#schools been a real pain and hasn’t made me motivated to finish anything

[mia-draws]

Just a bunch more unfinished drawings

[massivedrickhead]

Could you do a prompt where Beca is burnt out from working so hard at record company or something and Chloe takes care of her and is all soft??

This is 10000% up my alley, thank you for sending this prompt :)

----

It was 10 pm when Chloe was startled awake by the sound of the front door closing.

A textbook for veterinary school was lying open against her chest, and there was a crick in her neck from falling asleep on the sofa.

“Bec?” She said, rubbing her eyes and putting the book on the coffee table. “Is that you?”

Beca gave a grunt in response and dropped onto the sofa next to her.

“Why are you still up?” Beca mumbled, immediately resting her head in Chloe’s lap and closing her eyes.

“I was waiting up for you,” Chloe said, running her hand through Beca’s hair.

“M’sorry,” she breathed out.

“That’s okay,” Chloe replied. “You want something to eat? I made dinner, I can go reheat it for you.”

Beca opened her eyes. “What did you make?”

Chloe smiled, “Mac and cheese. You want some?”

Beca nodded and, with great effort, lifted herself up from Chloe’s lap.

“So how was work?” Chloe asked from the kitchen.

“Busy,” Beca said, now resting her head in her hands, her elbows digging into her thighs. “Long.”

Chloe brought Beca’s food through and sat beside her on the sofa, rubbing circles on her back as she ate.

“You look tired, baby,” Chloe said.

“Thanks,” Beca said with a laugh. She ate the food quickly, and Chloe wondered if she’d stopped to eat all day. “What time is it?”

“About 10:30,” Chloe replied. 

Beca groaned. 

“What?”

“They want me back in at 7,” she said, rubbing at her eyes.

“Seriously?” Chloe asked, her voice soft but disappointed. “Bec, it’s Saturday tomorrow. You’ve done like 16 hour days every day for the last like two weeks.”

“I know that,” Beca said. “But it’s my job.” She knew Chloe wanted to say more, but she didn’t have the energy for a fight. “Please, Chlo’. Not tonight? I’m just… I don’t wanna fight. I don’t feel good.”

“What’s wrong?” Chloe asked, biting her bottom lip.

“I dunno. Tired, headache, stomach ache. Everything is kinda hurting,” Beca said.

“Are you getting sick?” Chloe asked, holding her hand against Beca’s forehead.

“I don’t think so,” Beca said, stifling a yawn. “I don’t know. Can we just go to bed?”

“Okay,” Chloe said, pushing down her worry. “But if you still feel bad in the morning, you’re staying off work.”

“I can’t do that,” Beca said, wincing slightly as Chloe helped her stand.

“I’ll call and yell at Theo if I have to,” Chloe said.

“Don’t yell at Theo,” Beca said, changing out of her work clothes and into a baggy t-shirt. “He’s already terrified of you.”

“He should be,” Chloe said. “Can I get you anything?”

Beca shook her head, and Chloe climbed into the bed beside her.

“I just worry about you, you know?”

Beca didn’t reply because she’d already fallen asleep.

Chloe pressed a kiss to her forehead, and fell asleep quickly.

She felt like she’d only been asleep for seconds when the ringing of Beca’s phone woke her up. It was 11:45 pm.

Beca was still dead to the world, so Chloe picked the phone up from her nightstand and hurried out into the hall with it. 

At the sight of Theo’s name on the call screen, her exhaustion turned to anger quickly.

“Hello, Beca’s phone?” She said, fighting to keep her voice quiet so she didn’t wake her fiancé.

“Hey Chloe, is she there?” Theo asked. He sounded tired too, and she could hear voices talking in the background.

“She’s sleeping, what’s wrong?”

“We need her back here,” he said, stifling a yawn. “The vocals she did earlier didn’t save, we need her to come back in and re-do them.”

“No,” Chloe said.

“… I’m sorry?”

“I said no. She’s sleeping. It’s 11:45 pm on a Friday night, and she’s probably only been asleep for about an hour. I’m not waking her up so she can drag herself to the studio and record some vocals that we both know won’t be useful because of how damn tired and run-down she is,” Chloe snapped. She knew her voice was getting louder, so she stepped further away from the bedroom.

She heard Theo sigh. “Chloe, this is her job, okay?”

“I know that. But she’s barely slept for more than a few hours for the last three weeks. She hasn’t had a single day off. She’s-” her voice caught in her throat. She forced herself to take a breath, pushing away the urge to cry. “You have her back in like 7 hours. Let her rest, please.”

“She knew what she was signing up for,” Theo said, sounding frustrated and exhausted. “She knew this would be hard work.”

“I’m not waking her up,” Chloe said.

“What’s going on?” Beca asked from behind her, her voice thick with sleep. “Is that my phone?”

“Go back to bed, Becs. I’m dealing with it,” Chloe said, her heart breaking at the sight of her. 

“Put her on the phone, please!” Theo said, his voice carrying over to Beca.

Beca sighed and held out her hand. “You should have woken me,” she said.

Chloe let out a groan of frustration and handed the phone over. “Please, baby, you need rest.”

Beca gave her a shrug and took the phone. “What’s up?” 

“Beca,” Theo said, sounding relieved. “We need you to come in and re-do those vocals.”

“Dude,” Beca said, groaning. “Can this seriously not wait until morning?”

“We’re all here waiting on those vocals,” Theo said. Beca could tell he was clenching his jaw like he always did when he was stressed. “This whole team is now at a standstill because we’re waiting on you.”

“Why did you even let me go home?” Beca asked, annoyed as she walked back into the bedroom. She began pulling clothes out of her wardrobe, the phone balanced in the crook of her neck as she dressed.

“Look, just come in for a few hours and take tomorrow off, how about that?”

“Is that a real offer, Theo?” Beca asked, skeptical. “Because you’ve been offering me days off for weeks now.”

“I promise. Once we get those vocals down, this track is as good as finished, and then the album is done, okay?” Theo said. 

“Fine,” Beca said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

She hung up and tossed her phone onto the bed, and began pulling on the remainder of her clothes.

“Bec,” Chloe said, standing in the door way. “Please don’t do this.”

“I’m sorry, Chlo’. Just a few hours, okay? I’ll be back before you even wake up,” Beca said, trying to sound more confident than she felt.

“I’m worried about you,” Chloe said. 

“I’m fine,” Beca said, kissing her on the cheek. “Go back to bed, I’ll be home soon.”

Chloe felt helpless as she watched Beca close their front door behind her.

Beca’s eyes itched with tiredness as she made the thirty minute drive to work. She didn’t know if she’d ever been this tired before.

Her head was pounding, and her hands were shaking slightly on the wheel. 

By the time she pulled into the deserted parking lot, she was starting to feel really rough. The pain in her stomach was nagging her, and she felt like her nerves were fried and frazzled.

“Good, you’re here. You want some coffee?” Theo asked as she walked into the studio.

“No,” Beca said, rubbing at her forehead. “I want to get this done so I can go home and sleep.”

“We all want the same thing,” he said. 

Beca looked around at the other people in the room and saw her own exhaustion reflected back. She felt for them. At least she’d been able to go home and eat and get a little bit of sleep.

“Okay,” Theo said, “we need the bridge and the last chorus. So whenever you’re ready.” He gestured to the booth.

“Give me a sec,” Beca said, taking a drink of water, trying to shift the throbbing in her head. “Why isn’t, uh, Ben Dover here?”

“Ben Rover,” Theo corrected. 

“Ben Dover’s a much better stage name. This is his track, his album, why isn’t he here?”

“Because it’s after midnight on a Friday and he’s a pop star,” Theo said.

“Oh so he gets a social life? Must be nice,” Beca said, drinking the remainder of her water. “Come on then, let’s get this done.”

As she stood, she felt the ground shift beneath her, and she had to grab onto the back of a chair to steady herself. 

“Beca?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Beca said, her voice shaking slightly. “Stood up too quick.”

She waited for the black spots in her vision to fade away, her hands gripping the chair.

“Sit down,” someone said.

“I’m fine,” Beca said, squeezing her eyes shut. She blinked a few times, trying to clear her vision.

“Seriously, Beca, sit down,” Theo said. He pushed another chair behind her, catching her in the back of the legs, causing them to buckle. “Take a minute. You want something to eat?”

Beca shook her head, feeling embarrassed as she rested her head in her hands. She was hoping the pain in her head and the nausea would pass soon. 

“Theo, can’t we just do this tomorrow man?” One of the interns asked. 

“We’re so close, guys,” he said, sounding exasperated. “You’ve all worked so hard, I know that. But we’re so close. This album is going to be huge for all of us, and we’re one little push away from it being done. Just think how good-”

His motivational speech was cut off by gasps as Beca slumped forward, falling out of her chair, and collapsing on the ground.

——

For the second time that night, Chloe was woken up by the sound of a phone ringing.

Theo was calling her.

“What happened?” Chloe asked, suddenly wide-awake.

“She’s fine,” Theo said, sounding apprehensive. “She just, uh, passed out, I guess?”

“She what?!” 

“It’s been a long night for everyone, she’s been working really hard-”

“Don’t give me that,” Chloe snapped. “I know she’s been working hard. Is she okay? Have you called an ambulance?”

“She’s fine, Chloe. She doesn’t want an ambulance,” Theo said. 

“Put her on.”

She heard him sigh and say. “She wants to talk to you.”

“Hey baby,” Beca said. Her voice was barely there, but Chloe could hear the smile in it.

Whatever Chloe had planned to say didn’t come out, and instead she just burst into tears.

“Hey,” Beca said, softly. “It’s okay. I’m okay. I was out for like 10 seconds, tops. Didn’t even bump my head.”

“I’m coming to get you,” Chloe choked out. “And we’ll go to the hospital and get you checked out.”

“I’m fine, Chloe, I don’t need to go to the hospital. Theo’s called me an Uber, I’ll be home soon, okay?”

“Okay,” Chloe said, her voice shaking as she tried to hold back her tears. “Put him back on the phone please.”

“Please don’t yell at my boss,” Beca groaned, handing the phone over.

“I second what Beca just said,” Theo said, bracing himself.

“She has the weekend off,” Chloe said. It wasn’t a question. 

“Chloe-”

“She has the weekend off. The whole weekend. When she gets home, her phone is getting switched off. She won’t be checking any emails, she won’t be taking any calls. At 8 am on Monday, you can have her back,” Chloe said, her voice calm but terrifying.

“The album-”

“-Can wait. I’m sure the artist will understand. It would be really bad for their publicity if, I don’t know, it was posted on social media that the label worked the artist’s producer passed the point of exhaustion, wouldn’t it? I mean, the artist would have to take a stand about that, right? The label would have to take a stand. People might lose their jobs.”

She heard Theo sigh. “Okay. You’ve made your point,” he said. “Beca can have the weekend off. Everyone can.” Chloe heard cheering in the background. “I… I didn’t mean for this to happen. I respect Beca a lot. She’s seriously talented, and she works really hard. I want her to do well. She is all over this album, Chloe. You can hear her in every song, not just her voice. This is gonna be big for her.”

“It’s not worth her health though,” Chloe said, softening slightly. 

“No,” he said. “It’s not. I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”

“Thank you,” Chloe said. “Is she on her way home?”

“Yeah, one of the interns just loaded her into an Uber. She’ll be with you soon.”

“Good,” Chloe said. “Goodnight Theo.”

