#my next goal is to pay down the next lowest one completely

[menlove]

learning how much Debt medium rich people are in is so scary to me. like. I'm about 1k in credit card debt (which is very low compared to my total credit limits I know how to keep a good ratio going for a good credit score) and then like 20k in student loan debt and that's terrifying to me. but 99% of medium rich people you see are like. hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and that's just How they pay for their lifestyle. they get insanely high credit limits and just pay for entire cruises and vacations and bullshit on their credit cards. I cannot fathom this. if I were 300k in credit card debt I'd be having heart palpatations daily. but it's good to keep this in mind when going "how tf do people my age afford things?!" bc typically the answer is: credit cards and loans. they aren't affording things at all.

[mangodestroyer]

Not that I want to talk about it too much or anything, but now that I'm actually leaving retail for real (because I finally secured something else and can afford to leave), I'm kind of thinking a lot about how shitty this job actually is. And how I sort of just got used to it after a while.

I mean, first, there's the obvious of retail being a hella toxic environment. You're constantly facing the public, and have zero ways of standing up for yourself and avoiding it. Companies also push for you to reach extreme goals and push for workers to be super competitive over the metrics. All this micromanaging, as well as the bs from the customers, can easily cause co-workers to become burnt out and bitter. Leading to toxic work relationships as well.

Secondly, it's so much physical labor. And my job in particular also requires a high level of social intelligence. I mean, you have to actually SELL things to customers, on top of balancing a thousand different tasks (and completing them within a certain time frame while also putting out other people's fires). I mean, seriously. It's difficult to draw the energy to have a whole-ass sales pitch, individualized to the customer you're speaking to when you've been rushing to complete three projects.

It's also the scheduling. You can never have the same schedule every week. And the shifts are always all over the place. One week, you might have six four-hour shifts, the next week, you have an eight-hour shift where you work till nine at night, and then have another eight-hour shift the next day requiring you to come in at five or six in the morning. Maybe you worked nothing but evening shifts for the past three months. Now you're suddenly being scheduled morning shifts after you've gotten used to going to bed at four a.m. because you hate waiting to go to your job during the day. Maybe you're scheduled two 35-40 hour weeks because it's a very busy sales period and there is A LOT OF WORK TO DO. Then you're scheduled for nothing but 8 to 16-hour weeks and there's nothing to do/you have no money. You're scheduled for every weekend and holiday. You can no longer feel excited about those while everyone else is having a blast. In fact, you forgot that going to the store is something that people sometimes do for fun. If you ask to limit your hours and have certain times/days off, you'll get heckled for it. Sometimes, you're asked to cover shifts and people get annoyed if you decline. You're asked to find someone to cover your shift if you can't make it in. People get mad at you for being sick or for just wanting to use vacation days.

The pay. The pay is shit. All this for the lowest pay they think they can get away with giving people.

It is... exhausting! Even a simple four-hour shift leaves me feeling like I can't decompress. I have to take things to help me relax after work and to help me tolerate it the next day. Even then, I can't truly get myself to focus on my hobbies or anything. It's also made going to school difficult. It's so hard to think after being worked like that. Or to have the energy to stay on top of things. Also, I've gained weight since working this job. I was... 125 lbs when I started. I got all the way up to 165 lbs in three years and struggled to get down to 157 lbs these past few months. I feel like my stomach can't even digest a lot of food these days. Like, if I eat too much dairy or fruit or something, it feels like it just sits in my stomach for a long ass time until I get cramps and feel bloated. I never used to be like this. I also feel like I have more inflammation in general. And God forbid you have issues happening in your personal life. It makes all of this so much worse! Back when I was in a toxic relationship, I straight up wondered if I was developing b*polar/sch*zophrenia, d*mentia, or c*ncer. The stress was affecting me both physically and mentally THAT MUCH.

I spent three weeks away from my job a few months ago. I actually started feeling like I had some energy. I started feeling human again. It was pretty telling. Before then, I thought I'd finally gotten used to working that job and that maybe it wasn't so bad. Then I came back and was like, "Holy, fuck! This place is shit!" I started putting in job apps like my life depended on it for ANYTHING that wasn't retail or food service. ANYTHING. Even if I was underqualified.

And that's that. I will never do a low-paid customer service job again. If things ever get rough in the job market and I don't have a choice but to return to shitty work... I will literally do the actual SHITTY work of scrubbing toilets before I return to retail. I'm DONE.

[fzzr]

Hyouka and Why Slow Anime Can Be Great, Too

Hyouka is a 2012 anime about the four members of the Classics (literature) Club hanging out and investigating the mundane mysteries that surround their lives. The mysteries of Hyouka are never as simple as finding out what happened. A mystery is not solved until you find the root cause, the emotional and interpersonal forces that put things in motion in the first place. Sometimes you find once you know the root of the problem, you don't actually have a solution, or indeed the unsolved mystery is preferable to a full airing of the conflict at its heart.

Our protagonist, Houtarou Oreki, wishes only for a life at the lowest energy level possible. He will expend effort, but only for the purpose of removing friction to lower the amount of effort needed in the future. When circumstance puts him in the Classics Club with Eru Chitanda, he finds that her curiosity about the world and its small mysteries pulls him along despite himself.

Hyouka demonstrates several things that many other series should perhaps take to heart.

First, it's slow by design. There are concessions to time pressure in the story itself, but the show never acts like it's running out of time. If it needs an episode to interview every interested party, it takes it. There's no rush to a solution once the evidence is gathered, either. Hyouka wants you to think before proposing solutions. It's possible your first solution is wrong. If you are wrong you need to understand why, not just find the correct answer on the next try.

Second, it's complete by default. Most slice of life series have some over-arching goal that is used as a binding agent for the entire series, like “we’re going to have a great performance” or such. This lets them have a finale that stands out from the energy level of the rest of the series. Hyouka has arcs that feed into each other and wrap up things from earlier, but they’re not the glue of the series. After the setup there’s no need to continue to justify the framing. Everyone just shows up to the club. There’s no dramatic “oh no it’s coming apart” moment, it just gets on with the life slices.

Third, it shows that even the tiniest amount of deviation in energy can be enough. Like its protagonist, Hyouka looks for the places it can make the most impact with minimum energy output. Mysteries have stakes, but they're almost all personal - important to those affected, but not world shattering. Extrinsic forces do not require them to take action. Instead, the club's involvement in a mystery is prompted by Eru with the simple phrase "watashi kininarimasu" - "I'm curious" - and a soft chime.

It's not like the show is running on low battery all the time. Many characters react to circumstances with great energy. The show simply refuses to take the bait. No one runs dramatically down the stairs to make it just in time to save the day. One moment of resolution comes from Houtarou paying attention to something happening outside the window, and interacting with it.

I’d call Hyouka a slow burn, but there’s no burn. It just is what it is. The story is complete when it stops for no other reason than that’s where it stops. It doesn’t demand a resolution. It’s open to more but doesn’t feel like it’s incomplete without it.

There's something I've been stepping around all this time. As described so far, Hyouka ought to be an 8/10, perhaps on the high end. However, there's something that nudges it over the line to a 9. Here it is. Hyouka, when it wants to be, can be absolutely beautiful. As with everything else, it does not expend this kind of energy often. When it does, it is emphasizing something very important. Hyouka isn't a filmed with straightforward style because that's all the animators can do. It's a choice, and using accents like this so sparingly makes them unreasonably effective as the rare exclamation point in Hyouka's otherwise calm and collected prose.

Conclusion

Score: 9/10. Most of my 9s are bombastic, tense, or feature a wide variety of energy levels. Hyouka is the exception, the only exclusively and truly slow show I regard so highly.

Recommendation: This is an anime for everyone. A small amount of knowledge of the Japanese language and cultural background are helpful but by no means required to appreciate the show from beginning to end. The official subtitles give the extra context needed. Feel free to skip the OVA pool episode.

Comparisons

Saekano is not as exclusively slow as Hyouka, but it does keep its pacing under control. The difference is with Saekano, slower than average parts are more to keep you in a particular emotional state than because the story isn't in a rush to get somewhere. It's not stalling for time, it's just written such that escaping from the abyss takes effort, and to really feel that you have to spend a while there.

Final Thoughts

This one is personal. Hyouka is one of a collection of anime series (along with Rascal Does Not Dream and especially Oregairu) that wormed into my head and now won't leave. In many shows, the ending is what sticks with you. In Hyouka, the part I can't shake is the beginning. I feel deeply connected to Houtarou's desire to absolutely minimize the effort and friction in daily life. Seeing him crack out of that mindset ever so slightly through interacting with others sent me on an inward journey. What grooves have I worn in my life that make toxic solitude the easiest path? What would I be if I hadn't had anyone to pull me out of that valley? What would I be if I had refused them? The fact that I feel the slightest pain when I engage with those questions and feel my mind skitter over them is not a comfortable one. I will be returning to Hyouka someday - and perhaps the next time those questions come up, I will have answers.

[petri808]

Paid By the Heart

Bakudeku, A!Bakugou/O!quirkless Midoriya.  Growing up Midoriya was picked on and bullied, harassed by the other sexes. In desperation he turns to the only Alpha he knows, begging for help. They reach a deal for the little Omega to use the Alpha's scent to keep the other's at bay... but was that really a good idea? Intermingling their scents for years had a consequence that left them only one option.

The life of a quirkless person in their world was a sad one, but couple that with being a small Omega; double whammy. Ever since that fateful doctors visit informing his mother, he’d never have a quirk, Midoriya Izuku was shunned at school, even bullied for being a small, gangly nerd. He was easy pickings and there was nothing he could do about it.

By the time he’d hit middle school, life was a lonely existence for the young man. His solace was in books or chronicling the exploits of his favorite hero All Might. For outside of that little bubble, pain and frustration was the norm. If only he’d been born an Alpha or at least a Beta, maybe then he’d gain a small measure of respect, quirkless or not. But no, the universe decided, he was to be an Omega, the lowest of the ranks. Could things get any worse?

The answer was yes. When he wasn’t being bullied, he was being harassed. Horny teen Alpha’s really were a bane of his existence. This lot didn’t care who or what he was, only interested in the scent he gave off. At least going into heat was still a few years away, because that could lead to bigger problems.

Sometimes things got so bad in school, Midoriya would hide in teachers classes or the nurses room until finally one called his mother about it and she promptly put him on scent inhibitors. He’d been too embarrassed to tell her what was going on. At least now he gained a small reprieve, but that didn’t stop the bullying. What could he do?

Midoriya racked his brain to come up with a solution, including quitting school altogether. Not ideal, no, considering learning was one of the few things he actually did enjoy. That’s when he realized, if only he had someone to protect him. Like a bodyguard. But who would be willing to help a small omega? He didn’t have any real friends that were Alpha’s or at least bigger Omega’s. Though he did know one Alpha…

Nah, Bakugou would never willingly help him. Despite growing up around each other, once he was deemed quirkless, the boy shunned him completely. They were complete opposites in personality; him being shy and Bakugou a bastion of anger.

No one dared to mess with Bakugou Katsuki, least get an explosion to the face.

But desperate times, called for desperate measures and Midoriya was tired of the split lips, black eyes, or torn clothing. He didn’t want to be shoved and messed with anymore and the one Alpha, despite their rocky relationship, who didn’t pick on him physically, was Bakugou. So, one day after school and a particularly egregious fight, Midoriya waited at the foot of the staircase of their apartment building. He lived on one floor and the blonde Alpha lived on another. As he waited, thoughts of what he should say worked their way through this analytical mind.

The man wasn’t going to do this willingly, that was a given. Bakugou’s main focus in life has always been power. To get to the top someday as a hero like their idol All Might. Maybe that’s a potential answer, play to the man’s desire to protect. Frankly, Midoriya wasn’t sure if it would work, but he had an alternative. He’ll pay the man to be his bodyguard. Not that he could afford much, but if it took getting a part time job or something, it beat getting assaulted.

He stands up from the step the moment he smells the Alpha coming. ‘Breathe, Izuku, stay calm…’

“Outta my way nerd!”

Midoriya swallows hard, fidgeting with his fingers nervously. “K-Kacchan, I need to talk to you— ask you a-about something.”

“The answer’s no.” The man starts to push past the smaller male. But Midoriya grabs his arm to stop him. He whips around, grabbing the hand on his arm and throwing it off. “Do you have a death wish?!”

“Please, Kacchan!” Midoriya grovels with tears streaming down his cheeks. “I can’t take all the bullying anymore.”

Bakugou narrows his eyes. “Nothing I can help you with nerd, now get out of my way before I do hurt you.”

Midoriya drops to his knees with his head hung down. “Kacchan…” He looks up now with sullen eyes, sad and forlorn. “I-I—will you please protect me?!”

“Argh!!!” Bakugou growls. This stupid Omegas scent was filled with such desperation it was rattling his senses! “Deku what the fuck makes you think I’d help you?!”

His shoulders slump further. “I know you have no incentive to help me. I’m just a worthless quirkless Omega. But I’m desperate Kacchan. I have no one else to turn to and I’m willing to pay with whatever I can afford.”

“I don’t want your money idiot.”

“Please! I’ll do anything!”

Fuck!! No matter how much the little freckle-faced mouse irritated him, he could never lash out except with words. Bakugou knew exactly why the man was so desperate, saw him picked on by the other sexes. The fresh cut above the man’s eye and torn shirt was evidence enough, but laying a hand on Midoriya, he just couldn’t do it. Plus, he believed his mother would kill him.

“Ugh!” He groans and snaps. “Fine! But you are gonna pay somehow. You’ll cover my lunches at school for starters and… I don’t fucking know, but I’ll think of something. So, what the fuck am I supposed to do?”

“Oh, thank you Kacchan!” In his elation, Midoriya jumps onto and hugs the larger male, snuggling his face into the man’s neck.

A flush of heat colors Bakugou’s cheeks. “Oi! Oi!” He peels the man off. “Get the fuck off me nerd!” Too close! Too close! Whether he wanted to admit it or not, Midoriya’s earthy scent pleased his inner Alpha and in his happiness that scent exploded.

“S-Sorry, Sorry!” He bows and takes a step back. “Thank you, you saved my life Kacchan.”

“I still don’t know what the fuck you want.” He crosses his arms. “I ain’t just gonna beat people up for you unless I really need to.”

Midoriya’s eyes widen and he waves his hands, “no, I wouldn’t ask you to! I hope that just being around you, or,” his face heats up, “like your presence and scent on me will deter them. And eventually they’ll just stay away out of fear.”

Unlike a lot of the Alphas their age, Bakugou had no desire to engage in primally driven acts. In fact, those types pissed him off too. Just mindless idiots as far as he was concerned. He wasn’t about to let stupid mating instincts distract him from his goals. “So basically, a fake relationship?” His lack of giving a damn about such trivial matters made it easy for him not to care. “As long as I don’t gotta be affectionate and shit.”

“R-Right!” Just the thought of intimacy made Midoriya bloom red. “Yes, nothing like that. Just the illusion of being your property.”

“Ha! I kinda like the sound of that!” Bakugou finally smiles, though more like an evil smirk. “You’ll be my bitch from now on!”

And so that’s how it was for the next few years. Each morning before school, the Omega would swipe a bit of sweat off the Alpha and rubbed it on himself. With the man’s scent on him, all the other Alphas and bullies stayed clear. They never eluded to any relationship, barely even hung out together, but everyone was too afraid to question it. Midoriya quietly went through the school days and for the first time in a very long time, he could finally relax. Even though his life was still lonely.

Once they finished middle school, Bakugou moved on to the prestigious UA Academy for pro heroes in training, while Deku managed to get into their Support program. Turns out his passion for learning and analytics was a skill he could trade on. Since they’d be at the same school, they could keep up the same rouse. Not that Bakugou seemed to care. Though the trade off for his part of the deal had perks with the Omega still footing any request he made.

