#i mainly see this on bird app and my friend said they saw someone saying 'idc hes 6' on tiktok

[chaoticalrequiem]

Can people please be normal about sin and not want to fuck him please???

[idonthavewritersblockyoudo]

The Rules of Holding Yourself Together

Rule #1: Exercise at least 5 days a week. Always run at the same time every day, whether this be before or after school.

Rule #2: Track your food intake as accurately as possible.

Rule #3: Do not weigh yourself more than three times a week

Rule #4: If the scale tells you something you do not approve of, do not indulge yourself. Even a pound over is cause for a moment’s consideration into what you put into your body.

Rule #5: Wake up at the same time every day, and do not press the snooze button.

Rule #6: Get to school prior to 6:15 and do your homework in the hour-and-a-half before school

Rule #7: Do not express yourself within school. Express the self you have learned to be safe

Rule #8: Go to bed at the same time every night and have the same routine

Rule #9: Do not tell people the truth about yourself or your life

Rule #10: Do not let people in

Rule #11: Never put yourself into the position of having to shut someone out by never letting them in in the first place

Rule #12: When speaking to your parents, turn into a blank mirror of them when possible

Rule #13: Never question your parents, hold in your opinions

Rule #14: Don’t trust anyone

Rule #15: Contain yourself and do not let others see your emotions

These used to be my cardinal set of rules. Every one of these dictated and ran my life, whether or not I wanted them to. But they were all broken, within a couple months. But not in the order they appear in.

Some of these rules. It’s good I’ve broken them. But some of them, it’s not so good. But either way, I’ve broken them all, and there’s no turning back.

Rule #13: Never question your parents, hold in your opinions

It had been my sixteenth birthday. Usually, a momentous occasion in most girl’s lives. Mine was not. The day itself had been good, I had had multiple excellent interactions at school and I had left feeling happy and overjoyed. The day did not end that way. I remember sitting in front of my house in my father’s car, crying as my father berated me for defending my English teacher’s opinions on teaching. He had dismissed her idea that not having straight-As was okay. He wanted to talk to me about having a B in her class. He belittled me, for defending her after he dismissed her as a person. I loved my sophomore English teacher, and he had torn her and me down in an instant, and me along with her. I didn’t stop crying for the rest of the night. After that day, I never took another ride home from my parents unless it was absolutely necessary. Something inside me broke that day, and I was never quite able to hold my tongue in the same way, remembering the way my father had treated me.

-Rule #4: If the scale tells you something you do not approve of, do not indulge yourself. Even a pound over is cause for a moment’s consideration into what you put into your body.

I stopped eating, at some point. I don’t remember so wholly losing my appetite but I lost fifteen pounds in the months between December and March. I lost my appetite, somewhere along the way. I would find it again in the months to come, but only for need of comfort I could not find anywhere else. For those few months, I lost the will to eat. And with it, I lost the will to justify. I no longer needed to weigh myself to justify eating a bowl of ice cream - I didn’t even want the ice cream. That part of me was lost, and I never wish to regain her. I remember on many occasions standing on that scale and just sobbing because I hated myself so much. Those days are gone.

-Rule #15: Contain yourself and do not let others see your emotions

It had been an inconsequential moment, in the grand scheme of life, but that moment was momentous for me. After my birthday, I had started staying at school every day. I would stay in one of my teacher’s rooms, but once March began so did spring sports and my teacher was a coach. So I moved rooms, to sit in another teacher’s (who I had freshman year) room. I think anyone would be curious as to why someone would rather spend 12 hours at school a day instead of going home. So my old teacher asked me, one day early into March. I told him a little, as much as I was willing to and I kept things vague. “Well, it could be worse, right?” he had asked me. In that moment, that question, cut through my protections. And my face dropped and I played with a origami bird on his desk. “It could be worse, right?” he asked, as if looking for confirmation. I just shrugged, and in that moment I was back in control of myself. But the moment had come and gone and my emotions had shown through. And he had noticed.

-Rule #2: Track your food intake as accurately as possible.

At some point, laziness overtook me. I didn’t feel the need to, I didn’t have the energy to. There was so much going on in my life I couldn’t remember or recall every thing that I had put into my body, every single thing that had graced my lips. As hard as I tried, tracking things like water intake and food amounts. They had always helped me in the past when I binge ate everything in sight, but in losing one aspect of control - food tracking - I found another - a control over eating. I found out how to stop myself and control myself, mainly by just eating nothing at all. I would often forget to eat for hours, or maybe even a full day, drinking just liquids. It was not on purpose in any way, but it broke the habit.

I can’t say it was healthy in any form, to not eat, but it made me less obsessive. Less careful. It was what I needed in that moment, having picked up my sister’s eating disorders and weight-consciousness from her.

Tracking everything I did, and do, helped me hold myself together because everything fell into a rigid pattern. I still track my grades, finances, and mental health by a handwritten chart. I’ve found, one of the best ways to control yourself is to track every single thing you do, by hand and app. The combination of the two is amazing for feeling in control, especially when there are no other aspects of your life you can control.

-Rule #9: Do not tell people the truth about yourself or your life

Breaking these rules, was not an effort simply on my part. In my opinion, I still think he was just curious in the beginning. He didn’t really know me back then, as a person. He just saw me as a former student, a possible future student, some girl who had a lot of emotions and a lot of walls. But you can’t really know someone in that sense. I could have sat in one of his classes every day for three years and joked and talked with him but that doesn’t mean I would ever let him in or that he would ever care for me. I guess I had always trusted him, at least a little bit.

I think in some ways, our closeness just fell together. It wasn’t intentional or thought out, on my part or his. I just needed someone and he happened to be there. I think, if I’d tried to impress him, or tried to get close to him, I never would’ve gotten there in the first place. Things just shook out into the right conditions. He was careful with his words, his questions, cautious of setting me off into a spiral. Gentle, would be the right word.

I think, what made me tell him the truth, was that he reacted well. I never felt uncomfortable telling him something about my life. I always have felt that way around other people. I knew at that time, none of the people I interacted with on a daily basis truly wanted to know about my life. I knew I was a hindrance, an annoyance. It was in the way they teased me, it was in the passive-aggressive comments and the way they ignored my tear-streaked face. It was in the way they would make jokes about my problems, about how my home life was always fucked up, so why should they care about it? I don’t blame them, fully. Fifteen year-olds don’t really know how to deal with their own problems, let alone others. I still blame them for being terrible people, and I hate to admit that I don’t think I ever will forgive them fully. I don’t think that gap will ever be bridged and I will always hold myself back around them.

But my friends actions did cause one thing within me; I was desperate for someone to listen to me. Between my family, who I could barely if at all stand to be around, and my friends who I never felt wanted by, I was desperate for at least one person to just be willing to talk to me openly about my issues. And I found that in him. He would talk to me, give me advice, and he just listened and I never felt like he didn’t care. Even when he wasn’t listening, I never felt ostracized in the same way and I never felt alone. My desperateness mixed with his nosiness caused me to break one of my cardinal rules. And I stopped lying so much. I remember clearly the day I told him about my birthday, that day in April. I remember where I was, the feeling of the cool desk and the sticky spring air. I remember his water bottle and the drawings on the whiteboard behind him and the harsh fluorescent glow. It was a breakthrough, because it was the truth, whole and unfiltered.

He had asked me why I had started staying later at school. With a moment’s hesitation, considering it, I told him the truth. About my birthday, about what my father said to me on the car ride home, the way I had felt like nothing to him or anyone else. And my decision to stop that from happening again, by just walking.

“Why do you ask?” I had asked him, “do you want me to stop sitting in your room?”. I’d said it like a joke but my heart both dropped and leaped into my throat at the same time. I was so used to rejection, why would this be any different? I’d given him the perfect opportunity, if he wanted me out I’d be out of here and never step foot in this room again.

“No,” he said, looking a little surprised. “I just wish you had some place to go home to that you actually liked and felt comfortable in.”

I almost cried when he said that, but instead I just shrugged, taken aback that I hadn’t been pushed away. That had been the first time he really expressed he cared about what happened to me, and I could remember, in that moment, making the decision to stop lying so much. To let down my defenses more about my family.

-Rule #1: Exercise at least 5 days a week. Always run at the same time every day, whether this be before or after school.

I walked home, every day after school after January 23rd. After my birthday. I ended up usually walking home and then immediately running, but eventually that became a drag and a hassle and I just wanted to sleep after that ordeal. So I just stopped running daily. I started going on runs once or twice a week, five or six miles in a day though. I felt fine. I was still walking every day. Everything was okay. I was okay. But I wasn’t okay. Exercise is the best habit to have, even if it sucks for a while being in shape and working out is the best and greatest gift you can give to yourself.

Exercise had been the cardinal rule. The original rule that started it all. Exercise had brought me out of the depths of my first real bout with depression. It was the thing that got me through being truly alone for every moment of my life. I had nothing. I was nothing. I spoke to no one but my parents, every day in and out and I felt like an empty vessel, a dead weight that simply dragged itself down. And exercise helped me out of that. It helped me feel better about myself and better about who I was.

I still walk. Every single evening I walk home from school, like clockwork. I’ve been doing it for almost a year now, although admittedly it wasn’t nearly this cold last year so it’s more of an ordeal now, walking home in 12 (-11C) degree weather. The walking is good for me, it clears my head. I still try and run, now. But it’s a rule I’m sad to have broken. Standalone, it was a good rule.

