bloomsbury/Continuum’s 33 1/3 series. TECHNICALLY, I AM ON THE SAME LABEL AS NEIL GAIMAN. This is one of two or three books on this topic. Note to self: Write your own.

Wrote the official book with Donnie Iris and the Cruisers For my money, Donnie Iris & the Cruisers are the best-kept secret from 80s rock radio. That had not one, but seven hot 100 hits. The bandleader/songer penned an enduring disco hit. AND he worked with three Rock Hall of Fame artists. The band have a continuous near-40-year run. During this epic tale, they work with a young Trent Reznor, Kiss, Breathless, Cinderella, Sam Kinison, Gamble & Huff, the Jaggerz, Wolfman Jack, and bunch of others. The book is a painstakingly researched oral history that plays like a mix of the four-hour Tom Petty documentary, the movie That Thing You Do!, and the American Hardcore book. Coffee-table book, 464 pages, 102 images, 308 endnotes, 8.5x11″.

Wrote two books about thrash-metal icons Slayer

One is part of 33 1/3, the vanguard series of music-related writing.

One is an exhaustively researched full-length biography featuring 33 images and over 400 endnotes.

Publisher of 6623 Press, home to creator-owned, useful, reasonably priced, unconventional books about popular culture, success, and other cool stuff. People like them.

Full-service, full-contact indie publishing. I write, co-write, ghost-write, edit, and publish books. Quickly.

Do you have book in you? We’ll get it out.

Worked for Rolling Stone, the no. 1 music & culture magazine ever.

I’ve been writing for Alternative Press — America’s no. 2 music magazine — off & on since 2002. More recent pieces are here. Older material is here.

Wrote for alternative newsweekly Cleveland Scene, in various capacities, for 8 years. Won numerous awards for news reporting, business reporting, arts reporting, commentary, feature writing, personality profiling, and sports reporting. Click here for profiles, business features, columns, reviews, and more.

I think this piece about Cleveland’s LeBron James banner won me the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists’ Best Reporter award: Literally the entire city was looking at an iconic, massive piece of public art/advertising — and I was the one person who looked behind the scenes. For alt-weekly Cleveland Scene.

https://www.clevescene.com/64-and-counting/archives/2010/08/05/goodbye-lebron-banner-hello-sunshine-workers-behind-the-banner-speak

For Rolling Stone, I interviewed a band and created unofficial liner notes for a classic album:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/they-might-be-giants-flood-track-by-track-guide-to-the-geek-chic-breakthrough-82345/

This kind of piece is a specialty. For Alternative Press, I interviewed an infamous punk musician about his friendship with the late, great Anthony Bourdain. I supplied many conversation prompts, transcribed it, then edited his answers into one continuous narrative, while I remained invisible in the piece. If it looks like I didn’t do much, then that was the entire point.

https://www.altpress.com/features/anthony-bourdain-harley-flanagan-cro-mags-tribute/

I visit a business, describe the experience, and research how a controversial industry works. For Cleveland Scene.

https://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/game-of-chance/Content?oid=2183398

While the rest of the rock-journalism world were writing SOPA stories (Summarizing Other People’s Articles) about a developing story, I dug deep, excavated some court records, and wrote an informed summary. For Metal Sucks — for my money, the best metal news & views site.

https://www.metalsucks.net/2019/06/11/how-many-more-misfits-reunion-shows-will-there-be-according-to-legal-documents-probably-just-one/

A friendly multi-person Q&A and sidebar, stitched together from three different interviews from different media. For Alt Press.

https://www.altpress.com/features/punk-goes-fearless-records-interview/

Cover story/feature profile of the president of a local university — and how his work has helped shape the city. It’s pretty whitebread and dry, but I can work in that style when I’m not writing about raging hellions. For Cleveland Magazine, the city’s upstanding guide to what’s happening and who’s doing it.

https://clevelandmagazine.com/in-the-cle/the-read/articles/city-mission

News interview with Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cavaliers and Quicken Loans. For Scene.

https://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/enhanced-interrogation-dan-gilbert/Content?oid=1678536

Excerpt from Good Advice From Goodfellas, my self-improvement book that draws positive life lessons from the greatest gangster movie:

https://6623press.tumblr.com/post/181078213342/the-new-self-helpmotivational-manual-good-help

Christmas Sevenfold: Metal Dad, Compendium Two  My second comic-strip compilation collects seven years of Christmas & fall holiday stripes, with new art, a foreword, and an essay about why the kind of guy who wrote two books about Slayer still loves Xmas. 180 pages, oversized 8.5 x 11″ paperback.

Suburban Metal Dad, Compendium One: Raging Bullshit. The first compilation book for my webcomic. It collects Years III and IV of the comic, with 172 strips, 8 previously unreleased demo strips, an updated FAQ, and a true-life, all-text real-life metal dad story (so there’s something to really read). 180 pages, oversized 8.5 x 11″ paperback.

Individual strips of Suburban Metal Dad, an online comic that has run twice weekly since 2010.

I am totally into the Misfits/Danzig/Samhain, and wrote a bunch of stuff about this record-setting continuum of ground-breaking musicians

I wrote things for Metal Sucks

Guest on heavy metal podcasts, and bloggage about it all

Guest on assorted TV and superhero-show podcasts

Guest host on rock podcast Lost Together

Annotated both versions of “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” at Genius

Random bloggage about stuff that isn’t necessarily metal... mostly movies and holiday stuff like a survey of Christmas imagery in True Detective season 1

Tweet too much, but it’s healthier than taking cigarette breaks.

The Pentagrammarian: I take note of writing, grammar, usage, and the business thereof. I am one of very few professional writers who can list the four parts of a well-rounded profile or break down the constituent parts of a sentence, in correct technical grammar terms.

The goat had it comin’. I swear.  

[duhad]

Three Pillars of Writing: A Terrible Essay by Duhad

Since I ended up spending way too long writing this in response to a largely unrelated post about fan fiction, I’m going to post this overly long soap box rant about writing on its own in the vain hope the 3 or 4 people who follow me will read this if its not hidden under 3 feet of other peoples text.  -

I had a conversation with my friend Kit the other day, where I was trying to sort of argue/define an idea I had about stories fundamentally working on three central pillars. 1. Plot - The story of whats going on. The adventure/mystery/horror/romance/etc as an active and progressing narrative. 2. Characters - The central characters and their internal and interpersonal lives. 3. Setting - A mix of both world building and general attention to setting details, ranging from things as grand scoop as the history and cultures of fantasy and sci-fi worlds to as small and personal as the club scene in a big city or the neighborhood of a small town or the student body and facility of a school.