Things continued unabated for the first two years of high school and Bakugou didn’t pay attention to the subtle changes taking place. Midoriya still dutifully came for his scent every morning before class. The Omega continued to pay for his services. But he failed to notice a change in the Omega’s scent. Where once the smaller male reeked of sadness, now there were hints of elation. The man smiled brighter and even had a bounce to his step. Midoriya was blossoming in the Support program. He had friends to call his own and Bakugou couldn’t be more thrilled the guy wasn’t trying to hang around him anymore.

It wasn’t until the third year was halfway through when the changes became glaringly noticeable. Midoriya continued to pay, but gathering his scent had grown from sporadic to nonexistent. Perhaps he wasn’t in need of Bakugou’s help anymore? No one was bullying him, on the contrary, the Omega was a top student in his program who’d gained the respect of his peers.

Bakugou corners the man outside one day between the dorm buildings. “Oi, Deku, what’s the deal? You don’t need me anymore?” He refused to admit it bothered him to not be needed.

“What do you mean?”

“You keep paying me, but never come for my scent.”

“Oh… well, you see, now that I’ve found my place here, it’s, um, hurting my reputation that I smell like an Alpha. I still pay because I do appreciate everything you did for me Kaachan.”

“What the fuck? You getting all horny now, looking for action but nobody giving you that kind of attention?”

“What?! N-No!” He waves his hands desperate to wipe the statement away. “That’s not it, I’m not looking for that! I’m even on Heat blockers. It’s just, the Alpha’s they treat me differently. They’ll talk to me like they respect me but always at an arms distance and it’s frustrating. Even after a few months without your scent on me, they still keep a distance.”

It was driving Midoriya crazy! So, he started to question, what will happen when he does want to be courted by an Alpha?! What helped in his youth now backfired and the plans were blowing up in his face. The reputation of Bakugou having staked his claim years ago on the Omega would make finding a partner almost impossible unless he could find a way to distance himself. Who in their right mind would dare touch the Lord of Explosions chosen mate?!

“I hope once we graduate and go our separate ways, people will finally realize we’re not together.” Midoriya was sure that once the blonde settled into pro hero life, he’d start dating as well, and that’ll take the heat of his back.

“Tch, well I’m not a charity case, so stop paying me if you ain’t getting a benefit out of it. Guess that’s it.” Bakugou’s turns his back to the man and starts walking away. He tips two fingers, “see ya around nerd!”

Huh? Well that went easier than he’d expected it to. All this time avoiding the conversation only for Bakugou to have no real reaction. Guess this really was just a business transaction for the Alpha. Midoriya shrugs, so be it, and continues on his way.

Unfortunately, things weren’t all that it appeared to be for the Alpha. After walking away from the Omega, a dull pain centered in his chest making it a little hard to breathe. But not wanting to show weakness, Bakugou ignored it and continued to strut back to his dorm room. Perhaps he’d overexerted himself again in the gym.

It’s a pain that started a couple of months ago that came and went, that he equated as simply working too hard. His muscles are still adjusting to the heavy schoolwork on top of the skirmishes the students got pulled into. That had to be the answer, for what else could it be? But after a week of the pain not letting up, Bakugou finally relented and consulted the nurse.

“Well,” the nurse, Recovery Girl sits back on her stool. “Don’t know what to tell ya, cause they ain’t nothin physically wrong with you that I can find. But if you think it’s muscle related, ease up on your workouts and take magnesium supplements.”

“The fuck you sayin old hag?! I can’t stop exercising. My quirk demands a topnotch body!”

She shrugs her shoulders, used to the hotheaded Alpha by now. “Then just learn to live with the pain. It’s not uncommon from pro heroes to suffer from pain, especially those with strong quirks like you have. You’re kinda young, but with how hard you push yourself, it’s inevitable.”

“Argh!” Bakugou storms out of the room. Fucking useless old bat! Two months away from graduation and being told he’s already developing, what, an old person’s problem?! “Fucking hell!” This is bullshit!

He flies it out of the room so quickly, that when he rounds a corner in the hallway, runs smack into a body. “Get the fuck outta my way!!”

“Kacchan?! Oh my god, sorry I didn’t see you coming!”

The world stops cold. “Deku…” suddenly the pain in his chest lessens as the calming scent of the concerned Omega wraps around his body. Bakugou’s eyes flash wide. “Oh, fuck no!” Quick like a bolt of lightning, the Alpha races away leaving the shocked and confused Omega standing there alone calling after him. Bakugou grits his teeth as he beelines it back to his dorm room. ‘It’s just a coincidence!’

“What was that all about?” Midoriya mumbles under his breath. It was the first time he’s seen the Alpha look, scared? No way, the Omega dismisses the notion. Bakugou wasn’t afraid of anything. He must have just been surprised to see him.

He continues on to the lab where he’s close to finishing a new project. The Alpha, Shouto Todoroki, requested a better cooling material for his suit. The pro needed something that insulated the cold from his quirk for a longer lasting effect. That way Hellfire would also be more sustainable.

It was a major nod to the Omega considering the man was up and up against Bakugou in terms of power. Currently, they were the top two pro students and Alpha’s of UA. Plus, Todoroki was not only cute but the complete opposite of Bakugou in personality. He was always kind to the Omega. Not that anything was going on between them! But the minor attention was exactly what triggered him to back away from his old friend.

From that moment in the hallway on, every time Midoriya came into contact with Bakugou, the Alpha turned heel and avoided any interactions. He couldn’t lie that it didn’t hurt just a little. They’d never been the closest friends, but it was as if the blonde was angry with him and that bothered him because he couldn’t understand why? But he also wasn’t gutsy enough to question the man either. Did turning down his scent hurt Bakugou’s pride or ego? Frankly, that would not be surprising.

The day of their graduation was a whirlwind of activity. The stadium packed just like the Sport event; even a similar turn out. Family and friends were there to celebrate, pro’s and companies were there to recruit. First the Support class, then the General studies, and lastly the Heroes courses all went up and received their diplomas. After the ceremony, the students were sent to designated spots to meet with their families and friends first. From there they could venture around to see other people.

“Thanks mom,” Midoriya hugs the crying woman for the umpteenth time that afternoon.

“I’m just so proud of you son!”

A tap on his shoulder cuts into the tender moment. “Forgive me for intruding Mrs. Midoriya. My father would like to meet your son.”

The pair’s eyes widen as the Number One hero stood in front of them. He was such an imposing figure!

“N-Nice to meet you Mr. Endeavor!” Midoriya bows.

“My son tells me you were able to create a better suit for him.”

Midoriya looks to his friend then back to the man. “Yes, sir I did.”

“Good. Perhaps you’ll be very useful in the future.” Endeavor nods his head and simply walks away without another word.

“D-Did he just?!”

“My father would like me to bring you by the agency next week for an interview.”

“Oh, wow really?!”

“Yes,” Todoroki chuckles.

“I’ll leave you two to discuss things,” Mrs. Midoriya cuts in. “It was nice to meet you Todoroki.”

After the goodbyes, the two men continue discussing the interview. Things like what he should bring, how he should dress, and what time to arrive. Midoriya had assumed Endeavor contracted out support work, but it turns out they have in-house staff.

“There is one last thing I would like to discuss.” The Alpha takes hold of the Omegas hand. “You see I’ve grown quite fond of you,” he leans down, sniffing at the scent gland of the smaller males neck. “Your scent…” his voice grows soft like a purr, “I wish to court you properly Midoriya Izuku.”

“W-What?”

“WHAT!?!!”

The feral growl behind him causes Midoriya to flinch. Before he can register just what the hell was going on, he was pushed back and a second Alpha stood between him and Todoroki.

“K-Kacchan?!” He grabs the man’s arm. “Kacchan what are you doing?!”

But the larger male simply grabs hold of him and pushes him back again, all while staring down the other Alpha.

“This mouse is taken,” Bakugou growls low and narrows his eyes, challenging Todoroki.

Todoroki glares back unflinching. “You don’t care about him, only took his money for protection. That doesn’t make him yours Katsuki.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!”

“You don’t,” the man grins. “Three years I watched from a distance. How he’d sneak into the dorms in the morning, pay for your lunch in the cafeteria, and for what? We could smell you on him yet not once did you two ever hang out with each other.”

“S-So what! That doesn’t mean I don’t care about him! I took the protector role to fucking protect him!”

Todoroki scoffs, “I bided my time and once the daily visits ended, I started making my move. Not once did you ever stop us because you ran away from him! Stupid fool, how dare you decide to claim him now!”

Bakugou lowers his head just slightly, fists clench, and tiny explosions going off in his palms. “Fucking icyhot bastard. You don’t know what I’m feeling. Think I don’t know I fucked up when I shoulda faced the music sooner.” He stares straight up. “But I do know now, Deku’s mine! Hear me?! Mine!! And I am not fucking giving up my mate to you or any other bastard!”

The blonde pulls Midoriya forward, hands gripped to his arms. “Tell him Deku! Tell him you’re mine!”

“But am I? You’ve never shown any interest in me before Kacchan. Todoroki has helped me so much and now because of him, I’ll be interviewing for Endeavors support staff. Yes, your scent protected me from bullies, but I thought it was always just a business transaction.”

“N-no!” Bakugou staggers back clutching to his chest as the pain swiftly doubles. This can’t be happening! “You can’t pick him over me Deku!” The sting of rejection was worse than a villain breaking every bone in his body. He cries out and drops to the ground in a fetal position as the pain rips through his chest and knocks the wind out of him. “Fuck it hurts!” It was too excruciating, so much so, his body was slipping out of consciousness in response.

“Kacchan?!” Midoriya falls to his knees too and grabs the man, shaking him. “Kacchan, what’s wrong with you?!” He felt helpless as the man’s eyes rolled back in his head.

“Wow Katsuki… you really do love Midoriya.”

The Omega looks up at Todoroki. “How do you know that?!”

Todoroki points at Bakugou. “If an Alpha covets an Omega but is rebuffed, they are stricken with illness. It only happens when we truly love someone.”

“S-So if I turn you down, you’ll get sick too?!” Why is this whole love stuff so cruel?! This was not what he’d expected to happen! Tears gather in his eyes. “That wasn’t part of the plan. I-I just wanted to know what he really thought about me.”

“Fret not,” Todoroki smiles at him. “You’re cute, but I’m not in love with you. But now that you have your answer, my role is done. I’ll see you at the interview next week,” he winks and walks away to find his girlfriend.

“O-Okay, thank you Todoroki!” Midoriya turns back to the comatose man by his side and continues shaking him. “Kacchan! Please wake up! I’m here! I’m not going anywhere! Just wake up!”

A small crowd gathered around them, but he didn’t care, too concerned with Bakugou’s condition. Had he known an Alpha could suffer like this, he never would have attempted this little rouse. Todoroki was the one who suggested it, but neither of them could have known the blonde had fallen so deeply in love.

With the help of Bakugou’s teacher, Shota Aizawa and another staff member who came on the scene, they take the unconscious Alpha to the infirmary. They place him on one of the beds where Recover Girl checks him over. The man was out cold, but his vitals were steady.

Midoriya takes a seat by the bedside, clutching to his friends hand. It’s been an hour since they’d arrived and according to the nurse, it was now a waiting game. “Please,” the Omega squeezes the Alpha’s hand, “come back to me Kacchan…” He closes his eyes to rest them, laying his head against the man’s arm. He was so emotionally exhausted from the ordeal of the day, but he’s not moving until the man wakes up. Six years and never once he allowed himself to hope, until now.

“Mmmm,” Midoriya stirs at the feeling of fingers treading softly through his hair. “That feels so nice,” he purrs to the familiar scent of burnt sugar he’d come to know so well. It wrapped around, calming, calling the Omega out of his dream.  

Wait! Burnt sugar?! He pops up immediately, “Kacchan?!” Scrambling onto the bed and swaddling the Alpha. “I was so worried,” Midoriya buries his face in the man’s neck. “Why didn’t you just tell me?!” He sniffles.

Bakugou wraps his arms around the man, leaning his head against his and relishing in the contented tones exuding from the Omega’s scent. “I’m up now, so stop crying Deku.” He sighs, “and I didn’t tell you cause I’m an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot.”

“Yes,” he lifts Midoriya’s face, fixing his eyes in a stare, “I am. All because I didn’t want to admit I was weak for you.”

“So, you really mean it? That you want me to be your mate even though I’m quirkless?”

“Did I fucking stutter? But guess what Deku?”

“What?”

The Alpha kisses him roughly, nipping his lip before pulling away, “I’m claiming my final payment.”

“Oh!” Midoriya giggles, “what’s the payment?”