-Rule #3: Do not weigh yourself more than three times a week

The scale in my house is on the third floor. The whole third floor of my house is my parent’s floor, their library, their bedroom, their walk-in-closets and their bathroom. The scale stands in front of a mirror. That room is always bright, because of the windows and the light heather walls. The light bounces, the room is quiet. Two to three times a week I used to go up there, strip off my clothes, and weigh myself. It was a habit I picked up from my sister, who weighed herself daily the last time I lived with her. She was obsessed with her weight, the number controlled her. And because of how much I looked up to her, that number controlled me.

I didn’t break this rule going over. I just stopped. I stopped weighing myself, I stopped caring. I remember sitting in the Doctor’s office when she told me I’d lost fifteen pounds since December. She asked me if I’d been dieting and I shook my head, genuinely surprised because I didn’t feel any different despite the drop. I couldn’t tell you now what my weight is.

I don’t believe in scales anymore. They can never do anything but make you feel worse about yourself in the long run. Maybe you step on and you love that number now, but you know what? Once that number raises or drops you’ll just hate yourself. And in truth, that number doesn’t fucking matter.

-Rule #14: Don’t trust anyone

Trusting him came naturally. I learned to read him, over time. His worry turned to concern and that concern turned into care and suddenly I knew someone in my real life was actually looking out for me. That the job my parents had thrown into the dirt had been picked up and dusted off by one old teacher. He became my mentor, then more than ever. He made me feel more like a person and less like something to be used by other people. Less like a doll for someone to rant and rave at and more like a person, someone to interact with.

The more time I spent in his room, the happier I felt. The more time I spent away from my friends, the happier I felt. I hadn’t realized it at the time but my friends, the people I had placed trust in, were toxic and terrible. Everything they said and did was like poison to me. I spoke about that, to him, and he had only laughed and rolled his eyes and called them my ‘followers’ because that’s what they were. He still calls them that, when they’re not around sometimes. He’s gotten very good at picking up when I want to be left alone, and he’s also gotten very good on picking up my frustration when I am not left alone. He wrote it in my yearbook, that he forgave me for my ‘noisy followers’ and I couldn’t help but laugh.

I felt so at peace, knowing someone was there that cared about me. And so, I let him in. I remember the day I told him a half-truth. A truth about a specific and terrible event in my life, but not the truth of its causes. Even when I trusted him, I also knew that there are certain lines for teachers, certain things that cannot be said. I’ve always been hyper-aware, hyper-afraid of breaking that line and forcing him to report something. We both knew my family was utter garbage but I just couldn’t tell him how much they were utter garbage, for his sake.

I told him something I’d only told to four people beforehand. I had told one of my best-friends, and she had thrown her arms around me and held my hand and let me cry into her shoulder and it had been exactly what I needed at that moment. And when I told my other best-friend she stared at me and aggressively tore me apart and then shut me out of my friend group because of her inability to deal with me even telling her I had a serious family problem. I’d shut down after that, my faith and trust in other people lost. Months later when I had at least semi-recovered from a wound that still pains me to this day, I worked up the courage to tell one other friend, and my cousin. When I told him, he took it well. He told me to go see a counselor and he told me that everything would be okay and he said he hoped I’d have a good weekend with such sincerity I started to cry a little bit.

It had taken a lot for me to trust him with that but when I did he accepted it, and he accepted the trust and emotions he knew went with it.

-Rule #12: When speaking to your parents, turn into a blank mirror of them when possible

It started with little comments. Things that weren’t necessarily combative, but they quickly turned that way. My relationship with my parents has never been ‘good’ by any means, but it turned worse and worse as time went on. I started to question them, and my anger and frustration for their views started to grow more clear in their words and actions. My father is a truly terrible person, and his words and actions reflected this. His opinions on other people, other races, other genders, other skin colors, other sexual orientations, reflected this.

His views bounced and exemplified my mother, who had been raised as a democrat but somehow had adapted to his views after years of marriage. It frustrates me, to have to listen to the things that come out of their mouths. It upsets me greatly, and genuinely disettles me. That they believe rights should not be equal. That people, unbeknownst to them including their own daughter, shouldn’t get the right to marriage or anything else.

And I stopped being able to hide those feelings. I stopped being able to hide myself and just reflect anything they said back at them, without agreeing or disagreeing. Being blank had always been my mechanism, a safety net for me to fall  under, but as their views got more and more radical it became harder for me to try and survive.

It always angered me, when people told me I should yell at my parents, scream at them. Those people don’t understand what it’s like to be truly terrified of the reactions of your parents. I was always afraid of what would happen to me if I spoke out against them - I still am. But now, I have just stopped being able to contain myself. As soon as that rule, of being a mirror, was broken it was broken for good. Just like a mirror, those shattered pieces could not be put back together.

-Rule #7: Do not express yourself within school. Express the self you have learned to be safe

It was one of the early days sitting in his room, when I told him I was queer. He had asked me, gently, if I was okay. And I had told him the truth. I wasn’t. I was upset. I’d watched ‘One day at a time’ the night before on Netflix. I’d watched Elena come out to her mother, and I’d watched her mother accept her with open arms.

“I don’t know what I am right now. And I’m not in any rush to label myself. But I know I like girls. I don’t know if I like guys and I don’t know if I like anyone else but I know I’m not straight. And I also know, that I can never tell that to my parents, because if I told them, my father would never speak to me again,” I had told him. For once, I met someone’s eyes -one of my biggest flaws in human interaction is avoiding eye contact, a trait I picked up from my autistic mother and sister - I met his eyes and in that moment I knew the truth had come out. I was queer. And my parents were homophobic. And he accepted me.

He was the first person I ever actually came out to. I still refuse to label myself any further. I think labels are in large for people who cannot find their own identity, or base a part of themself on that identity. I also see how they change over time. That most of the teens I know who are LGBT have shifted their labels at least three times, if not more. And I don’t see the point. In trying to fit myself to an identity that I will change within six months. I’m still waiting, to find myself, before I decide to stick that label haphazardly across myself. (That is just my opinion. That is not to say it’s right, or holds true for everyone. Just for myself, as a teenager).

With that one step, I forged forward. And I started to let bits and pieces of my personality flow out. I started to let the undercurrent of the real me come out. I talked with my geometry teacher about rap, I asked him for recommendations. I was nice to people I had previously just not spoken to whatsoever, or brushed off. They were nice people, I made a lot of friends. I found welcomeness and acceptance in other people, a girl from my English class first semester, a girl in my Euro and French class. On and on I found people, mostly other LGBT girls, who loved and accepted me for who I was and I felt comfortable expressing myself.

I always had a ‘safe’ version. A personality that wasn’t really me. A try-hard girl who always had to be the best and brightest. Not to prove anything to anybody else. But to prove it to herself. The only way she survived was by working herself to death. She was always worried about the future and always worried about what was to come. She forced herself to work, saying it was the only way she would ever become something.

I let go of that girl, and I let myself shine through. Now, I’m more interested in color-coding my planner than always being right in math class, and I spend more time playing games on my phone than anything else. But that’s okay. I no longer feel the need to be the best at everything, because now I’m more comfortable just being myself in class. Instead of sucking up to my teacher I show him memes and gossip with him about T.V. shows. Instead of doing that extra-credit worksheet in math I sit by the teacher’s desk and trade food with him - me giving him cookies and him giving me goldfish. I’ve found a certain solace, in just letting myself be.

-Rule #10: Do not let people in

I’d let him in. My now-mentor was someone I looked up to and trusted and thought the world of and I felt so much better just knowing someone cared for me because a lot of the time it felt like no one did. I had my best friend, who lives in California, I had my sister, who was at college, and I had my cousin, who I rarely spoke to but loved dearly. But they all were so far away and life is hard and things are busy and it’s so hard even when you love someone with all your heart when they’re fifty or one-hundred or one-thousand miles away. It’s so hard to remember anyone cares about you at all when your whole life is just a toxic negativity.

And then one person came into my life and lifted me up and told me everything was okay and that things would be better and suddenly I had a place to go and a place to feel like I had a home and I knew every inch of his room and I could read his moods as quickly and easily as I could read a book. I knew his own emotions better than I knew mine. He was the father I never got and the person that I knew genuinely cared for me and I loved him. I still love him, the same way all children are supposed to love their fathers. While my own father treated me like dirt and threw me away and never gave me any treatment at all, he cared about me.

And so I let him in. One day, late in June, I looked back and reflected over the past three months and the way my life had changed and all the rules I’d broken and how much happier I was. How happy I felt with just one person looking out for me.

-Rule #5: Wake up at the same time every day, and do not press the snooze button.

Depression solved rules five and eight for me. I had no control, really. I relapsed hard into my depression in August, and everything around me faded away. Reporting my sexual assault, which had happened just before school ended, the perpetrator being another student, I felt empty and lost. I had died. That girl who had come to life the school year before, breaking all her rules and forging ahead, had died. The girl who writes this now is what is left in the rubble, and I can’t say she’s particularly anyone good.

It’s hard, when you’ve broken every other part of your routine, when you feel like never getting up at all. To force yourself to get up at the same time every single day when you don’t really want to go to school. All you want to do is sleep and never wake up, just sleep your life away.  This school year I’ve picked up the nasty habit of hitting the snooze button. As I stay up later I push back my alarm, and I can say it’s done nothing but harm to me. But I have very little control, over it anymore. I have very little control over anything it seems.