“Goodnight.”

Chloe paced while she waited for Beca to get home. She wouldn’t believe that Beca was alright until she saw her.

When she heard Beca’s keys in the door, she froze, waiting in the hallway, desperate to see her.

“Hey,” Beca said, closing the door behind her and leaning against it. 

Chloe practically ran towards her, and cupped her face in her hands.

“You look like shit,” she said, taking in Beca’s pale skin and tired red-rimmed eyes.

“Thank you,” Beca said, before sinking into Chloe’s arms.

“Don’t ever scare me like that again,” Chloe said, gripping her tightly, tears streaming down her face.

“I won’t,” Beca said, her face buried in the crook of Chloe’s neck.

“What do you need?” Chloe asked, looking over her again as their hug ended.

“Bed,” Beca said. “Sleep.”

“Come on then,” Chloe said, half-carrying her to the bedroom.

She sat Beca on the bed and eased the jacket from her shoulders. Beca tried feebly to kick off her shoes, but couldn’t quite manage it. “I can’t do it. I’m so tired,” Beca groaned, tears pricking her eyes now.

“I’ll take care of it,” Chloe said, kissing her on the forehead.

She pulled off Beca’s shoes and helped her out of her jeans while Beca removed her own shirt and bra. Chloe grabbed a baggy t-shirt and slipped it over Beca’s head, helping her thread her arms through the sleeves.

Beca managed to crawl up the bed, and Chloe got in beside her, pulling her close and covering them both with their duvet.

“I love you so much Beca Mitchell,” Chloe said kissing the top of her head.

“Love you too,” Beca mumbled. “Can you do that thing…” She trailed off, pointing at her own head.

“Sure baby,” Chloe said, kissing her again. “Headache?”

“Mhm.”

“Okay.” Chloe began gently scratching across Beca’s scalp, rubbing at the base of her head, and then running her hands through her hair, and repeating the process.

She knew Beca had fallen asleep in seconds of her starting, but she didn’t stop.

She was just so glad to have her there, home and safe.

[licenselesswriter]

Ten Duel Commandments CH2

Grab a friend, that’s your second.

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Maya slowly walks towards Smackle and sits next to her, "How are things today?" she asks her.

Isadora shows a sad smile without taking her eyes from her tablet, "Well, as you can see, same as the last month, the same three sides of this, my dearest one on bubbles' side, Isaiah is on Lucas' side," she explains.

Maya let out a sigh, "And you're mediating, I suppose," she says.

"Correct," Isadora concedes, "I guess you're going on Bubbles' side?" she asks.

Maya gives Isadora a sad smile, "Nope, I'm gonna be Switzerland," she says, making Isadora adjust her glasses, "What?" she asks.

"Interesting," she comments, "Well, if you're Switzerland, then I guess I'm the Pope mediating between them," she adds.

Maya softly laughs, "Isadora Smackle, the superior brain, cutie with glasses, supreme pontiff," she says.

"Sounds really good, to be honest," Isadora says before turning to look at her friends again, "Think someday things would be back to what they were?" she asks.

Maya gives her a sad smile, fueled mostly by her guilt, "Don't know but doubt it," she sincerely answers.

"The main problem here is that Bubble's hasn't noticed that Lucas is in love with someone else," she explains.

Maya looks at her, surprised, "I'm sorry, what?" she asks.

"How I put this correctly," Isadora starts before looking at Zay and Lucas and privately points at them, "Lool at Lucas," she says, "See how his skin is cleaner? Or his hair?" she asks.

Maya takes a look at her boyfriend before mentally hitting herself in the head to start making the skin and hair routine with him, "Yeah, why?" she asks.

"I know for a fact that Lucas always turns down Isaiah when he suggests he takes more care about his grooming process," she explains. 

A bit nervous, Maya tries to drop that idea, "So, because he's hotter now, he's in love with someone?" Maya asks.

Isadora smiles, "Not only that, suddenly, Isaiah stopped asking him to take care of his grooming, but he's getting better looking with the time, and yes, I know he drinks a lot of water, but that skin doesn't get like that with only water," she adds.

"And that means?" Maya asks.

"That means Isaiah must know something, since he got what he wanted, Lucas taking better care at his grooming, but for some reason, Isaiah acts like he doesn't know about it," Isadora continues.

Maya felt like all her alarms were triggered simultaneously. For the first time, she feared her friend's analytical capacity, "Maybe he doesn't have someone, maybe, he just wants to have one," she replies before looking at Riley and Farkle.

"Maybe, but I doubt it," she replies.

"Doubt that he wants a partner?" Maya asks.

"Doubt that I'm wrong," Isadora answers with a smile.

"That's my girl," Maya replies and hugs Isadora.

Harper writes a few names on the blackboard, "Ok, so, for your next assignment, tell me, what these names have in common?" she asks.

Isadora raises her hand, "Fictional characters who have secrets, and by keeping them, they think they are doing the greater good," she explains.

Harper smiles, "Correct," she says, "Now, what are those secrets?" she asks.

Farkle raises his hand, "Eddard Stark protected his nephew from being killed by Robert Baratheon," he answers.

Zay looks at him a bit mad, "Dude, spoiler alert," he says.

"Got over it, it's been more than a year," Farkle replies.

Lucas raises his hand, "Batman designed contingency plans to neutralize the Justice League," he says, only to be fastly stared by Zay, Farkle, and Maya, "What?" he asks.

Maya smiles at him, "Since you're all Texan cowboy goody-good boy, I imagine you would relate more with the honorable Lord Stark," she teases him.

"Says the woman who read three books in a row and texts me at four in the morning," he replies before pulling out his phone, "R+L=J," he teases her, reading her text.

"That's private, asshole," Maya recriminates him.

Harper fastly cut both of them, "Ok, ok, we get the point, Lucas likes Batman, and Maya likes A Song of Ice and Fire," she says, making sure to keep the peace, "The point of this is, the motives they have to do what they do and if in the end, was the appropriate solution to the problem?" she asks, "Four pages minimum," she finishes, making Maya groan in pain.

.

As soon as Harper's class ended, Farkle fastly gets out of the room, being followed by Lucas.

"Hey, Farkle, can we talk?" Lucas asks him.

"No, have a good day," Farkle replies before leaving him alone in the hall.

Riley looks at him, sad about what just happened, "I'm sorry," she apologizes.

Lucas gives her a sad smile, "Don't, he's his own person, if he wants us to end like this, nothing I can do to change his mind," he explains.

Riley looks down, "Sometimes I wish I never said anything," she adds.

Lucas puts his hand on her shoulder to comfort her, "Please Riley, never stop speaking your mind, that's one of the few rights we still have in this 'Democracy' our older folks choose," he replies.

Riley looks at his eyes, blushing, "How you expect me to not fall for you over and over again when you're like this?" she asks, half-joking, half-serious.

Lucas just stood there before looking at Zay, "I'm gonna go grab lunch, ok?" he says before leaving Riley alone in the hall.

As soon as he left, Maya walks to Riley, "Can we talk?" she asks.

"About?" Riley asks back in a severe tone.

"Well, about how things seem to end between us," Maya answers.

"Maya, I think that day, we made very clear what we think. I don't think there is something for us to talk," Riley replies.

Maya felt really uncomfortable after hearing those words come from her best friend's mouth, "Wow, so that's how things are gonna be," she says.

"That's how you let things end," Riley says.

"Just because I'm not on your side once?" Maya asks.

Riley takes a second to think, "I would love to say that, yeah, it's just for that, but since we argue, you seem to adjust to his side very easily," she adds.

"I said it once, and I'm gonna repeat it, I'm neutral about this whole thing," she defends herself, knowing that was a blatant lie.

Riley takes another second to think, "What you want me to say?" she asks, "You may say you're a neutral party, but that doesn't show," she adds, "And yes, I know you have been spending time with Zay and Lucas," she adds like she was close to solving a mystery.

Maya felt cornered by her words, but fastly she recovers her composure, "Maybe if you stop pushing me away for having a different opinion, I would be back to spending time with you and Farkle," she argues, "I miss you guys, but I'm not gonna compromise with something I don't believe," she adds, hiding her true motives.

Riley gives Maya an uncomfortable smile, "Well, we talk, and I think enough for today," she replies before start walking away from Maya.

"Fuck," Maya says, looking at her best friend walk to the cafeteria.

.

Maya walks towards Lucas and Zay, having their lunch close to the baseball cages, "Silent treatment too?" she asks.

"Yep," Lucas replies before putting a kiss on her hand.

"What we discuss about PDA?" Zay complains.

"Chill out, it was only her hand," Lucas defends himself, "Also, you're safe harbor," he adds.

Zay gives Lucas a soft look, "I'm the safe harbor?" he asks, really happy for being acknowledged as that.

"Well, you're the only one who knows about us, so yeah," Maya answers, "Also, we have done worse, and sweatier, than this," Maya adds, making Lucas blush.

Zay looks at his best friend in disbelief, "For real? For fucking real? And you hide that from me? How dare you, how dare you," he says, in a fake offended tone. 

Lucas just laughs, "Well, now you know, and you need to keep the secret," he replies before taking a bite of his sandwich.

.

Once school ends, Lucas, Zay, Isadora, and Maya walk outside school.

"So, any good plans for this Tuesday night?" Zay asks.

"Peaky Blinders," Lucas fastly replies.

"Still with Peaky Blinders?" Zay asks.

"It's a great show if you enjoy mafia shows," Isadora answers, "It's not The Sopranos, but, well, nothing will be like The Sopranos," she explains.

"See, Isadora gets it," Lucas says.

"Please stop, I have a boyfriend," Isadora replies.

Lucas keeps walking, a bit surprised, but he already knew how she was, "I don't know what to say," he replies.

"Then don't, flirting it's not gonna work with me," Isadora says, making Zay and Maya laugh.

"Yeah, Huckleberry, leave her alone," Maya teases him before looking at her phone, "Well, this was nice, but yours truly, has homework to do," she adds before taking a little jog, separating herself from the group, "See you tomorrow," she adds before leaving them.

"She's not gonna do her homework," Isadora states.

"We know," Lucas says, making Zay laugh, "Call you tonight for some CoD?" he asks.

"You know it," Zay replies.

"Ok, see you all tomorrow," Lucas says, following Maya's steps.

After a few minutes of silence, Isadora stops walking.

"Something wrong?" Zay asks.

"It's her," Isadora says, realizing the truth.

"Who it's her?" Zay asks, hoping for being wrong about what he was thinking.

"Let's go for a cup of coffee," Isadora says before dragging Zay to a Starbucks.

Forty minutes later, Lucas opens his apartment door, only to be attacked by a tiny blonde, "Hard day?" he asks.

"Asshole move to expose me like you did," Maya says before kissing his lips.

Lucas lifts her before deepening the kiss, "A little payback," he replies, caressing her lower back.

"Your Mom?" Maya asks while she kisses his neck.

"Working," Lucas replies, taking off one of his sleeves.

"Funny," Maya says, helping him get rid of his shirt, "Let's finish homework," she adds, taking off her shirt.

"God, I love you so much," He says and kisses her deeply.

.

"Ok, we finished 2 weeks of homework," Maya says, gently putting her bra, "Hook it please," she asks Lucas.

Lucas kisses her back and very lovingly hooks her bra, "You have the weirdest ways to name sex I've ever heard," he says.