“You.”

~~~XX~~~

Just because they finally figured things out, didn’t mean either of them wanted to rush into a relationship. It was simply satisfying to know they wanted to be with each other. And for that reason, Midoriya continued to use heat blockers as a birth control, just like he’d done for the last several years.

The Omega respected the fact Bakugou focused on having a good career in the pro hero world. His ambitions to reach the top given a whole new incentive in order to provide for a family one day. But the Alpha was proud of his betrothed’s advances as well. After high school, the up and coming Support technician proved his worth for the Endeavor agency while he himself worked as a side kick to the head man himself.

Bakugou dreamed of one day owning his own agency, but until then, he pushed himself hard under the constant tutelage of the number one hero. They were both paid well at their jobs, and continued to maintain separate homes… for now. The blondes excuse being he would court Midoriya properly this time around.

Except when it came to sex. That part of their relationship was consummated two nights after graduation. In a protected knotting, they marked each other and staked their claims for all to see. Bakugou  had been pleasantly surprised to find the shy, docile man was quite rambunctious in bed. But contrary to popular belief, it was closer to a vanilla encounter.

Both of them had been too excited and also nervous being a first time for either of them. Having been Midoriya’s protector for so long, the Alpha was almost terrified of hurting the smaller Omega and it took gentle coaxing to allay those fears. But in the end they’d been left satisfied and fully affirmed in their decision to spend the rest of their lives together.

Once the workload kicked in, any free time they had were spent together at one or the others apartment. Bakugou would take Midoriya out on dates, to dinners, movies, or anywhere the man fancied though it was rarely a lavish affair. The Omega preferred the quieter moments such as lounging on the couch and cuddling during a movie.

This went on for two years as the Alpha slowly built up a savings. He knew it would be several years before he could buy a bigger house, but soon enough he was ready to afford a 2 bedroom apartment in a nice area of town. So, he made up an excuse to stay with Midoriya while he moved into the new place, furnished, and prepared it to accept a mate.

“Perfect!” The blonde stands with his hands on his hips admiring his handiwork. Everything his Omega will need was purchased and set up in what will be their new nest. He’d spared no expense on a top of the line, plush, memory foam bedding. Extra blankets, pillows, you name it, Bakugou bought it. And last but not least, he scented all the fabrics with his musk. All that remained was surprising Midoriya.

He timed the reveal for the last week of the month, explaining his apartment was ready again and he wanted Midoriya to see the changes.

“Where are we going? This isn’t the direction of your place.”

“It’s the direction to my new place.”

“Kacchan, you moved apartments without telling me?”

He kisses the back of the Omegas hand, “well a surprise isn’t a surprise if I told you about it.”

When the elevator opens, Bakugou leads him to one of the apartments. He opens the door and gestures for the man to enter. “Welcome to your new home Izuku.”

“Huh? My, but I have an apartment…” the Omega gasps when he turns and finds his Alpha on one knee. “K-Kacchan,” his hands fly up in shock and face lights up.

“It’s time to officially cash in my payment chip,” the blonde grins, holding up a ring. “Izuku Midoriya, will you be my life mate?”

Moisture instantly builds in the Omegas eyes, “yes! Yes!” His hands shaky as the Alpha slips the ring onto his finger.

Bakugou gets to his feet and kisses the man slow and steady. He takes Midoriya’s hand. “There’s one thing I really wanna show you, then we’ll go pack up your apartment.”

“Oh my goodness!” The omega squeals at the site of his beautiful new nest and throws himself onto his Alpha, hugging and kissing the man. “Kacchan, you spoil me!”

“You deserve to be spoiled,” he smiles back. “Test it out.”

Midoriya dives onto the bed and bundles the blankets to his nose. It smelled like Bakugou! He closes his eyes with a moan, taking it all in and burying his face into the fabric. The Alpha laughs at how childlike his mate was behaving, but that was Midoriya for you. Just a ray of sunshine who wore his emotions on his sleeve.

While the Omega relishes in his new surroundings, Bakugou just stands back in admiration. To the outside world the pro Alpha hero was a temperamental hothead who took shit from no one. But those in the know, knew Midoriya had him wrapped around his finger.

The Omega never took advantage or made it feel like an obligation. Bakugou just came to realize he could be himself with the man. No keeping secrets or holding back. Their long history delving back almost two decades meant Midoriya knew him well and he Midoriya. This little mouse could calm him down without his Omega pheromones. But boy does those scents drive him wild too!

Just picturing his freckle faced cherub cuddled in his arms with a child between them sent a delectable shiver racing straight to his groin. Bakugou chuckles in his head, probably why the man was smart enough to stay on the birth control, because he knew without it they’d have already started a family before they were ready.

“Join me— Kacchan!” Hands reach out, beckoning him to the bed.

The Alpha grins and plops down close, pulling the Omega to him. He kisses Midoriya’s forehead. “I take it you’re happy?”

“Of course!” The man nestles deeper into his Alphas arms, resting his head against his chest. “But I’d be happy anywhere as long as I have you with me.”

Bakugou relishes in the euphoric scent his mate was giving off. It made his inner Alpha preen with pride. “Never in my life have I wanted a family more than I do in this moment. And I don’t care if they have quirks, are quirkless, as long as they’re healthy, and they’re ours.”

“Mmm, our own family…” child Midoriya’s dreams could never have predicted the life he ended up with. “Sometimes I pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.”

“Did I ever tell you thank you for pulling that stunt at graduation?”

Midoriya sits up, hesitant, his scent immediately registering anxiety. “No.” Why is he bringing that up now?

But Bakugou counters with calming Alpha pheromones as he pulls his mate back into his arms. “I still can’t stand the smug bastard, but I’m glad icyhot helped you help me get outta my own head or I wouldn’t have this life.”

“You had me so panicked Kacchan! I thought I’d killed you or something.”

“Pfft, I’m tougher then that.” He kisses Midoriya’s forehead, sweeping his thumb lovingly over and caressing the Omega’s cheek with a grin, “but I think in the end I really got the better part of the deal.”

[fireblogger]

Tips to Reduce Spending

I’ve never had a problem with my monthly budget, mainly because it doesn’t exist. I naturally spend less than I make, therefore there’s always some money for the bills and rarely some time spent managing my money. It’s not a good situation to be in, it’s not the worse by any means, but if you want to build your savings and retire earlier you need to be deliberate with your spending and savings choices.

This is traditionally done with a budget. Now I’m not going to lie, I’m terrible at budgets. I can create them no problem, but remembering to actually follow them? Good luck.

1.     The first step to create a budget is to document your expenses. If you don’t know how much you tend to spend then it will be very difficult to create an effective budget. If most of your transactions are on debit and credit cards, then you can go back through previous months to track your spending. Or you can start tracking today so you have a better idea in the future.

2.     Once you have a good idea of how much money you tend to spend on various categories you can start building the budget itself. (Don’t forget about annual or semi-annual expenses like car insurance). Make sure you are aware of the differences between needs and wants when you are budgeting.

3.     Once you have a budget you aren’t done, you should continue to track your expenses and adjust the budget as needed.

So, now you have a budget. How does that translate to actually spending less money?  Here are some behavioral tips to help spend less money:

·       Now that you know about how much you spend on things start paying for them in cash. When you go to a grocery store with a $100 bill (or a $100 gift card) you are forced to spend less than that $100. You can’t go over, but if you had a debit card a $112 bill would approve even though it was $12 over your budget.

·       Change your daily habits to avoid temptation. Does your route to or from home pass by a fast-food restaurant that you just love? Did you just notice that you actually spend $50 a month there on coffee and French fries? Try taking a side street so you never see the sign. Do you habitually order delivery through your handy-dandy phone? Try deleting the apps, not seeing them on the phone can reduce temptation and the extra step of needing to redownload every time can slow you down when you’re thinking about ordering. Even if you don’t want to delete the app you can hide in somewhere in the back folders of your phone so you don’t see the icon and thing huh, think imma get myself some pizza.

·       If there’s a consistent ‘treat’ you like to get, think about low-cost alternatives. For example, I love pizza. Like, it’s not healthy, neither is my solution but we’re talking about money not fitness. I will often keep some tortilla shells, a cheese blend, and a bag of pepperonis on site. Then if I’m craving pizza, I can make myself a 400 calories pizza roll that costs less than 50 cents instead of spending the minimum of $10 (to deliver) which usually ends up being a $12 order which also has a delivery charge, tax, and tip and becomes something closer to $20 for a single craving?

·       Consider how your spending habits change when you’re emotional, are you more likely to buy yourself a treat and how much does that treat cost a month? Make the decision before-hand to redirect emotional buying to other positive behaviors instead. Things like working out, calling a friend, drawing a doodle of whoever pissed you off then burning it in the sink, or meditating. Whatever you do, don’t open up Amazon.

·       Ask yourself if you need something or want something before you buy it. Do you need those new shoes? Or do you want them? Taking the time to add one more mental step before actually spending the money can help reduce impulse purchases. My No Spend Year | Michelle McGagh | TEDxManchester is a great TED Talk on this topic.

·       Forget trends. Don’t even bother trying to keep up with all the newest fads. And if a fad looks really cool? Take a step back and ask yourself if you really think that this new item is actually useful and will add joy to your life, or if you just think it is because of herd mentality.

·       Don’t go into debt to buy things. This mainly applies to credit-card debt and doesn’t really apply to houses (especially if you plan on getting a duplex and renting out of it). If there’s something that’s really cool, it will still be really cool when you have the money saved up to buy it in cash. It might even be really cool and cheaper if a new model comes out in the meantime.

Pay down your debts. This is less advice to reduce immediate spending and more advice to avoid future spending on interest payments. There are two main schools of thought when it comes to paying down debt:

1.     Start with the high interest debt. This makes the most logical sense as high-interest debt will end up costing you more in the long run.

2.     Start with the lowest balance, regardless of debt: This makes the most emotional sense. People are human, and they like to see progress on their goals. The feeling of success when you pay off a debt completely can help spur you on to tackle the next debt.

Starting with the high interest debt is my preference. I want to save every penny possible, and that’s the way to do it. But if you know that you may have difficulty sticking to a plan, or if you want the satisfaction of paying off your debt then the second option is a fine one to take.

Changing your behavior and paying down debt are some of the harder steps to take when trying to spend less money overall. Here are some simpler, practical, pieces of advice:

·       Buy in bulk. When you go grocery shopping do some meal planning first and buy in bulk. If you have a larger family then stores like Costco or Sam’s Club can be very useful to get some discounted prices. However, if you’re like me and live in a very small household then buying some items in bulk at a local cheap grocery store can be just as effective without cluttering up limited storage space.

·       Explore secondhand shops for new appliances, clothes, furniture, etc. Online marketplaces like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace can be great places to get good deals. There’s no need to spend $50 on a waffle iron when the Youth Ranch down the street or Bob around the corner is selling one for $5.

·       Price-shop. Amazon won’t always have the cheapest prices, and while convenience is nice they aren’t the only home delivery store. Shop around to see where you can get the best price for your purchases.

·       Don’t buy as much stuff, borrow it if you can. If anyone knows me then know how much I love books. I used to have multiple bookcase that I would move about once a year when I switched apartments. Over time I forced myself to give away or sell most of them, and now check the local library for my next read. And by now I mean pre-COVID-19. But post Covid I’m sure I’ll be back at it!

·       Look for long lasting, high-quality versions of products. A nice pair of shoes can last you five years or more in my experience. If you can, save up for the longer lasting versions so you don’t have to replace them as often.

·       Reduce any monthly bills that you can. If you consistently have rollover data that may mean that you should pay less for less data. If you’re going to the gym just to use the treadmill, consider walking around the block a few times instead. Decide if you really need all those streaming services that you pay for.

·       Adjust the thermostat, especially if your home isn’t especially energy efficient. Keep the apartment a little colder in the winter and a little warmer in the summer for power savings.

Finally, this is all well and good. But how do you actually follow through? The best person to answer this is yourself, but here are a few options:

1.     Get an accountability partner. You can go through each other’s finances to make sure you are hitting your goals. Having an extra set of eyes can be incredibly useful to not only spot places where expenses can be curbed, but to make sure that what’s on paper matches what you wanted there to be.

2.     Pay for everything in cash. This is reminiscent of Dave Ramsey’s cash budget. But if you have an envelope of cash labeled food, and that’s all the fast food and grocery money you have for the month it will be difficult to go over the limit. There’s also something more visceral in giving up cash as opposed to sliding a card that may make you think twice about going through with your purchase.

3.     Feel broke to be rich. Try opening a second bank account for your paycheck and bills, then set up a recurring transfer to your main checking account. If you never see the bulk of your money, and if your bank balance looks low every time you open the app to check it may be easier to avoid spending money. This isn’t a mindset that everyone wants to be in, but I’ve found that constantly feeling broke means I am far less likely to spend money on frivolities.

If you have more ideas on how to save money on a daily basis leave a comment below!

[cosplayinamerica]

ARTIST ALLEY : BurntGreenTea

Here at Cosplay in America, I am expanding who I interview to those in the convention scene. Today we will talk to BurntGreenTea who I met in artist alley at Ikkicon, an anime convention in Austin, TX. BurntGreenTea is from Northern California and as stated on his Deviant Art “Hey, my name is Nelson! I like to draw waifus”

EJEN : My first question is why BurntGreenTea? 

BURNTGREENTEA: That’s actually my second handle I came up with, I had an embarrassing name before so I wanted to change into something more ironic and more “me�� in a name. so I’ve been going as BurntGreenTea ever since. I do drink matcha alot!

EJEN: Tell us how you got started in artist alley, what was your first one and what was that experience like?

BURNTGREENTEA: I started getting interested in doing artist alley at my first Fanime Con back in 2007 as a one day attendee when I was still in high school.

I went with my best friend at the time and it blew my expectations of what a convention was, especially the artist alley since it completely opened my mind that there’s artists actually selling fan art. But I didn’t commit to it until 2012, just when I was in my 2nd year of college.

By that time, I had enough digital art and felt confident that I could do it. Fanime still had the application process of first come first serve (meaning those who apply the earliest will get a spot), so I was fortunate enough to apply fast enough to get a table!

For a first time experience it was nerve-wracking before, during and after the con. But there was something to it that really sparked my interest; and I think there were people that legitimately liked my work and bought them.

EJEN: Was there a point that you went “yeah, this could work” and you made the jump to traveling out of state for artist alley?

BURNTGREENTEA: It was about one and half years after I graduated from college, between that time I worked in a job that was soul sucking but I had many of my colleagues working at, and then after I was applying to animation studios, gaming companies, etc while I was doing commissions and artist alleys at the same time.

It went on like this for almost a year. By this point I felt like I really hit my lowest and felt a great shame that I couldn’t find “stable” work. My parents didn’t really support me doing artist alley during this time since it’s not legit work and it’s more like a fun hobby I can do on the side, all the while I have colleagues and friends who have jobs in the animation or gaming industries. I felt extremely lost, and wasn’t sure the direction I wanted to go in life, so my parents encouraged me to go back to school to get a “safe” degree or trade.

But there was something I knew in the back of my mind that I couldn’t see until I had a meet up with an old friend. She was confident, happy, found her dream job that paid well and she enjoyed the work, and she was completely honest and blunt. When the topic came up of me being lost in life, she asked me, “what did you want to do then?” and I told her honestly, “I really just want to do artist alley and make that work.” “Then just do it.” So I did.

EJEN: After all the time you spent in artist alley, what’s the most important factor that an artist must understand to do decently in sales

BURNTGREENTEA: Research research research. It’s basically “knowledge is power” but breaking down as knowing your audience, yourself (what you enjoy, your strengths and capabilities) and learning new trades while breaking old habits.

EJEN: Can you go more in detail about research, research, research?

BURNTGREENTEA: So this reflects back on my previous answer, so know the convention you’re going into, what you can offer, what’s your budget, everything that would make your experience at the convention you’re getting into a great experience.

I have heard many stories of artists not breaking even and even I had bad experiences due to inaccurate/outdated information or inexperience. For example, there was a first year event that had a $1000 table price tag and promised to bring in 5000 attendees.

This was going to be my second event/convention to table at, so I had no idea what it was going to be like and decided to go for it. It ended up having less than 100 attendees, and I lost a significant amount of money. So now I have to get as much info as I can get to make the convention viable to go to.

EJEN: How do you describe your style and how has it changed if any over the 14 years you’ve done art? What were some of your earlier influences.