-Rule #8: Go to bed at the same time every night and have the same routine

It started with little things. A couple minutes here, a couple minutes there. And then, I was staying up until 1 AM, or not sleeping at all. My insomnia, which I had carefully spent years rearing under a strict wake-up and sleep schedule, with specific routines and rituals tried and true to force me to fall asleep within an hour or two, broke and shattered. Once it might take me fifteen minutes to fall asleep, forty five minutes top. Now it takes me usually over an hour and a half, if I get any sleep at all. My routine shattered and so had I.

-Rule #6: Get to school prior to 6:15 and do your homework in the hour-and-a-half before school

This was in part, due to my homeroom teacher. Last year he lived five minutes from school, and would get to school by 6:30 every morning. This year he got married, and he moved to another state, about forty minutes away if traffic is light. He gets in around 7:15 now every morning. There’s another teacher whose room I could sit in, but I don’t really like sitting in her room.

It’s his old room. This school year, he got kicked out of his room. The room I knew so well last year, the room that became my home, became my current history teacher’s room. And it’s not the same anymore. They painted the school, so the yellow walls are gone. The posters and the semi-neat mess that littered his room is gone. The board which had once been covered in drawings was now covered in neat, font-like agenda’s and there was no place in the room for self-expression. The room suffocated me and I hate being in there for the 45 minutes I have to every day. I show up to school at around 7:20 now, twenty-five minutes before school starts.

There’s nothing left for me at school. I used to find peace and solace in the mornings but it’s no longer like that. I can’t focus on my work and with my fluctuating sleep schedules, I saw no point in continuing it so I dropped the idea as a whole.

His room had been my home, and now it’s gone. I still sit with him, in the main office for his department where there are just desks in a cramped room, and I just do my work in silence, but it’s not the same. I felt safe in his room even when he wasn’t in there, when it was just me in there for three hours because he had a meeting. I would sit in there all alone and be at complete peace, he was gone most days anyway because he’s very busy. I loved his room, and when that room was torn away from me a piece of me went with it. Now I sit in that office, but I never feel as safe and as at-ease as I had in that room.

-Rule #11: Never put yourself into the position of having to shut someone out by never letting them in in the first place

God. Why had I ever let him in? I still adored him and I still looked up to him but now things were harsh and cold. Not made better by the fact my friend attached to him like a leech and the toxicity I had spent months escaping from and working myself free of nine months earlier attacked every single part of my life. Any time I spent near him she was there, drawing his attention and parading around and in everything I did and every word I spoke I felt her presence, her invasion and intrusion into my life. I knew she was trying to take it away from me. The one good relationship I had in my life she had splayed herself across, trying to lap up all the attention. I didn’t even hate her for it. I was just miserable due to it. I let it happen too, I watched it. I don’t even know why I didn’t stop it, didn’t scream or yell at her. I just let it happen, let her walk over me like so many times before.

But I was there. And I didn’t feel like I could trust him, not anymore. It all boiled down to one moment. He had been my soccer coach, too. I was the only goalie on the team, and in a game two days prior one girl on the other team had bashed in my finger badly. I knew something was wrong with it I’ve broken multiple fingers - including that one - in the past and I know a serious pain from a minor one. I told him what had happened and asked to see the trainer and he looked at me and said ‘if it hurts when you bend it don’t bend it that way’. And in that moment I shut down. Every part of me shut down. I could barely speak, barely form a response, and when I went back to my warmups I started to cry, silently. It was something my father would’ve said, and the words coming out of his mouth shut me down.

I couldn’t look at him for a week.

And so I watched, as once the only person who actually cared about me in my everyday life was torn away from me. As someone who could never replace me tried to. I knew she wouldn’t succeed, that she never really will get as close with him. She doesn’t know him, and what she expects out of him isn’t something she’ll get. But either way she tried her best to tear him away from me and I could barely breathe as I watched her try to become me. I could barely breathe as I felt my life spiral out of control. I tried to regain control, but it didn’t work. In a moment of sudden realization, I came to the conclusion the fifteen rules I had always silently and religiously followed had been broken in the span of a few short months.

I couldn’t handle it. My depression and never being able to talk to him and never feeling safe at school and not having his room or my safety net of all my little habits and religiously followed rules and with one quick tap I fell apart and shattered. Shattered into my depression, I fell into it like nothing I ever had before and now I just stare and I just feel empty most of the time and I am no one and nothing. For months I barely spoke with him.

Now we’re closer again. It took me a while, to realize he was angry. To realize his actions were not those of someone who didn’t care about me, but something completely different. The reason he acted the way he did was because he was angry, about my sexual assault and all the bullshit in my life and everything that was constantly being thrown at me. He was angry where the shattered pieces of myself couldn’t be. I could tell as much, by the way his eyes lit up and the way he spoke about the boy who assaulted me, when he swore in front of me because he was so pissed after I opened up to him about my depression, and he talked about ‘all the shit you have to go through’.

It took me a very long time to trust him, and I was so quick to shut him out in the after-effects. I understood why I had never let people in, because it always ended badly. And I had cried when I thought things had ended the same way with him, that everything just falls apart in the end even with the people I loved most. And after months, I realized that he still cared about me and he pulled through in the end and things may have fallen apart but they fell back together in the end and I still cry about that.

I think in the end, these rules were what held me together. Carefully constructed to hold me together, the image of me painted on a canvas. And I slashed them to bits. It freed me, but when things fell apart again I had nothing to fall back on, and it caged me. I think, most people don’t need rules like these. But I think, I do. Because I have so little control over my life and everything around me - rules are rules for a reason. Some are meant to be broken for the better, but others for the worse. Too many rules and you’re choking, but not enough and you’re falling apart.

[ignitingwriting]

Igniting Writing Bingo Challenge 2020, Submission by Sanika Kaushik

Through the Eyes of an Animal

 I landed on the top branch of the tree. I liked this tree. You could see miles of farmland all around. A small picturesque village off to the side. It was in the middle of a huge field. Today there were some small humans running around on it. They made it very hard to spot worms. I don’t really know what they were doing. There was a thing they were kicking around with their freaky ‘legs’, the thing was maybe four times the size of an egg.

Was it an egg? Why on earth are they kicking an egg?! My motherly instincts told me to grab the egg and take it to my nest to be safe and warm with the other chicks, but it was definitely too big for me to carry all the way and something told me this was no normal pigeon egg, I am almost certain they are playing with some sort of bird of prey egg! Perhaps it’s an eagle or a vulture, I have only heard of them in stories, but they are said to be evil birds that eat even their own kind. I shook my head at these small humans, they seemed to be clueless about the danger taking an egg from its mother. Maybe they have a death wish.

I notice a small red patch near the small humans, on top of it held lots of things. I would need to take a closer look. I flew down unsuspiciously and quietly. I creeped along the edge of the patch until I got to a nest of a sort of salty yellow leaf. I pecked at it. It tasted quite nice. Not as good as fresh worms, but these will do. I grab a bunch in my beak and fly away back to my nest. I do not think the small humans realise their food has gone. They really do have to be more careful in life. I go back to my nest, quickly feeding the chicks, before telling everybody I know about the eagle egg! We must take safety precautions if the egg were to hatch. I tell everyone in my tree and the neighbouring ones too. They all chirp in horror and start reinforcing their nests. Our neighbours even moved trees!

Urban Legend

 It was the first time I was ever moving houses and to be honest, I was terrified. I don’t know what makes a good house – whether it should or shouldn’t have a large garden or whether it should be carpeted. This was what my parents were supposed to teach me before they finally kicked me out. I do miss them, but they said it was the right decision to move and be more confident as an adult.

I was just dragging in a few boxes from the van outside, and clearly, I looked sweaty and tired because before I knew it a small plate of biscuits were shoved in my face.

“Here, you seem tired, take a break,” the person said. I turned my head slowly – maybe robberies were common in this neighbourhood. My nervous smile relaxed; it was just an old lady.

“Welcome to this neighbourhood. I’m Angela, your next-door neighbour. I just popped in to see if you wanted some biscuits?”

“Umm. Yes, please.” I was still a bit shocked. I invited Angela in, and we sat down in the living room. Fortunately, the sofas were already unpacked. I tried to stop my leg from shaking, I was still not used to talking to strangers without my parents telling me what to say.

“Oh sweetie, is this your first time in a new house?”

I nodded quickly.

“My nephew just moved to a new house too, and he was quite scared, bless him, but he said that after a few days the homesickness leaves!”

I didn’t know how to respond. I’m not very good at conversations.

“You have nothing to be scared of,” she said reassuringly, but then paused and suddenly she furrowed her eyebrows. “Apart from Samuel Wilkins of course.” Her eyebrows seemed to disappear under miles of wrinkled skin.

I stopped staring at her eyebrows when she gave me a glare, before quickly smiling sweetly again. I processed what she said. “Samuel Wilkins?”

“Oh yes, didn’t they tell you at the house viewing?”

This was exactly what I was talking about: my parents didn’t tell me what to ask at a house viewing. This was embarrassing.

“Err – no…” Angela sat on the edge of her seat and leaned in, we looked like high school girls who loved to gossip. Of course, she was nowhere near the age of a high school girl, and I was not a girl, nor did I go to high school anymore. But the resemblance was traumatising.