Maya chuckles, "Yeah, like you had someone to compare me to," she says.

"Ah, touche," Lucas replies before pulling her back to his bed form her waist, "But in that case, you also have nobody to compare me with," he adds.

"So?" she asks, "I'm pretty happy with what you carry and how you use it," she says.

Lucas smile and takes a deep breath of her hair, "If you're trying to seduce me with compliments, I'm gonna warn you, it's working," he adds, before sneaking his hand between her legs.

"Look, Huckleberry, no matter how much I enjoy our homework sessions, we need to get our real homework done, I need better grades if I want to apply to some kind of scholarship," she adds before turning to face him and gently caresses his manhood.

"It's hilarious how you can say completely serious while you have my cock in your hand," he jokes.

"Well, there is a certain pleasure on getting your secret boyfriend hard with only your hands," she says before putting a peck on his lips, "Makes me feel powerful and in control," she adds.

"It's funny how I can dominate a bull, but against you, I'm just a puppy, and not even a Pitbull or a Doberman, I'm like, don't know, a Pug," he comments.

"Well, you're one hell of a cute Pug," Maya says before getting up from his bed again, "Now, seriously, I need help with my homework, the school one, so please, help me," she asks him.

"Fine," Lucas says after a few minutes, "So, Math or the Essay?" he asks while he puts his boxers.

"Essay, for some reason, I don't feel good thinking about that Essay," she says.

"Yeah, me too," Lucas says, "But this is not about us, this is about fictional characters who hide things," he adds before kissing her cheek.

"Don't you feel bad for her?" Maya asks him, "I mean, she is your ex," she adds.

Lucas takes a deep breath and puts his shirt over, "Can I be frank with you?" he asks.

"Please," she says.

"It's hard to feel bad for her when I'm this happy with you," he says before picking one of her hands and put a soft kiss on it, "Yes, I do care for her, and for her feelings, but I'm happy, even when I have to be happy inside one of our homes and for a certain amount of time," he adds.

Maya gently puts her hand on his cheek, "You have to be the compensation God send me for being abandoned by my father," she jokes.

Lucas looks at her seriously, "You know I hate when you joke about that," he says.

"Sorry," she apologizes.

"Don't," Lucas replies, "I know that's how you deal with my sappiness," he adds before kissing her, "So, four pages Essay," he says.

"Here," Zay says, giving Isadora her coffee.

"Thank you," she says before taking the lid and pouring three sugar bags.

"So, what do you need for me?" Zay asks.

"Just to confirm a few things," Isadora answers.

"Well, hope I can help," Zay replies.

"I have to warn you first," Isadora says before mixing her coffee, "Everything we're gonna talk here, will never leave my mouth, so please, be honest with me," she adds.

"Ok," Zay says, a bit nervous, "Seems serious," he adds.

"It is," Isadora replies, "First, did you notice that Lucas has a clearer skin, right?" she asks, setting a statement.

"I know where this is going," Zay replies, giving her a nervous look.

"So, it's true," Isadora says.

"Can't confirm or deny anything," Zay replies.

"I asked you to be honest with me," she says, appealing to his words.

Zay puts four bags of sugar in his tea, "Honestly, I don't know what you want me to tell you," he says, focusing on his tea.

"Till when you're gonna protect everyone from the truth?" Isadora asks.

Zay looks at her, a bit mad about her attitude, "Why you talk like I'm the bad one in this movie?" he asks, "Suddenly, I'm a bad guy because I want to protect my friend and his right to choose?" he asks.

"You're not bad for doing that, you're 'bad' because you're keeping everyone in the dark," Isadora answers.

"That's when you're wrong," Zay says before taking a sip of his tea, "I know exactly where my loyalties are, I'm not keeping nobody in the dark, or lying to anyone," he adds.

"Bubbles is in love with Lucas," Isadora argues.

"So?" Zay asks, "Just because she's in love with him, he's forced to be her partner?" he asks this time, "Forgive me for my manners, but that's complete and utter bullshit," he answers his own question.

"But she's our friend, she deserves the truth," Isadora keeps pushing.

"I agree, it's our friend," Zay concedes, "But you're dead wrong if you think I'm gonna put her over Lucas, not now, not before, not ever," he states.

"Wow, who might think your guilt might drive you this far for him," Isadora says.

"Guilt, friendship, sense of making us even, call it whatever you want," Zay says, taking another sip of his tea, trying to keep his composure. He keeps silent for three minutes before breaking it, "I might be friends with everyone here, but don't forget that above all of that I'm still Lucas best friend," he adds, "And if he didn't want to tell me, his best friend, probably the only person besides Maya who will have his back no matter what, who am I to reveal his secrets?" he asks.

Isadora takes a sip of her coffee and stays silent with Zay for a few minutes, "Bubbles, she's gonna be crushed," she says.

Zay takes a deep breath, "What you want me to tell you?" he asks, "Do I feel bad for her? Yeah, I do, but keeping her safe it's not my job," he states, "Hell, it's not even your job, your job it's to protect your strongest link, and that's Farkle, not me, not Lucas, not Maya or Riley," he explains his point of view, "I should be having this conversation with Farkle, not you," he adds.

"Why?" Isadora asks, "Just because it would make it easier to lie to him?" she asks this time.

"Yeah, sadly, he's too naive and too good for this world, people lie, even his friends," Zay says.

Isadora and Zay keep silent for a few more minutes. Isadora finally breaks it with a chuckle, "I can't believe you will throw every one of us under the bus to save Lucas," she says.

Zay chuckles at her affirmation, "I'm his best friend, I owe him," he says.

"To heartbreaks," Isadora says, lifting her paper cup.

"To heartbreaks," Zay replies.

Zay is and will always be Lucas best friend, you can’t change my mind.

[ry-cynthiasu]

Put Sustenance on Our Own Choices

Introduction: 

  My life has changed significantly since 2019. In 2019, I experienced the struggle of university freshman. My confined soul from 2 years of high school made me want to explore more in my life, yet it also led me to find out how much I lacked to fulfill a “perfect” figure that I though was the sustenance of my motivation in school. Through the lockdown period in 2020, I had also closely experienced the desparate conflict between me and my family. I sought my way out through giving sustenance upon learning new skills. Yet, I really started to look into my mindset and emotion management in th eyear of 2021. This is the year with the most dramatic change. I started a relationship, yet ended because I lack the ability to control my mindset towards negativity in life. I have been trapped in the past agony. 

  I sincerely value the journey in this 3 years, God had made me encounter so many great people to make me grow, and provided me with this great family that work so hard to provide for my education. I wish to record this journey, and for everyone who is also in the process of pursuing their dream, I wish you feel supported with my story as well.

[2019] 

Starting university, getting to know more people? Learning how to drink, how to party? So many excited things I hoped to achieve.

I’m no longer the “smartest” student in the house.

When I started high school in Canada, the place where no one knows me, I show myself as a perfect person—no emotions, no weakness, good at sport, good at school.

It’s not that I don’t want to be perfect anymore in university, it’s because I can’t.

I was still scared to admit that I couldn’t do everything by myself. The arrogance turns me away from meeting more friends, turned me away from the opportunity to get to know more about the things outside of my small, confined world.  

I needed someone to lead me out of my world. I mean, it’s not wrong. When I needed help, and you are willing to help, then I’ll take whatever you gave me.

I met a friend who gave me a lot of support in the hard university life.

He is wild, dedicated, casual—something that I don’t have. Yet he is confused with his future, just like I did.

At that time, all I wanted was to study hard, and let people see that I am hard-working. My friend gave me a different mindset about studying--don’t be perfectionist, study for your own improvement, and apply them.

Since I got out of high school with no real friend made at all, I took this friendship as a sustenance for my simple life.

The fun thing was that our friendship broke because he confessed to me. That was the first time I felt like I have hurt someone.

That was the time I first realize, what I wish upon other people may not be real. I wished he was just a friend, but he wished more than that.

Yet, I must admit that it was genuinely a happy time, because I broke through many things that I haven’t tried, and really started to know the importance of keeping safe boundaries with people that you want to keep as friends.

I think someone’s mindset can be clearly illustrated by their expression. In 2019, although I had no goal, failed friendship, bad school scores, I didn’t need to worry anything outside of school.

My old friend took this picture, I was happy to have the support from him.

After this friendship failed, I looked back and found out that I was straight away trying to learn things from my friend, yet not caring too much about what he may feel. 

Although I could sense that he has some affection towards me, I was too selfish to let this sustenance of my joy in life go.

A very important thing I learned was that, whenever we lie to ourselves, the reality won’t lie. We are what we are, the real world would prove that. If we are not perfect, then we don’t pretend to be perfect.

[2020]

COVID hit so rapidly across the world.

School closed on March. That was the first time I’ve spent so much time with my mom, in such an empty house. Neither of us knew what to expect in the next step. Negativity creeps all over the house.

I started to find something that can help me keep track of my life, to help me not getting swallowed by the silence and emptiness in the house.

I started journaling, tried so many ways, realizing that I’m not an aesthetic journal keeper. I only keep the things I needed to do, needed to finish to get good grades. Things were simple, if I can still do well in school, the time is all mine.

I look at my achievements of doing different things for the sustenance in my life.

It was genuinely a nourishing experience for me. I got to learn ukulele, practicing calligraphy, making videos, and just creating my own brand on the social media.

I would still be gracious about what I have tried in that time because some of it has led to what I decided to be my career in the next year.

However, the conflict between me and my family was elevated at that time. My impatience and ungratefulness made me refuse to listen and communicate with them. I have been through many breakdowns, yet the problem hasn’t been solved--I didn’t know how to change my mindset.

I was very arrogent at the time, I though I would find a way to get out of the stressful household in a blink. I kept filling my time with school, internet, photography, and random info from everywhere. 

When my sister and her fiance invited me to travel with them, I was uninterested, because I didn’t share interests with my sister and mother. 

Being an unhappy teenager, I tried to refuse experiencing this journey. I ignore the feelings of my family and threw temper tentrums. 

I do think that what I learned during the lockdown period--photography, video editing, and just trying to build my own social media account, helped me found out about my passion in media career. 

Yet, it was a shame that I couldn’t figure out how to change my mindset of getting along with family members who have different opinions and values in their life. 

I wasn’t grateful for my family, and I wasn’t respectful.

[2021]

I came back to my home country for 5 months, and back to Vancouver at the start of 2021

Don’t konw if God was especially kind to me, I met a person who introduced me to a whole new mindset of living my life.

He was mature, yet he also had very similar struggle as I was----eager to get financial freedom.

But for sure, he was more realistic and more of an action-taker than me. I watched him grew and made progress, I admired him. 

Yet, I couldn’t start on myself, until he gave up on giving speech to me about how he made himself through the hardships--everyone has a limited patience of pulling someone through their problems, and when they grow faster and faster, they’ll leave you behind.

I wasn’t mature, I was dreaming that someone could take all my pains, my problems, and automatically turn my life to fast-forward mode.

And I was wrong, no one’s life can be automatic. When you think someone’s, success is automatic, you don’t see the days and nights they have tried to put things together to lead to where they are right now.

That was a biggest mistake I made, and even now I’m still affected by the mistake--the mistake of not taking action, and putting sustenance on someone else to drag me through the journey.

In the end, it is my choice to be better and keep learning. No one can be me, and no one can be there forever to drag me.