For comedies you can knock out one of these three to replace it with comedy without losing much, so long as the humor works.

In my original argument I more or less was saying that a story needs at least 2 of these to work in order to function, with one weak link not really unbalancing things, but two going out causing a collapse. But reading this I think I am coming to a more nuanced conclusion, that their are people for whom one or more of these are of much higher importance and who can over look flaws in the other one or two. That essentially each reader/viewer/player is, weather consciously or not looking for one or more of these things and the better or worse its handled, the more or less they like it. But since most people don’t really grasp this notion, they look for broader, more tangible things to explain WHY they enjoyed something or not. So for instance I have heard allot of people dismiss the works of Stephen King because he’s too long winded, to caught up on details and the daily lives of his characters and tends to meander, losing allot of steam in the middle of his books as the terrifying threats take a back seat to ‘pointless’ things like characters falling in love, falling out of love, dealing with substance abuse or stress or school or work or fascinations with silly hobbies. For people who are their for the plot, he’s a bore who needs an editor to cut out about 70% of any given new book. Especially when allot of his books end, not with a thrilling climax, but a chapter or two after that point, with the remaining characters moving forward with their lives. Yet his books sell like hotcakes because for people who pick up the books and fall in love with the characters and the worlds they live in. They get to just indulge in their stories for hundreds of pages before suddenly getting a thrill as these people they have spent the last ten to twenty hours with are suddenly thrust into terrible danger, with the fate of the lived in settings they inhabit, from whole world to tiny little communities, dangling in the balance! For another example “Rendezvous With Rama” by Arthur C. Clarke is a book I am sure about 90% of people here would HATE! Its slow, its uneventful, the characters are all consummate professionals who don’t have any drama with one another or really spent much time getting to know one another. The two most exciting things that happen are when someone we met one chapter ago almost gets seriously hurt while trying to fly a sort of winged bike and then does not and later when the Hermian colony fires a nuke at the Rama ship, but then it gets defused relatively easily with no lives lost. But I LOVE IT because it presents an utterly fascinating look at an empty alien spaceship that is unlike anything on Earth. Its strange and beautiful and endlessly fascinating to explore! And the people exploring it themselves are fascinating, not because their particularly deep characters, but because they represent a human culture that is at once recognizable and yet unlike our own. Its a setting first and for most book in other worlds. The Lord of the Rings is setting first, plot second and characters a pretty distant third, at least in the books. Fan fiction tends to be characters first, focusing on the lives and personalities of characters and their interactions with one another before anything else, though obviously their are lots of exceptions. Finally Sherlock Homes stories tend to be plot first, with the central mystery and how it gets solved being the center piece, with the characterization of Homes, Watson and a few of the central figures getting just enough attention to make us care about them and basically everything else being kept pretty out of focus unless necessary for the plot. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle might go into the history of the Mormon Church in “A Study In Scarlet”, but mostly its just their to explain the motivations of Jefferson Hope and he only gets fleshed out to explain why he murdered Drebber and Stangerson, as soon as that’s done he basically just go’s to jail quietly and is never mentioned again. But that’s fine because its a story your reading for the plot, not the setting or the characters, so once the murder is resolved theres no need to keep and flesh out the characters and setting details unless their going to come up again. Which they will not. Hell Moriarty, Homes’s nemesis and biggest recurring enemy shows up in only two stories directly, the second of which he dies in and is only mentioned in a couple others as being basically just a guy who other criminals work for sometimes.

Now obviously these are only broad outlines of major elements that stories tend to work with in less tangible ways and their not the ONLY things readers/viewers/players respond to. Someone who loves plot focused stories might hate Sherlock Homes stories because they don’t like mysteries or prefer more modern characters. Someone who just wants a good character driven story might hate Bloom Into You because they don’t like the leads or just dislike anime as a medium. And someone who likes rich worlds might still hate Dune because its so dark and bloody and fatalistic. That’s fine. But I think knowing what key aspect/s of a way a story is told and where its focus is can tell you just as much about why you do or do not enjoy certain pieces of fiction as more tangible elements like it being a romantic comedy or a sci-fi horror.

-

And as an addendum for writers, I think knowing what you really love about stories can help you get thru allot of tricky spots. I love setting and character elements of stories, but have allot less patience for plot and so when writing I will breeze thru world building sections, people discussing culture or politics or the way things work in their sci-fi/fantasy/just plain weird setting and breezy banter dialogue. But then when it comes to moving the story forward its like, “Ahhhhhh... They uh... Do the thing and then... Uh... Hm... Time for a brake. I’ll get back to finishing this thing in a month or two.”

Before being able to crystallize by thoughts on this I would often get into trouble by setting out to write plot heavy epics, full of twists and turns and major events I knew would happen at X point in the future, but then never got anywhere in them because I found writing the quick and action heavy scenes that would get me to those big moments where just miserable and felt stilted as hell! Even now I write with my best friend and whenever she talks about these really cool ideas for things that will happen in the futures of the stories I get all excited thinking about how fun writing about how the settings and characters will change and how they will all interact with one another and how many fun scenes I can write in that new environment... And then I remember I need to actually push the story forward to that point and I suddenly get really stressed out because plotting out how that will all happen and then executing on that plot is my least favorite part of writing.

But when I wrote things for my friend’s game where it was like, “Write a history and mythology for this setting.” Or “Write two characters interacting and talking with one another in these short scenes.” Or “Come up with a type of fantasy creature or a culture or a tribe or a cult and then write about how they interact with a group of strangers.” And it was so easy and so much fun that I ended up writing so much stuff I actually got told several times to either stop or slow down because he thought I was pushing myself to hard to come up with this novels worth of setting details and short character interactions. But the truth of the matter was, I was just exhilarated to have a chance to just toss out all of these ideas I didn’t then have to tie together into a tightly constructed over arching plot!

