#now that i really do have a normal schedule i'm thinking i can trick myself into writing regularly again...we'll see

[leguin]

12, 20!

12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

hmm good question. let's see... 1) this louis/lestat thing i'm writing via thinking of an argument writing it in my notes app at work and then not looking at it for three days. 2) the last chapter of the long winter fic which is...so close to being done. i don't think i'll manage to both finish it and get it beta'd in a month, but i am tentatively hopeful that it'll be done by...february? that seems pessimistic enough to be possible. 3) the last half of the elsewhere, which i could probably finish tonight if i wanted to, but i need to be in the zone. the evil succession zone. it'll come to me. 4) long winter fic 2: 2 long 2 winter. planning proceeds apace. i need to actually rigorously outline it bc otherwise it'll turn into a multi-chaptered thing and i deeply want it to be like a 20k oneshot. we'll see... 5) untitled kajillionaire fic. i have 2 or 3 of these on the backburner at all times, and i think i will manage to finish one soon. 6) kady/julia space au which i have now rewritten 3 times. i actually have figured out what i need to do to fix it structurally, but i am feeling very lazy. 7-50) many assorted magicians fics, most of which i look at once a month, write a sentence of, and then don't think about until the next month. 51) part 2 of the johnny lawrence high school era series, which i regret making a series bc now i feel honorbound to complete the sequel. another case of knowing what i need to do to finish it but not wanting to.

anyway tl;dr too many things, and that's not counting all of my vague 'currently this is a horrible concept but at any moment it will sprout legs' vampire show ideas...

20. Which work of yours have you reread the most?

in terms of fics published this year, definitely making mountains out of molehills is a good habit to get into, mostly bc i compulsively read and re-read the first 4 chapters while writing the final chapter this summer, trying to figure out if any of it was going to make sense in a way that wouldn't lead to a small avalanche of angry anons with opinions on psychiatry. not that that was likely to happen, but....prelest is also coming in as a late entry, bc i keep accidentally reading it a few times in a row. i like it, but it's got some issue that i've yet to figure out, so i keep reading it thinking i'll discover it this time around.

[duhragonball]

The Punt Trick

I've been kind of inactive lately because I'm doing a writing project this month and I sort of fell behind on it. My morale was kind of low this past week, but I managed to turn things around this weekend by writing 5280 words, which is more than a quarter of the goal. Not too shabby, so I want to capture how I did it.

Historically, I've been able to write a lot more than 5k in a single day, but I can't do it consistently. It really depends on what I'm writing, and if it's something I already have laid out pretty well in my head, the words will flow. The problem I've been having in August 2023 is that my plot is well laid out, but I'm struggling to put down the words. I know what to do but I'm less clear on how to do it. So it's been slow going.

Basically, I made an hourly schedule for the rest of the month, detailing how many words I would write. I've tried stuff like that before, but the trick this time is that I made the wordcount assignments very small. I didn't think it would help very much, but it turned out to make a big difference.

For years, I would write numbers on a calendar, like "Oh, I'll write 2000 words on Tuesday, and then I'll do 2500 words on Thursday!" and then it'll be 11:48pm on Thursday and I'm 4000 words behind schedule for some reason.

I've tried making it more granular, but that would mean doing things like "At 6pm I'll write 1000 words, and then at 8pm I'll write another 1000 words! Easy!" But then it'll be 7:55pm and I won't have the first thousand done, which just demoralizes me further for the next thousand.

This time, I just decided "to hell with it" and assigned myself 500 words per hour. This turns out to be much more realistic. When I'm doing well, I can bang out 500 words in twenty minutes, but when I'm struggling (like this month), 500 words can take me... about an hour. Well, more like thirty minutes, which is great because if I procrasinate for half of the time alotted, I still have time to get the goal met.

And 500 is small enough that it's easy to overshoot. So chances are that I'll clear the goal with a little more than I needed, which makes the next hour easier to tackle, and so on.

And now that I've had this productive weekend, the schedule I've laid out for tomorrow will be even lighter. Monday I'm doing 250 words for each hour, which is probably too lax, but that just means I'll finish ahead of schedule. The important thing is that I'm not just vaguely declaring my intent to write 1500 words after I get home from work. Normally, I can do that pretty easily, but that confidence turns into procrastination, and I'll put it off until 10:30 at night, and then one thing leads to another and I blow it off completely. With this system, I have to start at 6pm, because it's not about getting 1500 by midnight, it's about getting 250 every hour for six hours.

This is something I really, really need to keep in mind for the future, because even when my writing goes well, I'll still run into spells where it doesn't, and this seems like an effective way to break the logjam. And it might also be handy for smaller projects, which I could break down into even smaller chunks, like 100 words, or even less.

I suppose what inspired me to try this was when I kept looking up at my word-counter and expecting to see some big numbers, and ending up with something dinky like "83" or "112". But with what I'm doing now, those are actually pretty good signs of progress. Chain a few of those together, and I can actually get somewhere.

I'm not sure if this would be helpful for others, but it definitely seems to be working for me, so if you're reading this and you find yourself stuck with your writing, give it a try.

[mood2you]

Food Journal 2/22

Breakfast : Bagel and egg

Lunch : Ono Hawaiian (mostly macaroni salad, one single piece of chicken I'd left myself, some cabbage)

Lunch 2 : Breakfast burrito and bag of snap peas

Lunch 3 : Broccoli chedder soup

Snack : Watermelon, watermelon smoothie

Snack : Rice and teriyaki sauce

I think these journals are making me hungrier. I really seriously think that your job should ask when you usually eat meals and be forced to give you meal breaks AT normal times. I know there will be a rush, but imagine if I ate dinner at 7 and you ate at 6, THAT would work out if there were enough workers to cover the rush. Working in a walkable city should be so casual that you could find someone who eats at 5 to work 2 hours, and not feel like their whole day is leading up to working, but instead so casual and easy.

Anyways, tomorrow's Friday which means no meat, but I also have to cook dinner, but I don't want to go shopping, but now I'm sitting on me bed I don't want to take any meat out, we probably already ate all the fish anyways. My coworker, who has no respect for "the schedule" which sucks ass and is always changing anyways and three times was not even sent to us, and we're basically on call for free all the time, wanted me to cover his shift but I don't feel like working 6 days a week. Working is what's stopping me from doing the dishes. My other coworker wants the overtime, he won't get it though, and (as though talking about a puppy's face) I can't say no to my boss. I said no to my coworker. I said maybe. I have bad time management anyways I would get the same done with or without having my day taken up. I'm tired of being judged by people. I keep on accidently being passive aggressive to my boss, I think "accidentally passive aggressive" just means careless. Last week it was from poor sleep hygene, this week I have no excuse, but last week was worse. It wasn't my boss exactly, but I know she'd point to it. My routine is changing soon, a routine I obliterated, it's becoming a routine again, some structure. I could have made a routine if I'd had time. I need to go to the DMV and the car repair. I will do it in 2 weeks. As I said on my other blog "this is my last week of goofing off and drawing all day" and Friday was going to actually be all day.

I have all these things like "most of a cabbage" "whole bag of spinach" "frozen spinach" "watermelon" all I've done with it is cube the watermelon. I have a trick which is just using a sharp knife and shaving it while it's in quaters, instead of cutting the triangle slices and trimming the rind off. If you do it lazy style some of the pieces are less tender. Watermelon used to have a lot of white and some black seeds but it's gotten to have more flesh in my lifetime. That's good but I'm suspisious of that stuff, maybe it's less fiber or something. Thinking about inflation makes me think how did we not do gangbusters selling xyz, it was probably only a dollar then. 3 fucking dollars. How can they say inflation is 3% when they also say food prices have doubled, what is it 3% per week?

Well, I try to keep this stuff off my main anymore. Well, you're not the only one going through it. Goodnight.

I'm just mad I've been working on comics for a month, but it's been 3 comics so I have no buffer of anything, it's stupid to start a comic concurrantly, I want to and can't decide. Just because I finished an outline doesn't mean I can't wing it on a different project and save the outline for later. This week has been very long. I haven't seen my friends much this week because we've been annoying each other last week. I keep having to work. I wish the schedule wouldn't change. I wish my coworker would ask for days off 2 weeks in advance. I hope my boss finds someone to cover him easily and doesn't even have to ask me. I w

[ryan-is-a-god]

I'm pretty sure my entire life's problems can be chalked up to never getting enough sleep and having a negative attitude. Of course getting my ADHD treated helped immensely but that doesn't solve everything.

One day I was so tired, and I struggle to sleep normally; I literally left a conversation and said I'm going to sleep at like 9pm. Please note that I usually would never consider sleeping earlier than even 1 am before.

Anyhow, the next day omg I woke up at 6:30 am because I didn't want to oversleep and I was so rested I made delicious food and watched anime first thing in the morning, specifically a very positive anime, I think it might have been my next life as a villainous. I actually for the first time in a long time, worked out. Well, not working out per say, because I still have to trick my brain, no I played sports with my sibling, turned on good ol' Wii sports and played some DDR. After that I started sleeping and waking up at a decent time every day, and I actually felt fine even if I messed up a day here and there.

Only recently did I mess up my sleep for a few consecutive days, in which I felt sluggish and tired like I always have before. Recently I was discussing how much sleep a human requires, I assumed it was 5 hours for most people, and found out that it is actually 7-9 hours for adults, and even more time for younger people. Of course some people can get less but that's not true for most. Here I thought I was the insane one for struggling to wake up with less than 7 hours now, and when I was a teenager, good luck getting 5!

The point of this is just that I was so defeatist, I will never sleep normal, never wake up at a good time, never feel rested, but I did! I actually did! So now I'm going to ensure I get enough sleep tonight, I'm not sacrificing my sleep for anything. I even managed to stay pretty well on track during school, and these assignments are never ending.

I had a friend who did everything in highschool; I admired her so much, she worked out, cooked all her food, woke up early, studied, was literally the valedictorian, and still had time to hang out and play video games.

The most impressive part to me was that she managed all that while keeping a good sleep routine, eating healthy, and exercising.

She's half the inspiration for why I still keep up with this new schedule now, because, I know she did it, and I know it wasn't always easy for her, and really we all can do this, if anything this part should be the easy part.

Anyways this is partly to remind myself to get adequate sleep and work out today after I finally clean my room and work on my assignment. The other part is to remind everyone that taking care of yourself is always the base priority, everything that is so hard, like managing time, or work, or whatever, is secondary and usually gets easier the more you take care of yourself.