My past experience might not be an encouraging story, because I am still in the journey of building up my career. Yet, I truly believe that when someone wakes up, they become a whole new person.

The sun rise and set, and we are always on the track of our own choice. Changes are not made one day, it’s the combined effort of days and nights.

[fanaticalthings]

Dance With Me

AO3 Link

Destiel 15x09 Coda

It’s over.

They’d defeated God himself. They were free at last— free to be whoever they wanted to be— free to do whatever.

Sam seems content, and so does Cas. And for a split second, everything felt fine.

But Dean knew better than to believe everything was alright.

Chuck was gone, but there was now another problem that needed dealing with— the Mark.

Dean should’ve stopped him. He knew he should have. But deep down, he felt a disgusting amount of relief at the thought that he would not have to bear the Mark of Cain again.

Dean’s sitting in the kitchen with a glass of whiskey in hand when Cas walks in.

He looks tired, but when his eyes land on Dean, they soften.

“Are you doing okay?” Cas says.

Dean almost wants to laugh, but all he manages is a weak grimace. He knew firsthand what the Mark did to you— how it twisted you into someone you weren’t. Cas shouldn’t have been worried about Dean. He should have been worried about himself.

Cas must notice Dean’s inner turmoil because he grabs the chair next to Dean and sits down.

“I think I should be the one asking you that, buddy,” Dean says.

Cas looks at Dean with so much affection that it hurts. Dean doesn’t deserve those looks.

“Please don’t blame yourself for this, Dean. I chose to bear the Mark and I would do it again if it meant you never had to suffer its effects again,” Cas says this with so much certainty that it scares Dean.

This angel was willing to sacrifice so much for him. Falling from heaven, killing his own brethren, rebelling against the one thing he was made to serve and all for what? For one human?

It makes Dean realize how stupid he was for taking Cas for granted all those years.

“Cas, I’m scared.”

Dean feels vulnerable expressing his feelings so freely with Cas, but after everything that’s happened in purgatory, he realizes that it’s time to suck it up and stop running away from his emotions. He may not get any more moments like this with Cas in the future.

“I know,” Cas says. He doesn’t reassure Dean.

Deep down Dean was hoping the Mark wouldn’t affect Cas like it did for himself. He hoped desperately that maybe Cas’ grace would help him.

He knew better than to believe that.

The thought of Cas turning into a blood-thirsty killer makes his stomach churn. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. They’d gotten rid of Chuck, they should’ve gotten their happy ending, they shouldn’t be dealing with more problems, they shouldn’t-

“Dean,” Cas says softly. His eyes convey an infinite amount of sadness.

He intertwines his fingers with Dean’s as if to let him know he’s still there— that he won’t leave.

“We’ll look for something, Cas,” he says. “Maybe we could find a cure this time.”

Cas looks unconvinced, and frankly, Dean feels pretty unconvinced too.

They’d tried so hard to find a solution before— back when Dean was the bearer of the Mark. Chances are if they tried looking again, the results would be the same.

Cas’ grip tightens around his hand.

“Dean, if I start turning, promise me you’ll stop me. Do whatever it takes to stop me.”

Dean’s heart starts to clench in pain. He avoids looking into Cas’ eyes.

“Please,” Cas almost whispers. “Don’t let me become a monster.”

Dean drinks the rest of his whiskey and chances a glance at Cas. He seems eerily calm— like he’s already accepted what’s to come.

But Dean would do whatever it takes to keep Cas with him. He’ll try his damn hardest to fix Cas before giving up. At the moment, though, he can only reassure.

“Ok,” Dean reluctantly relents. “I promise.”

Cas offers him a small smile, but Dean doesn’t feel any better.

“Just-” Dean begins. “Just…Stay with me…For a little while longer.”

Blue eyes meet his, and Cas leans in closer.