BURNTGREENTEA: Right now I can say it’s pretty much anime style, but I can say there were several phases I went through. Looking through my Deviantart gives a great timeline all the way back to middle school until recently.

When I initially started I was getting into anime thanks to friends, so I was very much influenced by Naruto, Full Metal Alchemist, and Gurren Lagann. Then in high school I started to do more digital art, eventually creating artwork bigger and grander just like the artists from Fanime I admired.

When I finally started my education in my art program in college, I started getting the proper training in lighting, form, and composition. This time period my pieces were more western-influenced, like more realistic faces and body proportions, but there was something missing in it that I wouldn’t understand until after I graduated. It’s around the same time when I wanted to do artist alleys full time that I was more true to myself in the style and got more flashy, more colorful and composition.

EJEN : How do you decide what Alley to apply for. What’s your personal criteria for conventions to do artist alley at? 

BURNTGREENTEA: Local cons are usually easy for me to decide to apply for due to the cost being low(transportation, housing, etc). If there’s anything that involves flying out of state, I have to factor in much more information about the con, personal experiences from other artists, and if it is viable for an anime fan artist to break even and also turn a profit. Usually big conventions like Anime Expo and Otakon are the must go to conventions for their huge attendance numbers.

EJEN: Describe to me a typical day in the Alley!

BURNTGREENTEA: Due to the times right now, it seems like almost a dream to be in an artist alley, haha. Here’s a usual day of being in the Alley: Waking up early to get ready, getting breakfast and caffeine before heading inside a convention.

Usually getting there early, either me or some art friends would walk around the Alley and check out other artists before it’s open to the public. There would be some art friends I made along the way that I can catch up with briefly, chatting about the next shows or projects. I would have probably stayed up kinda late working on physical commissions and would need to go back to my table to continue finishing them up.

When the Alley opens up, it’s mostly engaging and talking with familiar customers or friends, while also working on commissions during the down times. Friends would go on food or snack runs, and I would get an hour to go shopping during the day somewhere as a break.

By the time it ends, it would have felt like it had gone in a flash. But with heavy eyes but our hearts full with a day accomplished. If we had the strength, we would check out an event or explore the convention hall abit more to absorb the atmosphere. Getting dinner with friends after a job well done, while we have another day to look forward to spending time with fans alike.

It’s really nostalgic to reflect on a typical day to be in the Alley, and having to have that all stop for almost a year now.

EJEN: Since the pandemic, how are you coping with this change both personally and business-wise?

BURNTGREENTEA: I was honestly hoping conventions would come back around at the end of May, but that never happened so I had to approach things differently. Luckily I had a freelance gig that I was working part time, so I had a semi-regular income on the side while I applied for virtual conventions and commissions.

It was tough since I wanted 2020 to be the year I would do the most conventions ever but that plan derailed. I also focused on my online shop and my social media presence, which so far is paying off!

Like everyone this year took a mental and physical toll, but I also ended up working on more projects and digital work to help keep me distracted.

EJEN: What are your plans for the future, what are you working on?

BURNTGREENTEA: My goal is still to go back to doing conventions, but at the moment I’m going to give that a pause. Currently I have a contract job that’s ending soon, and I have something that’s NDA that might come up, crossing my fingers! That’s the near future, but for the time being I want to refocus on learning new things and refining my art since I’ve gotten rusty.

EJEN: Finally who is your waifu?

BURNTGREENTEA: My waifu is Lucina from Fire Emblem!

Visit BurntGreenTea’s Etsy!

[a-second-chance-su-au]

How did you decide which episodes would be impacted and had scenes that were significant enough to include? I’m working on a canon divergent fanfic for another series that’s pretty much just the story with one more character. I want to know how necessary these things would be.

That is an excellent question!

I am on mobile and don’t have a page splitter at the moment, so WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD.

When rewriting canon, I like to stick to 5 hard-and-fast rules, being: 1) know your character’s arc before going in, 2) know the episode’s overall message, 3) don’t take away from other characters, 4) adding original content must be done as-needed, and 5) DON’T BE AFRAID TO CHANGE THE WHOLE STORY. This can either be exceedingly easy or extremely hard.

1) Know your character’s arc before going in. This one seems obvious, but it can be very easy to get distracted. What would happen if this character was present for this scene? What if she/he/they followed this character around? Stuff like that. The whole thing on this particular blog with Spinel being present for the climax of Maximum Capacity is certainly tempting, and fun to think about, but does it do anything for Spinel’s arc in this AU? In my case, no. So she will not be present. You want to make sure you have some kind of roadmap either on paper or in your head of when and where things should happen, keeping in mind that character’s relationships, mental space, and goals. If Spinel wanted to fuse with Amethyst, she’d have to do it when the two have a good relationship, and something like that takes time to develop. She cannot fuse with Ames in the beginning of the series, absolutely not, but she will later on. Knowing facts like that on when things can and/or SHOULD happen is essential. So episodes like “Giant Woman,” “Horror Club,” “Crack the Whip,” or “Keystone Motel” will not be included in the list.

2) Know the episode’s overall message, and who is in the spotlight. You’d think that on a show like SU, that’d be easy, but often, it can be hard to pinpoint exactly who we should be focusing on. Fun fact: it usually isn’t Steven, which is why when Steven lets us into his head a little, it’s always such a huge, emotional bomb drop. I will keep using Maximum Capacity as an example. That episode was focused on Greg’s and Amethyst’s relationship with each other, their past friendship, and how each of them handles the stress of the past differently. Amethyst wants to loose herself in “Little Butler,” but Greg wants to do other things, too, causing them to come to a crossroads. It’s a coming-to-terms story for the both of them, and with this AU, I don’t want to disturb that. “Giant Woman” was about Amethyst and Pearl. “Joyride” was about Steven. “Keystone Motel” was about Ruby and Sapphire. “Steven the Sword-Fighter” is an example that can be shifted, because the purpose of that ep was to teach the viewer about poofing. It was less about Pearl and more about Gems in general, making it okay to try and change a few things around (so long as the poofing of... a gem still happens). Knowing when an episode is about a character, a relationship, or world building is really important, and helps to try and decide which to alter.

3) Do not take away from the other characters. Know their arcs, too, and why certain choices were important. Example being “Crack the Whip,” where Amethyst hits her lowest low and her quest to be stronger begins. That one, if you want to change it, you can, but if it were me, I would leave in Amethyst getting poofed and Jasper getting defeated without her, as it begins a huge moment for her character. By changing up that scene, she doesn’t have the chance to confide in Steven, they don’t fight, she doesn’t hit her lowest low (which all or most characters need to hit at some point), and then Smokey Quartz cannot exist. They exist because she trusted Steven and the two of them felt equal to each other, and trusting, and loving. THAT allowed them to fuse, and if “Crack the Whip” never happened or was altered too much, that all that goes out the window. So I am not going to have Spinel grab Amethyst and pull her out of the way or anything, or have her fuse to beat Jasper, because that undermines the whole point. However, I CAN say that Amethyst’s arc affects Spinel’s. Not saying this is canon, as this is just an example, but maybe Spinel becomes more attached to Amethyst after that, trying to protect her from being poofed again because she feels guilty for not being there to stop it. Then that affects Amethyst, makes her feel like Spinel is her bodyguard, which Amethyst doesn’t want and feels she doesn’t need. It’d serve to make her angrier, and could lead to she and Spinel getting into an argument or a fight. In this scenario, would I replace “Steven vs Amethyst” with “Spinel vs Amethyst”? No. But something similar COULD happen. It’s all about where you want to go, and what works best for these characters.

4) Adding original content must be done as needed, not whenever you feel like it. Does this mean do it sparingly? Depends on the story you want to tell. For me and my AU, that means I need to pay attention to Spinel’s arc and when she needs to learn/do things. Take “Man of the Mountain” for example. It takes place directly after “Bubble Buddies,” and is the result of Spinel being jealous of Connie eating up Steven’s time and friendship. So, she seeks to strengthen their bond as reassurance to herself that Connie is an inconvenience at worst, and at best, she’ll fade away eventually. She and Steven are still best friends, and she’s gonna prove it, darn it! Then the events of that episode may or may not affect what happens next, or later down the line. For this AU, Season 1 is mostly going to build things that are yet to come, and the episodes don’t directly feed into each other, meaning I am using original content sparingly. 5 originals compared to 52 actual episodes? I think I did good on that front. xD But, don’t be afraid to add an episode for an information dump, or to come to a conclusion. That can’t be the only thing IN the episode, of course, but if that’s the pure reason the episode exists, then fine. Do it. Whatever makes your story flow and make sense. But by making every other episode about Spinel, suddenly it’s only about her and not the other characters. Might as well rename the show at that point. The other characters get the spotlight they need/deserve, with Spinel getting her time to shine as well.

5) DON’T BE AFRAID TO CHANGE THE WHOLE STORY. This is one I’m struggling with, but I feel it worthy to mention anyway. If your character is psychic, then have them use their powers when it’s a good character choice and makes sense logically. If that throws off the entire tale, then roll with it. Get stuff back on track. Or maybe you need to take out that character for a bit. Formulate a way to do that. But if your character had a chance to shoot a blow dart at the main villain and take them out, perfect for capturing them and dismantling their army, wouldn’t they take it? If not, there had better be a good, in-character choice. Maybe the villain’s entire plan changes to account for the character’s psychic powers, creating a decoy or sending out a squad to trap/kill them specifically. If it’s in-character and it makes sense, heckin’ DO IT. Get creative! Get weird! Stories write themselves; you just need a beginning and a good grasp on the characters. Then the characters will take your story and run with it. Your job then becomes keeping up. I wish I was joking. I’ve had characters completely derail my stories before because they just couldn’t make that one character choice that was the lynchpin for the whole next scene, and it made me mad, and no I’m not mad about it two years later! You have the map, they steer the ship. You just gotta trust them.

This version of Spinel was left alone for 625 years, then cast away like a worthless toy. She’s been through war, lost almost all her friends, and had her #1 idol taken away and replaced with a smaller, weaker, half-human male version of her. She’s been through the ringer on emotions, and although she values herself as a friend first and foremost, that doesn’t mean I- and by extension, the other characters- can’t challenge that point of view. Make the character struggle. Know how they interact with others. How do certain events change them? Will they change every episode, or only some? Which are important to their arc? And most importantly, what is the point? By changing this thing here, what are you doing for that/those characters and/or the story? Is it a quick, harmless, funny moment, or is it to show a darker side to a character we’re familiar with, and to see them change now that there’s a new presence beside them? These are questions only you can answer as you chose which episodes to pick.

I hope any part of this was helpful. Feel free to ignore any of these points, or add your own. Again, every story is different, and each story should be treated as such. No creator is experienced equally, and we all have different interpretations of characters. Nothing is right or wrong, so long as you, the author, can justify it, even if it’s just “I thought it’d be cool.” It’s your AU. Go for it!

Thanks for listening to me ramble. Scene.

[charmingpplincardigans]

January Kitchen Sink Check In

This is mostly for me, because I’m trying to become a better person this year, for varying definitions of the term ‘better’, and I like to see my progress laid out all organized like. It helps me move forward. So I’m gonna go through my Body/Mind/Money goals for January and note how I did and what I’m going to do moving forward!

BODY

Working Out: 

My two work out goals for the end of the year are to 1) be doing yoga semi-regularly and 2) be working out four days a week reliably, including the yoga. I’m working on easing myself into these (and all) habits, because I don’t want to overwhelm myself and give up on everything, so my goal for January was to work out one day a week. And I worked out *drumroooooooll* NONE! NOT A ONCE. I don’t have an excuse for this. Part of it was stress, part of it was depression, part of it was sheer laziness. I promise myself I’m gonna work out at least once a week in February, but also shoot for the two times a week that is the February Goal. 

Food: 

I have several overall food goals for the year. One is to give up soda near completely, or at least to break my addiction to it. The others are to start planning meals and eat less meat. For January I wanted to drink only two sodas a day (20oz max). I managed that 23 days out of 31. In looking at the calendar you can reliably match the days I failed to the days that were extremely stressful or anxiety ridden. I have a very bad habit in those moments of throwing up my hands and deciding that I’m a failure anyway so nothing matters. That’s definitely a mental tick to keep an eye on over the next few months as my job no doubt just gets more and more stressful. The other goals I did okay with. I decided to plan one meatless meal a week. New recipes I made in January were: 

Black bean soup

Moroccan sweet potatoes

Spinach lasagna

Black bean & sweet potato enchiladas

Do recommend most of them. The lasagna had way too much cinnamon in it, which was kind of weird. If I make that recipe again I’m gonna quarter the amount. But I might just find a different veggie lasagna to make. 

For February I want to drop the soda to one a day (12oz max), and start to plan to make two meals a week. I’m doing okay with meat, but I could for sure do better. It helps that I have started making THE WORLD’S BEST SANDWICHES for lunch. Probably just gonna eat those forever instead of ordering out Huey Magoo’s or whatever. (The sandwich is hummus, cucumber, and feta on toasted Good Seed bread. Try it!)

Doctor Things:

Uff. I need to figure out the CPAP issues and the chest pain issues. I absolutely despised the first mask they sent me for the CPAP. It gave me panic episodes and I was ripping it off IN MY SLEEP. Insurance refused me a new mask until April, but my doctor came in like an angel with a sample version of a different type of mask to try. This one is...better. I’m still not comfortable in it and it’s not appreciably helping my sleep. People keep telling me it’s going to change my life, but that has not happened yet. On the other hand I have friends who’ve tried to make them work for YEARS and never did, so I’m wary of this whole process, but still trying. 

I had a sort of fraught meeting with my cardiologist last week. My chest pain symptoms had been getting better as of October, but with the change in my job I’ve back slid almost entirely. I had a 36 hour period of chest pain two weeks ago. I go whole nights having every heart attack symptom in slow motion, but doing nothing about it because I can’t afford for the ER to tell me I’m fine five times a month. I cried when she asked me why I didn’t go to a hospital when that happened. I feel so helpless all of the time and I’m certain I’m going to die any day now, even though my heart is technically physically fine. Can you anxiety yourself into a heart attack? I THINK YOU CAN. She did tell me to try to speak to the psychiatrist again about anxiety medication. The last time I tried the woman I saw didn’t want to prescribe me anything. She told me to work on my sleep and come back. Welp! The cardiologist said that if that happens this time she’ll write a note telling her to prescribe me something. We’ll see. I need to try to make that appt this month. 

MIND

Therapy:

My therapist thinks I’ve done really well over the last year with working on myself and said out loud that she thinks I’m better at dealing with some things and am in a good position to move forward. But I’m so stressed right now that I just feel like I’ve fallen apart again. We’re meant to start on EMDR this week, but I’m going to have to put a pause on it so I can talk about how I’m at like, the lowest point of my life, which she will be very supportive of and then probably remind me that if we could just get to the EMDR and work with the older traumas this might not feel so dire. I’m just, on the struggle bus and too tired to do anything but freak out about that. 

Writing: 

I have so may creative goals this year! Too many probably! I should put some back! My creative goals for the year are:

Complete a rough draft of AMLD (10,000 words a month)

Complete and mail out the Girls Who Date the Universe chapbook

Complete and mail out any remaining art for people who helped me with the car fund

Work on poetry and short fictions (Monster Story?)

Actually check in to @gywo every month (10 days a month goal)

My creative goals for January were to write 10,000 words on AMLD, work on the extra poems for GWDTU, and send the remaining postcards from the car fund. And uh...look. I did work on writing. I worked on the chapbook layout and editing pieces that needed to be edited/replaced, because there are several. I did also work on the outline for AMLD, but didn’t write new words on it. Not anywhere 10,000 of them at any rate. 

The owing people art thing is just...it fucks me up, man. I have learned a huge lesson between the car fund and the patreon. I get so in my head about how these people deserve beautiful things and then I tell myself I’m not capable of making things worthy of them and then I put off doing the thing because I want to put off letting them down and then it just spirals from there. ALL THE WHILE I AM FOR SURE LETTING THEM DOWN. I realize this is both unhealthy and unprofessional. It’s why one of my goals this year is to clear all of this once and for all so that I can square myself away with everyone and try not to end up here in the future. 

So, the January Goals now get rolled up into the February Goals, which leaves the new list for the month at: 

10,000 words AMLD

Complete extra poems for GWDTU

Send postcards from car fund

Complete layout for Boston chapbook for car fund

I did check in for GYWO. 

Future Plans:

Part of letting off the pressure for the now for me is always about planning for the future. Not like, the actual future, I’m not starting a 401k, let’s not go nuts. But for something that is one step forward. In my notes for my year goals this is all about moving back to Boston. I need to set a date for it. I need to save money for it. I need to keep my job until after I’ve done it. But now I think this part needs to include notes about my job itself and the ways I can either move forward with it or move away from it once and for all. 

I talked to Lisa and Kait at the beginning of the year about the moving plan, and now I just need to talk to my apartment complex to see if it would be feasible to extend the lease to December or February without paying an exorbitant amount in rent each month. If rent ends up being more than $2k/mo for the extension then I’m just going to have to have to wait until June 2022. This frustrates me, because I hate not being able to just follow through with decisions once I’ve made them, but patience is another thing I’m working on eternally. My goal for February is figure out money stuff well enough and talk to complex and set a timeline. 

Work is. Wow. It’s awful right now. I still have my job, which takes up much of my days, but because of re-org I’m also having to learn a whole new job which would also take up much of my day. I can’t not learn this job, because the person who used to do it is in another department now too, so there’s no one to get the work done if I don’t learn to do it. But I also can’t do both. I CAN’T DO BOTH. An issue popped up last week with my job that literally brought my ulcer back. I asked my boss for help with it and she sent me a message at one point saying she wanted to cry about it. So like. She knows now, right? She knows I can’t do both jobs?? BUT THERE’S NO ONE ELSE TO DO IT SO I GUESS I JUST GET TO SLOWLY KILL MYSELF. I’m just so frustrated, and angry that these decisions get made without taking the people in them into account, and of course anxious and miserable. I’m currently dreading work in a way I haven’t since I was in text perms. It’s real bad. So I have to find a way to make it work or find a way out. 

My February approach to that is to finish this Love It or Leave It book and see if I can’t divine where my true motivation lies, and also to research library school. I kind of would rather not go back to school. Not because I wouldn’t spend my entirely life in school if I could. I WOULD. But because it’s expensive and time intensive and there’s no promise my life will be better after it’s over. But every job I think I want pretty much requires that masters, so. We’ll look into it at least. 

MONEY

Eating Out:

During the pandemic, one of my money sinks became DoorDash. I never used it before, because it costs literally twice as much as just going to get the food. (Also because I kind of like eating in restaurants alone. Ah, one day again I hope!) But the more afraid I became of the outside world, the less inclined I was to go into a restaurant to pick up take out, so I’ve had it brought to me. And I need to cut that shit out! I have food at home! My goal for January was to order out only 4 times a week. I managed this for three of the weeks, but when I blew it it was definitely those weeks at the very beginning and very end of the month where I was super stressed. The goal in February is to only order out 3 times a month.

Savings:

I need to open a high yield savings account. I’ve had the starting money for the move just sitting in my bank account making me no extra money for like, four months. The latest reason I haven’t moved it over is that I’m worried I’m going to owe a lot in taxes this year because of the partial unemployment I got. Hopes are that since it was a work share the taxes were taken out ahead of time, but I do not trust the government with my money as far as I can throw them, so. I’ll do my taxes this month and finally know for sure. And then I WILL move the rest of the money into a high yield savings account. I WILL. 

Also, every time my credit union savings hits a grand, I’ll move $500 of that over into the high yield account to put toward moving expenses. 

Budget:

I keep meaning to sit down and work out my new budget for 2021. I’m bringing home a little bit less in my paycheck because I changed my health insurance, and I’m also, of course, trying to save as much as I can ahead of moving so I don’t put anything on credit cards. (I’m doing so well paying those down!) This means I need to save everything I can and not spend money on stupid frivolous stuff. I’m not buying clothing like I did in the before times, but I AM spending too much money at Target still, because the app lets me just peruse any dumb idea I have and then pick it up that day! What a disaster! So, I really need to work something out. Or at least, I need to check my bank accounts more often and keep tabs on how much is actually going out. I have a bad out-of-sight-out-of-mind habit when it comes to bank accounts. Just another piece of me to try to cure this year.

And that’s it for January. I’m now late to bed because I’ve been working on this post for an hour and a half. Working on my sleep is also a goal, but we’ll see how exercise and the cpap handle that. Til next month!

[serendipitous-magic]

what's your writing process like? do you plot things out beforehand? or do you sort of write it as it comes? a mix of both?

Depends on what I'm writing!

In general I'm a planner. I can't write from a blank page, unless I'm just like... really really captivated by whatever I'm writing, which was what happened with the first chapters of both The Art of Living Your (Second) Life and The Partnership Plan.

a) In general, if it's a fanfiction I'm writing, I tend to build the plan as I write - meaning, oftentimes I'll be inspired to write the first chapter, and I'll write that with little idea what the rest of it will be. Or, even if I have an idea what the rest will be, it's more of a vague skeleton than a full plan. And then, as I continue to write, I think more about where the story is going and I continuously add to and refine my plan kind of alongside the actual writing. In this way, the plan grows at the same time that the actual chapters do - but because the chapters take significantly longer to write than planning does, the plan outpaces the "real" writing and I usually know the basic story arc from fairly early on. Then it's just a matter of fleshing it out, adding detail, writing down scenes I thought of, etc. And then when I get to that point in the actual writing, I have a framework in place already.

-_-_-

b) Sometimes for fanfic, I have a more complete plan upfront - although I use "complete" here to mean "from beginning to end," not "completely detailed." So, more like a full skeleton than a full body, if that makes sense. I did that with Roll for Strength. What usually happens is that my plan will look something like...

...

Chapter One

-Will suspects Mike has a girlfriend and is kind of put out about it but thinks he's over Mike so he tells himself he doesn't care

-Will walks in on Mike and his BF (name??) and has a crisis (they don't see Will, so Will knows about Mike but Mike doesn't know that Will knows)

-Will might get off to that later, guiltily? (Or move to chapter two)

Chapter Two

-Do Mike's POV to tell about how he ended up dating a guy, how he got very disillusioned with the world after canon events and got into a "fuck it, the rules don't matter and I hate them anyway" mentality, which eventually snowballed into him kind of realizing and accepting his sexuality earlier than usual fanon

-Also introduce BF (name??) in a scene

-Set time and place - season should set the mood if not already mentioned in Ch 1

-Maybe also do BF's POV briefly to introduce him?? Or leave that for later

...

Etc.

And that's the original skeleton plan. And then it gets expanded upon more and more and more as I continue to think about the story, sometimes even with full pages' worth of unbroken text blocks as I get inspired and start basically thought-vomiting an entire scene. So by the time I get around to actually writing it, it might look like the above, or it might be a few steps shy of an actual draft already, depending on how much I've thought about / worked on that part.

See #5 in this writing advice post to see what I mean about a "thought vomit" draft.

-_-_-

c) Here's the thing - the above was for fanfic, or for short stories, or stories that I'm just kind of having fun with.

For original stuff, I adhere much more tightly to the "rules," because the guidelines for original work (that you might try to publish in the actual publishing market) are much stricter - and for good reason! Fanfiction is a sandbox, and we're all invested in the characters and worlds and settings already. We're all reading and writing fanfic because we already love these characters and this world, and we just want to play in it.

It's a different situation with original novels that you hope to publish. The plot, pacing, tension, and story beats have to be much, much tighter and more polished. Because people reading original work have no prior reason to be invested in it or care what happens - that's work that you have to do. For fanfic, that work was done for you by the original thing. Not to mention, the publishing world is so absolutely choked with competition, and the emphasis lies so heavily on sales, that if your book isn't fucking top-tier compelling, no publisher or agent will take a second look at it. Which is kind of unfortunate, because there's value in slower, more relaxed, more reflective storytelling, too - it's just not what capitalism has decided to value, which is sad.

But anyway.

When writing an original thing, I basically need a full plan - beginning to end, covering all plot points. Not necessarily all the details, just all the plot points - I need a skeleton and I need connective tissue. The rest comes later. But to start, I need to know what happens, why, and how the characters get from event to event. I need to know the physical story events, the emotional beats, and how those things logically flow throughout the story.

Some people can write without this and it still turns into a compelling story, tight narrative, etc. I envy these people. I have all respect for these people. I cannot do this. If I write original work with no plan, and especially without at least like 50-75% of a plan, I end up with something slow, meandering, and kind of limp. No bueno.

So, I usually use a beat sheet.

What's a beat sheet?

It's a 15-beat plotting structure used by screenwriters. And, yeah, technically it's for movies / screenplays. But storytelling is storytelling. And it's highly flexible. (And my favorite professor ever taught it to me in college so you can pry it out of my cold dead hands.)

Google it. It's what I use to make sure my (original work) plots are tight, have momentum, have a satisfying character arc, etc.

Okay, okay, I'll paste the basic structure below just so you can see wtf I'm talking about:

-_-_-

-Act I:

1) The First Frame

-What is the first thing we see? This should be a snapshot of the main character’s problem, before the story begins

-Ex: the Star Destroyer in A New Hope

2) The World Around Us

-What is the main character’s world like at the beginning of the story?

-What is missing in the main character’s life?

3) State the Theme (sneak this into The World Around Us)

-What is the story secretly about? This should happen during The World Around Us

4) Inciting Incident (smol tentpole)

-What happens to put the hero on the road? This is where the hero’s life changes forever.

5) The Hero Questions

-1st introspective moment

-Can the hero really do this? Should the hero chicken out?

-Oftentimes the hero fails at something

-Ex: Luke gets his ass beat by the raiders

-Act II:

6) Crossing the Threshold / The Emotional Hurdle (big tentpole)

-The main character makes a choice

-Beginning of Act II

7) The B Story / The Love Story

-Introduced here

-Often but not always a love story

8) Promise of the Premise

-Fun and games in the world you promised

-Horror movie? Creeps here!

-Sci fi? Space battles!

-Animation? Shenanigans!

9) Midpoint (big tentpole)

-The hero finds out that what they want is not what they need

-Luke rescues the princess - turns out that’s not really what the story was about

10) Bad Guys Close In / Throwing Rocks

-Events conspire to tear the hero’s goal to shreds

-Wesley is mostly dead, Inego is drunk, Fezzick is part of the brute squad

-This is the other side of the fun and games coin where things are no longer fun

11) All is Lost

-Something super bad happens, and that goal is impossible

-If someone important is gonna die, it’s probably now

12) The Pit of Despair (smol tentpole)

-The hero mourns the death (if someone died) and wallows in his/her lowest point

13) Inspiration

-A fresh idea

-Act III:

14) Come and Get Some / Final Confrontation (big tentpole)

-The final confrontation - the final showdown

-A and B stories wrapping up at the same time

-The theme makes sense and the battle is engaged

15) Final Frame

-Opposite of the first frame

-The hero is changed

-_-_-

It's what I use. But hey, you don't have to. What works for me might not work for you.

I'll finish this off by pasting in a section of actual real-ass planning I have open in a document for one of my novels at this moment (it's giving me the evil eye, I swear) so you can see what I kind of mean by "thought vomiting." Also note that in my actual document, the bullet points are indented incrementally to be kind of "nestled" underneath the relevant points, if that makes sense, and that it's a whole eye-watering mess of different colors. But for Tumblr, it's this:

-_-_-

-You have to be rescued by the rest of the team, because you fell down that hole - and you are, eventually, after screaming yourself hoarse some more (plus it’s been like an hour or more now, so they have since noticed that you were missing)

-I could gloss over this, like end the chapter when you run away, and open the next one with “It takes another half hour of screaming your throat nearly bloody before the team finds you,” or something

-They berate you for chasing after ghosts - you say you didn’t find anyone down there, because you know for damn sure nobody’s gonna believe what you think you saw, and you don’t even think you believe it

-This leads to a trip to the local doctor (a clinic, probs, akin to UrgentCare), which you’re not happy with because that’s more people taking notice of you

-However, you’re also going through the change in mindset here - see below

-Note: I as the writer don’t have to worry about the paperwork or whatever that you’d normally have to fill out, getting hurt on the job, because you weren’t officially hired - however, it would be a good “humanity is okay” moment if the guy who hired you came in and helped you with the medical expenses because he felt bad - he’d also probably be a little nervous about you suing or something, but you assure him that you have zero interest in that

-I could include a funny line where the guy says he’ll pay for your doctor bill and you try to say no (being indebted to someone is bad news for you) but he insists, because he says he feels responsible, and you just kind of stare at him and then blurt, “Do you need me to kill anyone for you?” (Something you probably regret as soon as you say it, not because you expect him to accept but because you abruptly remember what happened two days ago.) (Would it be too much to also add like “You want me to murder anyone for you? You want a blowjob? I will do anything,” and he gets flustered and bats it off like “Nah, nah, nah, chill out. You’re crazy, man.” And insists that you don’t need to pay him back)

-Here’s a decision I have to make - does the guy pay for your doctor bills as well as paying for your work today (leaving you enough money to potentially split town, but you decide not to), or do you have to pay the $2,500+ in doctor bills with no insurance for the injury, which raises the stakes by depleting all your money?

-I think I like Option A best, because it gives Sam more agency as a character if they decide to stay despite having the option to leave, versus them just being stuck completely - plus I don’t know how else I’d be able to explain away you having money for the hotel

-The guy who hired you pays you for the work day here - and maybe, just maybe, that gives you barely enough to buy that used car (although, why would it? It couldn’t have been more than like $200 for 8 hours of work, maybe $300 if he was really really desperate - if it was a really cheap used car, that might give you barely enough to buy the car but literally nothing left over)

-Point being, maybe you have enough money to bolt now, if you chose to - and you have to make the choice not to

-The car you found might be a $1,500 Honda Civic (or Jeep or whatever) with a dead battery, and the guy selling it says it should run fine with a new battery, which you Google (apparently it would be somewhere in the range of $100-$200) - maybe you think of how nice the mechanic was for you and wonder if you could cut a bit of a deal with him, if you get this car - and if the guy pays for your trip to the doctor and pays you for the temp work, this could just tip you into the margin of being able to afford the car, if you haggle with the seller

-_-_-

Or another example, with more actual sentences:

-_-_-

-As you approach the trailer you start to register a smell that turns your stomach - something like a porta potty and something like the sharp tang of rusting metal. It makes you pause - maybe there really is someone in there, using the place to live whether there’s a sewage hookup or not - it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing you’ve heard of. But after standing for a bit, silent and listening, and then hiding behind a large tree to chuck a rock at the vehicle to no response, you continue forward. You’ll just have to be cautious. Your spirits lift when you see the door. It’s completely grown over. (Leafy vines lace over it, tangling in the handle, yellowing and unbroken. If someone is living in there, they’ve been using the window to come and go, and that doesn’t seem all too likely. Bolstered by a new swell of confidence, and picturing the unlikely riches you might find stashed away in a cabinet or a glove compartment, you cross the last few feet towards the shape.

-You find the body and recognize it as one of the two obnoxious vlogging dudes from the motel

-I’m kind of imagining the moment of discovery like the wardrobe moment in Narnia where, during your nice forest trek, there’s been some pleasant acoustic music playing (like All the Pretty Girls by Kaleo maybe) and then it just stops abruptly in the middle of a phrase, maybe echoing slightly, when you see the body, and all at once everything is sickly silent.

-Oh dude, maybe you continue thinking it’s a duffel bag (possibly feeling pretty upbeat, though cautious until you’re literally about to step over it, and then you happen to glance down and get a sickening, chest-slamming shock when an empty human face is staring up at you

-Note: there should be mushrooms growing in, on and around the RV, because mushrooms are Creepy

-You go to investigate the RV

-Maybe you recognized the body as one of the vloggers and you’re trying to see if his friend is around - or maybe, in a kind of sick daze, you short circuit and find yourself doing the only thing you can think to do: continuing along your trajectory, stumbling towards the RV and tearing the rusted-out door free from the lattice of brittle vines that held it in place (this is what alerts The Dude that someone has been here), like if you just get to your original goal that’ll fix everything - somehow, if you just keep moving forward on the track you set out on, that thing won’t be real anymore - at the very least you have to get inside, to put a door between you and the body, like you’re pulling the blankets over your head to shield yourself from the boogeyman. Just as long as you’re not out there with, with...

-_-_-

Anywho, I'll stop.

I apologize again for... (scrolls up for a million miles) all of that, but you asked me about my passion and now you pay the price, lmao.

[saphinc]

a guide to working in a group home !!

i absolutely love my job and the things i’ve learned from it. if you’re looking for a unique job for your next character , try this! it could also help if your character is living in / has lived in a group home! but take it with a grain of salt , because this is one house , in one company , in one state in one country! and lastly , my inbox is always open for questions! because there’s a lot i couldn’t fit in here.