Later I was writing a story for a comic with my best friend and though we had all of these cool ideas, it was not really coming together right. Everything was so detailed, so focused on notes about the setting and expository dialogue and aiming toward setting up for future events that it just didn’t feel right at all. So I took a brake and wrote a RPG based on the setting and spent about 100 pages just carefully building the setting and history for the universe it was set in. Then, months later, I came back to the comic and, now focusing just on the scene at hand and keeping in mind the setting I had built, I rewrote the opening chapter in a way which was SO MUCH BETTER then the first draft! Because I was no longer writing for the plot, but for the characters and the world and THAT was my jam!

Finally fairly recently, while dealing with a bout of writers block, I just for fun wrote something for my aforementioned best friend which was literally just a character looking around their weird room, commenting on some of the dumb stuff she saw and then having a conversation with her best friend. That ended up leading to a 23+ page story I am still writing with her that I find is so fun and relaxing to write I just pick it up and work on it when I am feeling stressed or down and it gets me feeling allot better! And though she is working on some long term plotting stuff for it, the thing I love about it is that, when I am writing it, its basically purely just setting details and characters.

And that’s what I want you writers out their to take away from my TED Talk today! If you find yourself getting caught up over and over again when writing, look at where you keep getting stuck and ask yourself, “Is their a pattern here? Am I getting stuck at random or is it when I try to focus too much on the world or on whats coming next in the story or when I need to write dialogue or back story that I am just grinding to a halt and not knowing what to write next?”  Because I think you might well find that their is a pattern and once you know where your just breezing along and where your getting stuck, you can work to either spice up the parts you have trouble with with the things you enjoy or rework your story to focus on your strengths and down play your weakness. It might seem odd at first, but if Michael Crichton can shove long expository monologs about science into a book about a dino theme park going to hell or a Congo safari filled with intelligent apes murdering people and if Andrew Hussie can hold up his story about cosmically apocalyptic happenings to have a couple of dumb kids talk to one another about nonsense for a few thousand words, you can indulge yourself a little. Its alright, it doesn’t make you a bad creator, just one who will appeal more strongly to a particular audience.

-

Now that I have spent hours writing some dumb nonsense no one will ever read I will go to be- Oh wait its already morning, to get breakfast then work I guess.

As for the rest of you, go enjoy yourselves indulging in or creating whatever flavor of narrative you best enjoy!

@roxthefoxinsox @balile

[team-free-squiggle]

Why @karaidemon is Very Cute

                                 by Me (@book-of-Charlie)

Pages: 5 in word document.

Font: Times New Roman, 12 pt.

Citation Style: MLA

Word Count: 1,245

Here goes nothing! @karaidemon I am putting it under a read more cause it’s long af. Hope you enjoy! Also, I told you I would write it :p

              In this essay, I will demonstrate exactly why @karaidemon is cute AF. But first, an explanation.

              For those of you who don’t understand why I am writing this essay, hello! I will explain. No, there is too much, let me sum up (bonus points if you got that reference). So here’s what happened: I saw a post that said “if you’re reading this right now, you’re cute” (Tumblr). And, like everyone here on Hellsite.com, I tagged my friends, people I know, etc…. One of the people I tagged was @karaidemon, who shall henceforth be referred to as Jewels, since that’s her name. She responded by saying “I am not cute, I demand an essay with quotes and sources. Please use MLA format.” Well, Jewels. Challenge accepted.

              We will start off by looking at the definition of the word in question: ‘cute.’ According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, these are the possible definitions of cute:

1a: clever or shrewd often in an underhanded manner

              " … he's a true patriot and statesman … and a most particular cute lawyer."— Thomas Chandler Haliburton

              b: impertinent, smart-alecky

                            Don't get cute with me.

2: attractive or pretty especially in a childish, youthful, or delicate way

              a cute puppy; a cute smile

3: obviously straining for effect

              The movie's too cute to be taken seriously.

Now obviously, 3 doesn’t apply. This leaves us definitions 1 and 2. Most people tend to look at definition number 2, which is accurate. That will be explained later. For now, however, we will start at the very beginning (it’s a very good place to start), with definition number 1.

               Earlier today I posted a post on Tumblr, asking people to like and/or reblog if they thought Jewels is cute. She herself commented “How dare you. I have a reputation” (Tumblr). One has to admit, it’s a little bit smart-alecky. Another example is within her writing; for this essay, I shall specifically use the example of her stories with Annika Archer. Annika Archer, for those who don’t know, is a character that Jewels created to go with @asofterfan’s Sanders Sides Punk AU. This author does highly recommend that AU, by the way. The stories that Jude (@asofterfan) wrote, and the ones that Jewels wrote are both spectacular. The point, however, are in the stories that Jewels wrote: in them, there are some amazingly (yet objectively) adorable moments between Roman and Annika. And speaking from experience (and from what others have told me they felt when writing), it’s very hard to write as you are not. When it’s just you, and a laptop or tablet or phone or even a paper and pencil, the letters on the page are what’s coming from your soul. You can write all different types of characters; but at the end, they all share a piece of your soul because you’re the one that wrote them. Now, I don’t know if that’s how Jewels feels; but as a fan of her work, sometimes literally the cutest, most adorable things are just the best things ever. Again, whether that’s me or her is hard to say; but those cute moments just add up to a cute person, the way I see it.

               Now, for definition number 1. Disclaimer: I don’t know how Jewels looks. Never seen her face, nothing. Which means I’m going based off of what I know about her. She is sweet, and kind, and a brilliant writer; she has a great sense of humor (based on her stories) and is overall very caring and just wonderful. Now, no matter what you look like; all those qualities add up to something beautiful. So I really couldn’t care about what’s on the outside (not trying to say that you’re not pretty, Jewels, I just don’t know what you look like), because on the inside you are cute and beautiful and adorable and utterly you. And that’s amazing.

               Now, if you still don’t believe me: let’s look at the evidence from my various Tumblr posts/asks about this very topic.