I mean just a year ago or so I thought I was gonna die on the couch barley able to move, and now I'm doing what I thought was literally impossible; taking care of myself, doing school work, AND actually having time to work on side projects!

I probably missed a lot of what I wanted to say, and while I would usually scold myself for writing this instead of working on my assignments, this took only a few minutes, contrary to the hour or two I use to feel was being wasted away.

Remember if something is hard to do, just make it fun. I don't like cooking, but I do like eating fancy looking food while watching anime. I don't like exercising, but I do like playing video games like Wii sports or actual sports. I don't like sleeping, but I do like lying down in a warm blanket with a favourite movie playing as I close my eyes for just a moment.

[dzpenumbra]

5/21/23

Alright, we're in for a doozy today. That's one of those words I've heard my entire life but never actually seen written before. Doozy. Weird.

I got to bed a bit late. Like... 7ish. My sleep schedule is just full-tilt nocturnal now. I see every moment of darkness, from dusk until dawn. Tooootally not a subconscious night-watch I-don't-feel-safe-because-I'm-alone-in-this-world PTSD thing. Tooootally.

Here's the crazy part. I had the thought... "what if I just moved to another time zone that my sleep schedule is synced to, then I'd be set." But nope, from experience... my sleep just adjusts to that time zone's day cycle.

I was woken up at 10 AM. I was woken up to loud bangs and stomps above me. Around 11, the sounds started escalating dramatically. Like it legit sounded like people were throwing things onto the floor (my ceiling), zero concern for disturbing neighbors at all. On a Saturday morning. Then... the hammers and power tools started. And it went for at least an hour. I was livid. For the first time, I actually banged on the ceiling. And... I've been doing that whole "I should be better" abuse victim thing where I've just been feeling nothing but pure shame and guilt about it since. I'm so tired of it. None of these motherfuckers have an ounce of remorse for any single time they've been obnoxiously loud. Not a one. They're probably not even aware. If they were made aware, they most likely would either get angry, call me a bitchy asshole or lie by saying they're "sorry" and dismiss it outright.

I'm still a bit cranky, in case you didn't notice...

I'm upset that I feel so much guilt and shame and like... "I should be better" when I even sneeze or creak a floorboard at 4AM. Because I don't mind making some accommodations for others, so we can all peacefully coexist, it's part of being in a community.

I went downstairs, started up my computer and started typing up an email to the manager of my building. And I struggled to even phrase what I was saying. Because I had a feeling what was happening upstairs was actually building maintenance. Like... the maintenance guys from the building itself. And I was just putting it on my upstairs neighbors, because they're regularly loud. But honestly, I have no idea. I just... I didn't take the risk of bitching at the landlord for like... normal maintenance on the building during what people consider normal hours for loud noise. Which happened to be 3 hours into my sleep cycle, which had me wake up shaking and sweating and freaking out.

I was going to ask my landlord to give me a little notice before there was going to be really loud noise like that, so I can plan accordingly. I have no fucking clue why they would do that without informing the adjacent units. That just makes zero fucking sense to me. Just a simple email on the building email system "Hello Unit ___, we need to do maintenance on an adjacent unit at this time on this day. We're sorry for the inconvenience. Just giving you a heads up." Like, legit, I can survive with the noise. It was the fact that it caught me completely off-guard. And I have fucking trauma issues. And I think one of the reasons why I didn't send the email was... I've been forced to explain and justify myself on stuff like that before.

Now... I think asking my building to give me at least a day's notice when they're going to be doing maintenance using power tools... so I can plan accordingly is... not too much to ask. My logical brain believes that, it came up with the damn plan. But my emotional, protective reflexes say... "hey, when the fuck has that ever worked? And... hasn't that gone horribly wrong for you in the past?" And... the trick with having an anxiety disorder... that overlaps with trauma... Especially patterns of trauma... is that it actually validates the anxiety.

Let me explain - So... say you're afraid of spiders. And your friend wants you to go into a basement with them, where spiders might be. And you are mortified because of spiders. No real first-hand experience, but just... in general, the concept of spiders makes you really fearful. And your friend encourages you to go and prove that fear wrong, and they offer to be supportive (in my unfortunate life experience, this is exceptionally rare, but go with it...) and they offer help you learn that spiders aren't that bad. They're just weird, and most are completely harmless. And you suck it up and muster all your courage and you go. And a black widow lands on you and bites you. And you go to the hospital and everything is fine but like... it's one of the scariest nightmare kinda things of your life. Now, take this scenario... and imagine it happening 3 or 4 separate times... with different friends, but every time going wrong. Imagine how hard it would be to get yourself to go back into a basement. With anyone. After that. When anxieties start to mesh with a trauma narrative like that... which often is really just a series of synchronous unfortunate flukes... in d20 games we'd call them rolling a Nat 1 or Crit Fails.

When anxiety starts to get a consistent narrative with empirical facts to back it? The two parts of the human mind - the subconscious and the conscious - actually come into alignment. They start to agree. So... with anxiety, a big problem with it that I've experienced is the cognitive dissonance of your subconscious instincts (anxieties) being in direct opposition to your conscious narrative (logic). And that can create a lot of inner conflict, frustration, depression. But that opposition, when you learn to have healthy inner-conversations with yourself, is actually the key to moving through anxieties. In my experience, of course, as though that even needs to be said... I mean, how could I write from another person's perspective... XD So, with that said... the subconscious and conscious minds coming into alignment and agreement is obviously the end goal... but if the logical mind... is given a bad picture? Like... skewed data? And the logical mind aligns with the anxiety? Shit gets fuckin messy. And I've got a lot of issues with that, with all the weird, surreal unhealthy social situations I've been in.

So... I didn't send the message. Because I was afraid I would offend or upset my building manager by talking shit about the maintenance dude. Or I would get him yelled at. Or, worst case, make my building manager think less of me, or even get angry at me, which could lead to her not wanting me to live in the building anymore. Then my housing is in jeopardy, which means my life is in jeopardy. I'm not even kidding you, this is what my brain strings as a narrative. And in my experience of it, it's really like that cartoon of the devil on the shoulder just whispering into your ear, but in my mind's eye he's more like... somewhere around the inside back right of my skull. And he's telling me this, and I'm sitting there with a thousand yard stare just slowly nodding and like... "yeah, that makes sense, that checks out... we wouldn't want that... I don't mind just sucking it up. I don't want to make a scene." Because... in my experience... when I speak up and air grievances with people who either have power over me, or think or act like they have power over me... Really hurtful shit happens to me. And it has been frequent and consistent. So... if you've ever accidentally burned your hand on a stove before? And then years later you reach over towards the counter because you're off-balance and you see your hand go towards the coil and you immediately, reflexively, without questioning, go "NOPE, NOT THERE." That's the kinda reflex I'm working with, I think. And that shit like... it's deep. It's like... a few steps above hit-your-knee-with-a-rubber-mallet reflexes in the neurological evolutionary chain.

Not long after, I was in the comfy chair again. Window open, AirPods in, noise cancelling on. I had a stream on with... unfortunately... that guy who was playing the real police videos the other night. No one else was on. The GTA5 RP scene I fell asleep after... he deliberately took out an M16 for the Commander's funeral, the commander was a comedy character, so he wanted to do a whole 21 gun salute and viking funeral by lobbing him in a hearse into the ocean. And it was a funny premise and it was chill. Then he shoots a dog in the evidence room for no reason but shock value. Then he goes to respond to a shots fired call... with the M16 drawn... at a gun store shooting range. And the lady turns in a panic towards him with her gun drawn on him, so he... point blank, puts 2 rounds in her head. The timing was fucking surreal that it just happened to sync up. And that scene itself wasn't the most disturbing thing in the world. I mean, it's upsetting and all. But what really got me was him going on and on for like 10-15 minutes after with all the cops and with the hospital staff after arriving to just make it super public and loud that this was a "clean kill" and shit. And... that's his character. That's the character he plays. So... I mean, I can't really get upset by that, I literally chose to put his stream on! XD I can just change the channel if I don't like it! But that whole like... playing on current political and social issues as a way of drumming up controversy and outrage really rubs me the wrong way. I find it really tacky and low-hanging fruit. I find it the RP equivalent of like... calling an autistic person the "r-word". So yeah, I'm not a big fan of that. You can do shock value in more creative ways, in my opinion, it just kinda feels lazy.

But what ended up happening was.. I fell asleep and I had insanely vivid dreams. Likely because the volume was really loud (to drown out the power tool noises) and right in my ears. And I was fucking there, man. And I... had that thing where I couldn't talk. Where I'd go to speak and it was like my lungs were empty and nothing came out. Like, here, let me demonstrate. Exhale fully right now and don't inhale for a bit, and pay attention to the feeling in your chest and throat, then try to push a little more air out. That feeling of not being able to, and the physical feelings too, kinda. Like that. And I was like... I was really trying to speak, I was really pushing. Because the dude was waving a fucking machinegun around! And... late tonight... I realized that since I had the noise cancelling on, and my window open... and was so insanely distressed... I was most likely talking very loudly in my sleep. I probably just couldn't hear myself because of the noise cancelling. XD And man, that's gotta freak the neighbors out, right? Hear me yelling in my sleep out my window about like "Captain, you don't need to bring the gun with you." "Please put down the gun, we don't need more problems." Shit like that.

Waking up from the hammering and power tools was upsetting and off-putting... but waking up from that night terror? I woke up clammy and tingling all over and like... sick feeling. And scared. And really upset, really disturbed. The whole day has been completely put off because of it.

Oh, here's a fun update - it's 5 AM and my upstairs neighbor is fucking vacuuming right now.

So yeah, today has been a bit of a shit show. I've barely eaten anything all day. I did do yoga though, which was a complete surprise to me. I groaned through it and I did not want to do it, but I got it done and it helped.

I also started a bead necklace, a really simple one. I dyed a bunch of beads yellow and strung them to dry, then flicked orange ink onto them in spots, then a reddish orange. So they're kinda speckled, like candy kinda. I dunno, I didn't know what to do for a simple design that wasn't painted. They should look pretty cool when they're coated, I think. I'm just so used to doing much more ornate things, looking over at it, it just looks really plain. But yeah, I'll figure it out.

I'm surprised but glad that even on a day as shit as today, I managed to get something productive done. I'm gonna go water my plants and head to bed now, and likely be woken up in a few hours by whatever visitors my upstairs neighbor is panic-vacuuming to prepare for.