terminology !

behaviors : problematic / unhealthy things that individuals do (ex: stealing, verbally abusing others, isolating )

skills : healthy things we encourage them to do , that they have expressed / signed off as something they want to work on (ex: cooking, walking, eating )

dbt : stands for dialectical behavioral therapy. this is group therapy where therapists teach individuals coping skills and distress tolerance. every client we have has to graduate dbt class and be in individual therapy , it’s in the contract.

charting : when members of the staff team write out a complete summary of each client during / at the end of their shift.

s.o. house : mental health group home for sex offenders. two of the three homes in my cluster are s.o. homes. they aren’t allowed to be around my clients.

dsp / ps / pd : direct support professional / program supervisor / program director ( more on these later ).

elope : when a client runs away or sneaks out and we don’t know where they are.

cluster : the group of houses under a pd’s direction. usually 3-5 houses.

prn : as needed medication , something that is not prescribed such as tylenol.

some quick etiquette : we call the people living in our group home with mental health, clients or individuals when we’re referring to them. when speaking to them or amongst each other we’ll call them by their initials.

general info !

when i say group home , it is literally a house. in the middle of a normal neighborhood. we’re the only group home on our block.

there are so many types ok. i work at a home for vulnerable adults with mental health. some of my co-workers come from homes with only nonverbal clients , from hospice homes , from homes with individuals with traumatic brain injuries or physical disabilities working to recover or having no one else to help them.

i have four clients that live in my group home. that is the max for my house ; others can hold more. they filter in and out. one of my clients has been in this group home for seven years. one just moved in last december.

they each have their own bedroom. they get to choose the paint for their walls and can decorate it however they want.

funding sucks. the pay sucks , most of our furniture & appliances are outdated. we have to buy the cheapest food possible to meet our budget , and the house is not in great condition. we get by , but the mental health field doesn’t have a lot of money.

our goal overall , for each client , is to get them out of here. we support them when they can’t support themselves , lift them up , help them learn coping skills & life skills until they’re equipped for independence and can move out.

my home is a 24 hour awake group home. we have to have a staff there , awake , 24 hours a day. other houses in our cluster have staff there all times of the day, but they can sleep during that time ( they pay is different of course ).

job structure !

alright , i can’t repeat it enough: this is just my company. i don’t know what the structure is like in others!

i’m at the lowest level , the least paid , but the most interaction and contact with clients : the direct support professional / mental health caretaker! i love it and wouldn’t want to take on any of the other jobs.

some of my jobs include : cooking for clients , cleaning the home , driving them places , sitting in on their therapy , mediating conflicts , teaching them coping skills , talking them through stressful times , helping them find resources. i am with them every second of my shift. they know me and the other dsps the best.

technically , there are SUPPOSED to be two dsps in the house at all times , but my house is really understaffed so we have three dsps , one for each shift , and the program supervisor is on sight with one of the dsps most of the time. the ps does: anything involving our clients’ finances , cleaning up biohazard things ,

above me, my boss, is the program supervisor. my direct boss. i don’t know how it works in other group homes but i work very closely with my ps. like i said , it might just because we’re understaffed and she’s with us all day everyday.

above them is the program director. my boss’s boss. i highly do not recommend this job. if your character has it , they are probably a very grumpy and broke person with no life outside of work. my pd is on call 24 hours a day and gets paid on salary. so , yeah. 0/10.

next is the area director , the ad. they are the boss of all the pds in a particular area. i’m not positive but i think there are four pds with their own clusters , under my area director. they usually do the hiring and communicate with the pd to negotiate , mediate and give permission for certain things.

and finally , the regional director. the regional director is in charge of 3-5 different area directors. they’re busy. we RARELY see them or hear from them. not quite sure what they do to be honest.

i do NOT know if there’s anything between this position and ceo. i have met the regional director only twice. and that’s just because the area director was on maternity leave + our house is high behavioral / violent.

the job !

we go through TONS of training. primarily first aid , self defense / holds / , 4-8 hour seminars on each disorder in our homes and de-escalation. we get certifications of this and every year we have to renew them and go through the entire trainings again..

my job is to mediate , caretake and entertain but i also have to track. u need an EXCELLENT memory for this job. and hey , i have a horrible memory so i use about half a stack of post it notes per day. it’s possible!

that being said , we track everything. the more descriptive the better. we write down notable things they said , what they were doing at what times , what prns they take during shift , what their mood is , what they eat. everything. we write it down and track it in the computer. the pd review the notes everyday.

individuals !

ok so my clients mainly come from two places: the hospital or jail. usually they are admitted into a group home program as a last resort because their families can’t take care of them or understand them.

when clients move out, it is usually to two places: the hospital or their own place. you can work with a client for months and they’ll end up losing it & being kicked out of the program / arrested. we like the other option better.

there are such a wide variety of disorders in the homes. my clients range from a constant state of psychosis from their schizophrenia , to an autistic epileptic with an intellectual disability , to a narcissistic kleptomaniac.

my clients have done terrible things in the past. when you learn of these things , you might look at them differently. a lot of staff quit after finding certain things out ( clients’ past crimes or traumas ) or seeing certain behaviors ( violence , eloping ). but here’s the thing: they are sick. there’s a reason they’re with us / in the hospital instead of jail. they did these things when their state of mind was NOT right. it is so important to separate them from what they’ve done or endured. we can’t be biased in this profession.

dynamics  !

there’s drama between clients. oh , there is. i have two clients who are very close. they team up on the other clients by intimidating them or straight up bullying them. we as staff have to interfere with this behavior and protect the clients from each other. but yeah. there’s drama.

they’ll hurt each other. they hurt us. my boss was shanked once. it happens.

i mentioned this earlier but we don’t ( and can’t ) hold this against them. we can’t hold grudges because it is their mental health that makes them act out and that’s why they are receiving our help.

we do get compensated for injuries and broken property ( glasses, etc )

we can and do call the police on our clients. they can and do call the police on us. one time a client called the cops on us because we were making fish for dinner. the police are very familiar with our house.

there are very strict boundaries between staff and clients , but some of us are with them all day every day. it’s natural that connections will form. but technically , we are not supposed to. but it always hurts when one of them graduates or leaves the program. it’s a really emotionally draining job in that way.

health !

we’re the first to get hit with pandemics. those long-term housing facilities you hear about getting covid ? yeah. that’s us.

group homes have lost their minds over the virus. i could write a whole guide on that alone , and the differences in another. what you should know is we take health risks VERY seriously. these are vulnerable adults. they will be the first to die of these diseases.

i won’t sugarcoat it ; most of my clients are not clean. they do not take care of themselves in terms of grooming or hygeine. this is for a couple reasons

the main being that this is their mental health. they either can’t / won’t get out of bed , are paranoid / afraid of it , or just hate us as staff and refuse to do anything we suggest no matter how good it might be for them.

the second ? we can’t drag them into the bathroom and make them wash their hands or shower. they do what they want , all we can do is make frequent suggestions for their health. we cannot force them to do ANYTHING. more on this later.

there are group homes that need to do toileting and bathing for their clients. we don’t at mine because we’re not a home for disabilities , but that means it stinks all the time and we go through a lot of febreeze.

laws  !

it’s their house, not staff’s. we get to the house , clock in, start our shift and leave when it’s over. we do the cleaning , the cooking , the shopping. but it is their house. they are paying rent for it.

we can’t force them to do anything. we can’t make them eat , we can’t make them take their meds , we can’t make them go anywhere. they have the right to refuse anything they want. and some of them will push our buttons just to see what will happen. the truth is ? we don’t care. we get to go home at the end of the day. it doesn’t affect us if they do or don’t do something , they’ll reap the consequences ( ie. getting fired if they stop going to work , being visited by the doctor if they refuse meds etc )

they have more rights than us. part of the reason tracking is so important is to save our own asses. if my client gets sunburned while i’m working and i don’t note that i offered sunscreen and they refused? i can get in HUGE trouble because that is neglect. we’ve lost many employees this way.

some clients have more restrictions than others. one of my clients has phone restrictions due to impulsive behavior, so we have to monitor her calls. the others can take the phone into their rooms and be private no problem.

writing !

if you’re writing a character who works in a group home , there is one absolutely essentially trait that they need to have to be successful in their job at a group home: patience. mental health clients can be vindictive , manipulative and downright bullies but we can by NO means retaliate , lose our temper with them , or hold grudges in anyway. we are de-escalating and talking calmly , every moment of our shift. that is SUPER important.

i touched on this a bit earlier , but this job is draining. you got pushed around & treated like crap by your clients everyday , cook & clean for them , etc. the pay sucks and the hours are long. if your character works here ? they are probably very tired. it’s hard not to bring the work home. you really do get attached.

[vintagesimstress]

III. Meshing a (vintage) dress

(Previous: II. Learning to mesh)

Now that you know how to get around in Blender, you can finally put your newly acquired skills into action and mesh your first dress. I just hope you did your homework and really made your donuts - otherwise you might find it very difficult to understand what's going on in this part! I'll assume that you've watched and practised it all, so I won't explain the basic yet again. I will be writing the shortkeys in brackets though – there are way too many of them to remember them all after just a couple of videos.

So, let's get it started... But where?

As usually, there's no one proper answer to this question. Generally speaking, creators' approaches to meshing can be divided into 3 categories:

Combining parts of different EA meshes into a new mesh – a.k.a. frankenmeshing.

For sure you've seen frankenmeshed CC many times, even though you might not have realised it. Let's say EA releases a new DLC which includes a top with some cool, never-seen-before sleeves. Let's say there's a dress in game which you think would look great with those new sleeves instead of the boring old ones. In such case you can simply export both meshes in S4S, open one of them in Blender and append the other one (more on it later). A bit of deleting & merging of vertices and voilà! The mesh is ready. Most of the time you don't even have to worry about uv-1 and weights (again, more on it later... LOTS on it later).

Mesh editing

That's pretty self-explanatory, isn't it? This method is what most tutorials try to teach you. Look for a piece which resembles the most what you'd like to make. Export the mesh and make the necessary adjustments. Depending on how much you edited, you might have to mess with uv-1 and weights a little bit, but usually it shouldn't be too problematic.

Making a mesh from scratch

As far as I know without having ever used Marvellous Designer, this is what MD creators do: 'sew' their mesh completely from scratch and then import it to Blender. Such a mesh doesn't carry any of the vital information – uv-maps, weights, bones, anything - so all of those have to be manually assigned to it. This, obviously, significantly increases the workload and can be very tricky to do; however, this meshing method gives you almost unlimited freedom. If you don't limit yourself to editing existing stuff, you can make pretty much ANYTHING.

As you can see, all of those methods have their pros and cons - and they're all equally valuable as long as they help you achieve your goal. The method which I like the most and which I'm going to show you lands somewhere between no. 2 and 3: I use an existing top and make it into a dress. This way I have lots of creative freedom, but also reduce the unnecessary workload (yes, in most cases meshing a top from scratch would be totally unnecessary).

Enough theory, let's go grab that top!

Open S4S. Choose the “Create 3D mesh” option under “CAS” menu and then click that “CAS” button. You will see the list of all CAS items in your game.

NOTE: If you DON'T see the list, that probably means S4S didn't manage to find your TS4 files. You have to open the 'Settings' tab and manually change the 'Sims 4 Path' and 'Sims 4 Documents'. And if you're already there, make sure your Blender path is correct as well!

As you can see, there are many categories you can choose from at the top to narrow down your search. I need a top for adult females, so that's what I'm going to select. My favourite starting point is that simple BG top – it's skin-tight (meaning: the texture is only printed on top of the body, not really meshed, which makes it perfect for any future edits) almost everywhere, except for the breast area: there it's nicely stretched, just like it should be in case of my dress. If I wanted to make a dress with a deep décolletage, like an evening or ball gown, I'd type 'nude' in the search bar and select that naked female Barbie top instead.

The swatch doesn't matter. Select any of them and then click 'next'. I chose the red one, just because I like the colour:

What you're doing now is cloning a BG item and creating a new package. Name it whatever you want and save it in some 'Tutorial' folder or so. It doesn't really matter, as soon you won't need it anymore – we're here only for the mesh.

Once you've done it, a new window will appear. This is your new package with all the information it carries. We'll delve into details later – for now, as I said, we only need the mesh. Go to the 'Meshes' tab and click the 'Export mesh' button (make sure NOT to change the level of detail by accident!). Save it in your Tutorial folder as whatever (e.g. mesh_1).

You can close S4S now – we won't need it for a loooong time. Open your newly exported Blender file instead. This is what you should see:

NOTE: It won't make any sense to you right now, but check if you see the 'S4Studio CAS Tools' on the right side! If they're not there, it means your Blender and S4S are not properly connected and you'll run into problems later. Go back to S4S settings and assign the correct Blender path!

I'd suggest you immediately change the perspective to Ortho (num 5) and hide those sidebars on the right (n) and left (t) of the main window. Better, right?

Make sure your cursor is in the main window! If the shortkeys aren't working, it's probably because the cursor is in the wrong place.

When you go into edit mode (tab), you might notice one very important detail: body parts are also parts of the mesh. If you delete them, they won't appear on your sim either. Our top includes hands and neck only – the rest of what you can see is visible only in Blender. A good way to check if your mesh isn't missing anything is clicking that little plus next to 'rig' and then 'closing' all those little eyes next to all the listed body parts. Now your model will look a bit different:

Of course, missing some of those body parts is not a problem. A dress shouldn't include head or feet – those are separate categories. We can toggle feet, both heads and teeth visible again. What we lack is a bottom, i.e. legs – but luckily, we don't have to worry about it, as they'll be hidden under the skirt anyway. I will explain how to add legs (or any other missing body parts) to the mesh at one point, but a bit later – for now let's say we don't need them.

There are two methods of meshing a skirt that I'd like to show you, and they both start with the same basic steps:

1. Just after exporting, your mesh is cut wherever its uv map was cut, which might lead to some problems. Better select all your vertices (a), press w and choose 'remove doubles' from the list. Almost 300 vertices got merged!

2. Turn on the X-ray. Make sure you're in the front view (num 1) and then select (b) all the vertices below the waistline. Press X or del and choose 'vertices'. Kaboom!

3. Select (b) the lowest remaining row of vertices.

4. Extrude those vertices down (e, z) until the point to which your dress should reach. If you're using a reference picture, that's one of those moments when you should take a close look at it.

5. Scale (s) those extruded vertices until the bottom of your dress is as wide as it should be. If you're using a picture, pay attention to the proportion of the bottom of the dress vs shoulders – that's usually the best reference point you can get. Mine should be quite a bit wider than the shoulders, so I got this:

6. Turn the camera around and check how it looks from other viewpoints. I can see that my skirt is kind of asymmetrical, and not in a good way: flat at the back, going too far to the front. Let's go to the side view (num 3) and move those vertices back a bit (g, y). Much better!

7. I still don't like that flatness at the back. Let's go to the top view (num 7) and select only the central vertex on the back. Now, do you remember what you did to get that icing on the donut? Proportional editing? That's what I'm going to use. I'll turn it on only for connected vertices (alt + o) and then move that central vertex back (g, y).

NOTE: If your whole mesh is moving when you're trying to use proportional editing, scroll your mouse wheel until you see a white circle on the screen. The smaller the circle, the smaller the area affected by your edits. By default it's very big, that's why everything is moving!

8. Once again look around and make sure the basic shape of your skirt mesh is correct. Save, e.g. as mesh_2 (ctrl + shift + s).

Did you make it till the end? Congratulations! I'm sorry it got so long and I hope you could follow everything (also, please tell me if something isn't clear, I'll try to add explanations). Of course we're not done with our meshing adventures; the skirt still needs lots of tuning, but we'll deal with it next time. Now we all deserve a good rest :).

(Next: III a. Method I: Loop, Sculpt, Cut)

[justoneday-namjoonii]

It burns, doesn’t it? [Pt. 18] | millions burning | rough draft