“Oh dear, Sam Wilkins…” She seemed to be thinking about something for a quite a while, I didn’t want to distract her, so I just sat there and thought about the colour I’d want to paint the wall. Perhaps a deep red or maybe just a pale blue?

“He lived here only a few years ago, maybe eight or nine years ago, he was only 10 years old you know?”

How many times do I have to repeat that I don’t know who ‘Sam Wilkins’ is? “No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, he was only 10, I was around – oh that doesn’t matter, but Sam was a smart and kind boy, he brought me gifts like sets of tea and stuff, he was sweet. He only had a father and they were very close those two. They helped me, get to the doctors when I wasn’t feeling well, and I invited them around for dinner almost every week.”

This story was getting very boring, very quickly.

“And one day… oh this is quite emotional for me.”

It seemed like the story was never going to end.

“One day, poor Sammy fainted, well we thought he had just fainted, but it turns out he had a serious brain tumour that no one knew about, Sam’s father Michael got him to the hospital, but it was too late. He was gone.”

Angela was full on sobbing and this was another social situation I had never been prepared for, so I just sat there with a blank face.

“Michael always said he was in heaven with his mother, finally. But he was too sad. He moved away; he didn’t tell anyone where he went. Of course, all Sam wanted, during life and death, was for his family to be all together again, but he was also very impatient. He couldn’t wait for Michael to be with him again.” She wiped her cheeks with a frilly handkerchief that appeared from nowhere. “Do you know why all the other residents have left within a month?”

“No.” This is making me feel very stupid.

“Because Sam keeps on visiting.”

I faked a “What!” This is where this crazy lady finally makes the story interesting.

“Sam needs to find Michael again, but Michael’s gone away. Sam keeps on coming here to find him, my advice is that in the middle of the night if you hear a knock on this door, don’t answer it, because once… there was an incident.” She paused for a breath, “Somebody opened the door, and apparently looked so much like Michael, that Sam…” She took a breath. “Sam killed him,” she whispered. “It wasn’t Michael and Sam’s not giving up; he hopes to reunite his family.” She examined my face – of course I didn’t believe her, but I tried to act shocked. I don’t think it worked.

“Here I have a picture of both of them.” She dug in her huge bag and pulled out a fragile picture.

“Here.” She gave it to me. I stared at the picture in shock.

Staring right back at me, was a familiar Samuel Wilkins and right next to him, my dad.

Dating Disaster

 So here we are once again. Crying over a failed relationship. I really thought this one would last. I pause my tears for a second and think. Was he really the best match for me? I don’t think so. In fact, we had absolutely nothing in common. We didn’t talk much on our dates (which were always to the cinema) and then we drove home listening to the radio, in silence. I always texted him first, and the conversation only lasted 5 or 6 texts, which mainly was about what movie to watch next. Now that I look at it, we were probably just desperate to have someone to ‘date’. So, I shouldn’t have been surprised when we decided to ‘just be friends’ which meant to never talk to each other again. To be honest I’m fine with that.

I have to pick myself up and find the perfect match. A bell rings in my head. ‘The perfect match’… Wasn’t that the motto of that dating app?

Why didn’t I think of that earlier? I quickly downloaded the app and created an account. It says the first step was to create a profile, oh that would be easy!

Name, age, gender and sexuality was easy. Now it asks me for a profile picture. It would have to be something cute. My Instagram one was of my cat, Lola. Maybe I should make it the same. Of course, who doesn’t like cats? I chose the cutest picture of Lola I could.

The next question was what my hobbies and interests were, eg sports. I am not what you would call an active person. But sometimes when my cousins come around, we play like catch! I’m quite good at it. So, I put that down, ‘playing catch’. Oh, I absolutely love to go on walks, especially in the forest, I feel like people nowadays don’t appreciate nature as they should. I write down, ‘long walks. I don’t really know what to write next. Sometimes I think I am quite a bland person.

The next question was probably the most important: What do you look for in a partner? I was sure for this question, I wrote down, ‘loving, caring, smart, considerate, honest, great at cooking, likes cats, has free time’. Then I write down some things they should do: ‘give me space, tolerate my long naps, understand if I get moody, looking for a serious long-term relationship’

I submit the form with a smile on my face.

Questions Only

 “Annie is that you?” I looked down the aisle, and saw a familiar, but one of a kind, braid of silver blonde hair.

The girl turned around, clueless as to who called her name. It was Annie! I rushed to go over to her. Tripping over a few trolley wheels and receiving angry glares from shoppers. Her eyes widened and she smiled as she recognised me.

She gasped, “Why did you cut your hair!?” She laughed a musical but infectious laugh but before I knew it, I was in tears too. It wasn’t even that funny. We received many suspicious glances, but Annie didn’t seem to care. So, neither did I.

“Why, does it look bad?” I asked. I get very conscious about my hair and maybe she was being genuine. I stopped laughing.

“You still haven’t realised that you could do anything to your hair, and it would look amazing?” She rolled her eyes, teasingly. I blushed, whenever I was around her, I felt special.

“Why are you back?” I asked. For the last two years she had been in France with her dad. We used to be friends, I texted her almost every day the first few months, but then we gradually stopped. The last time I talked to her was on her birthday a few months ago.

“Don’t you think I’ve missed my mum and everybody?” She smiled but it wasn’t the smile I saw earlier. I knew it must be something worse than that. She wouldn’t come back to her mother, who couldn’t care less about her. She obviously had a much better life in France according to her Instagram. She was very popular and she had taken her basketball to the next level and was ready to compete, nationally.

But I avoided the subject about her parents. “How’s basketball going?”

She seemed surprised about that, like she thought I would forget everything about her. “Really good actually, did you know I got into the nationals junior team this year?”

“I did, I think you posted it on your Instagram?”

Great. Now I seem like a stalker. She nodded modestly.

“Yeah, you must be excited?”

She laughed a dry laugh.

“I’m here instead of training, do you think I’m still competing?” she said sarcastically.

That must be tough, training all those years and giving up on the one life-changing opportunity. I quickly spit it out: “So how are you doing with your mum?”

That’s when her deep grey eyes lost my eye contact for the first time in the whole conversation, and she stared at the laminate floor.

“Don’t you have to get back to shopping?” Her voice was now fragile, instead of the whole heartedness and depth in her voice before.

This was going well. Two years of waiting for Annie to come back, and I’ve messed it up. “Are you coming back to school?”

“Yep, well I have to go now, I’ll see you at school I’m guessing?”

I nodded quickly. And she walked away, leaving me standing in the freezing dairy aisle.

Time Travel Unravelled

 I was extremely nervous. I couldn’t seem to stop shaking. I went through all the necessary procedures of inserting the tracking device – which stung as they planted it in my ankle – and collecting any helpful devices, like those high-tech x-ray glasses which let you see through buildings and objects and identified people and unknown objects. They did warn me that they might not work back in 2019 because of the unfamiliar objects, that even the glasses couldn’t see.

I put on the clothes they gave me, they looked exactly like the ones we wore every day, grey trousers, and a grey shirt. They were bulletproof and fireproof clothes, because apparently in the 21st century, guns and fire were one of the biggest threats to people’s lives. They hadn’t yet started to use nuclear weapons until 20 years later. 2039. That’s when they ruined the earth and made it into the barren, under- populated mess it is. My job was to go back to 2019, before I was even born, and find out what it was like before The Last World War.

It was frightening, I was one of the first people to ever use the time machine. A few had used it before, but only a few came back sane. But I was willing to take the risk if it meant I could see the sun again. The further away you travelled in time the higher the chance you would never come back. I am travelling to 84 years ago. The risk was high.

I stepped in and the capsule closed around me. I closed my eyes. The capsule zoomed upwards and emerged out of the ground. I opened my eyes when we were on ground level. The ground around me was either brown and burnt, or still in raging flames. I could see ruins of buildings and roads. This used to be London. Until the War and now we lived underground. Deep underground.

I knew what was happening now. The airtight capsule I was in was collecting the radiation outside. A scientist a few years ago had realised that we could use radiation to fuel the time travel. The sun wasn’t visible, it was covered by the permanent blanket of clouds, which rained the most poisonous of water.

After around five minutes the capsule had collected a lot of radiation and we were off. Suddenly I was there and there was this feeling and then I was in a bright loud place. It was unexplainable. I stepped out of the capsule and adjusted my eyes. It was too bright.

I looked up. There was a sight I thought I’d only see in pictures. A blue sky, with a glowing sun and fluffy clouds. Tears sprung in my eyes. I seemed to be in a car park of some sort. Those humans with their polluting cars. In the distance I saw a river. Yes, a free running mass of water. Polluted and toxic. But it was there. I believe it was the Thames.

I only had three hours before I had to be sent back, I had to be quick. I walked into the building and only when an overwhelming heat rushed past me did I realise how cold it was outside. I walked in; loud music was blaring out of the speakers and people were standing around drinking and laughing. This is what they call a pub.

Then I realised people were staring at me funny. I ignored them; they must be ‘drunk’. Obviously in 2103 we couldn’t make alcohol; it was a waste of resources, so I didn’t know the feeling. But to study these people, I had to put myself in their shoes. So, I ordered a beer. I had some money they had given me.

The first sip felt like nothing I had ever drunk before. It had flavour. I was just used to the bland soup we got every single day. Before anyone knew it, I had finished the glass, and was eating some crisps, but I must have looked strange as I tried to fit them in my pockets to take back home.

“Why are you wearing that?”