Good vibes? I played a bunch of Risk of Rain 2 today, and I've been getting much better at it. It's getting a little repetitive, but it's fun for now and I've been enjoying challenge-hunting in it.

[glitterarygetsit]

I love you too, you wonderful person!

Thank you, that's really helpful! I'll have to look at whether I can set up prompts as strings as well--I have a Siri, not an Alexa, so I'll have to figure out if I can do that. I had my lights going off one by one during winter, which worked well, but now one of them has disconnected and it's much lighter in the evenings anyway, so I’ve just spent silly amounts of money on smart bulbs that I use like normal bulbs 🙄

My biggest issue is prompting myself to do important stuff during the day—both getting going in the morning, which I imagine routines would work well for, and getting back to work after a break or distraction.

At the moment I don't have the benefit of an office to go to, which I think would help me work (I'm going to try to schedule myself a few blocks of time when I expect myself to go to the library and work there) and I just hit this absolute wall of "but it's not urgent" when I try to sit down and DO something.

The only thing that currently “works” is deciding that as soon as I think “I should do some work” I HAVE to immediately stop what I’m doing, get up and sit at my computer and start and it’s just horrible. I can only manage it a couple of times a day and forcing myself like that is emotionally exhausting. (Sometimes I also drop a coin in a glass on my desk to make a pleasing “plink!” sound when I start or finish a task to give myself a little audio cue/reward, but it’s hard to do it consistently.)

I would love to know if you have any tactics for gently steering the puppy’s attention back to work/chores when it gets distracted outside of the framework of your routines? Do you use any other tools or tricks that aren’t based on a voice assistant? How do you avoid the prompts becoming so annoying you just give up on them?

Hi m'lovely, I hope you're doing well! It's so nice seeing you around here again <3

I've been meaning to ask you for a while if you'd be willing to talk more about the prompts (voice assistant and other) that you've mentioned setting up to help with your ADHD? I've tried to do similar things myself, like buying smart lightbulbs set to turn off at 11 and remind me to go to bed, but I still find I have a tendency to ignore them or for them to stop being helpful if my schedule changes at all. How do you make yourself stick to prompts that are easy to ignore?

@glitterarygetsit! Beloved! Most delightful of humans!

Yes, I hear you, I have this problem as well. Once routines become routine, they get easier to ignore or work around. I have not solved that yet, not completely, but I have a few suggestions.

The first thing is to think of future yourself as a beautiful puppy just here to have a good time. We don't want to hurt the puppy! The puppy is not being naughty on purpose, puppies are going to puppy, that's all! We embrace the puppy. But the puppy is stubborn and is really focused on having a good time, so we need to insert a variety of nudges leading to the key result.

When's bedtime? Are you switching the lights off at 11 beacuse you want to go to bed at 11? Your environmental nudges need to start quite a lot earlier, because the puppy is not paying attention and wants to keep playing puppy games. When the lights go off, the puppy can just switch them back on again.

Maybe it's better to think about the environmental controls as a way to indicating the passage of time more than just a message that means "go to bed". I need a variety of prompts to remind me that it's getting late, and I need them all. Your lights switching off, your audio signals, aren't just telling you to go to bed. They are interrupting what you're doing. One of the reasons we struggle to stop one activity and pick up a different one is because we are hyperfocused. Once you break the hyperfocus, you can make a different choice. Without it broken, you're stuck in a loop even if you want to get up and go to bed.

I also would like to be in bed at 11, so my nudges start at 9pm. I have the lights go off in succession: first one, then another, until there's just one left. When the first one goes off, I think, oh, it's getting towards time. Well, okay, but I want to do this other thing first. And then the second one goes. Oh boy, soon I'm going to be sitting in a dark room. Better finish this thing off. At 9am, I also have a bedtime playlist start to play. I almost never listen to it, but if I want to shut it off, I have to stop and do that.

I also follow that up with a series of other good ideas. Why not make yourself a night cap? (I make a lavender latte at bedtime.) What's for dinner tomorrow? What are you wearing tomorrow? lay out your clothes! Here's tomorrow's weather forecast! Have you washed your face? You know what would be nice right now? Wearing pajamas!

These prompts are things I would like it if I did, but they're also interruptions. I'm basically annoying myself out of whatever hyperfocus I'm in.

But also: let's not forget pleasure! The puppy likes things! That's why I introduced the night cap. When I remind myself that I could make myself one right now, sometimes it truly does tempt me, and then I'm in the routine loop. Add lovely things to your routine and treat yourself to them. Appealing things are easier to get yourself to do.

I create routines in strings, so I can adjust the timing on them pretty easily, I just adjust the start time. I do that more in the mornings than the evenings.

I think we probably need to schedule times to adjust the routine, or add fun new things to it. The best addition I've made to a routine recently is to start my morning one 10 minutes earlier and have the speaker tell me I can ignore it for 10 minutes. Strangely enough, that really helped.

Anyone else have suggestions?

I love you, @glitterarygetsit!

[nowoyas]

Edible Arrangements: Twenty-Fifth Bite: Apology Fruit

First - Prev - Next - M.list - Read on Ao3

A/N: Woah. Posting on a schedule is fucking weird. I'm in the throes of NaNoWriMo right now, working on a different fic primarily, but it's going well and soon I should run out of tracks for that fic and be back to working ahead on EA! One horrible thing to note: turns out, tumblr will never play nice with copy-and-pasting, which means formatting this doesn't get easier even if I write in Scrivener in a way that makes my brain hurt! I'll get over it, though!

I had to fight this chapter a little bit to get it to format correctly and did a few passes, but please don't hesitate to let me know if you notice any mistakes or formatting weirdness!

Additional note, I actually kind of hate what tumblr's doing with links. I had to jump through HOOPS to find my way to getting a link to the previous chapter.

Chapter Summary: After a saved date, you and Izuku return home, where he pops the question he's been toying with for a while. Preparations and work ensue.

Warnings: some light touches on trauma previously gone over in the plot, food mentions

Word count: ~4300 words

You're not sure you've ever felt this content in your life. Izuku drives you home, the both of you locked in tranquility, and he has half a mind to carry you inside once you're there. There's a candy bowl set out in front of the gate, filled with full-size Skittles bags and king-sized candy bars in the event any trick-or-treaters brave the rich neighborhood long enough to make it to your place. (You figure they must—no smart kid would pass up getting candy from the people with money to splurge on the big guns for Halloween.) You kick off your shoes, Izuku shrugs off his suit jacket, and before long, you're cuddled up on the couch and picking out a movie.

After much hesitation, he picks some horror movie and puts it on. You don't know if it's the best idea for his re-introduction into watching things on his TV, but, well, if he picked it…

For a little while, you watch in comfortable silence. His arms are wrapped around you carefully, soothingly, like he's afraid he might break you. And as the movie continues, his grip on you tightens, gradual at first, until it's an uncomfortable silence and you have no choice but to address it.

"Izuku?"

"Y-yeah?"

"You okay?"

He doesn't answer. After a moment, you reach for the remote and hit pause, looking through the guide for something better suited. "Yeah, I didn't think so. I’m not a huge fan of horror, anyways. There's this movie I watch every year on Halloween; it's kinda childish but it's fun and I like it a lot, so can we watch that instead?" You're careful in your wording, purposeful in making it sound like he's doing something for you by changing the movie.

He nods, burying his face in the back of your neck. "I'm sorry. I really wanted to try my hardest, but it just wasn't…"

"That's okay," you say softly. "It was a valiant effort, but I let you take on too much, too fast. You may not ever like horror movies, as it is. Honestly, I kind of hate them myself. Let's move to something that won't be so awful for you, okay?" You flip to the new movie: a well-loved kid's Halloween movie that you've damn near memorized by now. He accepts the change with quiet gratitude, and as the movie begins, his hold on you relaxes into something more fluid.

It's a quiet Halloween. Your thoughts drift once or twice to the candy table near the gate, the question of how many have come by and found delight in the seemingly bottomless bowl of candy waiting there for them. You're sure that, had you thought to decorate, the whole house would have been covered in Halloween decorations. Normally, you might have tagged along with Mina to a party, or maybe agreed to babysit someone's kids and take them trick-or-treating. This time a few months ago, you're sure you would have been utterly desperate to make a quick buck and capitalize off of babysitting the kids whose parents have gotten over the whole “taking the kids trick-or-treating” deal. A soft smile flits onto your face at the thought of how much things have changed for you.

"Hey…" Izuku says quietly. You tilt your head back to look at him.

"Are you… Are you happy with how things are?"

You blink innocently at the question. "This is probably the happiest I've been in a long time. I mean, some things got dangerous. I made the mistake of saying 'vampire' out loud and got one of my closest friends hurt, along with myself. There's a lot I should probably work through, but…" You're not sure how to finish the sentence. "Here, with you, I wouldn't want things to be any different than they have been."

He smiles softly. "I see. I'm glad."

"Why? Something wrong?"

He sighs. "No, I just… I worry. About making you too dependent on me. I know, I offered this because you needed someone to depend on and so did I, but… I don't want you to think you can't leave. I never want you to feel trapped here."

You reach up, patting his cheek gently. "I'm happy. I don't feel trapped. I feel like I have a future again. You said I could leave whenever I wanted, and you weren’t lying."

He frowns, but pulls you a little closer. "I was thinking about adopting a cat. I… We… I think we could both use trained, professional help, after everything the both of us have been through. But for us to both be able to speak fully about everything, it has to be someone vampire-friendly, and I don't know how to even begin looking for that, so it could take a while to find someone. And then, I'm worried about creating a conflict of interest, because that’s a big concern with therapists seeing patients who know each other, so we'd have to find two separate ones who are both vampire-friendly and won’t think we’re insane, and… Until then, I think an emotional support animal would be a good idea, and I've seen the way you look at pictures of cats, so…"

The smile on your face could not possibly grow any bigger. "Yes! I'd love a cat! I've always wanted one, but my parents thought they were evil beings or whatever, and I haven't been able to afford or house one since I moved out, so I never got one, but I'd love one!"

He smiles back, running a gentle thumb over the skin of your good arm. "We'll figure out a day to go visit the shelter and pick one out, okay?"

Giddy, you turn your attention back to the movie. "Okay!" You turn your attentions back to the movie, but you can't focus anymore. You're giddy with thoughts of cat and getting sleepy as the weight of the best steak on the planet settles in your stomach and drags you down.

Your phone screen lights up. A text. It's from your ex.

Asshole to [name] at 12:04 AM

Asshole: Who was that tonight?