 ~ The first post is the one where I asked people to like/reblog if they think      @karaidemon is cute. Here’s what we have, excluding a reblog/commenting  thing Jewels and I did (please note that this is so far, idk if this post will get more notes after this or not. I would expect so). (book-of-charlie)

Likes

§  @Bitchwannatryme

§  @allthemetalsoftherainbow

§  @coltondresden

§  @mysparkledblog

§  @pixieprincess14

§  @virgil-angsty-sanders

§  @moist-astronaut

§  @sockpansy

§  @mirror2thespirit

§  @goliath-dave

§  @idon-kno

§  @adoratato

§  @jamicambrera

§  @the-editor-is-bored

§  @unevencube2554

§  @imantisocialgetoverit

§  @blair-nope

§  @tkwolf45

§  @joruxxi

§  @nowedontliveinigloos

§  @trashy-killjoy

§  @nervous-nellie

§  @libellus-drakena

§  @bubblegumrowan

§  @noot-noot-cats

§  @ilikesomeshtuff

§  @gaythingsingayplaces

§  @bluecometdust

§  @decadentdeerpolice

§  @theunoriginaldaisy

§  @calvindientesblancos

§  @feerkokoro1345

§  @broadwaytheanimatedseries

§  @k9cat

§  @paradoxesmakeperfectsense

§  @1-lost-fander

§  @funsizedgremlin

§  @sepporahs-blog

§  @drawtofeel

§  @itsme98z

Reblogs

§  @bitchwannatryme

§  @allthemetalsoftherainbow

§  @rptheturk

§  @pixieprincess14

§  @justt-ppeachy

§  @asofterfan

§  @virgil-angsty-sanders

§  @moist-astronaut

§  @poisonedapples

§  @idon-kno

§  @adoratato

§  @jamiecambrera

§  @khadij-al-kubra

§  @nowedontliveinigloos

§  @wayward-virgil

§  @unknownsandersfan

§  @broadwaytheanimatedseries

§  @thisismedamit

Comments

§  @asofterfan said: “You have a reputation for bEING CUTE.”

§  @adoratato said: “Oh yes definitely”

§  @khadij-al-kubra said: “Wait, this wasn’t an obvious fact to the general famdom populace?”

§  @broadwaytheanimatedseries said: “THE EFFING CUTEST”

~ The second post is the ask I sent to Jude, to see what they thought. (asofterfan)

~~ Their reaction was: “Can I get a HELL YEAH”

~~ There were several notes on this post as well.

§  Likes

·         @mollycassmith

·         @goliath-dave

·         @the-editor-is-bored

·         @imantisocialgetoverit

·         @libellus-drakena

·         @ilikesomeshtuff

·         @decadentdeerpolice

·         @doodler200

§  Reblogs and comments were done by me and will therefore not be counted in this extremely very serious study.

~ And last, but definitely not least, Thomas Sanders himself has said that every single famder is cute af. And yes, I know this is in general, but Jewels is a famder and therefore counts in ever category.

For example, his tweets (tstwitterupdates):

§  “Hey, why are you all so sweet? You make me so excited to create and share my creations and that’s the absolute BEST gift to give any artist. Thank you for being you. <3”

§  “Hey. Just a quick reminder. I come on here all the time, and you guys are always so loving and sweet and always make me smile and feeling better. You do that. You are awesome. <3”

§  “Have I mentioned lately how much I adore you guys, gals, and non-binary pals? You’re all so patient with us, and loving, and kind, and you’re so supportive of this dude who felt like getting purple hair in order to feel more comfortable as himself. Can’t thank you all enough! <3”

There are so many more. Thomas is just… the sweetest. But then, so are all of us, as he keeps reminding us. And that definitely includes Jewels.

So, even though I know you don’t think you are…. Jewels, you are cute AF, and we love you. Keep on kicking figurative butt!

                                                 Works Cited

"Cute." Merriam-Webster's Learners Dictionary, Merriam-Webster.

              www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cute 

asofterfan. “Ask,” Tumblr. November 5, 2018.

              https://asofterfan.tumblr.com/post/179799708108/do-you-think-karaidemon-is-cute-i-need-this-for

book-of-Charlie. “Please Reblog or Like This Post If,” Tumblr. Nov. 5, 2018.

               https://book-of-charlie.tumblr.com/post/179789603984/for-those-of-you-who-dont-know-who-she-is-shes

karaidemon. “Photos,” Tumblr.

               https://karaidemon.tumblr.com/post/178556475705/photos

karaidemon. “Robot,” Tumblr.

               https://karaidemon.tumblr.com/post/177817508435/robot

tstwitterupdates. “Hey, why are you all so sweet?” Tumblr. Sept. 26, 2018.

               https://tstwitterupdates.tumblr.com/post/178499385434

tstwitterupdates. “Hey. Just a Quick Reminder.” Tumblr. Sept. 19, 2018.

               https://tstwitterupdates.tumblr.com/post/178269127019

tstwitterupdates. “Have I Mentioned Lately How Much I Adore You Guys, Gals, and Nonbinary Pals?” Tumblr. July 10, 2018.

https://tstwitterupdates.tumblr.com/post/175764942169

[20yearstostart]

8 things I learnt in 2018:

is it even really my page if it doesn’t have basic new year shit??

1. to have limits

i have always gone up, down, under and beyond my way to help people that i care about. sometimes that meant i was getting hurt and suffering loss, but i did it for these people. however, most of the times its not worth it. so this year, i will help people to an extent that does not hurt me.

2. help people only if they ask for help

all my life, i have tried to mould myself into this girl who is selfless and helps people despite her own best interests. it’s also kinda of my parent's upbringing that makes want to do stuff for others that i dont have too. which means most of the time when my friends and i eat out, i always take the bill even though they offer. which is stupid, because i am stupid and short on money too. so this year, unless people say that they want my help, i will not offer to help them, because it has to a circle at the end of the day. what do they offer me? are they there when i need them?

disclaimer: you two are an exception. i’ll spend my whole account on you two and not sweat about it <3

3. if you study hard you get results

i used to be a naturally smart girl in high school, I passed with good grades and minimum effort. however, my first year of uni was terrible. i was barely passing and i hated all my classes. i didn’t know what to do or how to do better. eventually, i learnt in time. and once again, its not just about studying hard, its about studying smart. you can spend hours trying to study but if you’re doing it wrong its pointless. experiment with different methods of studying and see what works for you, don’t be scared.