I glanced up, surprisingly. “Me?”

“You look like you came out of a prison or something”

It was a young lady, she was wearing something over her face, it made it hard to see her actual face.

“Err... I’m not sure what to wear.”

The girl rolled her eyes, she gave me a very judgmental look, “You know, some makeup or maybe colourful clothes.”

She walked away. It was no surprise these people ruined the planet. However, the advice was very useful, I clearly stuck out and I doubt I would get shot at, I guess I could go get some clothes.

The thought of this excited me – to wear something other than the boring grey clothes. I stumbled out of the pub and walked towards the river. The noise was strange; I had never seen so many people at once.

I walked into a shop, with mannequins in the windows. I found a beautiful green shirt with a sort of fringe on the side. But for the trousers I went to different section of the store. I was determined to explore as much as I could. I went to the ‘Halloween’ section. We had history lessons, and these people used to dress up for Halloween. If I dressed up, I would fit in! I grabbed what looked like a long mermaid tail. Except it wasn’t actually a tail, they were trousers that looked like a tail! My 9-year-old self would’ve loved this.

I paid, for the surprisingly expensive clothes and changed in the changing rooms. I made sure to carry my old ones in a cute little pumpkin bag I found.

People were admiring my outfit the minute I left the changing rooms. I knew I had succeeded. For the next hour I walked around London admiring the sun. I waved at as many people I could.

But soon enough the three hours were up. I walked back to the capsule. It shut around me the minute I did and I was back underground in 2103.

[lillysleepilystudying]

92 Questions Tag

tagged by: @court-ships (now @bujo-ie )

LAST: 1. drink: probs water (tbh i dont like water much but you gotta sTaY hyDrATed) 2. phone call: i ran out of credit ages ago and haven’t bothered to recharge it so i haven’t called anybody recently, but mum has called me, so i guess that counts. (actually thinking about it i can’t remember the last time i called someone) 3. text message: to my best bud (cause i was wallowing in the depths of despair for like 3 weeks cause i felt like she was ignoring me so i finally got the courage to text her about it last night :) i think we’re going to be good) 4. song you listened to: K I’M LISTENING TO TEAM BY LORDE RIGHT NOW AND I LOVE IT FOREVER AND ALWAYS  5. time you cried: tbh like last weekend (see point number 3)

HAVE YOU: 6. dated someone twice: nope 7. kissed someone and regretted it: never kissed anybod 8. been cheated on: nup, thankfully 9. lost someone special: i have lost relatives but i never really knew them? i have lost quite a few pets tho :/ 10. been depressed: not ‘officialy’ but past couple weeks have been bad (once again, see point 3) 11. gotten drunk and thrown up: never been drunk, only ever had small sips of alcohol (i’m way to young)

LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS: 12-14: ohh so hard i don’t really have a fav, but i guess all blues (with and emphasis on teal) and like nearly all pastel colours.

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU: 15. made new friends: yeah, but not like super close 16. fallen out of love: nah 17. laughed until you cried: maybe, but not very much 18. found out someone was talking about you: i don’t know? like this one isn’t very clear 19. met someone who changed you: sort of, i became closer to best bud, who i guess has changed me a bit 20. found out who your friends are: yes, but like also no? one of my few good friends left (for england of all places, but she is coming back), another’s moving schools, and once again see point 3 for other friend 21. kissed someone on your Facebook list: no lol i don’t even have facebook

GENERAL: 22. how many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: see point 21 23. do you have any pets: YESS SO MANY a dog, two cats, like 8 horses (only one’s mine tho), 3 ducks (one i’ve had since i was like 4), around ten chickens... yeah i kind of live on a farm without all the big herds (also a lot lot smaller than a farm lol). fun fact: we used to have like 7 peacocks, they’re actually the coolest birds to have around. 24. do you want to change your name: no way, i actually quite like mine :) 25. what did you do for your last birthday: pool partay! tbh i went way overboard with the decorations, i spent hours making little paper flowers for everyone (they looked pretty cool, actually) 26. what time did you wake up: probs like 6;30, but stayed half asleep until 8:20 (shhh it’s a sunday i can do what ever i want 27. what were you doing at midnight last night: sleepinggg (sadly without my radio on bc mum wanted me to ‘try sleeping without music’ mum how i can i i need it ON 28. name something you can’t wait for: DOCTOR WHO CHRISTMAS SPECIAL #BILLISBACK GET PUMPED!! also PINOF 9 and halloween baking videos from dan and phil, also, any album coming out from any of my favourite artists for the next like 104585 years. ALSO I’M GOING TO MONGOLIA IN LIKE 2 WEEKS HOW DID I FORGET THAT 29. when was the last time you saw your mom: like half an hour ago we were running about in the rain putting the horses back in their yards 30. what is one thing you wish you could change in your life: world peace, there are too many people (and animals) that are a victim of unhappiness they will never deserve

31. what are you listening to right now: A WORLD ALONE AKA THAT LORDE SONG THAT I RELATE TO ON AN OTHERWORLDLY LEVEL 32. have you ever talked to a person named Tom: yeah, there’s one in my grade and he speaks fluent french (at least he did last time i checked which was like 2 years ago) 33. something that is getting on your nerves: tbh like all homework ever, plus this giant self-directed project we’re doing this year, it’s the most stressful thing ever. also, once again see point 3 34. most visited websites: umm i guess youtube, school’s home page, tumblr (although i’m mainly on mobile for that and that’s an app) reddit and ao3 (one my phone)

LOST QUESTIONS. I JUST PUT IN RANDOM INFO ABOUT ME 35. mole/s: nah not really 36. mark/s: nah, but i got beeg stretch marks on the sides of my hips bc i am gROWING FAST 37. childhood dream: i think a vet or zookepper. also i really wanted to publish a book that said ‘new york times bestseller’ on the front bc that’s what all my favs said on them (tbh i still dream of this) 38. hair color: blonde ayyy (but it’s getting darker underneath) 39. long or short hair: i guess medium - long (little below my shoulder blades) 40. do you have a crush on someone: not really i haven’t had one in literal years unless you count that time i sorta thought i had one one on my best friend even though im 98% sure i’m straight 41. what do you like about yourself: my creativity, like i’ve learnt not to say ‘oh i’m horrible at art/writing’ when i’m actually not that bad. also, i’m a total weirdo 42. piercings: confession: i don’t even have my ears pierced yet?? like, i do want them pierced, but i literally can’t be bothered atm lol 43. blood type: idk, although i did get a blood test like last monday, so i should know soon 44. nickname: i don’t really have any (there’s not much you can do with ‘lilly’) although i have one friend who calls me lilpil. 45. relationship status: single and probably staying that way for a while :) 46. zodiac: capricorn (but i don’t bother with zodiacs bc i am NOTHING like a capricorn) 47. pronouns: she/her

48. favorite TV Show: OMG I HAVE SO MANY BUT I’M A FRIGGIN HUGE DOCTOR WHO AND SHERLOCK FAN COME SCREAM ABOUT THEM TO ME also if you ship johnlock that’s even better!! 49. tattoos: none 50. right or left hand: right handed 51. surgery: nope 52. hair dyed in different color: never done, probably never going to (i change my mind ALOT) 53. sport: tbh i hate sport but i do horse riding and with school i do sailing and hockey (bc a summer and winter sport is compulsory)  55. vacation: OK LIKE I SAID I’M GOING TO MONGOLIA AND I CAN’T GIVE AWAY TOO MUCH BUT I DID HAVE TO APPLY TO GET IN AND I’M RAZZED 56. pair of trainers: i’m not to particular, i just have shoes for sport (alTHOUGH, i do have an awesome pair of white sneakers with a bit of gold round the back)

MORE GENERAL:

57. eating: it’s father’s day and we had a GIANT breakfast and lunch so i don’t know if i’m even having dinner 58. drinking: i could KILL for a milo right now (it’s like, my version of tea or coffee) but parents have stopped buying it because ‘there’s too much sugar’ TIM I DON’T CARE I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT IT 59. i’m about to: idk i need to practice guitar, work on my bujo (bc i’m super behind), keep writing my fic, and i guess other general stuff 61. waiting for: nothing really, it’s sunday night so i’m sad bc it’s monday tomorrow 62. want: lots of things (who don’t amirite) but one is getting my bedroom walls gyprocked and painted (they’re wood panelling and i hate it) 63. get married: tbh whenever i meet the right person :) 64. career: FILM DIRECTOR YO i know nothing about film but i still really want to do it.

WHICH IS BETTER 65. hugs or kisses: OMG HUGS HUG ME PLEASE 66. lips or eyes: eyes, literally everybody’s eyes are beautiful, it’s great 67. shorter or taller: taller 68. older or younger: older i guess 70. nice arms or nice stomach: nice personality ;) 71. sensitive or loud: sensitive, like me tbh i’m so sensitive raise your voice at me and i will burst into tears  72. hook up or relationship: relationship always 73. troublemaker or hesitant: hesitant, also like me

HAVE YOU EVER: 74. kissed a stranger: definitely no 75. drank hard liquor: nopeity no 76. lost glasses/contact lenses: don’t have ‘em 77. turned someone down: technically yes? there was this new kid at school and he was literally asking every girl out, i was a bit confused. 78. sex on the first date: definitely no  79. broken someone’s heart: sadly i think so (but we’re like best friends no so it’s all good) 80. had your heart broken: no 81. been arrested: no 82. cried when someone died: yes, aforementioned relative i barley knew (still sad tho)  83. fallen for a friend: sortofnotreally

DO YOU BELIEVE IN: 84. yourself: yes, at least i try my very hardest 85. miracles: in a way, yes 

86. love at first sight: not really

87. santa claus: when i as like 3, yes 

88. kiss on the first date: maybe?