Genre/au: Mafia!au, Mature, Fluff, Angst…so much angst. Violence and all that good mafia stuff. Warning: This story contains graphic imagery, mature subject matter, improper drug usage, self-medication, including but not limited to crude/unnerving behavior, intensity, bloody, v slight-gore, etc.

Members: BTS Feat. Got7

→ Pairing: Jungkook x reader x ( ? ) →Summary: Why am I hurting alone? Why am I in love alone?

author’s note: there will be a taglist for the next update! please comment on this post if u want to be tagged💜 P.s ive been sick for like the whole week so ive been power writing💖💪

Released →  Pt. 18

| Prologue | Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | Pt. 4 | Pt. 5 | Pt. 6 | Pt. 7 | Pt. 8 | Pt. 9 | Pt. 10 | Pt. 11 | P. 12 | Pt. 13 | Pt. 14 | Pt. 15 | Pt. 16 | Pt. 17 | Pt. 18 | Pt. 19 | Pt. 20

The pungent smell of marijuana engulfs your nostrils as soon the person walks inside. When you hear them clear their throat, you know exactly who it is. It's Jimin. Your chest fades into a bed of butterflies and the idea of talking to him alone makes you nervous. 

You're peeking through the crack of the door as he leans against the counter.

You're still watching him and he hasn't noticed. He took out his phone and started typing. That's when you decide to crawl out of the pantry and he flinches when he sees you emerge from the tiny space.

"Y/n," He sighs, brows furrowing in confusion, "what're you doing?"

"I was- I came down here earlier to get, um-" You clamber to explain yourself. "To get a-"

"Were you spying on me?"

You swallow, "Of course not! I wouldn't do that-"

"I'm kidding," He shoots you a dull smile, calming your nerves. "where's Jungkook? I’m surprised you’re not glued to his hip.”

"Upstairs, I was a little hungry so I came down to get something but I'm not hungry anymore." 

He pushes back his brassy blonde hair, his eyes wander to the alcohol on the table and he giggles a little. You? Drinking alcohol?  

"You've been drinking?"

"A little, Jungkook and I," Along with that pungent smell on his clothes, you catch a whiff of some type of liquor on him. You smile, "smells like you had a little bit yourself."

"Hm," He nods, "a little."

He looks like he's uninterested in talking to you, but you know that can't be true. It's Jimin after all.

"Why have you been acting like, I don't know," You blurt it out without thinking. "...Like you don't want to talk to me?" 

His heart stops for a moment and he withdraws. "I don't think I have, that's how you feel?"

"Well, yeah. For a while, you were my only true friend and I thought you cared enough about me to at least t- talk to me...You haven't said a word to me since we got here." Tears well in your eyes. Naturally, you try to cover your face with your hands, in a futile attempt to stop the tears. "This situation is already difficult to adjust to and you treating me like a stranger doesn't help."

"Y/n," He leans against the counter, trying to distract himself with tapping the cool granite, rather than listening to your hitched breath. Those sounds are pure torture to him, “things are just complicated." 

He says that, but here he is, watching you ball your eyes out because he hasn't been paying you even the slightest attention. "How are they complicated?"

"Do you not realize what's happening? We're all under one roof and there's bad blood on all sides here. He doesn't trust me and you know this, Y/n," He turns from you, "You're just not thinking straight." 

What is he saying?

"I thought of you as a real friend, it sounds so stupid now but that's how I felt. You listened to me, you didn't just hear what I said, you listened and you seemed like you cared." You hiccup, biting your lip incredibly hard to resist sobbing. "It's not f- fair to do this to me."

"Fair? Y/n, how the fuck do you think I feel?" He walks up to you, no longer worried about keeping a distance, 

"Do you think this easy for me? Do you think I can just forget about you because you’re with him? You loved my attention, you were looking for it constantly and I gave it to you whenever you wanted it because I wanted to see you smile at least once a day, that was my goal. If I could do that, then I was doing something right. I was there for you when you were at your lowest, and do you know what you told me? You're not Jungkook."

You forgot you said that to him.

"I spent all of that time with you but you’ll always run to him. I kissed you and maybe deep down inside I thought you'd kiss me back or feel something for me but you didn't. And I had to accept that you love Jungkook and I'm not him. So nothing is fair in this world, sometimes you just have to suck it up."

"Jimin," Guilt consumes you and you want everything in the world to take back what you said, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Look, I don't know what I'm feeling or what this is between us but it has to stop." He drags his hands down his face, regretting that this conversation had to start tonight. 

"Jimin, that doesn't mean not you're allowed to care about me." You whimper, wiping your cheek sloppily. "As a friend..."

"Y/n, it's not that simple." He combs through his hair. "God, you treat me like I'm harmless like I'm not capable of hurting you. I could hurt you, in a way that shatters the mental image of yourself, of who you were before me. I've made people so totally devoted to a persona that I've created just to get what I want, I could do that to you." His expression saddens because even though he's saying it he can't bear the thought. "Aren't you afraid of that?"

"S- stop saying things like that...You- you wouldn't do that to me. I'm sorry if I hurt you or made you feel used. I was just so lonely and broken, and you were there and when I was with you I actually wanted to live, I wanted to be happy because you reminded me that it was still possible," You sniffle, "I- I'm sorry that I held onto that so tight."

"Hey, I know," He tilts his head, looking in your glossed over eyes as if they had some type of soul-saving properties, "you don't have to cry, okay? I know you're sorry, and I am too. Y/n, it kills me to see you like this..."

But when you look up at him, nose red and glistening eyes—he can't take it anymore.

"It's okay," Jimin throws all caution to the wind and embraces you, he takes a few breaths and exhales in relief. "calm down,"

* * * * * * * 

"What's taking so long..." You said you were hungry but he assumed you weren't going to down there to make a whole meal. Curiosity gets the best of him. He hopes out of the bed and goes downstairs to see what you're doing — what he sees shocks him to the bone.

There you are, wrapped in Jimin's arms and crying. Anger bubbles in his chest, but for your sake, he keeps it at bay. Quietly, he approaches you two and Jimin open his eyes when he feels a dark presence. Oh shit.

"Somebody wanna tell me what’s happening here?"

“Jungkook?-” Without warning, you're being pulled from Jimin and squished against Jungkook like a stuffed animal to a child. "look at me," He holds you so that he can inspect your face,

"what's wrong? Why are you crying?" His brows are knitted tightly and he's alarmed, frantically trying to figure out why you're so distraught. "Tell me what happened." You push your face back into his chest and whine, you just can't say anything, he diverts his attention toward Jimin.

He switches out completely.

"What the fuck did you do?" Jungkook borderline growls, leaving you to get in Jimin's personal space.

"What do you think I did, Jungkook?" He bites back. "Why do you walk into a situation without any context and instantly start throwing blame?"

"Answer the question." He points at you. "You must have done something because she's crying and won't say anything. What did you do to her?"

"I didn't do anything to her." Jimin looks to you, "Y/n, tell him-"

"Don't answer him," Jungkook abruptly stands in front of you, blocking Jimin's view of you completely. He looks back at Jimin, "and don't fucking talk to her."

[illfoandillfie]

Hiiiii it’s your favorite stalk- I mean person! I hope I’m doing this right, may I please request a general tarot reading for success? Sometimes I feel like my dreams are too big and I’m too old to start out

ksfhsjdskd hi darl!! Hope this helps!

tarot cards: ace of pentacles, ace of swords, the world, seven of wands, eight of cups, king of swords, nine of pentacles, six of pentacles, knight of pentacles, the star. 

Okay lets get into it. 

You said in your ask that sometimes it feels like your dreams are too big to go after and that you’re too old to start. Well, I think these first two cards - the ace of pentacles and the 8 of cups - are talking about that exact sentiment.  The ace of pentacles is a great card to start with. The aces represent the beginning of something and pentacles are the suit mostly closely connected with finances, careers, all that sort of tangible down to earth stuff. But it’s being clarified by the 8 of cups which symbolises walking away from something. These cards are the temptation to give up before you’ve really begun. 

But, beside them we have the ace of swords clarified by the king of swords and the knight of pentacles. Another ace, another opportunity. As a suit swords are related to the mind and what it can do. The ace of swords is the “breakthrough” card. It’s saying you still have a chance to make whatever your dream is happen. The Kings are the oldest of the court cards and the king of swords specifically is symbolic of authority, truth, and clear thinking. This card is a reminder that age and experience aren’t bad things. In fact they can be very useful things. The king of swords uses his head over his heart. He deals in facts not feelings. However you might feel about the situation, this king is a reminder that you don’t need to let your age or anything else hold you back from embracing the opportunity the ace indicates. And the knight of pentacles...like most of the pentacles cards he revolves around work, effort and responsibility. He’s patient and hard working and dutiful and that is the energy you need to bring to this opportunity. You will not reach your goals overnight but the knight of pentacles is here to tell you that any progress is good progress, no matter how small it may seem. If you have a chance to start on the road towards achieving your goal (as the ace of swords indicates you will) then you should grab it by both hands. Go after it with the confidence of the king and with the hard working ethos of the knight and you’ll be well on your way to making it happen. 

Next we have The World and the nine of pentacles. I can sum up both of these cards in one word: Achievement. The World is the last of the major arcana cards and as such represents completion, fulfilment and achievement. The nine of pentacles is about the fruits of your labour, rewards and success. You’ve been through the ups and downs of the journey described in the tarot cards, you’ve put in the time and effort and now it’s paying off. This is the success you’re aiming for. This is the outcome of going after what you want and taking every opportunity you can. 

So those three sets of cards seem to be describing the past/present/future (or thereabouts) of your story of success. But what of the last three cards? What of the seven of wands, six of pentacles, and The Star? I think these cards are sort of general advice. Things to remember on your journey. 

The seven of wands is a card of conflict. Traditionally it depicts a man holding a staff, fighting off 6 other staffs pointing at him from below. It represents perseverance, defensiveness and maintaining your position. This isn’t conflict related to starting a project or beginning something new. This is the sort of conflict that happens as you work towards completion. It could come in the form of other people encouraging you to give up or being in competition with you or just making things harder for you, it could also be setbacks you experience or moments when you don’t feel you can keep going. But the seven of wands is an encouragement to stand your ground and remain dedicated to your goal so you can overcome whatever challenges you face. 

The six of pentacles is about generosity, charity and sharing. It’s a reminder to be generous in both times of prosperity and hardship. This can be generosity in a financial sense - donating money or material possessions to someone - or generosity of spirit, mind, time, etc etc etc. It could also be an indication that someone will be generous to you - perhaps someone in a position of power will offer you help or guidance, or maybe it’s that you’ll have a friend on a similar path you can share resources or knowledge with. 

And finally, The Star. This is a card of hope. It’s a promising sign of great opportunities approaching. It’s also about keeping the faith. Even if things seems hopeless or unachievable, this card says that as long as you believe and are willing to try, success will be possible. 

I also pulled a few oracle cards. 

From the Artists Oracle: Buckminster Fuller. The cards in this deck give the querent 3 pieces of advice for three aspects of life - Life, Work and Inspiration. I’ll type out all three but it may be that not all of them relate to the situation, so take what resonates for you and ignore what doesn’t. 

So, Buckminster Fuller - an architect, inventor, author, and designer - says: Live to serve, serve to solve. / Invent the words by which to live your life. / Great heights are best seen from your lowest point.  To me, just from the cards I’ve pulled, that last one seems to fit quite closely with the messages we’ve been getting. Now is the time to start working towards your goals. Right now when it doesn’t feel possible.

From the Spellcasting deck: Confidence. A lack of confidence will keep you from living your life to the full. Trust in your own gifts and abilities, turn away from your inner critic, and stop comparing yourself or your progress to that of others. You can do it! 

From the Green Witch oracle: Tomato (Love) and Thyme (Courage). I think courage speaks for itself really - It connects with the confident and courageous energy of that king of swords. Love on the other hand seemed a little out of place, so I looked it up in the guide book that came with the deck and I found something interesting. First of all it says “Tomatoes will inspire and ignite love into your life of all types and on all levels. Alignment is signified, as are chances for an increase in assets. Plans are liable to change, and you should be ready for adaptation in this and other areas. Be careful to communicate effectively with your partner and close friends.” So i think the ~plans are liable to change~ part ties in with that 7 of wands/6 of pentacles/the star energy which talked about standing your ground and holding onto hope and being generous/kind even when you feel like things arent going great. The guidebook also says that the magical uses of tomatoes are related to love, protection and prosperity, so it definitely fits more with your question that I initially thought BUT the other interesting part is that each plant in the guidebook has a magic spell you can cast using that plant. And the one for tomato is this:

Attract money into your home or business with this simple spell. 

Place a perfect green tomato in a green bowl and set it on a shelf. Shower it gently with gold coins and say, “Money, rain upon us now.” Set a green candle on either side of the bowel and light them. Leave the candles until they burn out and eat the tomato when it is ripe. 

Idk how into witchcraft/spellwork you are but if that is your jam this could be of use! I’m not sure if that was a misprint or something because it was labelled a love spell but there we have it! Very interesting! 

Next we have a card from the Prism oracle: Abundance. Green cards in this deck signify an opportunity for renewal, be it through gratitude for abundance, movement on a new project, or rest. The abundance card specifically asks you to recognise and celebrate the abundance in your life. It also says that while the card depicts coins, it doesn’t have to mean financial abundance. It could relate to love, friendship, career, or in your case, success. It’s definitely a good sign that things can go the way you hope! 

And last but not least I also pulled a card from the Making Magik deck. Each of these cards depicts a magic symbol or sygil and you got the Triple Moon - Embracing all aspects of yourself; the divine and the earthly. 

[simplysparrow14]

Dark Crystal Book Recommendations!

So, I’ve had this thought for a while now, and since half the world is in quarantine right now, I figured now would be a good time as ever to post this. 

Here are the books that I have personally read that I feel represents these characters best. 

Deet --> The Reader by Traci Chee 

Sefia knows what it means to survive. After her father is brutally murdered, she flees into the wilderness with her aunt Nin, who teaches her to hunt, track, and steal. But when Nin is kidnapped, leaving Sefia completely alone, none of her survival skills can help her discover where Nin’s been taken, or if she’s even alive. The only clue to both her aunt’s disappearance and her father’s murder is the odd rectangular object her father left behind, an object she comes to realize is a book—a marvelous item unheard of in her otherwise illiterate society. With the help of this book, and the aid of a mysterious stranger with dark secrets of his own, Sefia sets out to rescue her aunt and find out what really happened the day her father was killed—and punish the people responsible.

Brea --> The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima 

Times are hard in the mountain city of Fellsmarch. Reformed thief Han Alister will do almost anything to eke out a living for his family. The only thing of value he has is something he can't sell—the thick silver cuffs he's worn since birth. They're clearly magicked—as he grows, they grow, and he's never been able to get them off. One day, Han and his clan friend, Dancer, confront three young wizards setting fire to the sacred mountain of Hanalea. Han takes an amulet from Micah Bayar, son of the High Wizard, to keep him from using it against them. Soon Han learns that the amulet has an evil history—it once belonged to the Demon King, the wizard who nearly destroyed the world a millennium ago. With a magical piece that powerful at stake, Han knows that the Bayars will stop at nothing to get it back. Meanwhile, Raisa ana'Marianna, princess heir of the Fells, has her own battles to fight. She's just returned to court after three years of freedom in the mountains—riding, hunting, and working the famous clan markets. Raisa wants to be more than an ornament in a glittering cage. She aspires to be like Hanalea—the legendary warrior queen who killed the Demon King and saved the world. But her mother has other plans for her...

Rian --> Red Rising by Peirce Brown

"I live for the dream that my children will be born free," she says. "That they will be what they like. That they will own the land their father gave them." "I live for you," I say sadly. Eo kisses my cheek. "Then you must live for more." Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations. Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children. But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity already reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow—and Reds like him—are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class. Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow sacrifices everything to infiltrate the legendary Institute, a proving ground for the dominant Gold caste, where the next generation of humanity's overlords struggle for power. He will be forced to compete for his life and the very future of civilization against the best and most brutal of Society's ruling class. There, he will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies... even if it means he has to become one of them to do so

Seladon  --> Heartless by Marrisa Meyer 

Catherine may be one of the most desired girls in Wonderland, and a favorite of the unmarried King of Hearts, but her interests lie elsewhere. A talented baker, all she wants is to open a shop with her best friend. But according to her mother, such a goal is unthinkable for the young woman who could be the next queen. Then Cath meets Jest, the handsome and mysterious court joker. For the first time, she feels the pull of true attraction. At the risk of offending the king and infuriating her parents, she and Jest enter into an intense, secret courtship. Cath is determined to define her own destiny and fall in love on her terms. But in a land thriving with magic, madness, and monsters, fate has other plans