Despite everything, you smile.

You block his number without even a word.

~

"So, how was Halloween?" Mina rests her chin in her palm, looking you over with a smug smile. You're both sat on the same side of one of the round tables in front of the Caf, facing the fountain as you wait for Neito to show his annoying ass up.

"Mina. Oh my god. The steak." You grip her arm, casting one arm over your eyes dramatically. "I've dreamed of it every night since."

"It's been, like, two nights, but do go on."

"I cried in the restaurant. It was. So. Good."

She laughs, wrenching her arm away just to pull you into a side hug.

"Okay, okay, enough about that meat. What about—"

"Am I interrupting?"

You pause in your dramatic steak talk to open one eye towards Neito. He's dressed pretentious, with mirror shades and shorts even though it's literally fucking November, because that's who he is as a person, you guess. More important is what he's holding: a fruit bouquet, barely small enough to be carried in one hand.

"Oh, good, you got a table with an umbrella. The sun has never been great for my complexion." There's a statement lingering on that: it's worse now. (Almost a funny joke, though, if it came from someone with a less sinister role in your past.)

"You're not interrupting. Come sit, Murder Guy," Mina says. Her voice seems friendly enough, but you've known her long enough to know that she's ready to throw hands at any given moment. "What's with the fruit?"

"He's my project partner, actually," you whisper to her.

She buckles over with laughter, and soon, you follow, quiet giggles floating out of you.

He looks confused between the two of you as she recovers. "It's for [name]. I, uh, thought to purchase one for the… for their friend as well, but I get the sense that he would rather forget I exist."

"Kind of extra, but I'll take it. I’ll let him know you apologized, too."

He slides the bouquet across the table to you. It's actually kind of a nice gesture—in the middle of it all is a little greeting card that reads, in swooping cursive letters: Sorry for trying to kill you and your friend.

Aw. He bought you an apology fruit arrangement.

"Thanks."

He clears his throat. "Yeah."

"It's a good step in the right direction."

"Uh-huh."

Silence settles over the three of you. He doesn't seem to have brought a friend along. As easy as it'd be for you to just joke with Mina this whole time, you do have work to do, so…

"You know what else is a good step in the right direction?"

Neito pre-emptively cringes. "What?"

"Getting started on this dumb assignment. Let's go ahead and see what Dr. Aizawa's got for us." You grab a fruit skewer and open up your laptop to get started. Neito nods and hurriedly gets out his own things, making the table quite crowded with two laptops and a fruit bouquet.

Surprisingly, the work comes naturally. You settle on a topic and distribution of work after only a moderate level of teeth-gritting and glaring, and leave it to Neito to officially claim it. No major incidents occur, and you're actually quite happy with the way things get settled. You suspect it has something to do with the fact that he feels guilty for everything that's happened, but you'll take getting more influence on the project if that's how you have to get it.

And things move on.

You bring home the fruit bouquet and snack on it while you work on school things. And when you're done and relaxing, you have half a mind to wonder where Izuku has gone off to. You pass it off quickly—he's probably busy, after all, and you don't want to bother him.

Yeah, probably just busy.

~

A day of classes meets you, barely paying attention. You promised you’d attend all your classes today, and really, two hours isn’t so bad, but you really, really can’t make yourself care today. Two hours of classwork, and then meeting Izuku for pet shopping.

You'd been so excited about the cat that Izuku couldn't help but agree to start the process as soon as possible. So today, getting the necessities, like a cat bed and tower. When you return with a whole mess of things for your future son, you both pile them up in the middle of the living room and start on the biggest thing: assembling the cat tree. Well, trees. You'd picked up one, and, realizing how big the house was, sheepishly asked whether Izuku would be alright with at least a second one. So now you sit back-to-back, each with your own cat tree to assemble. Periodically, one of you holds the instructions or a random, ambiguous piece of tree over your shoulder for an opinion or a complaint, but overall, the night is peaceful. It does much to soothe you, even with the half an hour spent swearing and disassembling your cat tree only to re-assemble it with just a bit more accuracy.

"Should we eventually get a second cat?" you wonder aloud as you deliberate the difference between two seemingly identical pieces of wood. The instructions insist they're different, but if they are, you can't see it. "I mean, the baby might get lonely."

"I don't ever really leave the house for long. Do you think it'll be a problem?"

"I think it depends on the cat, really. I heard they get lonely without another cat around."

"Hmm. We'll meet the cat and figure out whether the one we end up with even likes other cats first, does that sound fair?"

You smile and turn back to your very clearly different pieces of wood.

"Yeah, I'm good with that."

~

Somehow, things get better. You pick away at your fruit bouquet over the next few days, cat-proof the mansion within reason, and genuinely consider convincing Izuku to install a whole jungle gym for your future son on the walls of the living room.

Nights fall, and without fail, you find yourself in Izuku's bed, or he finds himself in yours. You can hardly sleep without him there, now—though you try to move forward, past everything that's happened to you, it's only in his arms that you stop thinking about the thrall mark you can't see and the things you can't remember long enough to sleep. It's only in his arms that you can ignore your healing burns and the pain associated with them, and move past the memories of thorns digging into your sides, of your best friend falling unconscious to the ground, of begging for someone to call Izuku, please call Izuku, he'll save Tenya, he has to—

But you're safe here. You have to be.

So you keep going. You let yourself fall back to sleep, night after night, with Izuku there to remind you that you’re safe, and a Saturday morning comes to remind you that you did, indeed, agree to sacrifice part of your weekend to having Hitoshi over again to practice the presentation ahead of time and look at re-arranging any potential slides.

You don't even want to think about the stupid thing; you very nearly turn over and let Izuku protect you from the day as a whole, but you’d better do something today before it all goes to shit. All your interest in the Death Adder, the mysterious plane crash, the nearly hundred bodies showing up with bite marks, has evaporated. You're left with a sense of unease at the mere thought of working on it, on working to memorize the details of an event so horrifically traumatic for someone so close to you and be able to parrot them back to a classroom of disinterested university students who're just there to fill their mandatory attendance requirements.

Seeing disinterest on their faces as you talk about everything might just drive you mad.

Still, Izuku had been more than fine with (maybe even enthusiastic to the idea of) having Hitoshi over again, and he’ll be here in a few hours, so once again, you resign yourself to being antagonized by—and maybe even getting along with—Hitoshi until your required tasks are done. In the meantime, you drag yourself out of bed and into your bedroom, where you sequester at your desk, make notecards, and practice idly on your own, whispering the words to your half of the presentation to yourself. They feel too damning to say out loud, and you're forced to dance around them until you find ways to say everything that doesn't make you think about Izuku, about how he must have felt when—

No. Stop thinking about it.

Afternoon arrives, you being interrupted only by Izuku putting food down on top of your notecards, and Hitoshi arrives, too, and soon, you're in the library, flipping through your notecards in preparation, and then, you're practicing with Hitoshi, and then—

.

..

…

—then?

~

Finally, after days of preparation and thought, still with no name in mind, you and Izuku travel to the animal shelter. They have strict rules for adoption, and you've followed them to the letter, a clean bill so you can pick out the cat today and stop by the store for the appropriate food on your way back.

The receptionist greets you with a smile, apparently infected by your enthusiasm. "Name?"

"Midoriya," Izuku answers. "We made the appointment to meet the cats?"

"Certainly. We've gone over your pre-application, so you're approved for any cats you choose. Thank you both, again, for following the process so willingly—we get a lot of complaints about our high standards for potential adopters, but introducing this system dropped the local cases of abandonment and abuse quite significantly."

"Of course." Izuku smiles at her. She takes you to the back, down the hall, to a large room where tons of cats of various ages, sizes, and colors bound around, being perfectly catlike in their mannerisms.

"So, I'll let the two of you look around and meet with your potential new friends for a bit. We encourage you to interact with the cats, and if you have any questions or are looking for any particular breed or care needs, let an attendant know and we'll be happy to help. You can hit that buzzer on the wall to find me at the front desk, okay?"

"Yep!" you chirp. "Thank you!"

She leaves you to your perusal, and you're more than happy for the relative solitude—you go straight to the center of the room, and Izuku follows, watching in amusement as you sit in the middle of the floor and begin to watch for any cat that stands out to you.

"Did you have anything in mind, Izu?"

"I'd like it to be a cat," he replies, smiling wryly.

You snort. "Well, I'd hope so. I mean, do you have any limits on stuff like special needs, or age, or…"

"I mean, I guess I'd be happy with anything? They're all so cute, I'm not sure how I could even choose. And I’ve got time to take care of a special needs cat if that’s what we end up with."

He takes a seat on the floor next to you. Several cats bound right up to him—you giggle when a kitten enthusiastically begins to climb his back.

Oh, you have no idea where to begin on this little venture. There's easily sixty cats in the large room—more, you assume, hiding in various nooks and crannies. There's an attendant who's just come in, bearing a rolling bin filled with compartments of various cat foods. You watch as nearly every cat in the room bolts to her, including the one that had been climbing Izuku. You laugh as it springs off him. "These hoes ain't loyal at all." You giggle. "They left you the second someone had food."

The attendant looks up to see you two, smiling at you. "How are you finding the cats? Meet any that speak to you?"

"Well, I think we're both a little lost. I was kind of hoping one would just… jump out at me. But… Do you have any that don't really like other cats, or that might have to leave the center soon?"

Izuku spares you a glance. You await the attendant's answer as she measures out food.

"Hm… Most of our cats have turned out to be really friendly. But we do have one… He stays away from the other cats, and he won't even come out to eat. He's in that back corner over there, in the tree, if you want to try to meet him. But be careful, he bites a lot. If we can't get his behavior to level out, we may have to…"

"Say no more." You push yourself to a standing position, following her directions to a cat tree in the back corner of the room, where, sure enough, two orange eyes peek out at you from a seemingly impossible shroud of darkness.

And, impossibly, your neck begins to itch.

"'Zuku, are you looking at my neck?" you mutter to him as he comes up beside you.

"Well, I wasn't," he says. "Why?"

"It's… itching."

You gingerly extend a hand into the darkness. You're greeted with a sniff, then pull your hand away as the tiniest black fluff steps out of the dark.

"Oh shit, he's adorable." You hover your hand just within reach, shifting uncomfortably at the continued itching-burning of your bite marks. "Hey, sweetheart, the nice lady tells me you're not a fan of the other kitties?"