OTHER: 90. current best friend name: ezri, my smol bean (also person from infamous point 3) fun fact: we’re both pretty sure she’s named after her character from star trek, ezri dax (her parents are giant nerds just like ez and i) 91. eye color: blue/gey with a bit of green 92. favorite movie: ARGHHH I CAN’T PICK I HAVE SOOO MANY, LIKE EVERY ONE BASED OFF BOOKS I LIKE, i really can’t pick, but one that is quite special to me is ‘my house in umbria’, my grandma and i used to watch this together all the time

Ok whoa this took me LITERAL HOURS but now that i’m done i just want to tag anyone who wants to do it! :)

[currentlylurking]

Character Development Questions Hard Mode 1-45 for Infinite?

holy fucking shit

Anon I love you you’re my good bud LET’S DO THIS

I assume you mean SOS Text / Future!Infinite so minor spoilers

1. Does your character have siblings orfamily members in their age group? Which one are they closest with?

He’s not close to his blood relatives, but he has a group of people he works with. They consider themselves a family, and are all physically in their 20s. Out of all of them, he’s arguably the closest to his boss, Hafia. She gets the most nicknames.

2. What is/was your character’srelationship with their mother like?

He’s been told that he loved her very much and would do anything for her.

3. What is/was your character’srelationship with their father like?

He’s been told that he loved him very much and that he learned so much from him.

4. Has your character ever witnessedsomething that fundamentally changed them? If so, does anyone else know?

He’s only like ~20 years into his timeline during SOS Text, so not yet lmao.

(Years down the road, he’ll watch the Observants remove a ghost’s core and vow to do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn’t happen to him- already established events in his timeline be damned)

5. On an average day, what can be foundin your character’s pockets?

well

A shitton of yarn. He doesn’t know where it’s coming from, but lord almighty it’s everywhere.

several rolls of leopard print duct tape.

like, 3 boxes worth of fun-sized snickers

Sharpies in various colours, but quite a few black ones

some cool looking rocks - one’s shaped vaguely like the outline of a cat!

a bag of Honey Nut Cheerios, long since smashed to pieces

business cards with his name written in English, Esperanto, German, Modern Ghost, and Ancient Ghost that proclaim him to be a ‘world-class piece of shit’

paper airplanes, in various stages of completion

the plug and cord from an old toaster (the rest wouldn’t fit)

like, 7 decks of playing cards

Polaroids of his best friend doing stupid shit- ie, that time he got frustrated while trying to build a house of cards and brought out the super glue

ribbons, tied in various knots

a set of lock picks

a hamster ball for his pet mouse Finnegan R. Cheddar

Occasionally, Finnegan R. Cheddar

various attempts to use the yarn to make beanies, all of them bad

a book of card tricks

the ‘Bees?’ card from a Cards Against Humanity game

A plastic egg

Various items he has pickpocketed from people - photos, wallets, keys

packages of hot chocolate with little tiny marshmallows

stupid trinkets he’s made from wire, most of them bad

Polaroids of cute dogs

a list of every Observant name he knows and a shitty nickname for each of them

free-range glitter, which sticks to almost everything (it’s also eatable, mostly)

Various pieces of nicely made bread

a keychain with a volcano on it that ‘erupts’ when you press a button

a cellphone in kind of shitty condition with cool apps and pretty impressive highscore on flappy bird

And finally;

a much, much older iPhone with a severely cracked screen and an adapter that allows it to charge itself with ambient ectoplasm. He doesn’t know the password, and the lockscreen’s background is a giant middle finger.

6. Does your character have recurringthemes in their dreams?

A lot of his dreams involve either fog or a game of tug-of-war. Also bread, but that’s just because he really likes bread lmao

7. Does your character have recurringthemes in their nightmares?

Rejection. He’s terrified of what will happen when nobody wants him anymore.

(Later, he’ll see what the Observants are capable of- and on bad nights he’ll lose his friends and family by their hands over and over again)

8. Has your character ever fired a gun?If so, what was their first target?

Yep, it was an ectogun aimed at a ghost- really, when his story takes place in the world of Danny Phantom, what else would it be?

(Later, he’ll learn to use a real gun, and will hate every second it’s in his hand)

9. Is your character’s currentsocioeconomic status different than it was when they were growing up?

Currently, he’s much better off than he was when he was growing up. Which is funny, considering that he’s dead.

10.Does your character feel morecomfortable with more clothing, or with less clothing?

More clothing; he LOVES turtlenecks, but has been told that they ‘make him look like an absolute fucking nerd.’

11.In what situation was your characterthe most afraid they’ve ever been?

The first time Infinite entered the human realm, he found himself in a ruined Timeline where he was nearly killed by people who said they knew him. Hafia rescued him, and healed him up, but refused to explain. Infinite had to find answers for himself, and those answers horrified him.

12.In what situation was your characterthe most calm they’ve ever been?

The first time he met the Observants, his family quietly panicked. Infinite, however, offered his right hand for a shake and introduced himself.

He was wearing a hand buzzer.

The Observants automatically started looking for an excuse to murder him.

13.Is your character bothered by thesight of blood? If so, in what way?

His family was worried he would be, but he’s not particularly. He’s wary of it, though; human blood severely burns ghosts like him.

14.Does your character remember names orfaces easier?

Mostly faces, since he has a tendency to give people shitty nicknames.

15.Is your character preoccupied withmoney or material possession? Why or why not?

Not really. Hafia or his honourary sister, Tempest, could easily get him whatever material thing he desired, and they also have a room filled with various currencies from the past ~300 years. material things aren’t really a concern for Infinite.

16.Which does your character idealizemost: happiness or success?

Success. He’s convinced that as long as he can succeed, he’ll be happy. They world just likes to make that difficult for him.

17.What was your character’s favoritetoy as a child?

He’s been told it was a build-a-bear dog dressed a shirt covered with pumpkins.

18.Is your character more likely toadmire wisdom, or ambition in others?

Ambition, definitely. He’s more interested in people who are out there getting what they want; they’re usually more interesting, anyway.

19.What is your character’s biggestrelationship flaw? Has this flaw destroyed relationships for them before?

It’s a good thing this question says ‘biggest’ because Infinite Hour is SHIT at interacting with people and I could write a short essay on that fact alone.

He likes to test the boundaries; he insults, annoys, and otherwise harasses the people he meets until they snap at him. And he does this constantly, because a lot of people he knows refuse to snap at him. To Infinite, that’s just infuriating- so when he does eventually meet people he can push to their breaking point, well, he likes to have fun with it.

He’s ruined a lot of relationships like this, but for the most part he never saw the people he’d hurt again anyways. 

(‘most part,’ I saw, as Clockwork, Pariah, the Observants, and half the cast of SOS Text glare at Infinite from a distance) 

20.In what ways does your charactercompare themselves to others? Do they do this for the sake of self-validation,or self-criticism?

At the current point in his timeline, Infinite doesn’t really compare himself to others- the times that he does, it’s accompanied by a scoff and a reference to how he could do it so much better

21.If something tragic or negativehappens to your character, do they believe they may have caused or deserved it,or are they quick to blame others?

Most of the time something bad happens, he doesn’t care until it directly effects him. Then, it’s self-blame all the way.

(Later, he’ll get better at not caring, and passing the blame onto other people and even convincing them that he’s innocent. But the little voice in the back of his mind reminding him that he did this will never fully stop)

22.What does your character like inother people?

He likes people who are upfront and truthful, who are strong make an effort to go after their goals. People who don’t just sit by, who speak their mind, have a good sense of humor, and are smart. But mainly, he likes people who like him for who he is, not for what they’re heard. 

23.What does your character dislike inother people?

Stupidity, whether that’s people who are stupidly brave or just not as smart as Infinite ‘over complicated is just another word for smart’ Hour. People who suck up and bend over backwards to be accepted by everyone, or who don’t know when to give up or make excuses for their inaction. But most importantly, he dislikes people who act like he’s a big deal- but only because of one story he’s heard, over and over, where’s he painted as a saint and sacrifices himself for a reason that has never once made sense to him.

24.How quick is your character to trustsomeone else?

Depends on the situation and what he knows about him. The first time he met Clockwork, Infinite had heard hundreds of stories about how amazing he was and was practically in love. Clockwork wanted nothing to do with him.

(Later, he’ll bounce across the multiverse, and assume that if he could trust someone in one world he can trust them in the next. He will be wrong, and pay for it.)

25.How quick is your character tosuspect someone else? Does this change if they are close with that person?

If all the signs point to them, he’ll put it together pretty quickly. If experience has shown that they’re not someone he should trust, he’ll be more willing to challenge them about it. Otherwise, and especially if he’s close to them, he’ll keep any suspicions locked away in the back of his mind.

26.How does your character behave aroundchildren?

He doesn’t particularly interact with children, but he finds them amusing. He’ll go along with their games, for the most part. However, if it’s a child version of his family or friends, he puts his best foot forwards. If it’s a child version of his boss (who he’s encountered numerous times), he’ll act like the perfect person and tell her to ‘remember that for later.’