“Of course, Dean.”

~~~~~~

It’s not okay.

Dean desperately clung to the hope that the Mark wouldn’t affect Cas— wouldn’t take him. But it was clearly hopeless.

He’d spent months looking for a possible cure. Nothing.

Little by little, Dean could see Cas’ sanity slip through the cracks.

He wanted to brush it off at first—play it off as just Cas getting restless from always being cooped up in the bunker.

But Cas would only get worse.

It was just small incidents in the beginning— Cas impulsively smiting a vamp they were interrogating— Cas recklessly running into a werewolf nest.

Dean hoped it was just simple frustration and impatience after the monsters started increasing in numbers.

It wasn’t. Dean knew and so did Cas.

It was the last straw when Cas nearly killed a group of high school girls, claiming that they were in the way of solving the case.

When they returned to the bunker, Cas took Dean aside.

“It’s changing me,” he says. Even now, those blue eyes don’t look like they belong to Cas. They look remorseful, but they hold a murderous intent.

“Cas-”

“You have to stop me.”

Dean didn’t want it to have to come to this. It was all he really had left— clinging to a fraying string of false hope to keep him going.

“You have to stop me,” Cas pauses “or I’ll end up killing you.”

Cas says it with so much conviction— so much confidence.

Dean believes him.

“I don’t wanna lose you, Cas. Please,” Dean whispers.

The space between them lessens, as Cas grabs Dean’s hand.

“You know what you have to do.”

Dean knows. He’s known what he’s had to do from the very moment Cas took on the Mark. He knows, but he doesn’t want to acknowledge it. He doesn’t want to accept that he’s losing a bit of Cas every day. They can’t lose this battle.

“You can’t go dark side on me, Cas. Not yet.”

Dean drops his head to lean on Cas’ chest. He can hear the faint heartbeats of the angel. It grounds him. It makes him remember that they’re real— that Cas is still here with him— that he hadn’t flown away with his invisible wings just yet.

“Just…Please….Stay with me, for a little while longer,” Dean pleads.

Cas, ever loyal, stays with him.

“Of course, Dean.”

Dean knows what he has to do. He has to lock Cas away. He has to build a ma'lak box.

——-

On rare days, Cas is able to fight the mark and stay himself but even those days are dwindling. Dean doesn’t know how much longer he can stall.

He’d finished building the ma'lak box some time ago. But Dean was selfish. He didn’t want Cas to leave just yet. He didn’t want Cas to leave at all. But Cas grows more restless, more angry, more dangerous.

Dean doesn’t know how much time he has left with him. Not much left, that’s for sure. He’s so frustrated that he sometimes takes it out on Sam. They fight about the Mark. About how there is no cure, about how this is going to end. But Dean is tired, and the fight leaves him as quickly as it had arrived.

The worst almost happens. Cas nearly kills Sam during a case in Illinois. They were investigating a series of bizarre murders. It started off normal. Well, as normal as things could get in their lives. But one disagreement from Sam sends Cas flying off the edge in a blind rage. It happens so quickly in front of Dean that he doesn’t react fast enough. Cas has got Sam pinned beneath him in a stranglehold.

Dean pleads for him to stop, yells for Cas to snap out of it. But Cas doesn’t listen. And Dean believes he would’ve gone through with it, had Dean not reached out to touch Cas’ shoulder.

In a swift movement, they’re face to face. Cas’ eyes suddenly soften, but only for a brief second before they widen in terror. He looks down at Sam and frantically backs away from the brothers.

“I’m sorry,” he simply states in a broken voice before disappearing.

They finish the case without him.

——–

Once Dean patches Sam up, he goes to his room to turn in for the night. They don’t talk about what happened.

He doesn’t feel like sleeping. Hell, he hasn’t been sleeping much at all lately.

Instead, Dean sits on his bed and prays. Prays to Cas.

“Cas, I don’t know how much longer I’ve got with you, man, but please…please come back. Come back home. I need to know you’re alright. I need to know that you’re still you.”

A pregnant silence fills the room, and Dean almost believes that Cas won’t show up, until he hears the familiar beat of wings.

Cas stands in front of him. But he doesn’t look okay.

The angel in front of him looks so lost, so broken.

“Dean,” Cas speaks quietly.

Dean stands up and reaches forward to pull him into a tight embrace. Cas barely hugs back.

“I can’t stop it anymore,” Cas relents.

His once vibrant blue eyes now reveal a lack of motivation. They show that the man behind those eyes had given up. They both know they aren’t winning this battle.

“Do it now, Dean. While I’m still myself.”

Dean feels tears start to trail down his cheek. He clings to Cas tightly, but Cas pulls away.

“You have to, Dean. Lock me away. Send me to the ocean.”

Dean wants to scream at him, to lash out and blame Cas for not trying hard enough to fight the Mark, but it’s hopeless. He knows it is. But that doesn’t stop him from feeling guilty. It should be him locked in the ma'lak box, it should be him dealing with the consequences. Not Cas, definitely not Cas.

Dean doesn’t say anything. Instead, he stands up and turns on the radio.

They let the hum of the music fill the silence of the room. Dean closes the space between them. Cas lets him.

“Dance with me,” Dean says.

Cas stares at him but must see the sadness in Dean’s eyes because he agrees without a fuss.

They intertwine their fingers and hold each other like it’s the last night on Earth. They don’t really dance. They just sway around, really. But for a moment, Dean can pretend that this was the happy ending they deserved. No more monsters, no more fighting, no more Mark. But those feelings quickly disappear when he feels the presence of the ma'lak box.

Realistically, it’s rooms away from them. But Dean can feel it’s weight burning holes through the walls and floors to remind him that it’s never over. It really hits Dean that this is it. End of the line for him and Cas. So he says the words he’s been meaning to say for so long now.

“I love you.”

It’s so quiet that Dean thinks Cas might not have heard him. But he does. He always does.

Cas looks right into Dean’s eyes and cups his face. He’s smiling sadly.

“I wish we could’ve done this under different circumstances,” Cas murmurs.

“Me too.”

All of a sudden, they’re kissing. It’s soft and gentle and full of unimaginable sorrow. Cas embraces Dean like he’s the most important thing in the world.

And he is in Cas’ eyes.

“I love you, too.”

Dean starts to sob. This can’t be happening.

“You stupid son of a bitch,” Dean says, but there’s no venom in it— just hopelessness.

“I know,” Cas whispers back.

They continue to rock back and forth to the music. None of them wanting to admit what happens next.

“Stay with me, for a little while longer,” Dean chokes up.

Cas’ grip on him tightens.

“Of course, Dean.”

The radio drowns out the silence as a new song starts to play. They lament together.

I.. Can't….Help….Falling In Love…With…You….

They lose the battle.

[ryouverua]

Trial 6 - My Will, Our Will (7)

A new challenger has appeared!

Trial: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

Being on the other side of Shuichi’s glare and pointer finger is terrifying and now I’m understanding why all the culprits and others start freaking out so much. 8′D

Also, ooooh there it is, oh there’s Clair de Lune, i’mnotcryingyou’recrying

WE’RE REALLY DOING CLAIR DE LUNE THE WHOLE WAY THROUGH AREN’T WE

OH NO

A hope that requires two of their classmates to die... that’s the definition of ‘hope’ that was forced on them. K1-b0 is happy as long as he’s opposing despair - but Shuichi isn’t. I.... I think I understand what he’s saying.

“S-Seriously Shuichi, I really don’t get a chance to be cool very often and you’re really stealing my thunder -”

“You, uh, remember that my name is pronounced ‘Kii-bo’ too, right - ?”

“YOU HEARD WHAT I SAID!”

The music is continuing?!?! We’re using Clair de Lune the whole way through?? Man this is making even more of an impact than them playing the opening music - because there’s no triumph to be found here.

He seems so betrayed! S-Sweetcheeks, we really need to finish his last FTE when this is all over!

Oh..... oh....... oooooooh -

Shuichi why would you say something so controversial yet so brave -

“SEE!!! I CAN DO THIS TOO SHUICHI!!!”

mmm also look at my sweet v-counter skills guys -

It’s not some great overwhelming force of nature, or some grand enemy to be conquered, something that can be easily shoved into a defining box! It’s a feeling, like anything else! And sure, despair is considered ‘the dark side’, but are we just going to let them also define hope for us?

........

also. ALSO.

THESE COMMENTS. THESE COMMENTS. I-I can’t stop collecting them -

No, that’s wrong!

What are you saying, hat boy? i might steal ‘hat boy’ that’s really good

Can’t say anything now, scrub

He’s not wearing a hat anymore. THE COMMENTER CORRECTED THE OTHER ONE GFGH

What if Shuichi is the mastermind? girl where have you been for the last hour -

I wonder who’s going to live.

Hope always comes in waves.

You’re slipping up, detective.

hurry up and vote

Show me hope.

There’s hope because there’s despair.

Suck it, hope

Keebo’s not gonna lose!

Keebo is hope...

and hope lives on!

Shuichi is the cycle of despair?

Things are getting interesting.

The fight’s just started!

The endorphin rush they get when, despite all odds, the good guys win over the bad guys, reaffirming that ‘good’ always overcomes ‘evil’....

Or worse yet, they revel in it, because to paraphrase a certain someone, ‘they’ll use these tragedies to shine even brighter.’ Watching someone rise above adversity and come out the other side even stronger is inspiring. For the same reason that we enjoy playing the games and cheering the survivors on when Junko or whoever is ultimately defeated in the end, this audience eats up every round of the killing game. They can enjoy that with the privilege granted by being able to observe it from the outside, just like us. But strip that layer away, and -

I’m sorry, excuse me?

YEAH SHUICHI IS ON A ROLL HERE DON’T STOP HIM NOW

What’s with that look, Tsumugi? Is it because Shuichi wasn’t actually supposed to fight for despair? Or was the idea that he would be cheered on/convinced by K1-b0, the same way that Naegi convinced the others in the first game?

Th.... The music..... stopped....

LAZY PARALLEL WORLD!!!

oh man maybe Tsumugi can hear the music cues. Maybe she realizes Shuichi is onto something. now I’m imagining every time the music shifts Tsumugi’s the only one aware of it, and she’s also the only one reacting appropriately to it ffhg

Also, I assumed that the punishment was execution... but was... was that the mental trap???

Why wouldn’t there be?! They’re being ‘sacrificed’, aren’t they?!?!

Everything would make sense -

Oooh! Ooh - ! Is - is that what it is, then?!

Jeez, it’s super interesting to be in K1-b0′s POV for this - especially with Shuichi being the one asking us questions. Being in his POV before meant he never had the opportunity to really use leading questions like this, which really lends him an unexpected air of authority. Unexpected but earned, mind you...

HE’S DIRECTING QUESTIONS AT THE AUDIENCE NOW TOO?!?!

You continue the cycle....

Oh, poor, poor Rantaro -

Did he have the same options laid out for him? Or did he know that he would be choosing to repeat the game? He still had the determination to end the killing game.. so was that left over from his last game’s iteration? How many times has he repeated it? For that matter, how long has he been in holding while they gathered new people??? I swear that one commenter said they had waited 3 years, so???? Rantaro how old are you?? 

Was there only one person made into a sacrifice, or two like last game? .... side-eyes K1-b0 and Tsumugi -

Does... that mean Tsumugi was the mastermind last game too, or....

Also Maki as the Ultimate Survivor would absolutely tear things up. They’d have to pull another stunt like they did with Rantaro if they wanted her out of the game. She definitely has the fitness and demeanour to survive, unless she snaps on someone like she did on Kokichi in Chapter 5.

Just like Kokichi did, Shuichi is going to try and attack the game itself. His name really hasn’t come up since the motive video reveal, but I’d like to think that this strategy was inspired by his Chapter 5 plan.

What an interesting set of characters to represent despair winning. First we have Izuru, being all disdainful of their choice and mocking him with the word ‘boring’ - very much his thing, but also reminiscent of Kokichi. In fact, I suppose the despair option is very similar to the stalemate situation Kokichi installed when he was pretending to be the mastermind!

Then Celestia. She’s not a people-pleasing person. So why her? Thinking back, she was one of the most desperate to escape, despite hiding it... so maybe this is Tsumugi ‘showing’, not telling, that she isn’t happy with them choosing the despair option?

And then the hope fanboy... basically telling them that despair is the inferior option, but couching it in positive language. Passive-aggressively pushing them towards the actual answer (s)he wants - very on point for him.

Is it really okay to pass the buck like that?

In perpetuity...

I..... I don’t have an answer for that.

It does... sort of suck that he’s singling out those two in his speech, because it can feel like he’s being dismissive of everyone else - but I don’t think that’s true. He definitely appreciates the losses of everyone else, but those two were the ones that hit him hardest.

of course it’s bloody Komaeda over there having the time of his life during this speech

First of all - how strange is it that there are only a few people who look like they aren’t in excruciating pain right now. Rantaro’s face can’t be seen, Angie, Ryoma and Tenko look like they’re sleeping, and Kaito is smiling....

And - ah, Kokichi can’t even be seen. But there ‘he’ is, with his own section in this collage - I guess that third ‘body discovery’ we had in chapter 3 was the closest we would ever get to something real, huh? Poor guy...

“You said I’d be fighting the entire world, Tsumugi? Fine by me! Meet me behind the school after the trial!”

“S-Shuichi that’s a lot of people -”

“AND I’M GOING TO FIGHT EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM!!!”

That’s... true. There is a mental barrier that is hard to cross, especially if they’ve all conditioned themselves to accept real people dying for their own entertainment.

Also there are new comments, which means I am obligated to transcribe them.  Most of them is the audience turning on Shuichi, damn. Okay, here it goes:

Forget about Shuichi

You’re in despair, right?

show me the despair ending

it’s okay to feel despair sometimes... THANK YOU ANON COMMENTER

Why have we been doing this...?

Hope doesn’t turn back!

The big reveal, at last

And it was just getting interesting.

We’re the mastermind.

Are they blaming us?

hurry up and refute it

C’mon, Keebo! Attack!

Force hope through.

something’s different right?

C’mon Keebo!

No, that’s wrong!

No, that’s wrong!

What’s going to happen?