Naia --> Dread Nation by Justina Ireland 

Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville—derailing the War Between the States and changing America forever. In this new nation, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Reeducation Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead. But there are also opportunities—and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It’s a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society’s expectations. But that’s not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston’s School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn’t pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose. But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies. And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems.

Gurjin and Kylan  --> The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater 

@Jenskira would be happy to see her raven sons on this list. 

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.” It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive. Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her. His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble. But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little. For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

Tavra and Onica --> Seafire by Natalie C Parker. 

After her family is killed by corrupt warlord Aric Athair and his bloodthirsty army of Bullets, Caledonia Styx is left to chart her own course on the dangerous and deadly seas. She captains her ship, the Mors Navis, with a crew of girls and women just like her, who have lost their families and homes because of Aric and his men. The crew has one mission: stay alive, and take down Aric's armed and armored fleet. But when Caledonia's best friend and second-in-command barely survives an attack thanks to help from a Bullet looking to defect, Caledonia finds herself questioning whether to let him join their crew. Is this boy the key to taking down Aric Athair once and for all . . . or will he threaten everything the women of the Mors Navis have worked for?

[winterromanov]

and i’ll throw my love (to the ground) - bucky x reader

pairing: bucky barnes x (female) reader

synopsis: sometimes good things happen to lonely people on halloween. (neighbors!au)

wordcount: 1k

a/n: this is for @sourpatchkidsandacokecan​‘s writing challenge! my prompt was ‘it’s snowing...in october’. this is kind of disgustingly fluffy so you know. be vigilant.

-x-

Honestly, there’s nothing you hate more than Halloween. You hate the tacky plastic ornaments that adorn every shop window, the huddles of children that block the sidewalk begging for candy, the ridiculous work parties where grown ass adults dress up as witches and drink cocktails with spooky pun names. You hate it, hate it, hate it. After spending the entirety of the day making mind-numbing phone calls to mind-numbing people all you want is to lock your door, pour an exceptionally large glass of wine and not talk to anyone ever.

Instead, as custom dictates, you must leave your apartment door on the latch and force a smile onto your exhausted face as the kids in your building screech through your letterbox for snickers bars. Snickers bars you’ve bought out of your own pay check that you can’t even fucking eat.

“You’re a Halloween Grinch,” Natasha tells you as you fumble around your bag for your keys, phone wedged between your ear and shoulder. “I bet you’re going to go and sit inside with the lights off.”

“You know, I would do that,” you reply, hastily turning the key in the lock. “But every child in this building has X ray vision. They can sense you sitting on your couch watching Friends and won’t leave until you throw Nerds at them.”

You hear a muffled laugh from down the hall. Your neighbour—the hot, quiet, dark-haired one that moved in a couple of weeks ago—is standing at his front door, arriving home as you are. When he sees you looking he nods with a slight grin, your lips smiling tightly in return, watching as he disappears into his apartment.

“You’re acting like you didn’t have a choice to be in alone tonight. Literally the hottest Halloween party that New York has to offer is happening a few blocks away from you.”

You roll your eyes, knocking your door closed with your foot. You throw your bag and keys on the couch and immediately migrate to the bottle of white in your fridge. “Natasha, I adore you, but the only thing worse than dealing with children on Halloween is dealing with adults on Halloween.”

“I have not just spent the last two hours painstakingly wrapping Steve in toilet paper for you to not come and see my handiwork.”

You smile a little at that. “Send me a photo. Enjoy yourself, yeah? I’ll be fine.”

Natasha snorts a laugh. “Yeah, I know you will. Don’t do anything too crazy, weirdo.”

“Promise I won’t.”

The line goes dead and you throw your phone onto the kitchen counter with a sigh, catching your reflection in the window that glares across the city. You look tired, like you wouldn’t even need to dress up. A ghost is staring back at you anyway.

Just as you shake away the imaginary phantoms and reach for the refrigerator door your buzzer goes, and you fight the urge to scream as trick or treat is yelled from outside.

-

Half an hour later you’ve wildly surpassed your step goal for the day, paused The One With The Giant Poking Device a grand total of sixteen times, and completely ran out of candy bars. And there’s absolutely no way you’re buying any more to appease the army of tiny tyrants that roam the streets of New York City. When the buzzer goes for what feels like the thousandth time you abandon your television, grab your still three-quarters-full bottle of wine and head for the fucking fire escape.

Desperate times require desperate measures, right? This is probably one of your lowest ways of avoiding social interaction but it’s the only way you’re going to get any peace.

Except when you heave open the heavy door and expect an empty steel balcony looking over brimming trashcans, someone else has the same idea as you.

You blink back at your neighbour, your mouth hanging open as you try and figure out something to say.

He grins mischievously, his legs dangling between the metal posts, a large coat wrapped around his shoulders. “You too, huh?”

You clamp your jaw shut, before relaxing your lips into a smile. It’s kind of a relief, actually. To know you’re not the only one who despises the exhaustion of Halloween. “Yeah. Looks that way.”

He gestures towards the bottle in your grip. “And you came prepared. Commendable. I didn’t think that far ahead.”

“Ah, a rookie error.” You cautiously sit down next to him, grimacing as the cool metal hits the back of your legs. “I’m (Y/N), by the way. I kept meaning to introduce myself but I hate talking to people.”

He laughs, mouth all crooked and warm. “Me too. James.”

You unscrew the cap off the bottle and take a generous swig, enjoying the warmth that burns through your throat like a forest fire. You pass it over to James who takes it, a little startled, drinking from it anyway. “Unhappy Halloween, James.”

“Unhappy Halloween to you too.”

Naturally, you look up at the sky that stitches your pocket of the world together, velvet blue and hazy and deep. The air is cold in your lungs and you can hear the inhale and exhale of James’ breathing, your own heartbeat in your ears. You feel a spot of wet on your cheek and you assume rain will reluctantly push you back inside, but the drops keep falling and twirling and sit on the metal that surrounds you.

James laughs, lifting his hand, catching tiny dashes of white that melt onto his palm. “It’s snowing. In October.”

So it is, so it is—so it is snowing at the end of October, on one of the loneliest nights of your year. So it is that you’re sitting on your balcony with a man you barely know, but his name is James and he has a kind face and snowflakes on his palms. 

“James,” you say, and the way his name falls out your mouth is like you’ve been saying it for years. “Would you like to go to a party?”

[katoninefandoms]

I wanna share something about Endgame, friends. This is what Quarantine is leaving for me to think about.

First, I need to tell you a li’l bit about me. My parents have done community theatre for years and even met because of our local community theatre, so I have been involved in theatre basically from birth. For a long time, I thought I wanted to be a professional actress. I worked hard in my theatre classes in high school to understand how to get into a character’s head and how to analyse a scene or a whole play. My senior year of high school, I got the chance to student direct and stage manage and TA for my theatre teacher. So as I got into college, I realized that maybe acting wasn’t the way I wanted to go. I did some soul-searching, and decided that, instead, I wanted to teach theatre. I’ve been taking classes that are all about analyzing plays, and I’ve been in acting and directing classes at the collegiate level.  All this is to say, I’m at a point where I cannot watch a play or movie or TV show without analyzing the piece as I watch. Sometimes it’s annoying, but sometimes I love it because I feel like I have a better understanding of what is going on. This has been especially fun the last couple of years watching Marvel movies. A couple of my friends in my university’s theatre program who are also nerds had a conversation with me about Infinity War. We talked about how a lot of the movie is just suspense and buildup until the final battle in Wakanda, and at the end, there is no pay off because we don’t win. The heroes don’t accomplish their goal. This is when my good friend, Nor, pointed out that sure, from the hero perspective, it’s a lot of buildup for no payoff and therefore unsatisfying, but from Thanos’ perspective, it’s a totally satisfying narrative. If you analyse the movie with Thanos as the protagonist, then there is a clear, complete narrative structure. We have a Stasis A where he is without the stones, an Inciting Incident where he collects the first couple stones, the Rising Actions are him collecting the rest of the stones, right before the climax there is the Crisis (the moment where the protagonist is at their absolute lowest) where Thanos has to sacrifice Gamora for the soul stone, he snaps his fingers as the Climax, and then the Resolution and payoff is that the snap works and Thanos can retire to “the Garden” satisfied. Bam! Full narrative structure.  So as you can see, I have a good time analyzing works that I love. I did this with Endgame, too. For the record, there were things I was unhappy with, but overall, I think the endings all made sense in some way. Were they perfect? No, but that’s always the case. Someone will always be unhappy and present reasons why something doesn’t make sense with franchises like the MCU. But my favorite scenes to analyse in Endgame were Tony giving Steve back the shield in conjunction with Tony ripping Steve a new one at the beginning and their discussion at Tony’s house. I thought I really had their little arc in this film together figured out. 

That is, until this week. Robert Downey Jr. did this live stream thing with Joe Russo, and said of the Endgame scene where he gives the shield back to Chris Evans, “it was about him [Steve] forgiving me [Tony] for not forgiving him... burying the hatchet and taking up the cross together.”

I had not considered this before. In the beginning, when Tony yells at Steve, Steve doesn’t argue with him much at all. He takes Tony’s frustration in stride and for the rest of the film doesn’t seem to begrudge it at all. He even shows up to Tony’s house years later to ask him for help, and he may not be happy with Tony’s answer, but he doesn’t bother him with it or push him too hard once Tony says no and changes the subject. I interpreted this as a sign that he had already forgiven Tony. Tony then investigates time travel of his own volition, and then arrives at the compound, telling Steve, “Turns out resentment is corrosive and I hate it.” I saw this as Tony letting Steve know, in true Tony fashion, that he had finally forgiven him. He gives back the shield, and they can move forward. 

RDJ was in the scene, he and Evans and the directors did their own analysis of the scene and filmed it with that analysis in mind. So while I, a viewer, might see something different, it doesn’t mean than either of us are right or wrong, it just means that I missed something that they were trying to show the audience. This piece of information really does change how I interpret this scene. 

As a character, Steve Rogers has an incredible capacity for forgiveness. This is reflected in every official piece of media I’ve seen his character in; movies, television, and the few comics I’ve had the chance to read. Still, just because someone has a the capacity to forgive and move one doesn’t mean that it’s automatic for them. RDJ made an interesting point in saying, “forgiving [Tony] for not forgiving [Steve].” While I may have been correct in interpreting Steve as having forgiven Tony for their disagreements in Civil War (and perhaps all those before that), he had no way of knowing if Tony would have the same forgiveness for him. 

As it turns out, Tony doesn’t. He accuses Steve, yells at him, tells him he doesn’t trust him, and labels him “Liar.” Steve looks incredibly pained by Tony’s outburst at the end of that scene, and he even begins to look a little... well, angry isn’t the right word, and neither is defensive. But he’s definitely upset. I’m looking at the scene now, I have is paused. Credit where credit it due, Chris Evans plays Steve very well, and keeps him consistent. In this moment, after Tony says, “Liar,” Steve'a expression is very close to that “eyebrows of disappointment” face that we see in previous films. He also looks guarded, like he’s putting up mental walls against Tony’s onslaught. When Tony thrusts the arc reactor into Steve’s hand, his fingers don’t close around it, and his arm tenses. Tony’s upset him, hurt him again. Somehow, I overlooked this as something new that Steve would have to forgive Tony for. 

It seems that they may be on a little better terms when Steve, Natasha, and Scott show up to Tony’s house to ask him for help. However, Tony looks apprehensive when Steve gets out of the car and only relaxes a little once he takes a cue from Natasha. Steve does ask him about helping, but then Tony spends most of their conversation talking to Scott and Natasha. Not that Steve really attempts to interject in the conversation until the end. He makes it clear that this isn’t a personal request (entirely), and that it could be helpful to a lot of people. Tony maintains that it is personal to him. He invites them to stay for lunch if they don’t “talk shop” and the next shot is of Steve, Nat, and Scott getting back in the car. We can’t know for sure they didn’t stay for lunch, but it seems obvious to assume so. Either they are very eager to find a time travel solution, or there are people in the group who are not yet comfortable being around the Starks in a friendly capacity yet. (Steve. I’m implying that it’s Steve.)

So then Tony does some of his own research about time travel. He figures it out in one night, and Pepper convinces him that he should use it to help people that are less fortunate than him. He drives up to the compound and sees Steve standing outside. He stops, a little past Steve. And Steve? Doesn’t bother to walk up level with the driver’s side door, something that I could otherwise imagine him doing. Tony has to back up to talk to him, and Steve asks, “What are you doing here?” He previously said he wasn’t going to help, and Steve doesn’t sound all to pleased to see Tony. Why is that? Well, in the next few lines, it seems to give us the answer. “Somebody could’ve cautioned you against it,” Tony says. Steve, having heard that kind of remark from Tony before, is apparently no longer willing to argue with him about it and says, “You did.” “I did? Oh, well, thank God I’m here.”

I had a director tell me once, as another actor and I were practicing an argument, that you don’t argue with someone unless you care. That’s where the passion in the argument comes from. So far in this scene, Steve doesn’t look too happy to see Tony, and I didn’t really pay attention to that before. He’s been let down by Tony before like this, and that pattern hasn’t changed yet. He has no reason to expect Tony to do anything but tell him he’s doing it wrong and then maybe take Natasha out to lunch (or something). That seems like a relatively Tony Stark think to do. 

But then Tony reveals that he fixed it. He figured it out. That makes Steve smile. Honestly, Steve looks relieved. His walls come down a little. He can let himself believe that Tony is there to help, as opposed to, “I got nothin’ for you Cap. I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options, zero, zip, nada. No trust. Liar!” In fact, this time, Tony admits, “Turns out, resentment is corrosive, and I hate it.” Tony’s forgiven Steve, and that’s his way of saying, in his own way. I find that a lot with Tony’s dialogue, which is cool, because RDJ plays him so well and you can always tell what he means. To that, Steve says, “Me, too.” 

However, the way he says it doesn’t sound like forgiveness just yet. I think it’s his inflection, or the way he says it with a blank face, still, but it sounds more like he’s letting Tony know that he’d already come to that conclusion. Remember, before, at the beginning of the movie, Steve is trying to work with Tony and gets upset when he goes off. He’d already forgiven Tony for things that Tony hadn’t yet. Steve had already let go of a lot of that resentment. He’s got a huge capacity for forgiveness. But even those of us who can forgive easily can also hold back when we’re hurt one too many times. Steve is still not quite ready, or not quite convinced. 

I notice that Steve doesn’t move at all during this scene. He’s planted. Tony is the one to bridge the gap and approach Steve as he agrees to join them, saying he needs to keep what he’s found. Steve shakes his hand, saying that is a “deal.” That’s business, not friendship. He’s still not smiling or relaxed with Tony, and simply shakes his hand. Tony is no idiot, he can tell he doesn’t fully have Steve’s confidence yet. He goes around to the back of the car, and Steve follows a little. He’s warming up, there’s at least some of the damage healed. 

Tony takes the shield out of the trunk and holds it out to Steve. “Tony, I don’t know.” His voice thins, breaks off a little at the end. This is more than just getting the shield back. The last time they spoke to each other before Endgame, Tony was screaming at Steve that he didn’t deserve the shield, that it didn’t belong to him. Steve, in Civil War, drops the shield, and, effectively, drops Tony. Taking the shield back will mean, symbolically, accepting Tony’s apology and forgiving him, taking him back as a friend. The shield is Tony’s olive branch, but Steve “[doesn’t] know” if he can accept it. 

“Why? He made it for you.” Tony holds out the olive branch a little further. Saying that, he’s taking back what he said before. He knows he was wrong, and he’s admitting that to Steve -- which is something he hardly ever seems to do. He turns it over so that he can fit it on Steve’s arm, and Steve lets him. “Thank you, Tony,” Steve says. His voice is still low, soft, but it’s warmer. He’s forgiven Tony again. He’s accepted the olive branch, the shield, and they are now on even ground once more. Tony asks if they’re getting the team together, and Steve immediately answers, starting to get Tony filled in on their progress. 

I didn’t think I could love this scene between the two of them more, but I do. It’s so easy to forget sometimes that Steve can be hurt by people, too. He forgives so easily and takes the high road so often that even when someone he obviously cares about, like Tony, hurts him in a way that isn’t physical, I think the viewers tend to miss it. We like to put Steve up on a pedestal and act like he would never hold something like that against a person, never not forgive them for it. Seeing this scene, Steve and Tony’s relationship like this, I think we can realize that Steve isn’t as perfect as people like to believe he is. He can be hurt and upset when people don’t treat him with respect and fairness. 

Anyways, if you stuck around long enough to get to the bottom of this: Thank you for taking the time to read this. I love being able to share analysis about these babies. <3