27.How does your character normally dealwith confrontation?

By running the fuck away lmao.

Infinite can fight if he needs to, sure- but if it isn’t something he can handle easily, he is gone.

28.How quick or slow is your characterto resort to physical violence in a confrontation?

If he doesn’t have a choice, he’ll fight, but he normally keeps his distance. He’ll stick to stuff he can shoot or throw, and stall for time until someone else can come up with a plan.

29.What did your character dream ofbeing or doing as a child? Did that dream come true?

He’s been told that he really wanted to be an astronaut. He ended up in space once while teleporting about; it gave him a pretty bad headache and Hafia had to come rescue him.

30.What does your character findrepulsive or disgusting?

Most typically gross things. Anything that came out of a human body, anything decomposing, open wounds (bonus points if someone puts something in it), thing like that.

31.Describe a scenario in which yourcharacter feels most comfortable.

trick question; he’s permanently low-key uncomfortable.

He’s traveling through time, and comes across a group of people. He travels with them, they all playfully annoy each other, they share food and stories, they thwart the Observants or some other group with too much power, and they take him to see something amazing. He takes a picture and later retells the tale to his best friend, who replies with a story from before Infinite died. He hears the story about how his past-self embarrassed himself and smiles, knowing that it sounds exactly like something his current self would do.

32.Describe a scenario in which yourcharacter feels most uncomfortable.

Every moment of his afterlife lmao.

He’s in a heavily populated area, dressed up fancily and his hair is down. One member of his family is always nearby to make sure he behaves. People like him, and they let him know. Constantly. They call him a hero, and talk about every good thing he did before he died. He insults them under his breath, but his family makes sure they don’t hear. The Observants are nearby, waiting for him to make a mistake that they can use. Someone insults his best friend, and he has no choice but to smile and nod.

33.In the face of criticism, is yourcharacter defensive, self-deprecating, or willing to improve?

Defensive. He takes criticism as a personal attack, and gets upset with that.

If it’s criticism about how much of an ass he is, however, he doesn’t care for the most part. He’s enjoying himself, isn’t that what’s really important?

34.Is your character more likely to keeptrying a solution/method that didn’t work the first time, or immediately moveon to a different solution/method?

He’ll stick to one method until he knows for certain it isn’t working. 

35.How does your character behave aroundpeople they like?

With his friends and family, there’s a lot of playful insults and stupid jokes. He makes a lot of puns. He’ll tell stories, give them nicknames, take pictures when they’re not looking, and listen to what they have to stay. He’ll push their boundaries, but will never cross the line.

With random people he happens to meet and be interested by, there’s still a lot of teasing and bad jokes. But he’ll show off his powers and skills, and talk a lot about practically nothing. He’ll play up the parts of himself he thinks they’d like, and toes the line whenever he can to see what’ll make them snap.

36.How does your character behave aroundpeople they dislike?

When around people he dislikes (particularly the Observants) he will let them know. He doesn’t take anything they say or do seriously, and mocks them constantly. He undermines any authority they have, and constantly annoys them in small ways (ie, moving everything of the Observants’ he could get his hands on a couple inches to the left after threatening to move it to the right). He’ll also casually steal from them.

37.Is your character more concerned withdefending their honor, or protecting their status?

Tough call. When you’re bouncing around a world and constantly meeting people you don’t know, status loses it’s meaning. But Infinite’s not super honorable; he’ll try to protect his image, sure, but when the going gets tough he gets going.

He has a reputation of being this insanely powerful and confusing being, though, and he does do his best to keep that in place.

38.Is your character more likely toremove a problem/threat, or remove themselves from a problem/threat?

Remove himself lmao. Infinite encounters a serious problem and you’ll have to give him five good reasons why he shouldn’t just peace out. 

(‘people you genuinely like are involved but won’t like you if you don’t act’ and ‘according to what we know about this point in time you do this’ are both worth all 5 slots)

39.Has your character ever been bittenby an animal? How were they affected (or unaffected)?

He’s been bitten by a dog before, but that didn’t stop him from petting it. In his defense, it was a very fluffy puppy.

40.How does your character treat peoplein service jobs?

He’s perfectly kind to them. If he’s going to be mean to them, he’ll do it because of their personality, not their job. He has standards.

41.Does your character feel that theydeserve to have what they want, whether it be material or abstract, or do theyfeel they must earn it first?

Oh, he deserves it. He deserves to live, to see the world’s coolest shit, and for people to like him for who he is now. If you say otherwise, he doesn’t like you.

42.Has your character ever had aparental figure who was not related to them?

His family is more or less stuck in the ‘siblings’ zone, and nobody gets more than ‘severe mom friend’ parental.

43.Has your character ever had adependent figure who was not related to them?

Nope. He’d be such a bad influence, could you imagine?

(Later, his family will expand as they take in a pair of teenagers- one of which who has the same powers as him. And he’ll try, he really will, but in the end the others will serve as guardians far better than he ever could)

(But even later, as he travels the multiverse, he’ll find people over and over who look up to him. People who depend on him. People who love him. And he’ll be terrified, but he’ll fight for them)

44.How easy or difficult is it for yourcharacter to say “I love you?” Can they say it without meaning it?

what’s this? Infinite ‘constantly fucks with people’ Hour, saying I love you insincerely? Ridiculous. Impossible. He would never.

Infinite isn’t exactly someone who uses the word ‘love’ while talking to other people. If it’s about an object, or a really nice cup of coffee, he’ll tell the world that he loves it. But his friends? His family? He’d only say he loved them if they were about to die, and all he could do was run.

45.What does your character believe willhappen to them after they die? Does this belief scare them?

He thinks nothing happens after the death of a ghost, and there isn’t a single thing in the world that terrifies him more than that.

[jackblankhsh]

Why I Quit:  Home Improvement Store -- Selling Tiki Torches

"So I put the gun in mouth, and was about to squeeze the trigger when the radio -- I don't even remember putting it on -- the radio starts playing a Mötley Crüe song.  And I thought, 'Oh hell no.  The last thing I'm going to hear is not going to be goddamn Mötley Crüe.'  Anyway, long story short, searching for a song to fit the moment, I lost the desire to kill myself."

 The old veterinarian winked at me, "But it'll come back. It always does.  You can only euthanize so many kittens..."

 As she trailed off I handed her a tray of sterilized instruments, "Okay.  On that note, I quit."

 Seeing how the veterinary profession possessed a higher suicide rate than one would expect, I decided not to risk the odds.  Being an assistant might've been safer, but still, I've been known to get deeply depressed doing the dishes.  The endless nature of it... and just knowing that a family is bringing in a beloved pet too sick to... three months later the bender ended.  

 I woke up naked with a bed sheet stuck to my face, glued in place by a puddle of blood spilled from my nose.  Wrapping it around me like a toga I kicked my way through a grove of bottles in search of my clothes.  Glancing back, I saw a curvy women with the contented smile of the well-fucked soundly sleeping.  Her SS Edmund Fitzgerald tattoo made me curious for the details lost in the blackout days behind me.  

 Pulling my jeans out of a bathroom sink, I realized I didn't recognize this place.  Turning on my phone I asked it for directions to my place.  The map app sprang to life indicating I now stood in Virginia.  Consulting another informative application I discovered a terminally malnourished bank account.  Inside my wallet a single twenty dollar bill with a note written across it in my handwriting:

 "Get out before she wakes up.  She's going to stab you."

 I've pulled such blackout related pranks on myself before, leaving cryptic notes warning me of various dangers, and gaffs -- insulting cult leaders, obscene calls to the CIA, and unpaid pizza orders -- however, I didn't feel like taking a chance.  So, making the mistake of trusting myself, I fled the scene.  

 It took a few days to get things in order.  Sure, I starved for the first few days, and maybe I didn't need to rob that waffle house, or the church picnic, but by the end of the week I procured a room at a nearby hotel, and a job at a home improvement store. I didn't expect it to be too long before I could purchase a bus ticket back to Chicago.

 Home improvement shops are essentially giant hardware warehouses.  They're utilitarian in design with shelves rising ridiculously out of reach; capacious buildings scented with a

a unique blend of sawdust, paint, and metal.  Through canyonesque aisles patrons from all walks of life shuffle, body language telegraphing their own personal degree of knowledge:  a burly man tanned into leathery jerky assesses screws by eye, knowing the needed size at a glance; a diminutive blonde housewife navigates her confused husband through electrical supplies, explaining to him what they need to wire a sconce; an old man eyes a toilet skeptically.  And of course, the myriad customers who would use a hammer to put in screws.  

 Mainly due to that last type, employees of such establishments are often practitioners of ninjutsu, particularly the skills known as Shinobi-iri and Intonjutsu.  A befuddled customer approaches an apron clad employee.  The glazed cow eyes of the witless signal to the ninja an idiotic question is fast approaching.  Deftly a smoke bomb is deployed, and the employee vanishes from sight.  The more skilled might simply slip over to the next aisle, disappearing the same way spies are known to dissolve from view when a bus passes by.  

 I never got the hang of such tactics, so instead chose a means of hiding in plain sight.  I spent most of my shifts hanging around a middle aged employee named Gus.  Having retired after several years as a successful contractor, but not yet ready to stop working entirely, Gus worked part time. If a question revolved around home improvement, Gus knew the answer.  Friendly to a degree some might call a fault, he assisted customers before they even finished asking anything.  All I needed to do was stand near him, pause as if considering what to say, and he would answer for me.  That said, I wouldn't be surprised if he suspected my own ineptitude, and merely wanted to keep me from embarrassing myself.