4. how to love got7

before this year, i used to love got7 obsessively. i would never be a creepy fan who stalks them day and night and would be angry if they breathe the same air as a female idol. i would just spend all my free hours on them, and the time i’m supposed to study, i was watching them. i still watch crack/ meme (whatever the lingo is) videos on youtube, but its less now. i love them, by appreciating their music and hard work and supporting them, but putting myself first.

5. everything changes in a split-second

i realised how much power we truly hold in our lives. with one simple action, we can change the course of your whole entire life. this could be for better or for worse, but the main part is, we are never truly stuck in a situation no matter how true that may seem. everything comes to an end, and how and when that does is up to us.

6. don’t kill yourself over the past

i literally wanted to kill myself at the beginning of the year. it was a dark period; i was carrying the shame of the past, and the tragedy of high school relationships. my grades were bad, and i thought i was going to let my parents down and it was just terrible. i learnt with the help of wonderful and supportive people around me that its okay to let go of the past and look towards the future. and when you do look forward, don’t let the failure and hurt of the past shadow whatever hope of a happy future you have. in the end, everything will be okay.

7. it is okay to fuck up once in a while because the sky is so big

this all started because of that essay jaebum wrote for today, tomorrow exhibition. if you look at the sky three times, you’re living an easy life. so let’s all look at the sky to forget how shitty life is. not exactly those words, but same feel. i started doing this because this was during my lowkey obsessive phase and jaebum said to. but slowly, i started to take it in a different way. every time i looked up, i saw how big the sky is, and then i thought of myself from its point of view. i’m so little it could barely see him; there are billions of people in the world, and there are worse things happening to them other than failing an assignment. and that comforted me; my life isn’t too hard, its only hard if i make it. 

8. to love me 

as cheesy as it sounds, this was probably the most important one. growing up in a generation where self-deprecation humour is the epitome of humour, i was. sucked right into it. for a while, i didn’t know what was humour and what real, and it all just became too much. all i started to see was insecurities, and how bad i looked, how i couldn’t talk, was weird and how shitty my life was. i lost myself so much in everything bad, that i forgot to count my blessings. this year taught me to love myself and to appreciate where i am with what i have. a body with fat does not mean the end of the world, i can work hard to get into shape. and working out feels great. i have people who read my writings and tell me how good it is and literally tell me so sweetly to update instead of calling me a lazy fuck. i have decided to treat myself the way i’d want my friends to treat themselves. i am going to become a friend to myself. oh lord, that's so cheesy haha

be beautiful, be you kids, and surround yourself with good people. 

much love,  me. 

[biopsychs]

What I Learned From University (1st Year)

FIRST YEAR

Everyone is super friendly, especially in the first few weeks → Introduce yourself to the people sitting near you for the first few weeks of lectures. Everyone is looking for a friend or at least someone to talk to!!

If you commute, make that time productive → My bus ride was an hour there and back each day. It sucks but I would try to be productive for at least half of the commute. I have a post about being productive on public transport here.

On that note, stay on campus as long as possible each day → As soon as I got back home I would procrastinate every little thing. Stay in an already productive environment for as long as possible.

Maybe don’t buy your textbooks used → I thought I was being smart by buying used textbooks (most schools will have a buy and sell facebook page for textbooks). I ended up having to pay for access codes in order to do my online homework – access codes that cost ~$70 separately and came included with new textbooks anyways. Email your prof or talk to someone who has recently taken the class to find out if you need an access code. If you do, your best bet is to buy a new version of the textbook (unless you can get a seriously cheap used textbook).

Print off your timetable and find all of your classes before the first day → This helped me so much! I found exactly where all my classes were before the first day of class. I wrote down little tricks to help me remember where everything was (i.e. my calc lecture is in the arts and science building which is also where the only subway on campus is).

Don’t knock living at home to save money → If you’re lucky enough to have a college or university close to home at least consider living at home. Getting your own place or living in dorms is expensive. (But if you have to find off campus housing on your own, don’t leave it too late or you might not find a place)

Figure out the best way to take notes for each class → You have to customize the way you study for each class, all depending on the prof and the content. I hand-wrote notes for some classes (chem, calc, and physics), but not others (psych and bio). If you’re writing by hand you can always just annotate your textbook notes or lecture slides (if they’re posted before class). If you fall behind while taking notes, just leave a gap and check out a friend’s notes after class.

Adjust your expectations → Don’t expect to get straight A’s, like you might have in high school. You can strive for straight A’s but be realistic as time goes on. For classes I struggled with, I expected to be near the class average. If I was a lot lower than the class average then I would know to invest more time.

Make time for physical activity → If we’re being honest I hardly exercised during uni. Go for at least a half hour walk each day and try to start a physical activity routine. Get a friend and join a sports team, go to a fitness class, or commit to some form of a daily workout with them! You’ll feel bad bailing on someone else, plus working out is more fun with other people.

Review content throughout the semester → Reviewing little bits of content will save you a massive content review right before finals! Look through old notes while you wait for your daily coffee or take 15 minutes to watch some khan academy videos on stuff you learned in the first month of classes.

Think seriously about how much you can handle → Don’t take on too many responsibilities at once and consider all of your options! I worked weekends and some week nights throughout the school year. Looking back I should have worked less because my stress levels were way too high. Also, quite a few people I talked to took 4 classes instead of 5, for their first semester of university. I don’t think I would have done it, in the end, but it’s always something to consider.

Have fun but be responsible at parties → Always go to parties with people you trust!! If you didn’t do much partying/drinking during high school (like me), remember to pace yourself when drinking! Eat before you go out and have some water between each drink, till you find your limit. Don’t let yourself be peer-pressured into anything but also don’t be afraid to have fun! And check out if your uni has a safe walk program (someone will come and walk you back to your dorm or your car if you feel unsafe or nervous for any reason)

When procrastination hits, aim to be productive in some way → The only reason my biology mark was so high was because I would study biology whenever I got sick of studying for physics and calculus. If you know you need to study but just can’t do it, start by being productive in some other way – study a subject you do like, do your laundry, organize your study area, etc. Get your brain to start thinking productively.

Labs are difficult so be prepared → I had so many labs first year. Some tips: eat and hydrate before labs, never assume you can finish your prelab last minute, be nice to your lab partner, always remember lab safety (don’t be the person trying to wear shorts in the lab, TAs will not hesitate to kick you out), don’t rush through an experiment but be efficient, and ask for help (even if you feel like you’re bothering your TA).