To your delight, he meows back. Your neck seems to itch more as he stares at you, and just to be sure, you glance back at the attendant. Her back is to you, and there's no one else in the room. Izuku has reached a hand out to let the kitten warm up to him, in hopes of avoiding a bite, but his eyes are trained completely on the baby.

The cat is the only one looking at your neck. And on closer inspection, two impossibly sharp fangs are poking out of his mouth, the likes of which you've only really noticed on…

"Baby, is that you?" you mutter to it in your best cat voice.

It doesn't answer. It's a cat, after all.

"Izuku, I think he's the one."

"Do you?" he asks, raising his eyebrows. He's smoothed one finger over the top of the cat's head. No biting so far.

"We've taken to calling him Ankle Biter," the attendant says from behind you. You nearly scream—Izuku's quick hand on your shoulder grounds you enough to resist it. "He usually goes for the ankles." "Do you ever see him eat regular cat food?"

She tilts her head. "Sometimes? He doesn't come out until people leave, though, except to bite unprovoked. I can't figure him out."

"Anything else strange about him?"

She places a hand on her chin thoughtfully. "Well, it's odd… We've had Ankle Biter here for a good six months, but he's never gotten any bigger, or really changed at all. By now, he should basically look like a smaller adult, but he just… hasn't changed."

You shoot Izuku a Look™. Whether he understands it, you're not sure, but…

One last test.

The mirror in your pocket, just to be sure she wasn't looking at you. You pull it out, flip it open, and make like you're adjusting your hair.

She reflects perfectly fine. Just for fun, you turn around to look at her, keeping it open, and sweep the area now behind you.

The cat doesn't reflect. Not even his eyes.

You don't know how or why, but someone turned this fucking cat into a vampire.

"Well, that's interesting. I think he's the cat for me. Izuku, what do you think?"

He tilts his head at you. "He's adorable. I'm just surprised you decided so quick."

"Don't you feel it?" you insist, slipping into a grin. You pocket your mirror and grab his arm with both hands. "He's perfect." You grin up at him, squeezing his arm gently. Please, oh please, take the hint. "Can't we get him?"

He laughs, a hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. "Sure." He looks at the attendant. "Should we tell you, or do we need to buzz the front desk for Ankle Biter?"

"I'll buzz them! But, are you sure? I'm serious when I say he bites ankles. Not an employee works here who doesn't get bit by him within the week."

You nod enthusiastically. "Please. We can get him to stop biting. I know a few tricks, and he's just… He's adorable. I can't get over his little fangs, and I was worried he'd get lonely if it's just him as a cat, but since he doesn't like other cats…"

"Well…" She smiles. "I'm glad you've made your choice. I'll get Miranda, and then she'll bring in a carrier so you two can take Ankle Biter home. Did you have a name in mind, for the certificate, or will you stick with Ankle Biter?"

You look to Izuku, who shrugs and nods at you, then at Ankle Biter. Finally, you nod back to the attendant. "Sbeve."

"Sbeve?" she echoes.

It just slipped out, but it's too perfect. You nod. "Sbeve."

"Is that spelled like Steve, but with a B, or…"

"Yep! His name's Sbeve."

She laughs. "Not the worst name we've had for an adoptee." She peers past you. "Hey, Sbeve, we found you a forever home. Won't you be glad to have new ankles to bite?"

Sbeve meows. The attendant calls the front desk, and you listen in amusement as the receptionist realizes you're adopting the apparently infamous Ankle Biter.

"I'll be right there with the crate! Try to keep him from biting before I get there!" she insists. Within a minute, she's in the room, holding a Sbeve-sized crate to carry the boy out in.

You think they're expecting Sbeve to put up a fight. But he merely looks from you to Izuku, then back again, and trots right up to jump into the crate.

"That's amazing," the receptionist says. "All my time here and I've never seen Ankle Biter cooperate with anything that didn't directly get him closer to biting someone's ankles."

You snort. "Oh, I'm sure he'll happily be biting our ankles soon."

She latches the crate door, glancing up at you forlornly. "I'm almost sad to see him go. I'm glad he got out before our boss decided he was too much trouble and wouldn't get adopted, but… I'll miss him."

"For what it's worth, I won't miss bandaging my ankles," cuts in the attendant.

Izuku chuckles. "I'm sure you won't. But hey, we'll keep in touch! Maybe someday Sbeve here will be behaved enough to stay with a second cat."

"More like third," you tease. He shoots you a playful glare.

You return to the front of the shelter, carrying Sbeve's crate the whole way, and finalize the paperwork. It's almost solemn, especially when you're asked to take a picture to prove you're leaving with the infamous Ankle Biter that's surely terrorized this shelter for ages now. Sbeve is quiet the whole way home. You can't help but smile the whole time, securing his crate in the back for the ride to the pet store.

In solitude, Izuku finally has the chance to ask. "So why did you pick up on this one so quickly?"

"Two words," you say, glancing back at Sbeve's crate. "Vampire kitten."

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[gatheringfiki]

PSA - The Future of Gathering FiKi

Hello,

Folks, the time has come to ask some questions about the future of this little tumblr (to be clear: we do mean the GatheringFiKi tumblr, NOT the FiKi fandom as a whole). This is driven by two factors:

I, that is, @linane-art, the main admin of GatheringFiKi, am about to uproot my life and spend the next 12 months travelling (with 6-9 months of it in New Zealand). As such, I don't know what sort of internet access I'm going to have and how much time I will be able to devote to organising events. Although I do tend to run them as efficiently as possible, they still take up a lot of my time and even more prep. I would like to be able to say that I have prepared and have got things all queued, but I haven't had the time. I would like to say that someone else will pick up the mantle in my absence, but there simply isn't anyone interested. What I AM saying is: it's not impossible, but will be tricky.

We have always said that we'll run our events if there are 10 or more people interested in taking part. With our last event, we saw three (3) people take part, and even before, those numbers were around 5. Now, I really don't want to penalise the 3-5 people who did take part, nor do I have any right to preach (I haven't taken part myself either), but as I keep saying, if you are reading this, then you ARE the fandom; there is no one else who will generate content for us. It's a 'use it or lose it' situation.

With that in mind, I have prepared a short survey for all of you, to take the temperature of the fandom and see how you'd like to proceed.

Take our quick survey here

This survey will run only over the course of this weekend: 27 - 28 August and the results will be posted on Sunday evening.

Please note that this survey will impact on all the events that would normally run January - September 2023, AS WELL AS the already scheduled events for the rest of 2022 (i.e. Trick or Treat and 12 Days of Christmas).

Finally, I think we have a number of people for whom this announcement will be a source of anxiety - I know that for me personally, this is a very difficult post to write, as my love for this pairing is not 1% less than what it was when the films first premiered.

But I do need to know where I stand and I do need to adapt to what you - my audience - needs, if not wants. So please answer truthfully and trust me to do the best I can to support whatever plans you have. Also, please remember that even if GF was to shut down completely tomorrow, nobody is going to stop you, or other interested people, from creating new FiKi content or updating their existing stories.

GF =/= FiKi fandom. YOU are the fandom.

Potential FAQs under the cut:

Why does this whole post say nothing about Britchell/Mitchers, DarkHawk or any other pairings?

Yes, I realise that is the case. FiKi has always been at the core of this specific tumblr and it is our main concern, but it is understood that should GF continue to operate, all other pairings will continue to be serviced exactly as they are today, so long as there's an appetite for content related to those pairings. Basically, we need to work out what is happening with the FiKi fandom first, because this tumblr could not be run as a Britchell/Mitchers/DrakHawk-centric space alone (although there is no reason why someone else couldn't create such a space).

2. What about Rings of Power? Will that not bring an influx of new people interested in FiKi?

Possibly. If I wasn't going to New Zealand, I would have absolutely at least ran the rest of the events for 2022 to see if that extra interest materialises or not, before looking at my options. But the timing is really unfortunate and cannot be helped. Now, if I was to see lots of activity pick up after Rigns of Power are released, I might re-initiate some of the planned events, so long as my internet access and spare time allows it. I am taking all the tools to do it with me.

3. I can't take part in the events because of XYZ, but I would hope that others might! Why isn't that an option?

Because if we are all standing in a circle, eyeing each other to see who will go first, not only does it put unhealthy pressure on those few who will indeed post stuff, but also it doesn't tell me anything about the real uptake of any future events. So as a rule of tumb - speak for yourself and don't look to others to determine your own experience.

[neurospicy]

hi! feel free not to answer this if you don’t want to, but i just saw your post about college being a test of executive function. i’m a grad student who is currently TAing and will probably be solo teaching in the near future, and your experiences definitely resonate with what i’ve seen happening with some of my students. i’m invested in making higher ed more accessible and i’m wondering if you have any ideas for (or experiences with) things that would make it easier for you to work outside of class? obviously i know that these would be at best bandaids without structural changes to how school (especially college) works, i’m just thinking about how i can do the least harm in the short term. thank you!

I'm actually just now seeing this, so I hope it hasn't been sitting here too long! The first thing I want to say is thank you so much for caring about your students enough to seek out answers and understanding. I promise you it means so much to your students, and teachers and professors who care really do make all the difference. In terms of tangible things that helped me a lot, in high school, I ended up graduating from an "alternative school" due to some behavioral issues as well as academic issues with traditional schooling. I actually really excelled in the alternative school because the way it was structured made a HUGE difference.

Some things that made the biggest difference for me were:

They didn't run the same hours as a traditional school. Rather, they went from noon until 5pm. A lot of neurodivergent people have sleep differences as well. Many of us find it difficult to fall asleep at a "normal" hour or to wake up early even if we do manage getting to bed early--our internal clocks aren't always socially acceptable, so on top of executive dysfunction, many of us are chronically sleep deprived and exhausted. This schedule allowed me to actually get enough sleep.

There were no attendance requirements. You could choose not to come, you could come late, or you could leave early. You could even sign yourself out for a couple hours and come back to finish out the day. On days that I felt burnt out or my executive functioning was especially low to the point that I couldn't get myself to show up, it didn't count against me. If I couldn't get up and ready early enough to get there at the beginning of the day, it didn't matter. If I burnt out in the middle of the day, I could just leave. It prevented me from falling into what I describe as energy debt, where you keep pushing past burnout until it compounds on itself.

And the one that was the biggest thing for me was that there was absolutely no homework that had to be taken home. None. We put our work up at the end of the day and picked up where we left off the next day. This was the thing that always hurt me the most academically, and it hurt me all over again in college. I had less difficulty getting into "work mode" when I was physically in the classroom, but at home I couldn't make myself pull out my backpack, start up my laptop, log into the college website, then start the assignment itself. For some reason there was always this invisible barrier in my brain that would not allow it to happen. I got A's on my tests easily, but it didn't matter because the incomplete homework was too much to make up for.