 "I heard the manager ain't too happy with you," Gus said.

 I shrugged, "Hey, I get why, but I thought it would help."

 Gus replied, "You started barbequing in the patio display."

 "I thought it would help sell patio furniture, and let's be clear.  I was grilling, not barbequing.  Don't tell me there isn't a difference."

 Gus held up his hands in surrender, "No argument with that."

 I said, "I also thought the smoke might help with the birds."

 Birds occasionally slipped into the colossal store.  The massive entrance to the open air gardening section allowed them to fly right into the building.  Whole flocks eventually started gathering in the rafters requiring a teenager in a cherry picker to ascend, and battle them with a broom, shooing the birds to the exit.  Sometimes the birds fought back.  The teens didn't always win because some battles can't be fought stoned.

 Gus said, "Never you mind about them birds. They ain't bothering nobody."

 "Sometimes they shit on people."

 "Somebody's always shitting on ya you pay attention." He smiled.  So did I.  You've got to admire that kind of resigned pessimism.  If something bad is inevitable it seems like one can only accept it.  

 "Excuse me?" a young man in khakis and a polo shirt stepped up to me.  

 I said, "Yes sir.  How may I help you?"

 He replied, "I'm looking for tiki torches."

 "Aisle six."  Gus pointed.  The man ignored him.  He seemed determined to wait for me to answer.

 I pointed where Gus had, "Aisle six."

 "Thank you."  The man smiled, losing his grin when he looked at Gus, then walked off.

 "Was that weird?" I asked.

 "Nope.  You're paranoid," Gus said.

 "Doesn't mean it wasn't weird."  But I dropped it, focusing instead on helping Gus inventory plumbing supplies.  

 Minutes later a thirty-something brunette woman in a khaki skirt and white blouse asked, "Hi, I'm wondering about tiki torches."

 "Aisle six, ma'am," Gus said.

 "Is he right?" she asked, leaning towards me, away from Gus.

 "Like he said, 'Aisle six'."

 She lightly touched my shoulder, "Thank you so much."

 Cocking an eyebrow I glanced at Gus.

 He nodded, "Okay.  That was a bit odd."

 Three men walked by, all in khakis and polo shirts.  As they passed us one said, "Hey bro, you know where the tiki torches are?"

 "Aisle six," I said.

 "Good to see one of us in charge."  He pointed at me.  

 Now, I have never been mistaken for an authority figure in my life.  So I felt compelled to suggest to Gus we check out aisle six.  He agreed, and we headed over.  

 When we arrived the aisle seemed to have been taken over by a docile mob of khaki clad white folks.  They happily interacted with one another like long lost friends at an inadvertent reunion.  However few seemed to actually know one another.  Their convivial nature stemmed from the fact they all kept talking about the same thing:  

 "You goin' to the rally tonight?"

 "Course I'm going.  Why you think I'm buying torches?"

 A part of me really started hoping Frankenstein's monster had been spotted somewhere in Charlottesville, and these poster children for white suburbia simply were organizing a mob to go after him.  That would explain the several men milling around in full tactical gear carrying assault rifles.  Each eyed the area as if anxiously awaiting the start of their own private action movie.    

 A man wearing a black t-shirt with a swastika on it asked, "This where the torches at?"

 Seeing how we stood not ten feet from a horde of folks already carrying torches, he displayed exactly the extent of observational skill one expects from someone openly wearing Nazis paraphernalia.  

 So I said, "Nope."

 Gus said, "Customer is always right."

 "No kidding," I said.

 Gus said, "Don't be rude."

 "Listen to the n*****," the Nazis said walking away.

 "You wanna know where the rope is too?" I asked.

 Gus whispered to me, "Don't piss them off.  They are looking for an excuse to do something evil. So how about you shut the fuck up?"

 In the three weeks I worked with him I never heard Gus swear. I figured he possessed too much class for such language.  So when he swore at me the gravity of the situation pulled me back hard.  Plus, it seemed safe to suppose that if I spit enough venom at these fools they would use it as an excuse to not only pound me into paste, but to go after Gus, even if he stayed silent the whole time.  Yet, that didn't mean I had to do nothing.

 I headed for the manager's office.  

 A fat man flanked by two riflemen breathlessly asked me, "We're looking for torches."

 "Aisle seventeen.  All the way the other side of the store."  I misdirected him, and kept on walking.  I hurried into the manager's office.  Paul sat behind his desk filling out paperwork.  

 Looking up he said, "What's up?"

 "There are Nazis buying torches."

 Paul leaned back bemused, "Nazis?"

 "Honest to god swastika wearing Nazis."

 "But they are paying for them."

 I folded my arms across my chest, "Yeah.  So what?"

 Paul shrugged, "If they cause any trouble then throw them out, but hey, sales've been down.  This could put us solidly in the black."  Perhaps noticing the look on my face he added, "Don't do anything stupid."

 "Define stupid."  But before Paul could answer I ducked out, slamming the door behind me.

 I hurried around the store collecting road flares, duct tape, and lighter fluid.  I tied flares to the lighter fluid, opened the container, and poised to ignite the flare, planning to hurl the slopping flaming bomb right into the horde of bigots (I wasn't hundred percent certain it would work, but still wanted to try) -- Gus stood at the edge of the crowd helping a bearded fellow in Klan robes choose a cheaper torch fuel.  I couldn't hear their exchange, but it seemed cordial enough.  The Klansman's wife even laughed along with Gus when he made some joke. After helping them, Gus then took a torch off the shelf, and placed it in the hands of an elderly man in a motorized wheelchair, a small Confederate flag flying over the chair.  

 "Who else needs help?" Gus asked.  Several ignored him, others simply glared, but a few asked him questions he answered readily.  With ready steady polite service he soon cleared the aisle quietly.

 Two teenagers wearing Confederate flag shirts stepped over to me.  One asked, "Whatcha got there?"

 I held up the makeshift flame-grenade, "Most badass way to light your cigarette."

 "For real?"

 "Yeah, here.  Go nuts," I handed it to him, "No charge."

 "Thanks man."  He slapped his buddy on the chest, and the two went outside.  

 Gus walked over, "You know that've gone quicker if you helped me out."

 I nodded, "I don't always do the right thing."

 "You're young.  You got time to fix what's wrong."  He glanced at his watch, "Hey, if we get to it we can finish inventory."

 "Let's do that."  And we did.  It's odd how calming counting pipe fittings can be.  

 Inventory didn't take long.  Then I decided to punch out early.  Walking by the smoldering corpses of two teenagers burnt to a crisp, I lit a cigarette wondering where the rally intended to take place.  I wanted to watch them rage and holler, waving the torches a kind man, whom they despised, helped them purchase.  Too ignorant to be reasoned with, I suspected the delicious irony of the situation would be entirely lost on them.  Someone should be there to appreciate it.  But listening to my mp3 player on the walk back to my hotel a song I couldn't remember downloading came on.  

 Norma Tanega singing "You're Dead".  The opening lyrics hit me like golf ball hail, "They have no use for your song.  You're dead, you're dead, you're dead, you're dead and outta this world."  The song went on in such a black sun tone -- "Now your hope and compassion is gone.  You've sold out your dream to the world.  Stay dead, stay dead, stay dead, you're dead and outta this world." -- and I listened to it fourteen or fifteen times before I got home.

 Cracking open a bottle of whiskey I turned on the TV.  Reports of the rally soon dominated the local news. People throwing up Nazis salutes, chanting Nazis slogans about "blood and soil", and all around looking like a golf resort turned up for a midnight torch parade.  I saw faces I recognized not only from earlier, but regulars I thought I knew.  This wasn't some outsider mob of unfamiliar people, a bigoted other intruding from an alternate reality.  I would see them again, probably tomorrow, casually investigating lighting fixtures, purchasing power tools, in need of putty, paint, and tiles for the kids' bathroom; I would see them again because they were ordinary citizens, a sinister part of the community, unnoticed or actively ignored -- "Will Smithers is a decent neighbor, keeps to himself mostly, but be careful what you say around him, he's not, uh, fond of Jews."

 Somewhere around one in the morning, unable to sleep, I collected my things.  Partly drunk, to a degree somnambulant, I went to the bus station.  There I purchased a late night ticket.  Dawn cracking I left Charlottesville behind.  It felt like running from a fight.  Never mind the umbrella concept of America -- we're all united (E pluribus unum) -- it's hard to fight for a place that isn't your home; and those same white supremacist fools exist in Chicago.  There would be opportunity enough to resist them on home turf, where I knew them on sight better than in Virginia.  Or maybe I just like to think I do... the illusory safety of home.  But mostly I think I just needed to get back to somewhere things at least seemed to make sense, surrounded by familiar madness.  

 Glancing at the time I recalled Gus once told me he got up at five every morning, a routine from his days as a contractor that he never lost.  Knowing he'd be up I called him.

 "Who's calling my phone?" he said playfully.

 "It's me."

 "Seems early for you."

 "I just wanted to let you know I won't be coming in today. Tell Paul, okay?  Tell him I quit."

 "I got a sneaking suspicion he won't mind you being gone."

 "I may have sold a few power tools off the books." I heard him chuckle.  It felt good knowing some folks are still laughing.