Please go to bed early. Sleep affects everything → I was so dumb and would never go to bed early even though I had to be up at 6 am almost every day to catch the bus. Lack of sleep will catch up to you eventually!! Also, all nighters are not necessary, unless you make them necessary. I prioritized and never had to stay awake too late. And never pull an all nighter the night before an exam (you’re better off getting sleep and resting your brain).

Bring a water bottle everywhere → Buy a decent water bottle and always carry it with you. Even though my uni is small there are still tons of spots around campus where I can refill my water bottle!! Stay hydrated my friends!

A practice problem a day keeps the F away → This saying probably works best for science classes, but I guess a reading a day will get you somewhere too. Do something for every class each day, even if it’s just a practice problem or a quick reading. Develop a routine!

You’ll have lots of midterms → I was under the impression that midterms happened just once a semester (I thought I would have one week where I had a midterm for each class). That was not my reality. I had 2 or 3 midterms for each of my classes scattered throughout the semester. Study really hard for your first set of midterms till you get used to the high expectations!

Don’t worry about what other people are doing or thinking → This is mostly in regards to social media. I was bummed when I looked back on my first year of university, because I felt like I hadn’t done anything fun compared to other people. You only see the image that other people want you to see. You don’t know how hard someone worked or how hard they didn’t work. Just focus on you and how you can affect positive results in your life.

Other people literally don’t care about your appearance → My friend’s little sister visited campus and asked us “Why is everyone wearing sweatpants?” People literally don’t care. Dress nice and put lots of makeup on one day, because you feel like it, and wear sweats the next day.

Start essays and reports as soon as possible → You never know what might come up so be prepared for the worst! Outline your essay or graph your data as soon as you can.

Eat healthy and do meal prep → You can eat healthy during university! Set aside a couple of nights each week to do meal prep. Cook food in bulk to save money and don’t eat out too much. Try to have at least 1 serving of fruits or veggies with each meal or snack you eat!

Find a good study spot on campus → Explore your campus and figure out your favourite places to study. I had a couple of spots where I would always meet my friends to study and quiet spots where no one would bother me. Studying outside or in an area with natural light is always good.

Don’t be afraid to talk to your profs and TAs → This is the number one thing I’m going to try to do more of in my second year. TAs are chill to talk to and they can tell you tons of useful information on what upper year classes are like, which professors are good, why they chose to go to grad school, etc. If you’re struggling in lectures or labs, talk to your prof or TA! Make an appointment and be sure you can tell them exactly which concepts you’re struggling with or at least where you got lost. One of my profs told us he just waits hopefully during office hours for someone to come in. (Also profs love it if you ask them about their research or any topics they seem passionate about during lectures.)

Explore all the resources your university has to offer → My university has a program that is basically people bringing their dogs around for students to pet, in order to relieve stress. It actually works and gave me something to look forward to! Just be aware of your options so that if something in your life changes you know where you can go to ask for help.

Get a planner and utilize it → There’s no excuse not to have a planner of some sort. Use your phone, get a bullet journal, or buy a cheap planner. Have somewhere where you can record important deadlines and make to do lists. I also recommend back planning all of your studying at the beginning of the semester. Write down your midterms and finals dates and write down how much you’re going to study each day leading up to the exam. This way you’ll be able to look ahead at each month and figure out what needs to be done (i.e. getting an essay done early because the due date falls during a busy week of midterms)

This post ended up being a lot longer than I expected whoops. Take the things I said into consideration but remember that everyone’s experience will be different. Good luck to everyone heading to university!

My Other Posts:

AP lit tips

high school biology

organization tips

physics doesn’t have to suck: how to enjoy and do well in your required physics classes

recommended reads

reminders for myself

using your time wisely on public transport

what i learned from high school

[vacationcalendar]

7/18/21

Good morning Max!

So.

We are steadfastly embarking here on a blogging journey only about 3 entire weeks after we had this fantastic idea. One might argue that a *start* to an endeavor can’t be steadfast; steadfast is a pace that is maintained over a period of time, it indicates a consistency that can’t be identified after mere seconds of typing. But I would argue that that steadfast pace is going a certain speed, and we as a society have a collective idea of how fast that speed is, whether we’ve ever said it out loud or not. And I believe it is that speed at which I am embarking. So there. You bear with me and try to visualize THAT idea, and I’ll try and learn more words so we don’t have to keep having these little thought experiments every paragraph or so.

OK GREAT! WE’RE OFF! I have literally taken two full length breaks since I’ve started writing this. Why was I so scared to get this thing started anyway? Writing comes so naturally to me, like breathing, or shitting. I can’t believe people actually get paid to do this.

Alright, in all honesty, I know this is going to be wildly difficult for me to do with any consistency at all, much less DAILY (good lord...). So in order to make this a more surmountable task, we are going to make the topics and form that the blog takes on a little more free flowing than I might initially want them to be. We don’t care how the river is shaped at this very moment, just so long as there is water flowing down it.

Here are some creative writing projects constantly hanging over my head that might just rear their ugly heads in some form or another during these posts: Comedy Sketches Stand-up bits Segments/ideas for my eternally unfinished novel Standalone essays that I think would work as a youtube video, because of course an introverted depressed guy who thinks he’s interesting in 2021 wants to have a youtube channel. Etc.(?)

There, I finished the list with etc., even though I had no more concrete ideas for creative writing projects. That makes the list instantly 300% more official, and doesn’t paint me as wildly unconfident in my own personality AT ALL. I did mention to my mother that I was working on assorted creative writing projects to keep busy, and she immediately asked, “Oh! Like a [auto]biography?”

She’s pretty confident that I’ve got a bestseller on my hands if I just recounted the sad and lonely details of my life up until this point. She also called it a biography as indicated in my direct quote there, and I tried to fix it in post like any good editor would. But now I’m noticing that “fixing” the quote to say autobiography like she *meant* to say changes the proper article before the word from “a” to “an,” and I have no idea what the protocol for that correction would be...