Another thing I want to mention is that ADHD, autism, and other neurodivergencies tend to exist on a spectrum--it's a cluster of traits that can be sort of mix and match in terms of intensity and how they impact an individual. While I did have a hard time getting to classes in college on time, I didn't have that much of a problem being there in general. Some neurodivergent people find it immensely difficult to sit in a classroom due to sensory issues, social anxiety, the distraction of other people being around, etc. I on the other hand HAD to take classes in person because I could never make myself log on for online classes--I actually got talked (tricked) into taking one by my counselor one semester and I literally didn't log on a single time. I just couldn't make myself, and it just became a huge source of stress and anxiety that spilled into my performance in other classes. All of that being said, the best thing to do is to ask those students that you see these struggles in what kind of things they think would help them. They might not know and it might take some suggestions or question asking on your part to identify where their particular struggles lie. I hope this helps a little bit!

[definegodliness]

Hey there! I hope it isn't too much to ask but can you share your experience transforming your mind and going from "I want to die" to "I want to live"???

Let me first say that I am a mental mess of several disorders, evolved through nature and nurture; interpersonal problems, ptsd, suicidal, general anxiety, dysthymia, season affective disorder... oof, the list goes on. I've got quite a file, built through analysis in several different therapies over the last say, ten years, collecting dust in my cabinet.

What I'm trying to say with this is that my way of dealing with things is definitely not fit for any mental health handbook. I might have learned the odd tip and trick, but mostly I have just specialized in dealing with me, through rituals and routines. But also by giving up any aspiration for a 'normal' life.

I will always recommend therapy, but, for myself, I must say it didn't work. It was so strenuous I barely have any recollection of those ten years I sought help. Life, to me, has become a hell of a lot better ever since I stepped away from therapy. I regained a lot of energy, and applied that in finding out what works for me. I had to built myself up from the ground. From sleep schedule, to eat pattern; really, the most basic needs, and then to spiritual and mental fulfilment. It all took years. But now I can say I vaguely resemble a functional person. Don't be like me though. I mean, I have nothing, and I aspire nothing. I wish every person on earth more than that. But to me, desiring more is a portal to devastating depressions.

I can maybe answer specific questions on how to deal with certain problems, but as to "transforming your mind and going from "I want to die" to "I want to live", I am definitely not a helpful example. I've learned to live with wanting to die. The "I want to live" in the text piece you are referring to, I actually experience as negative. As mentioned above, it is a desire that pulls me into the darkest depths of depression. As I am reminded of all my failings as a human being; all the simple things I cannot do, and all the simple things I will not have. I truly desire the inner status quo of not thinking about any of that (read: living), nor thinking about death, and just living.

Specifically, the switch from 'wanting to die to wanting to live' mentioned in that text piece, is about the effects of the Season Affective Disorder disappearing. But that is entirely beyond my control so handling S.A.D. (which is all in all just waiting) wouldn't have been much of an answer.

Also, battling suicide is not a topic I think of lightly, so I didn't want to send you off with an answer like that. Alas, best tip I can give you is promising yourself you will not kill yourself. That's what I did, and it works to stop the mind when it's milling in the wrong direction. Maybe you can find a specific thing, or phrase, to trick your brain into stopping that thought track as well. I also would like to say that with time it gets better, every time you beat those feelings, you have another moment to remind yourself of for when shit hits the fan again.

I wish I could be of more help. But unless you are looking for the course 'advanced giving up', I really am unfit.

Definitely try therapy!

[cynicalrecoverysociety]

Non scale victory time! The little one is that I had my health coaching call today and for the first time I didn't just meet but exceeded the goals I had set. I wanted to reduce my refined carb intake and get under 260 (my first mini goal) by the end of April. Well look who weighs 256 and has replaced most pasta, bread and potatoes with an avocado and a side salad? It's me! And the next biggest one: I am now slowly but steadily losing and for the first time I don't have to try that hard and it feels like I can do it forever. In the past I think I tried to trick myself into thinking balls-to-the-walls effort was just who I was going to be now. But that's just not the truth. Any fitness plan that will require me to have a rigid and intense workout schedule, where I have to never again eat some things, where I have to eat 1000 tiny meals a day, and on and on . . . . they will just never work for me. They work for some and that's great! But there's no world where I hit the gym 5-6 days a week and start olympic lifting. I'm sorry, it just sounds miserable to me and I even like exercise. But this? Replace a lot of your pasta and bread with an avocado and a side salad, eat mostly chicken and veggies, walk on the lunch break, 10 minutes of beginner yoga a day. I can handle that. And really, the intense workout plans just never address my core issues anyway. My mental illness, my food addiction, my codependency and unhealthy coping skills, those are the root of my problems. And I think my past plans that involved me just constantly going and working were a lot more about me trying to avoid any problems rather than addressing and conquering them.

I guess at the end of the day my NSV is really just that I am starting to find what will really work for me. I'm starting to truly find the things I can do almost every day for the rest of my life that I often enjoy and I can build into habits. I'm not trying to force myself to do anything. I don't feel like I'm depriving myself of anything (except sweets, it's not that I'm not having them ever even I just get an intense dessert craving literally every day after dinner). I feel like I'm just . . . living my life. It's a life that was healthier than it was before and it's one I'm making conscious efforts to improve, but it's just normal life. It feels like for the last 2 years I have been packing all my shit into my car to start the road trip and now I finally have everything I need and I'm just hitting the road. Reframing my urge to eat as an addiction helped so, so much. It helped me find the difference between hunger and emotion. It made me challenge habits I didn't even know I had and start replacing them with good ones. And it has let me really connect my mental and physical health journey. I have always thought about them as two roads that sometimes cross but in reality they are the same road just different lanes. I shoved my mental health to the side, assuring myself it was both in an okay place and less important than my physical health. But I had no idea physical health would be impossible without mental. My mental illness has been holding me back in ways I was afraid to even acknowledge. I'm not better lord knows but I'm working on it which is more than I can say for the last few years.

I'm so satisfied with my journey right now. I'm trying to lock this away for the coming months where I will be seeing friends and making merry for the first time in over a year and I know I will be disappeared what all the wine and song are doing to my progress. But no matter what I'm not going back to old habits, and I'm getting healthy. I refuse to settle for anything less than complete peace in body, mind and spirit.

[samstrugglingwithlife]

Hi! Congrats on 200!! Can I get a haikyuu match up pls? I'm a 21 yr old computer science student and I draw on the side. I love playing video games and dream of making one myself. My love language are acts of service/quality time. Hobbies: listening to music/podcasts, watching movies, playing video games. Total introvert, shy and quiet most of the time but I enjoy hanging out with friends and making ppl laugh with dumb jokes and memes (I like banter/teasing close friends) (1/2) 🦁

First of lemme ask you, CAN I BE YOUR MATCHUP???

MAY I SHIP YOU WITH ME? Nah, honestly you deserve better, lol. 

Thank you for sending in your matchup request, you sound so precious, I absolutely love you! I hope you like this. I’m sorry I wrote this when I’m not doing so well, so it may sound like it’s all over the place. If you don’t like this, I am terribly sorry and please let me know so I can improve this.

I thought long and hard about who would be a good match for you and if you don’t like this character or the matchup then let me know, okay?

Kuroo Tetsurou 

How You Two Met

You met Kuroo at a restaurant. Well, to be more specific, your friends dragged you out to try out the new hip restaurant that was a hang out hotspot for all youngsters with its neon lights and a live indie band performing every night. Kuroo was there with his college classmates, they were all gathered around a large table near the band, listening to their performance. One of your friends caught his friend's eye, and you guys were invited to their table to hang out with them. Obviously, you guys joined their group, you sat next to Kuroo. You felt awkward as your friends interacted with his friends, flirting and giggling. Kuroo noticed your awkwardness and decided to have small talk with you, within minutes you were comfortable and talking as if you two were old friends. You made him cackle with your jokes, and he was pleasantly surprised that you could keep up with his teasing comments and retaliated wittingly. By the end of the night, you two became good friends and even exchanged numbers so you guys could meet up again.

When He Asked You Out And Your First Date

After your first interaction, you two texted a lot back and forth. On days when your schedules were free at the same time, you two would meet up. Sometimes you guys would meet up at the same restaurant, sometimes you guys would meet up at the park, he would also often drop by your college to hang out. The more he got to know you, the deeper he fell for you. He loved watching you eat, the cute smile on your face whenever you ate the food you liked made him weak in the knees. He also thought that the way you spoke about your passions and your desire to make your own video game was super sexy. Little by little, Kuroo's feelings for you grew deeper and deeper. One day, you got a text from him asking you to meet up at that restaurant. When you got there, you saw how he was biting his nail, and his leg was bouncing with worry. That day, he confessed his feelings for you. After that, the two of you could hardly contact each other because of midterms, and you were left thinking about his confession. You liked him a lot too, but you didn't even get the chance to tell him. On the day of your last exam, as you exit the building, you see Kuroo standing outside waiting for you. You rush to him. As he walks you home, you guys talk about your feelings, and he finally asks you out on a date, you immediately say yes! On your first date, you guys went to a restaurant for dinner, but not the same hipster-chic restaurant you guys always hung out at, but to a very sweet quaint looking place with serene instrumental music playing in the background. You thought that it would be awkward, suddenly you weren't hanging out as friends but as a couple. However, soon enough, all your worries were washed away as you guys ordered way too much food and teased each other back and forth. You guys were bantering like you normally did and were having fun as you always did. The only difference was that Kuroo and you were now holding hands and staring lovingly at each other. When your date ended, and you guys had to go your separate ways to your homes, he kissed you ever so gently before helping you into the cab and waving as it drove you away.