mmm... Shuichi’s eyes ^q^ SWEETCHI97 STRIKES AGAIN

What are you saying, detective?

Oh!!! Oh shit!!! Shuichi you brilliant bastard!!!

“Thank god - I mean, let’s be honest, we all knew this was coming - uh, I mean -”

Actually though, how depressing. So many times we’ve talked about ‘reasons to live’, and later on, reasons to die, and lo and behold here we are, at the end of everything...

Shuichi’s learned from the best, Kokichi Ouma - sometimes, death is just a means to an end, and that end is usually flipping someone off.

Random thought - isn’t it interesting that Shuichi is the ‘lone man against everyone’ while Tsumugi, the final boss, is the one ‘acting on behalf of everyone’? When Naegi was trying to rally everyone on his side, they had known at that point that people had been fighting and dying to rescue them. For Hajime and the others, they had the defected Future Foundation members who had risked their own safety to come in and rescue them, and even had Nanami reach out to him. Shuichi, though... Shuichi came to this conclusion on his own, with everyone either against him or swept up in the narrative.

He told Kokichi at the end of Chapter 4 that ‘he was alone, and always would be’. But maybe... that’s not such a bad thing. Maybe Shuichi needed to be alone to have that clarity of thought, and to come up with a way to ‘end everything’. Anyway, it’s just an unexpected parallel I thought of - m-maybe I’m just inserting endgame Kokichi and Kaito thoughts here because the game didn’t. Whoops

I AM LIVING FOR THE TOTAL REJECTION OF THE ‘HOPE’ AND ‘DESPAIR’ THEME

TAKE THAT!!!!

It’s not your own will. 8c

Can you fight it? Do you have the ability to fight it? The strength of will?

I love Monokuma’s priorities.

OH WE HAVEN’T HAD A DEBATE IN A WHILE

omg we only have hope as a bullet

And all the noise says hope

Also Shuichi is dominating it too, holy shit! This strength in his voice is super inspiring!

thank you for bringing back angry Hanamura it’s still one of my favourite things from the second game

Ohoho I see what you did there with that line ~

i’m sorry I was just curious about the fluff text

CHARACTER GROWTH

I CANNOT BELIEVE IT

K1-B0 LEARNED TO LIE!!!! I NEVER THOUGHT THIS DAY WOULD COME!!!

“That’s redundant btw - I can read the comments just like the rest of you, and they literally are not shutting up about how much they want hope to win.”

speaking of which

What are you doing, Keebo?

Don’t give up hope!

Hope! Hope! Hope!

Please side with hope.

1 vote for hope!

I bet the mastermind is shocked. lol

Hurry up and show me hope.

HOPE!

COME BACK HOOOPE

Hope counter!

show us maki roll! oh hey she has fans too!

it’s unanimous hope.

Hope hasn’t lost yet.

Defeat despair!

cmon it’s hope again! right?

I’m routing for despair so *shrugs*

I got 10 bucks riding on hope. that’s it? weak

I’m on the side of hope, so...

I wanna break Shuichi’s fingers <3 SWEETCHI97 WHO HURT YOU

Huh? It’s hope?

So... So wow, even most of the people talking about wanting despair really did want the hope ending in the end. Shuichi read them like open books.

HE CAN! HE CAN DEFY THE AUDIENCE!!!! I’M SO HAPPY FOR YOU K1-B0!!!!

This - this is why you’re the Ultimate Robot. Forget the upgrades - the ability to learn, grow, adapt and choose your own path is another part of your strength!

WE.... WE’RE LOSING HIS POV..... We’re losing his POV?!?!

Yeah??? You wanna expand on that???

T-Though I mean, they said they’re happy to let themselves die via no vote so exactly what can they do anyway? At the end of the day, they’re viewers, right? Relegated to an observational role. Powerful and untouchable.... but in turn, that separation of realities means what’s left of the class can’t be hurt by them, either.

Tsumugi he literally said he’s fine with dying. Exactly what can you threaten him with here???

How is it that after all of this, Shuichi is still unable to fight for himself? Maybe I should amend what I said before - he is fighting for other people. They just... well, they don’t know it yet. He’s fighting to prevent future victims, and he’s trading his own life to protect them. I guess in a sense he is fighting something ‘greater than himself’ like Naegi did, but even he had ‘hope that he and his friends would survive with a happy ending’. This is... completely the opposite of that.

GOODBYE DANGANRONPA INDEED, DAMN

And we’re back in his POV!

Oh man she is not happy about this. Not at all.

Hey? Hey Shuichi? What - what the fuck does that mean? You were going to end it all right then? Mid-trial? Excuse me what the hell did you take poison with you to the trial or something -

Oh - oh. I just realized. This... This was bloody foreshadowed, way back in Chapter 1 with the escape tunnel. With Kokichi’s speech to Kaede, about how she technically had the moral high ground when she was doing all the classic ‘we can’t give up here!’ encouragement, we got to see firsthand hope being weaponized against us. It was right there.

Of course they have Naegi pleading for hope here

He’s just talking over her omfg

You trivialized their lives in the first place and now they’re supposed to consider them sacred?!

It’s literally the only thing that still wholly belongs to them, so what other choice do they have???

Wait what is happening -

I’M HIMIKO NOW??!?!?

i can’t believe she was a slytherin this whole time

I’m quietly relieved that she doesn’t ‘nyeh’ in her internal monologue

THIS IS THE DARKEST EVIDENCE BULLET FOR ENDGAME DEAR LORD

this might be worse than nihilism - at least you weren’t able to use that

How interesting to have him fighting us (along with Sakura and Peko for that matter, the former who literally threw away her life for her classmates and the latter who treated her life as a tool for Fuyuhiko). This was his philosophy and motive of his trial, but he also chose to be the killer and used his life as a means to save the rest of his class, right? Tsumugi, what are you trying to pull here?

Though I guess the whole point was that they were all trying to help the others survive, and Shuichi is getting the whole class to kamikaze themselves so...

Damn, she didn’t take much convincing at all. It’s nice that she’s repping both Tenko and Angie here. 8′)

FUCK YEAH WE NAILED THIS HIMIKO! We work well together, who knew!

Himiko is so well-spoken here. And to think that she was the first to follow in Shuichi’s footsteps - I really thought it would be Maki. Good on you, Himiko.

lmao that segway - Alright, now it’s Maki time, right?

also Tsumugi why would you phrase it in a way to piss off Maki like damn seriously??

“No seriously why would you just call me out like that.”

........................

okay she has a point actually

Never forget that we are in a class trial where almost all of the survivors are introverts who prefer their emotions on the inside.

!!!!!!!

DFJGDSKFL SHUICHI ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME

Her... internal dialogue is so interesting and immediately comes off as different from Shuichi’s, Himiko’s and K1-b0′s. It seems... angrier, maybe. Is that it? Or maybe it’s all the red lines that makes it seem that way...

This whole line of her entire self being at the whim of someone else’s writing seems to be targeted at her more-so than the others because she’s already struggled with the idea that she’s had no choices in her life, and that she’s always been a weapon to be used by others. Actually, that’s probably why this hits so hard - she thought she was developing feelings on her own and making a choice to fight to defend him, and the idea of even that being taken away from her...

“I have love, but more importantly SPITE ON MY SIDE!!!”

AND ANOTHER ONE

hsdfjgh no don’t pan over the Kaito portrait w h y my heart

Angry Mikan is still as terrifying as she was in SDR2!

As an aside, I don’t know why Hagakure repeatedly showing up is so funny to me - I swear he’s been used more than the others? I-Is he secretly Tsumugi’s favourite character? is it because he’s also older than everyone else and she finds that thought comforting -

“I won’t go far as saying I don’t want to die mind you, but I’m surprisingly neutral on the subject!”

If Tsumugi’s ‘everyone’ who she’s fighting for is the living, then the ‘everyone’ Shuichi is fighting for is the dead...

Even if it’s fiction - it’s their reality. Expecting them to understand that because it’s someone else’s fiction... that’s just not fair, is it?

Sweetcheeks has an uphill battle to fight, but to have a second class revolt in a single game....

HEY SAIHARA-CHAN DID YOU HEAR THAT? THE ROBOT’S GETTING SASSY WITH ME!

K1-B0 YOU ABSOLUTE LEGEND

THE TEAM’S BACK TOGETHER!!!

That’s... that’s it. I think we’ve done it. They’ve finally done it! They were able to turn it around after all!

THIS IS OUR TURNABOUT!!!

[dxmedstudent]

Heya hope you’re doing well! For the end of year asks, 1 and 24?

I’m doing OK! I keep forgetting to post this, or adding onto it. But I don’t want it to be lost whenever my browser next crashes. So, let’s post this!@meanwhileonwednesday also asked me to answer them all, so I’m gonna combine both.

1) what did you learn about yourself this year?

I learned a lot about myself. I underwent some careers counselling, which has been an itneresting ride, and given me lots of tools to reflect on what I want out of work. It’s hard, because I realised that I (and probably all of us) tolerate so many working conditions that I don’t inherently like or flourish under. I like to take my time on one problem at a time; in medicine you’re being constantly interrupted by like 10 different people who then remind you multiple times about the thing you were doing til someone else interrupted you, and constantly re-jigging your to-do list to accommodate changes in urgency. I realised I like to make people feel better even more than I like to ‘fix’ things. I realised that the reality of what work in a busy hospital is like completely colours my perception of specialties; I can’t unsee the kinds of shifts I’ve had to work. It gave me a lot of food for thought, and I hope it helps me pick something I’m happy with. And having started dating again towards the end of the year, I’ve had to think a lot about who I really am, and what I really want or need. It’s not easy shining an honest light on yourself; what you realise isn’t always flattering (I don’t often spend enough time doing non-work related things, and I’m too much of an introvert for most people, probably). But this allows you to be honest about what would make you happy; for example, I’d hever chase some guy who loves to go clubbing on a regular basis, because we’d be spending every evening apart.

2) best moment of the year?

I don’t know. There were lots of litle modest ‘best moments’, but I’m not sure I can thing of any one big thing.

3) worst moment of the year?

Burnout Time wasn’t a moment, but it wasn’t a good time in general. I’m going to vote it number 1. Though it has some stiff competition. I’ll stick to just one, because nobody wants to read a long list of sad things.

4) what was the biggest change you experienced this year?

I realised that I wouldn’t let training and medicine destroy me. Not that I planned to before, but there’s a lot of fear and anxiety at every stage of the game in medicine. You spend med school anxious in case they kick you out. You spend foundation training anxious in case you kill someone or they kick you out. Then you finish that part of your training, and start the next and its... more of the same? And when you struggle and feel bad, so often your first thought isn’t “I feel horrible, this is bad for me and I need help” but “as long as I am functional at work, then it’s OK as long as they don’t kick me out”. But that doesn’t help you get better, it only piles more pressure on you when you need help. It turns out that I discovered they don’t kick you out of training as easily as my darkest thoughts imagined.  But it made me realise I could never let this job destroy me; there is so much to live for and enjoy outside of medicine. There are so many other ways to be happy.

5) best song of the year?

Aah I’ve listened to so many songs over the course of a year, how could you pick one. I’d blatantly favour the ones I obsessed over most recently. Hmm. I listened to Vitali’s Chaconne on a loop when revising, so let’s go with that. 

6) best album of the year?

I rarely listen to entire albums, because I tend to discover songs randomly and individually. But I loved that my friend and I discovered we both loved Indila’s music really randomly.

7) what’s one thing that happened this year that you want to change?

Towards the end of the year, I had to take a break from making and posting comics. Between burnout and work things, I just didn’t have the time, energy or inspiration to give it what it needed. I hope to get back into it this year; I really miss making my comic.

8) best book/book series of the year?

I’m gonna vote Good Omens. I know people joke about something curing their depression. But yeah, it sort of did with me. It made me see the light at a difficult time, and despite all the stress and sadness and numbness I was going through, it made me laugh and feel joy and appreciate what words could do again. It rekindled a light that had burned very low, and I’m forever grateful for that; it holds a special place in my heart now.

9) best television series?

Hard for me to pick one. I’m watching The Dragon Prince right now, and it’s great! Reminds me of ATLA in the best ways. Honourable mention to Cells at Work for combining three of my interests (medicine, anime and cute things) into one.

10) how was your love life this year?

I actually bothered to try to have one! Only toward the end of the year, though, so we’re on baby steps right now. I’ve talked to and met a few interesting people, even ones that I couldn’t pursue anything further with. I’ve also read like a million really bad profiles, had  way too many half-assed messages and conversations.

I hate the initial bit, where you should try to be yourself and need to be open and vulnerable to really getting to know people, but equally people can just drop out of talking with you or dating you just like that. It’s something much easier to do when you meet online and don’t know each other than when you meet at uni, and I certainly seem to see it a lot more now in online dating than meeting people IRL. Where you get dumped or dump someone but you at least have s a sense of completion. I don’t like how easily the mind wanders over to ‘damn it, he’s ghosted me’ If someone doesn’t reply for a few days, but then again, the fact that lots of people do just ghost doesn’t help that.Still, I remind myself that there’s no use worrying about it; if someone will dump you or isn’t right for you, then there’s nothing you can do to change it.

There are some nice people out there, and I’m interested to see where it goes. Hopefully without too much anxiety, preoccupation or heartbreak on the way; that was one part of dating that I absolutely did not miss in my single carefree years.

11) what made you cry the most this year?

I find it hard to quantify what made me cry the most; I had a lot of tough times. 

Actually, no, on second thought, I think I know what made me cry the most; PMS. Hands-down the winner. What a menace; it’s a real pain. Would not recommend PMS as an experience to those of you unfamiliar with it.