Maybe it’s [an auto]biography? An [auto]biography? Maybe it’s [an autobiography], but then it’s much less clear what my mother’s initial mistake in vocabulary was, and I don’t want to let her off the hook so easily. Maybe I google this later, if I can think of what the hell you would type into google to find an answer to this. I guess my point bringing this up at all, is maybe I do actually try and use this space occasionally for a journal. Wading through the slimy, fetid bog of my younger days sounds extremely unfun, and, to a point of contention with my well-meaning mother, distinctly unprofitable. But unpacking my current self’s thoughts onto this page periodically does actually sound nice.

And this is a trade secret between you and me (you’re the only one reading this Max, sorry), I think it would behoove you to include several autobiographical moments in your perpetually ethereal novel. You need all the cheat codes you can get to get this wretched thing off the ground. We should lock the name in on that sucker by the way, just to help save you some keystrokes at least. I know I wrote down ‘Elements of War’ a loooong time ago as a placeholder. And I can confirm as of Sunday, July 18 2021, I don’t like it. It’s no good. I look at other titles of other stories, looking for inspiration, and they all seem to work just fine for the story their attached to. Harry Potter is just the name of the main guy, and that worked INCREDIBLY well. “Harry Potter and the [insert magic themed adventure keywords here].” Foolproof.

The main problem I have with a title is simply the fact that I know so little about the contents of my book at this point. It stands to reason that the book should find a title for itself as part of the process of actually writing the book. Seeing the events transpire in the story from a bird’s eye view would give you just about everything you could possibly need to title your book. Choosing a title for a story BEFORE the story really exists feels a bit like working backwards, even though the title would technically be the first thing anyone reads. I guess I could see it plausibly being created in either order. You don’t necessarily need to know the entire story you are setting out to tell to understand the story you’ve shown up to tell. Breaking Bad ostensibly didn’t know many of the finer details of its story before Vince Gilligan picked its title. Hell, it didn’t know many of its details before literally airing on TV. And there was never any consideration of changing the title of the show retroactively, once the showrunners figured out the ending, right? Stories need a title. And I don’t think I’m making some irredeemable authorial error by picking out a title before getting too far into my story-writing process. Although I’m often reminded of the They Might be Giants song “Experimental Film” when I dream up things like titles or dramatic plot points or the like:

“I already know the ending, It’s the part that makes your face implode, I don’t know what makes your fact implode, But that’s the way the movie ends.”

We all want that awesome moment. We all want to create that life changing piece of art. But creating is hard, and dreaming is easy. Or rather, dreaming is natural. We all have a dream at night, we get one simply by virtue of being awake. Understanding the dream, communicating the dream is hard. Hell, communicating anything can be hard. Part of me thinks that creative project that will define my legacy (wow, try unpacking that sentence later buddy) will be an interview show where I work with my guest to try and manifest the story they dream of telling in there head, but have never tried to tell it. Tell me that’s not a million dollar idea! If Ira Glass announced that show next week and Barack Obama was his first guest, you better believe that thing’s taking off like the fucking Quinjet from the Avengers. But you wouldn’t even need a big celebrity guest! I believe that literally everyone has the ingredients of a completely unique story kicking around in their heads. And to conclude this thought, I will often times pretend I’m the guest on this podcast (of course it’s a podcast), and I’ll try to play out what that interview would sound like. And I’ll be honest, that show would need a VERY smart host to keep the flow going. And in my interview fantasy, I’m also the host; so it’s admittedly hard. I think the “Experimental Film” song would be the theme song for that show for SO MANY reasons.

Ok, I’ll be honest. I took yet another break in the middle of that last paragraph, and I may have lost the thread a teeny-tiny bit. So I’m going to try and finish out any relevant thoughts and then I’m going to do a hard break and just move on to a completely new thought.

I actually had an idea of what my (at least for now) title should be. ~The Franz Lion~ This is the name of the ship in the story that all the main characters travel on. This is the primary setting for the majority of AT LEAST the first series of events in the book. I imagine if my story moved far away from the boat, by that point I could that “Part 2,” or it could be like a whole second book. Like the first book is called The Franz Lion, but then a new book comes out and you find out the series is called like “The Greatest Windybilly”; and Book 2 is like “The Drowned.” I don’t know, and I don’t care at this moment. I just know that all signs point to “The Franz Lion” as a fine title for this book. I admittedly can see a world where it’s more of a phrase, like “Aboard the Franz Lion” or “Weaver and the Franz Lion”, but right now, I don’t see something like that being better than just “The Franz Lion”. 

The Franz Lion is one of the VERY FEW things that I feel like I’ve hit a home run on. That to me is a fucking great name for a boat. It’s memorable, unique, easy to get on board with. I am aware that the boat from Legend of Zelda: Windwaker was named “the King of Red Lions”, so it’s not COMPLETELY unique. But I’m pretty confident that there is plenty of real estate in the Lions + Boats territory. So confident, in fact, that I’m locking that name in HARD. And then the name of the boat just works great as a title. Literally no one would be confused or lost or tempted to look too far into it. AND THEN, if they did look into it, I think there would be puh-lenty of symbolism and theming to pull out of the boat’s significance in the characters’ lives. And man, I know we talked about autobiographical elements, that’s unmistakable; which I am legitimately happy about. Fran Lyon was a HUGE figure in my life. Our relationship signified a change in my life that I literally was never able to come back from. And using that as inspiration for a ship that literally carries the main character away on a life-changing adventure seems like as great a place as any in trying to tell MY story. One day I can be Kurt Vonnegat-like good at writing stories, and I won’t have to borrow from real life to make convincing plots and characters, but for now this makes all the sense in the world to me. So, yeah, The Franz Lion. It exists in my head and one day it will exist on paper. And then I can die I guess. Wouldn’t that be nice? I look forward to trying to bring a teensy bit to you on your calendar here. Wish me luck!

----------------------------------------------------

Ok that was the break. This wasn’t THAT hard. Thank God. Cuz we have to do a lot more than this to be satisfied. We quit our job on my 30th birthday in part because the notion that I was missing the chance to do *this* was constantly gnawing at the back of our head. Honestly the fact that I literally forgot that this was the writing project I was supposed to be doing for like 18 days may just be a testament to how hard I had been trying to just read. 