Whats Your Relationship Like

Sometimes Kuroo acts like he is way beyond his years, sometimes he is like a man-fucking-child, there is no in-between. But he is so encouraging like he really does so much to boost your confidence. He's showing you pamphlets about short courses on how to make your own video games, he's inviting Kenma over so the two of you can discuss, he's bringing home textbooks that would be helpful. "Babe, babe, look what I found online, you should take this course during summer break!" The two of you are always bantering and having fun little arguments about this and that. He loves that you are affectionate with him, he loves it when you run to him to hug him when he's had a tough day. You're always so sweet to him and taking care of him. He knows that you get awkward when all attention is directed towards you so he slowly eases you into receiving his love. He loves playing video games with you, he's always screaming like an old man, "Damn, I don't know these controls!" You guys are so lazy when you're cuddling, there is a crack on the light switch in his room because neither of you wanted to get out of bed to turn off the light so this bitch threw the fucking air-con remote at it. He likes to bury his face in your neck and listen to your voice as he drifts off to sleep, sometimes you both fall asleep while listening to your favourite podcast. He loves your cooking but he knows that you'd rather order take-out so he's pulling dirty tricks and making bets. If you lose, you make dinner (he'll do the dishes), if you win, he'll order whatever food you want, however much you want (he will still do the dishes). He hates that you drink too much coffee because it's not good for your body but whenever he comes to pick you up from school he always has your favourite drink and a doughnut. Also if you have a problem saying no, he'll do it in your stead so don't worry baby! Please try to be more careful because Kuroo will pass away if he sees you stumble or drop something one more time. Overall, you're both a very mature and very sweet couple. He pushes you to do your best and you take care of him when he can't do it himself. He tries his hardest to bring you out of your shell because the world needs to see what he sees and that you are truly a gem of a person. 10/10 you're a wonderful person and you deserve the best. 

[fictional-worlds-are-exquisite]

thank you! i think you're genuinely the only person that has ever said they actually like the fact that my bathrobe is obnoxiously pink. and you're absolutely right, one of the things i like most about it is that it hurts people's eyes. i love it actually. if you ever celebrate halloween you should absolutely add your bathrobe to your costume. an amazing idea. since it has a mouse face on the hood it could be two costumes rolled into one - both a vampire and a mouse (if in the middle of the evening you get bored of one), which i think would be awesome. and you probably wouldn't get cold (is it cold in nz during halloween? because here it almost always is). we don't celebrate halloween in lithuania either though. which i'm a bit bummed about, because halloween sounds super fun. mostly because of the dressing up! but i did celebrate it once, when i was 11 or 12 maybe? me and a couple of friends decided it would be fun even if it's not really celebrated here. so we dressed up, even went trick ir treating (half the houses had no idea what was happening and also i pretty much froze to death because i was dressed as a dead bride and refused to put a coat on because then you couldn't see my dress) and also watched horror movies. 12 (or 11) year old me thought it was amazing.

oh yeah! i've broken a knife on 2 separate occasions i think. once i tried to get something out of between the blender's blades, used a knife and then accidentally turned the blender on (i'm so fucking glad it was a knife and not my fingers). so the tip of the knife broke off (the blender was ok tho). and the second time i have no idea how it happened. i was cutting up broccoli and the knife just fell apart??? i was so confused, because one second i'm holding a knife and the next it's just two pieces of a handle and the metal part, all separate. had fun explaining that to my dad. you sound pretty unlucky too! i mean, a cut every time you use a knife, but you don't even notice it at the time? i think it's just that knives are out to get us (it's my newest conspiracy theory). i actually get double vision too sometimes! mostly when i'm tired, but i just figured that it was because i have really bad eyesight

they definitely SHOULD teach about gender and sexuality in school. it's a really big problem that in a lot of places it's either not compulsory or not even in the curriculum. honestly, everything i know about sex ed or lgbtq+ i had to learn myself on the internet, because we only had one class when we were like 13 years old with a guest speaker and it was mostly biology and then a little bit about menstruation and pads for girls (i have no idea what they told boys because we were also separated). so sex ed definitely sucks a lot in my country and i bet it's the same in a lot of others, which makes me really mad

exactly!! it's so hard to tell whether i'm feeling romantic or platonic love sometimes! it's confusing. also i remember one time me and a couple of friends had a sleepover and the friend's, who was hosting, parents weren't home so we watched romance movies (scandalous i know). again we were maybe 12. and they kept going "oh he's so hot" and intensely watching the sex scenes. while i was looking away from the tv whenever sexy times were going on and commenting on how much i loved the house design and the garden. gee i wonder what that means. (still can't believe it took me this long to figure out i was ace)

the breakfast went very well though! it's so interesting how different traditions are everywhere. i hope your lunch and the rest of christmas day went well too! (also i forgot to ask last time, but what is boxing day? google says it's mostly a shopping holiday, is it that? we just call it the second day of christmas and it's pretty much the same as christmas day but there's no presents!) but yeah i hope you had fun with your extended family on boxing day!

having acid reflux sounds like it sucks. i love breakfast, it's my favourite meal of the day (when i don't have to rush that is) and i skip lunch a lot because i usually have no time for it (my schedule kinda sucks), so i usually try to have a bigger breakfast. but hey, peanut butter is good! so at least you can have something that tastes good for breakfast!

aaand i feel like this ask got away from me. sorry it's so long!

it’s because i have t a s t e. it may not be GOOD taste but it sure is...taste...and i am proud of it. and yes, i love the idea of adding my dressing gown to my costume specifically because it means i’m basically in my PJ’s. minimal effort. comfort to the max. living the dream. halfway through the night i’m tired of being the vampire no one invites in so i drop to my knees and start the mouse act. mice are good at getting in houses and getting to chocolate and such. the dream. also i absolutely would get bored of one costume within the space of a few hours knowing me, so that’s a plus. uhhhh halloween is october which is. mid-late spring so it really depends on the day. it might be a little cold, might be shorts weather. I rarely leave my house at night so I’m not an expert on nighttime temperatures sdflsdfjsd. 

I used to wish we did Halloween here but that was mostly because I wanted lollies. Although I also liked playing dress up as a young kid so maybe very young me would’ve vibed with the costume aspect. I know there’s a photo of me when I was like, 5 and my best friend of the time dressed up as witches at some point, maybe we had our own little halloween. I also possibly had a halloween themed birthday party once as a kid? I remember the little gift bags having spooky things in them and also possibly a bat cake but my memory is too bad to remember for sure. aha that’s the problem here too, no one locally would ever think to buy lollies to give out so it’d just be like um. you can have an apple I guess? at least you had fun though! i respect the commitment to the costume despite the cold. 

that is such a stressful story to read, i fear for your life. although i understand the knife breaking in that first scenario. that would be terrifying though. what if the blender launched it,,, nOPE. i’m very glad it wasn’t your fingers, that’s some horror movie shit. the second time is just,, it be like that sometimes. it was probably just waiting to happen. my parents have a cheese grater with a loose handle and it. falls off. every time. i dry it. with the dishes. and every time i fear for my life as the grating bit drops off towards my feet as i’m left holding the handle. i should expect it by now but i never do. I get scared every time it happens. knives are definitely out to get us, i fully support this conspiracy theory. oh yeah, tiredness doesn’t help with double vision. i kind of need bifocal glasses by now but I also don’t want bifocal glasses so i just suffer but I suspect having them would reduce the double vision. maybe. maybe not.

yup! i remember someone handing out tampons and pads at primary school, i assume after giving a talk about periods, idk. i do also remember a teacher pulling the girls aside and being like yo, this is what a period is, here’s a horror story about my daughter and a tampon, enjoy the trauma, go back to class. good times. we did actually get really comprehensive sex ed concerning most things at my high school but that is faaaarrr from the norm around here, clearly. although teenage boys are good at filling in gaps, in my experience. they’re like little sex encyclopedias that offer up information without you asking. i didn’t ACTUALLY want to know that but i do now, i guess, thanks michael. 

dude. the ‘oh he’s so hot’ comments are so confusing. ‘hot’ is like a category of attractiveness that I’ve never understood. ‘isn’t he hot?’ what does that MEAN rebecca. i think i asked once if it meant like, attractive or good looking. and the person i asked was like, you know, hot. you just look at them and, you know- no i don’t know. what is this. i don’t think i’ve ever watched a sex scene with people my age though, generally i just zone out for them sdkfhskdfh. i feel like there’s definitely all these indicators when you look back like oh yeah, should’ve realised i was ace then, but it’s just. such a hard sexuality to figure out. not that other sexualities aren’t but you’ve got to figure out an absence of something when you don’t even know what the something feels like- it’s a challenge.

I’m glad it did! It is interesting, for sure. I’ve always been interested in how winter Christmas’s work. As a young kid I didn’t understand hemispheres...obviously...i was like 5...and i’d go out on Christmas morning to see if there was snow. and sometimes it’d be a bit chilly in the morning and I’d be like damn. we almost had some this year. it’s a shame our climate tends to be too hot for snow on christmas :// like no you tiny dumbass it’s summer you little idiot there will be no snow no matter what. everything ended up going super well here :). boxing day is basically just a shopping holiday, i don’t know if it has any significance in any other way, i’m sure it did at one point, but i know there’s always boxing day sales everywhere. I think it’s also a public holiday (?) to give people another day off work and that, but I could be wrong there. I know I also used to regularly go to the races (horse races) nearby that were always held on boxing day, it was like a 150 year old tradition or something until people in attendance started dropping and I think they finally shut it down a couple years back. I didn’t care all that much about the horses but they also had food and carnival-type rides and such for the kids which is why I loved it. also we tended to meet extended family there for a picnic lunch.

acid reflux is like the least of my problems sdfkjshdkf. it’s annoying but it’s pretty managed with medication, I have to watch certain foods and drinks but I’m used to it by now. I think it’s also what causes me to not be able to eat large amounts normally so I survive a lot on snacks and a reasonable sized dinner. works for me. but peanut butter is good! i’m glad i can have that! I used to also have vegemite but that’s a bit more of a push, it’s easier to stick with peanut butter.

also it’s fine!! my responses are always very long too sdfjhskdf.

[voices-not-echoes]

NOT TO BE A CONSPIRACY THEORIST BUT

The Video™️ was put up on february 28th and the wrap party for shadow and bone was on february 29th, so I'm assuming post production began on march 1st.

coronavirus began shutting things down around march 11th, but everywhere was closed down by pretty much by march 26th

despite this, netflix has stated that production is continuing from home, so shows that already have been filmed will likely not be delayed

on march 30th, leigh bardugo did a livestream where she stated that there were rough cuts of 6 out of 8 episodes but there's still a lot to do, including editing and adding effects.

in case y'all have lost perception of time, it is now may 8th.

from march 30th to now is 39 days. we're going to go for the unlikely situation that leigh saw these episodes the day before her livestream and call it 40 days.

according to quora, post production generally takes two weeks per episode. there are eight episodes of shadow and bone, so we'd assume there would be 16 weeks of post production, which is 112 days.