12) biggest regret of the year?

I try not to look back and regret things. I don’t want to say I regret burning out, because frankly that isn’t a choice I made, so I don’t feel bad about it. It’s unfortunate that it’s made my life a bit more complicated, but it’s manageable. So I try not to dwell on that or regret it.

I feel sad that I put my comic on hiatus, because I managed to balance it through so many tough times, so pausing kind of felt like admitting defeat, or losing a part of myself. But it needed to be done.

13) best movie of the year?

It’s late and I actually can’t even remember which movies I saw this year. I think I saw Mary and the Witch’s Flower in this past year, so I’m going to go with that. Because I’m really excited to see where Studio Ponoc takes things, and if they will carry on a Ghibli-ish legacy or do something new.

14) favourite place you travelled this year?

I went to Poland, twice. It was great! I’m slowly trying to get around all the European capitals, and it’s really nice to learn more about the places you go. I never feel like I’ve seen everything there is to see, which I guess is motivation to come back another time...

15) did you make any new friends?

Always. Yep, the benefit of moving to new jobs on a regular basis means that you get to meet new people, a lot. I’ve seen one of my FY1s develop into a great SHO and become a good friend. I’m so proud of them.

And hey, always making new friends here! I love our community, and whilst I can’t remember exactly when I befriended most of you (or got befriended), I am truly glad that I have.

16) did you learn anything about your sexuality this year?

Yep, I don’t think you ever stop learning. I’m looking forward to always finding out more. I don’t feel the need to share it, though :P Some things are better left private.

17) what are some hobbies that you developed?

Most of my hobbies are the same as they always were. However, I feel that I have played a lot of new board games, I continued to D&D without being an utter disaster, and now feel uh, sort of actually competent at this sort of thing.  And I have collected some awesome dice.

18)what surprised you the most this year?

We’re still doing this Brexit thing. I don’t know; I’m not sure politics can surprise me much anymore. It’s still free to disappoint, though. Actually, a few patients survived who I didn’t expect. And some people died suddenly that we didn’t expect to pass at that point. So medicine is always surprising.

19) do you look different from the beginning of the year?

I have more grey hair. Like a LOT. My hair evidently plans to go silver way before I would have expected to. At this rate, I won’t make it to 40 with any brown hair left! My hair is almost waist length so it hasn’t changed all that much apart from the fact that it really wants me to cosplay white haired anime characters.

20) how did this year treat you in general?

People died. People got sick. People in my personal life, not patients, that is. It’s harder to deal with it when it’s not at work; when it’s people you know and care about.  My parents had multiple procedures or surgeries. I sort of burned out at one point and vaguely considered if the path I am on is for me. I did a bit of soul-searching to try to work out what I really want, and what I really need. I’m still not sure I understand, but I’m getting closer.

21) what message would you give yourself at the beginning of the year?

You’ll live. It’s OK, it’ll work out, and you’ll get through it, like you always do.

22) has your fashion style changed this year?

Not really. I have too many clothes (mostly for work, if I’m honest) so I didn’t buy many this year. I definitely need to sell or give away some of the ones that just aren’t ‘me’ any more, though. I sometimes hold on to clothes for a long time, but in the end when it doesn’t feel right dressing like I did say, 10 years ago, then I feel the need to revamp my wardrobe.

23) one of the best meals you’ve had this year?

My mum randomly started making my favourite food more often, and I’m really happy! I keep asking her if there’s some kind of ulterior motive XD

24) who has made the biggest impact in your life this year?

Hmmm it’s really tough to think of any one particular person. Some of the stronger experiences with people were negative, but I refuse to dwell on them or name them; to single them out gives them a power and importance they don’t deserve. So instead I’d just have to say my network of friends and family, for keeping me going’ they have done a lot for me this year. Lots of little and big things that make me feel so loved and cared for. 

25) what’s one thing that you hope will continue next year?

I will keep trying to do my best, and keep trying to look at the bigger picture. I’ll keep working on not letting medicine take over my life. I’ll keep trying to be a better doctor. I’ll keep making time for friends and family. I’ll keep trying my best to meet new people, and not let the times it didn’t work out get me down.

[dramallamadingdang]

Annnnd some replies.

For @penig, @scribblingsim, @taylors-simblr. @freezerbunny-sims, @tamtam-go92, @dunne-ias, @holleyberry, and @scibirg...

penig replied to your post “Every time I think I’m going to get back on track with keeping up with...”

Bonk the guilt on the head. Following someone is not the same as promising to view all the content. Anybody you're particularly interested in, you can go to the individual blog sometime when you're in the mood. You never get to do all the things you want to do and that's life. Don't turn your leisure into work.

Intellectually I know that. Thing is, there are some things I really do want to catch up on, but then when I sit down at the computer, I end up doing something else. Like, going off and looking at Photoshop tutorials or something because an idea strikes me and I want to check out some ways to make it happen. In short, I need more hours in the day and being able to stay awake for them. But don’t we all, I guess? :)

scribblingsim replied to your link “ModTheSims - Orchard Fruits Gussy Up”

Oh, of *course* I'd find out about this after I finally get my game loaded. LOL ah well. A good download for later.

Ain’t that always the way! *laugh* My game was already loaded, too, when I looked at the downloads on MTS, so adding in the mod will have to wait until the next time I exit and reload it. But it’s in the Downloads folder, waiting for that to happen, at least. :)

taylors-simblr replied to your post “Every time I think I’m going to get back on track with keeping up with...”

Same here, I think ooh I’ll catch up and comment on recent story posts, but then I also want to read a book or play a game or maybe I have ironing to catch up on and then I forget and feel guilty and then the dash moves so fast anyway. It is one of the ways that livejournal/dream width is slightly better. The posts don’t get lost forever in the sheer amount of posts even on one persons tumblr

I actually like the journal system better, overall, for lots of different reasons. (Properly threaded conversations is the main one.) But its downside -- at least the last time I used my LJ -- was that it’s a pain to post pics. Gotta do the upload the pics somewhere and then link to the post thing, which is tedious if it’s a lot of pics, rather than just dragging/dropping like you do with Tumblr. Since Sims-posting tends to be pic-heavy, that’s a real bummer. Buuuuuut yeah, it’s nice that it doesn’t move at breakneck speed like Tumblr does. Tumblr’s definitely meant more for the short-attention-span crowd, I think.

And then people post saying their “dash is dead,” and I’m like, “What? HOW??!!” :)

freezerbunny-sims replied to your post “Question!”

Never tried that but it's a great idea. Wasn't there an option for sims with high enthusiasm in a hobby to instruct other sims? Or does that just increase hobby enthusiasm, not skills? On a side note, maybe some skilling objects could be modded to have an option to instruct other sims, like some of the career rewards already have. I don't know how hard it would be though.

Yeah, the instruct thing does only affect enthusiasm. Which is good, too, for my purposes. Because ultimately skills don’t really matter in this neighborhood. No one has a job and most of the skills, except maybe cooking, are most useful for job promotions and whatnot. They don’t actually have too much of an effect on a Sim’s daily life. What would be good is if instructing would increase badge levels. But I think maybe SimWardrobe’s vocational training podium can do that, now that I think about it. I’ll have to track that down...

tamtam-go92 replied to your post “Oh, I didn't know that "send grave to the community lot" thing didn't...”

I didn't know the sent to graveyard doesn't work probably too! And I always sent ma ghosts there ��

Using “Move This Grave” works in the sense that it does move the grave and doesn’t break anything in ways that would cause neighborhood corruption, but if keeping the ghosts’ colors/behaviors is important to you, that’s not the way you want to do it. So far as I know, the interaction hasn’t been fixed so that it preserves the colors/behaviors.

holleyberry replied to your post “Hi iCad. I have a morbid question. How do you deal with graves in your...”

I didn't know that about letting the ghost spawn.

Yeah, the issue is that when a Sim dies, a certain amount of time has to pass before the ghost will spawn. I think the time is randomly determined when the Sim dies, but it seems like it can be anywhere between the night of their death (if they died during the day) up to three or four nights after the Sim’s death. If you move the grave to a community lot before the ghost spawns for the first time...Well, time doesn’t actually pass on unowned community lots because they don’t save, so an “unspawned” grave on a community lot will never reach its designated “spawn time.” 

So, if you want ghosts on community lots, you have to let the ghost spawn for the first time on a residential lot, where time DOES pass. If you don’t want it to be their home lot (so you don’t have to deal with haunting, for instance), then you could use a gravekeeper, go to THEIR residential lot, and have them plunk the grave down there. Then make motives static and put the game on ultraspeed until the ghost spawns. THEN put the “pre-spawned” grave on the community lot. Then the ghost will appear there.

tamtam-go92 replied to your post “Question!”

It's not quite in topic but in my normal gameplay I pretend that teens that don't attend University do an apprenticeship. They have to get a Job and when they go to school I tell it trade school. But since neither exist in your neighborhood I think your Suggestion seems a good Option! As someone who did an apprenticeship I wish there Was something like that in game.

I tend to not like the schooling in the game at all. Probably because I’m not a fan of the “standard” public school system in the US, which is what the game’s school is based on. :) For instance, I violently disagree with the entire concept of “homework” IRL, so I homeschooled my real kids, and in my game, I come up with alternative ways to educate kids/teens that are actual practical (As in, they gain actual skills or badges or whatever) as opposed to just something that sends them off the lot for X hours and all they get is meaningless “grades.” I’ve not done apprenticeship before, but that sort of system makes logical sense for this neighborhood, since it is mostly trades-based, so I’m going to work out some kind of system.

dunne-ias replied to your post “Question!”

I played it once similar to your plan. The teen would move in with the mentor (unless the mentor was their parent) but I would have them stay there, not move them back to their parents's house as I think that made more sense. They were often invited home though for big events and sometimes just dinner. I also made the parents pay the mentor. I think a certain amount of days of apprenticeship would be reasonable, or a certain amount of work done so that skilled workers-

2/2 - would be able to finish their apprenticeship faster. Once they were done they were moved back in with the parents until they had enough money to move out, so the cost of moving out wasn't subtracted from the mentor, but the parent (I had the no20Khandouts.)

With the Sim Transporter, I can move individual Sims into and out of different households at will, without the moving-around affecting anyone's money. (Although there is no money in this neighborhood, so it doesn't really matter. :) ) I use it to run daycares and schools in my game. For this neighborhood...Teens will all leave their birth household on the morning after their teen bday, mostly because space will be at a premium and they’ll need to get out to make room for their younger siblings. :)  They'll move to the communal lot, going into the queue to earn their own house. So I was thinking that when playing the communal lot, any apprentices would just get transported out somewhere for a block of days -- to simulate being "at training" -- and then transported back. Then when I play the mentoring household, I can use the transporter to move their “assigned” apprentice(s) in for their days of actual training and then transport them back when they're done. I think it'll work....

The detail I'm not really clear on is how to run the training. I suppose they can just do all the mentor's work, give them a break. *laugh* But I'd like there to be some interaction between mentor and apprentice as wel. It'd be nice if there was some sort of social interaction to “pass on” skills or badges, sort of like how you can pass along earned business benefits... Maybe I can rig something up with Sophie-David's "opportunity" items (There's a thought...) or maybe SimWardrobe’s vocational trainer or both. Maybe have them do hands-on work one day and then “classroom”-learn from the mentor the next and switch off that way. That might work...

I've got time to think about it, though; it'll be a while before there are any born-in-game teens in this neighborhood! *laugh*

tamtam-go92 replied to your post “This looks crazy. I wonder, how do you take the second baby out of the...”

It's still possible that the fences of the cribs can be put down to put the babies in ��

Now that I think about it, I don’t actually recall if the crib “doors” are animated on those cribs. Of course, that’s how such a thing would work in real life, but I’ve not paid attention to whether or not those cribs are animated in-game....

scibirg replied to your post “This looks crazy. I wonder, how do you take the second baby out of the...”

I once played a medieval game and the Picaso's were living in a tiny hovel and just kept having kids (ACR of course). With the shelf beds from simlogical I was able to cram an amazing number of sims into their one bedroom house!

Oh, yeah. Shelf beds will definitely be used! (That’s why the second bedroom in the houses is three tiles deep. :) ) I’m figuring I can stack three of them per side of the room and then maybe put a floor mattress underneath the “stack,” thus cramming in eight kids. If there’s more than that at a time, tents will be broken out! :)

tamtam-go92 replied to your photo “Attempting to befriend another wolf. This one’s a female because I...”

Won't they bite the sim and turn her into a werewolf?