I bundled writing with reading when I decided that I needed to be writing more. I said, well writing IS reading, and I can’t just sit down and read for shit. So if I’m going to really put writing at the forefront of my brain, I’m going to have to read too, dammit. And then I tried to sit down and read for, no joke, 2 entire weeks. And it fucking killed me. Unbelievable. Unbelievable how hard it was to incorporate into my life. I still don’t get it. So I quit with the intention of picking up these habits. And then I would evaluate how fulfilling it all felt, before I continued onto my path of adult life. You know, working, trying to meet new people, idk what else.... etc. And now that I can confirm how hard it has been to really stick to this and grind out being creative, all I know at this point is I’m not ready to go back. I can tell I want to be more competent at all this before I can make an assessment on what role being creative will play for my future. Seemingly my whole life I have teetered back and forth between wanting to be creative and being too scared to really try, and wanting to have the full life that hard work gets you; you know, the life that society sculpts for you. A wife, kids, vacations, cooking, friends, parties, movies. It’s not a matter of figuring out how it all works, it’s just a matter of going out grinding it all out. Securing it all piece by piece by putting in the requisite work. It’s not easy, but it’s also not complicated. And I guess ultimately I like to think I’m not someone who’s afraid of hard work. But if I’m not afraid of hard work, then why have I not put in the work to secure a career or friends or a partner or physical fitness or anything? Because I don’t want to? Do I really not want to? Or maybe I AM afraid of hard work. 

But let’s take a second to unpack that. I put in hard work at Olivia’s. I truly did. I worked hard enough there to qualify as working hard, period. And it felt good. I know this. I shouldn’t forget that. I worked hard, it wasn’t impossible; it wasn’t unsustainable. And it felt good. This is mostly why I tell myself I’m not afraid of hard work. Because it’s not some dark mysterious unknown entity. I’ve been on the other side of it now. It’s the main reason I didn’t think I HAD to be creative anymore. I’ve seen the whole path of hard work, and it actually looked traversable. I sometimes wonder if I had been so drawn to being creative because I was so afraid of travelling on the path of hard honest work. It would explain why it felt so good to actually work hard for once. It would explain why the idea of abandoning the creative path felt so good once I had it. I would imagine the idea of quitting “comedy” would be a pretty mournful one, to someone like me who had clung so desperately to that dream for so long. But it wasn’t. It was a relief in a way. To know that I didn’t have to pull out some wild success in this tumultuous field to be ok; it felt like taking off a heavy backpack. I just felt more capable, more free. The simple act of allowing myself to “quit” felt ok simply by virtue of spending years of my life thinking I couldn’t do ANYTHING, and that being creative was the only way to be ok with the prospect of being alive. Thinking about abandoning that dream told me I was more normal than I had managed to be for over a decade at this point. I looked up for the first time since I had been in college and had the thought that I could work hard and succeed, whatever that might mean. College was the place I first realized I was useless, and now Olivia’s was where I realized that that wasn’t true, I just wasn’t old enough yet. I am aging much slower than the average population; I haven’t exactly figure out why yet. But it’s clear that I am. And for better or worse, this is THE factor that has cast me aside from the le person. Figuring out why would be nice, but the truly important thing to do clearly is to use this to my advantage. Get my leg up the world with my unique vantage point. And as far as I can tell, in fact it seems quite obvious to me, my leg up is going to come from a creative outlet. A twenty year old having his 30th birthday is only going to have diminishing returns in the traditional American dream. It’s like getting paid 70% of what my peers are making. Part of me knows that even 70% of the full salary isn’t that bad. It’s plenty if you’re a hard worker and know how to live in the moment; but another part of me knows that only a fool should take less than he’s earned. I don’t actually know if I can make up all this time I’ve lost, being the proverbial time traveler that I am. I don’t know how on earth I would ACTUALLY go about recouping my salary back to its rightful 100%. I can’t manifest lifelong friends; I can’t rewrite my relationship to my parents and siblings; I can’t pick up 10+ years of romantic experiences from a youtube video. I could technically go back to college, but I don’t really want to. I only want to do that as much as I want to hop in a time machine and actually be the age I’m supposed to. 

Now that I think about it, if there was a story about a man who accidentally travels to the future and the finds out the world moved on without him (I mean there is, it’s called Rip Van Winkle). Yeah, now that I think about it, my story is very similar to a Coma patient’s. I just seemingly was given less time than I was promised. And I have to deal with that. But, what I’m saying is, it stands to reason that if this WERE a story, that character wouldn’t shine under those circumstances. They would wilt. They would lament and diminish. Only the rarest and most inspiring would rise up and overcome their disadvantage. Because it is a disadvantage. It’s not a unique vantage point. It’s not a matter of optimism vs pessimism. The glass is not half-full or half-empty; it is considerably less full than halfway. 

Right?

Hmm. What is my point here? I have suffered. Unequivocally. And to suffer is to be alive. Again, unequivocally. So maybe my time-travelling has actually gone the other way. I’ve lived far longer than the scant 30 years my birth certificate claims. It certainly feels like longer than 30 years, even though the activity log of my life would disagree. Maybe that’s it. I’ve replaced my life with dreams. I’ve suffered in places where I was meant to thrive. And in doing so I’ve gone far under my quota of accomplishments and memories, and gone far over my quota of misery and regrets. In that sense I’ve lived out less of my life that I was meant to in some ways and lived out substantially more of my life in other ways. And I can’t say that unhappy (or rather that I don’t love myself as I am), but I can see why I never ever heard anybody recommend living your life this way. 

“I am young. I am old”

Why can’t I be the age I am? Why was that so hard to accomplish? What did I need to do to fix that? And why do people think I should enjoy my birthday? Can’t they see I’ve been time-traveling? This birthday was for someone else. I don’t actually know when my birthday is. I only know when it isn’t.

Now that I’ve thought about it, I think a time-traveler is a perfectly fine person to be a creative type. He might not be the smartest or the fastest, and he’ll never be the happiest; but it’s safe to say he cheated and got wiser than his peers will ever get a chance to. At least if he was paying attention he got wiser. We all know what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But then we all go spending our life trying to get stronger, and rarely do we ever get close enough to getting killed. So I have to show up like the man that survived the fatal disease, and got stronger than anyone should have to, without even really trying*.

Ok calling it here. Day 1 in the books. The daily blog is still at 100% completion rate! Nice

Love you, be good.