"oh boo!" you say. "it's only been 40 days since Leigh's livestream!" you're right, however I tricked you and myself a little with those numbers because I forgot that filming ended on february 29th so we've assumed post began on march 1st. that means there has, in fact likely been 69 (ha) days of post production.

under normal circumstances we'd assume that there would be 43 more days of post, which would put a release date somewhere in late june, probably on the 20th.

however, while I want a release of the full series, what I really want, what I desperately desire, is a trailer. I need it to get me through.

the trailer for she ra came out on april 30th, with season 5 being released on may 15th. the trailer for outer banks came out on march 31st, with the show being released on April 15th. the trailer for Hollywood came out on april 21st, with the series being released on may 1st. the half of it trailer came out on april 9th, with the movie coming out on may 1st. the trailer for medici also came out on april 9th and medici was also released on may 1st.

"booooo," you say. "that's a lot of numbers with no explanation and therefore meaningless garbage." yes, you're right of course, so let me explain. although there are exceptions, netflix typically releases trailers 2 to 3 weeks before the release of the show. there isn't a particularly consistent trailer date. that means that, to find the trailer date, I have to find the actual release date. I have decided that I will.

I looked at the release schedule for may and april and found a few patterns. obviously the most content is put on netflix on the first of the month. however, while content is usually released every day, netflix originals are usually released in a cluster. to explain that a bit, original content is released on april 14th and continues to be released until april 17th, followed by two days of no original content before the next cluster.

"oh no, marguerite," you say. "these are not normal circumstances, so I think there's no way your crazy conjecture is at all relevant to the current situation." BUT AHA. I know you are wrong. how you ask? I'll tell you how.

drum roll please... there are already june release dates announced by netflix. netflix originals will be released on june 2nd, june 4th and 5th, June 10th and 12th, and june 18th and 19th.

I think you can tell from the way I grouped those dates that i think i can already spot some clusters. the most relevant one for our use is the cluster from june 18th to june 19th. the truth is, I don't know whether the point leigh said post was at in her livestream puts them ahead of, behind, or right on schedule, and because I dont know I can only estimate that post will take about the average time and the release will be around june 20th.

because we know that content will be released on the 18th and 19th and I know that the longest clusters were five days long, we can guess the range of days when shadow and bone could be released. I'm attaching a picture of a note on my phone explaining that range.

in summary, the earliest likely release date is the 15th, while the latest likely release date is the 25th. the average between these 2 is june 20th, the date which we initially said is when post production should end. I would say personally that I find the later dates more likely, but hey anything's possible.

my conclusions? to me, the earliest possible trailer date is may 25th, while the latest likely trailer date is june 17th. however, what I would call the most likely trailer and release date is a trailer on june 5th and a release on june 20th. thank you for your time.

[aspss-aspen]

bit of a rant

for last week-ish (honestly lost track at this point) I've had an incredibly painful headache almost constantly. I assume its a migrane, I don't really know.

Thing is, I'm used to having low grade headaches. I've had headaches on and off (more on than off) since I was in middle school. Back then I think it was mostly because I was almost constantly overwhelmed and over stimulated. Now I think it's mostly because of stress.

But since this last week it's been so bad that I've been close to tears multiple times from the pain and have had to take off work. So now I have to figure out if something more is going on than me just being stressed all the time.

And oh my fucking god is it hard to schedule appointments when your brain feels like it's being compressed into a vacuum sealed bag. And of course there's also thinking about how much those appointments will cost, and how I will get there (don't have my own car, have to find a time when I can borrow my roomates), and if this will be a one time fix (probably not) or if I'll have to go back multiple times for them to try different things (most likely).

and it's not even just a headache. my entire body has been in more pain than normal (yes I do have chronic pain and joint issues that were not taken seriously by the adults in my life so im only just learning how to take take seriously myself why do you ask) so basically everything sucks and it hurts to move literally any part of me.

luckily people at work have been very understanding. and my boyfriend is actually the best and has been really lovely and helpful. but it's still just annoying and scary and stressful.

anyway, if you also have chronic pain/headaches lmk your tips and tricks and things that help. I'll be forever indebted to you

[just-an-enby-lemon]

So I wrote this excerpt:

Disclaimer: I'm not proud of it. Or at myself for even caring for such a trashy offensive show as Gotham. But here I am.

City renovations. Important meetings. A lot of papperwork. Murder plans. All things considered, and by that Oswald meant the stupid bitch who had bewiched Ed, the day was going pretty normal. So of course something had to happen.

This time "something" came in the form of the random teenager he found inside his officer. Sitting in the mayor chair. His chair. He was going to make sure his security team paid in blood for such a pathetic mistake. How his numerous enemys hadn't tried to murder him - or worse tried to weaken him by attacking Ed - when his security was commiting such a pathetic and amateur mistake was a wonder.

"Good afternoon, Mister Mayor, enjoyed your lunch break?"

The audacity.

"Who the fuck are you and why do you think that you can't just wonder around with no repercurssions?"

Not his best attempt of intimidation, but he didn't need to make a good job, surely the boy must know he is a dangerous man.

"Oh. Forgive my manners." The kid looked genuinaly embarrassed, worse he extended his hand. Was these a vivid hallucination? He was having some of those after Arkham, but they usually made nightmarish sense, these was just ridiculous. "My name is Tim Drake, it's a pleasure to meet you."

He sounded genuine? Who the fuck was these kid? Tim Drake. Tim Drake. The name didn't ring a bell. If it even was his true name. Should he kill the boy now? No, much negative media. Maybe he could entertain him, try to gatter some usefull information.

"Oswald Coobleppot" He shaked the boys hand. Maybe-Tim beamed. "Can't exactly say the same."

"I understand." The boy, Tim, said suddently serius. "If it's worth something my original plan was to simply schedule a meeting."

It really didn't. But he noded as if it did.

"Oh?"

"But I was afraid you woudn't listen to me or that it would take too long and it really coudn't wait. Besides with all due respect your security sucks."

That is it. He wasn't going to murder his chief of security anymore, he was going to make the man wish he was dead instead.

"Don't you say?"

"Yeah. I basically just observed their morning pattern, lied a bit and that was it. The woman on the front dest was the worse, she basically just let me in. Worse secretary ever."

Oh? The secretary was going to be the first to go. Not a single person would ever be able to find the body.

"Why exactly are you here, child?"

"It's about Ms. Dupont"

"Who?"

"Issabella Dupont, the librarian?"

Of course! Of course it was about thay stupid thorn on his side. Was the woman truly a spy send to destroy him? Was the kid really just a hallucination and that was the nightmare turn?

"And what about the librarian exactally made such a important subject that you decided to do these little impronptu visit?"

"Why, because you are planning on killing her of course."

On one hand there was no reason anyone, including his enemies, would find about his assassination plans. For all they knew the woman was just a nobody. So points for the hallucination theory, though why would his mind be conjuring a whole person stop the act was beyond him. On the other hand maybe his infatuacion with Nygma was not as secret as he though and someone had connected the dots way to well. Either way it was bad news.

"Now, now, boy, are you aware that you are entering in a very dangerous territory rigth now?"

That was a treat! Way better than the first one.

"I'm aware. But I think is worth the risk. Will you listen to me?"

He doesn't think his answer will matter much to Possibly-Tim. If he wans to keep his position he cannot kill the child and he has the impression that if he sends the boy away he will just trick his security again. Besides he isn't sure that the kid is real and that is a can of worms he is not ready to open rigth now. Still he is very tempeted in saying "no", curious to see how exactally will the Maybe-Real-Tim will react to the negative. But alas he nods. Tilting his head expectantly.

The boy takes something of his coat and for a terrifing second Oswald thinks he calculated wrong and the kid is truly there to kill him. But it isn't a gun. No the boy has a folder. A big folder. He raises a eyebrown. The boy flushes. The ridiculousness of the situacion is closing on them again.

"I made a folder." Suposidly-Tim sounds really young and really happy with himself.  "With all my arguments, including a very detailed ten page list of all the reasons killing her would be counterproductive to you in particular."

The ridiculouness of everything is way to close.

"Why do you even care if I kill her?"

He shoud've asked before. Honestly that seems like a big point in favor of whoever the hell Tim is.  The boy open his mouth to answer. Stops as if rethinking what he was going to say.

"She is a good librarian."

"I'm sure she isn't the only good librarian in Gotham."

"Yes. But..." He stops. Shakes his head. "Fuck it." It's a murmur. A resolution under his breath. "I'll be honest here. I'm doing that because I can. Because I see inocent people die all the time and there is nothing I can do to stop it. So if I can do something, if I can stop even one death, even if it's just a maybe, a risky gamble, why shoudn't I?"

It's absurd. Ridiculous to a point that brings it all back to reality because no fiction could ever match. Everything the kid said sounds childish, foolish beyond comprehesion and he has no choice but to believe Tim is being honest.  Gordon would have loved the boy. He isn't Gordon. He wants to laugh, to pretend he cares and send the kid alway, a small absurd part of him even thinks about killing the kid and by it preserving this stupid inocence that will for sure fade with age. Listen to him is the last thing he should do, the last thing he wants to do. But there's something about the kid, something in the look in his eyes and the stupid fucking file on his hands that stops him. He barely registers his own comand for Tim to keep going. To try and change his mind. That's a dare somewhere in these encounter  but it doesn't even matter, deep down he knows he already lost. It doesn't anger him as much as it should.

Stupid fanfic idea:

Gotham TV Show, except for some reason there is these seven strange people there changing cannon events.

We have the misterious young neighboor to the Waynes, ten yeara old, Damian Al Ghurl.

Harvey Dent new junior aprendice, fifteen years old Tim Drake.

These troubled minor who should not be working as a bartender, sixteen years old Stephanie Brown.

The newbie cop that Loeb hoped would help make Gordon quit but just turned up to be more troube, tweenty five years old Dick Grayson.

Urban legend, murderous vigilant with a Robin Hoodeske carrear, Jason Todd.

And a kid who helped other metahuman orphan childrem escape a metahuman trafic ring and it's trying to end metahuman traffic in Gotham by himself, fourteen years old Duke Thomas.

All of these people feel that it's something weird about them, something wrong with their memories and that they should be somewhere else, be someone else, but they can't escape Gotham and it's games and the conections they made. So they play their parts. All of them feel like they should know each other even before they knew each other but they didn't. And the only other thing they have in common: all of them are connected with the case of a missing girl called Cassandra Cain.

In another dimension, a bat tries to find and rescue his missing children.