(This is an old reply. Sorry about that, dear; I missed it when I did the last batch of replies.) 

Anyway, no, only the “Leader of the Pack” -- the wolf with the glowing yellow eyes -- can turn a Sim into a werewolf. The others are just really aggressive big dogs that are rather hard to build relationships with because many interactions are rejected at first and the wolf tends to leave before you can get very far, so you have to wait for the same one to show up again to continue to work on the relationship. I do want someone to befriend/adopt the Leader, though. Mostly because I’ve never had anyone become a werewolf by the “real” in-game method. *laugh*

[sanderssidesfanfiction]

A System of Sides Chapter Three

A/N: This one has been sitting ready to go for a bit, so I figured why not post it? Hope you all enjoy!

PREV | NEXT

Words: 3,391

Warnings: Badmouthing of characters, talk of dormancy with suicidal undertones, talk of integration, food

Logan was half-asleep in bed when he heard the excited, firm knock on his door of two firm taps. Logan rolled over in bed and groaned before sitting up and yelling, "Come in!" as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. There was no way that knock was anyone's other than Patton's. Only Patton would knock to come into his room only twice or risk getting too excited to hold back anything any more.

Patton walked into the room, grinning, but a shy expression on his face. Oh, boy. He wanted something. "Hey, Logan. How you doing? Better, I hope?"

"You're the one who made me feel angry yesterday afternoon to begin with," Logan said, trying to keep the irritation he felt niggling in the back of his brain out of his tone. "The argument with Roman happened in the morning, and I had been calming myself down with research when you came in here and refused to follow what's best for Thomas."

Patton winced. "Yeah, um, about that..."

Oh, boy. Did Patton want him to back off on helping Thomas? Because that was not going to happen! Patton could beg all he wanted, but Logan was not going to stand for Thomas not learning anything new.

"I was wondering if maybe you'd consider a truce between you, Roman and myself? Figuring out a system of cofronting and influence, so that there are less turf wars to go around?"

Logan paused. That wasn't the direction he had expected Patton to be going with this. Patton was right-brain oriented, he sided with Roman more often than not. But a truce and a logical system of fronting...made sense. And would actually be beneficial, done correctly. "What would this involve?"

Patton looked surprised. "You mean you'll do it?"

"If executed properly. Now, what would it involve?" he prompted.

"Mostly just you and Roman and I sitting down somewhere together, and talking out what everybody needs to do with Thomas and what everyone wants to do with Thomas, and figuring out who can do what when. It's possible there won't be a completely fixed schedule, but there will be guidelines, and hopefully communication if everything goes right. Are you in?"

Logan tilted his head to the side and observed Patton. He was fidgety, waiting for an answer which he quite obviously hoped was yes. What were his motivations behind this, though? "Roman isn't trying to get you to give him most of the time, is he?"

"I just came straight from his room and I fully intend to try and share the time equally once everyone agreed to participate, and Roman signed off on the idea. So I don't think he's trying to do anything to get me to give him more time. Not unless he's secretly hovering over my shoulder right now."

Logan sighed. His hopes of sleeping were quite obviously dashed, but outside of that, this sounded like a reasonable and useful idea. "I suppose I can agree to this, with a few conditions."

Patton grinned and nodded. "I'll see what I can do! What are your conditions?"

"Number one, Roman does not get all of the fronting time," Logan said, ticking off the list on his fingers. Patton nodded. "Number two, I get the time to help Thomas pursue more education. Not just time where I can help him fix a problem or he needs someone whose emotions won't cloud his judgement. I want actual time with him."

"Yeah, yeah, of course!" Patton exclaimed. "Of course you'll get actual time with him, I wouldn't have it any other way! Anything else?"

Logan thought it over. "Number three, we don't go over this with Virgil until Roman and I agree on some sort of terms. I don't need two people shouting at me at once over what I want."

Patton nodded. "I wasn't going to do that any way. I might let him know about the truce but I wasn't going to try and have everyone fight over who gets what at once. And I'll be reserving an amount of time cofronting for Virgil, so you two can't argue over getting all the time and not allowing Virgil any. He's a personality here too, he has just as much of a right to help as any of us, since he hasn't hurt Thomas."

"Yet," Logan muttered under his breath. "But, I see your point. That sounds acceptable and you respect my terms and conditions, so I will accept yours, I suppose."

Patton jumped up and down. "Oh, yes! Thank you thank you thank you! I'm super sure this will really help Thomas in the long run, you won't regret it!"

Logan watched Patton's excitement with a touch of amusement. The personality was always so excitable. And while it was often draining, there were moments of pride when Logan got Patton to laugh at something he said.

"Are we starting the truce now?" Logan asked. "As in, are we defining the terms now?"

"Hm? Oh, no, I'm giving you and Roman time to come up with a list of things you absolutely will not allow on the table during the truce. Obviously, you can't say you want all of the time, but you, for instance, could put that you need at least some time for learning with Thomas, like I'm sure Roman said he needs some time for daydreaming, or working towards his dreams, or whatever Roman is focusing on lately. It changes a lot," Patton rambled. "But no, you have some time to make a list of stuff. No pressure, okay?"

Logan nodded. "Understood. I will set about that list as soon as possible, then. Thank you for this. I am sure that less arguments in head space will be good for Thomas' psyche."

Patton smiled, gave Logan a thumbs-up, and was out of the room as soon as he was in it.

Logan shut the door behind him and yawned. He had stayed up all night last night trying to prove something that he had read in a book once. Now there was no way he could get to sleep with the idea of a truce running through his head, but it wouldn't hurt to write down some terms and conditions, of course.

He looked around his room and eventually found a piece of paper and pencil that wasn't either broken or a useless nub that hurt to write with. Immediately he put down Thomas has adequate time with me to focus on studies.

That was a good start, but what else did he want? Roman does not argue with me when it is time to switch cofronting, and leaves without argument when my allotted time starts, no matter the situation.

Yes, that was important too. He did not want Roman whining about wanting a turn in front when all the good it was going to do was make Thomas hear them even clearer than a nagging sensation in the back of his mind and question his own sanity. If they weren't careful, Thomas might find out about them and want them to integrate, which would be decidedly not good. Logan couldn't imagine trying to integrate with Roman, it would be too painful! Same with Patton. Virgil he could understand working with a little. Virgil could identify problems and Logan could work to solve them, and they could possibly form a cohesive unit. But the other two? That would not be wise.

That didn't even begin to scratch the surface of Logan's fears of integration and dormancy, however. Ever since Thomas had left school, the others seemed to want him helping at front less and less. As Thomas created more vines, more stories, got more creative, Roman thrived and Logan was pushed to the wayside. Logan felt a bit like an abandoned toy. His use was only good if someone else worked with him. If no one did, then he was bound to be forgotten. And if he was forgotten, he would have no real option except to go dormant, essentially become nothing, no longer exist in the Inner World. Maybe he should write that down.

No one will force me into dormancy, or make me feel like I would be better off dormant. He didn't know if that was something that was likely to happen at this point, but he wasn't taking any chances, not with this.

Integration was another beast altogether. Yes, in a way he would still exist, but he wouldn't be himself. He wouldn't have his identity to fall back on, to know he was Logan, the personality who loved to learn and loved to figure out how things worked. Who was logical in emotionally charged situations and came to sound conclusions and solutions. He'd just be...another part of Thomas. And while that wouldn't be a bad thing, it was scary to think about not having a sense of self. It would be so intrinsically tangled with everyone else he would hardly be able to tell where he ended and where Patton or Roman or Virgil or even Thomas himself began.

This was too much. Too much thinking about bad things that he never wanted to pay much attention to in the first place. What should he do to distract himself and eliminate this problem?

His stomach growled. Ah, yes, food. Food might be a way to distract himself from these problems and give himself something to focus on outside his own internal fears. Like what really lives at the bottom of the ocean--no! He was not going to think about that or his name wasn't Logan Sanders!

...This was going to be a long day, Logan could already tell.

He walked out of his room and through the Common Area, where he noticed Virgil sulking in a ball on the couch. Wondering what that was about, but electing not to ask, Logan continued his way to the kitchen, trying to force himself to stop analyzing everything long enough to focus on one thing. Now, what should he make...?

Just as Logan finished making one of his signature stews, Virgil walked into the kitchen, hands stuffed deep in their pockets. He grunted a, "Hey," and walked to the cabinets, pulling out a bowl.

"You want some stew?" Logan asked.

"Sure," Virgil said, offering the bowl out. "Hey, you know why Patton's been bouncing around today? I could hear him in my room earlier he was so excited."

Logan hummed and considered his options here. Obviously Virgil wasn't going to be in the truce at the very beginning, but he held a certain kinship with the other left-brain personality that inclined him to sharing what was going on. "Patton is trying to bring about a truce between everyone about cofronting with Thomas."

Virgil blinked but said nothing. This was clearly news to him, then. "Was he going to tell me?" Virgil asked, irritation in the undertones of his voice.

"Oh, undoubtedly," Logan said. "However, he wanted to smooth things over between myself and Roman before adding you to the mix, which I thought was wise. Everyone shouting at each other about what they want is just...destined to lead to nowhere, you understand what I'm saying?"

Virgil looked like he had been slapped but quickly recovered. "I guess...still would have liked him to ask me before trying to get you two to agree to something, so I'm not backed into a corner, but..."

Logan subtly winced as he got a bowl of stew for himself. Yeah, that was going to be awkward. Patton asking Virgil about it and Virgil saying he already knew. But Patton didn't say Logan couldn't tell Virgil, so it was all good, he supposed. Once Logan had his own bowl of stew, he tried to ease the blow. "I'm sure he was going to ask you sometime today."

Virgil scoffed. "He ran right past me as if I didn't exist, and I was in the Common Room."

Doubly awkward. Logan cleared his throat. "Well, if you like I could keep you company? The right-brains are out in the hedge maze so we have the place to ourselves."

Virgil shrugged, grabbing a spoon and starting to eat. "You can, I guess. Won't make your conscience feel better, though, I guarantee it."

Logan sighed. "Why do you always have to announce everyone's hidden agendas?"

"It's fun," Virgil said with a shrug. "Besides, I like showing people what's obvious about other people's plans, but I'm not allowed to talk about the Gay Agenda."

Logan, to his credit, gave a dry laugh. "There is no Gay Agenda other than 'be yourself without fear'."

"And you're saying that's not a reasonable agenda?" Virgil asked.

"I'm saying it shouldn't have to be one," Logan said, grabbing a spoon for himself and leaning against the counter.

Virgil hummed his agreement and continued to eat. "So, this truce...you think it'll help?" he asked.

Logan shrugged. "Who knows? I know that if it does then it will certainly benefit Thomas, and it would be hard to be more dysfunctional as a system than where we are now."

"Could help and can't hurt philosophy, huh?" Virgil asked, nodding his understanding. "I understand that on some level, but at the same time I also just think...what do you possibly have to gain from it?"

Logan shrugged. "I can guarantee some time with Thomas that is completely undivided. Just learning about things that we both want to, I can't have that now and I could then."

Virgil sighed. "Well, then, this truce would be completely useless to me. Because I'm never allowed to cofront around Thomas, just have influence because otherwise 'I'll scare him into a panic attack,'" Logan could hear the air quotes in Virgil's tone. "So if I have no benefit, why include me anyway, right?"

"Virgil, like I said, that's not what Patton meant. He just thought it would be easier to corner two people at a time first."

"Whatever," Virgil grumbled. "I want to make a truce with you."

Logan frowned. "What kind of truce?"

"Neither of us want Princey or Dad-guy to have full control over this thing, right? So make sure we have at least fifty percent of the time around Thomas, if not more. We both know Roman will try to fight for more time if he can see any way to get to it."

Logan frowned. That was true, Roman would fight tooth and nail to have full control if he got his way, and Patton frequently sided with Roman on arguments. This truce could be completely skewed in their favor, and they could completely screw Logan and Virgil over. Well, not on Logan's watch. "I'll keep an eye out for it, Virgil, and I won't settle for anything less than fifty percent."

Virgil offered him a slight smile before leaving with a, "Thanks for the stew, nerd."

Logan continued to eat in thought. Surely Patton wouldn't try and skew everything in Roman's favor, right? He seemed sincere enough...but of course, "seeming" and "actually being" were two entirely different things. This could just be an elaborate ploy to get him to think he was fronting more than he actually was. And who did those right-brain idiots think they were, trying to trick him like that?! He had a right to front, just like everyone else, fair and square! It wasn't unreasonable to ask for some time alone, Roman and Patton certainly seemed to get it in spades, while Logan hardly got any time anymore, and Virgil...well, Virgil had his problems but he also helped motivate Thomas in ways neither of them seemed to notice!

"You think you're so clever, huh?" Logan asked with a sarcastic laugh. "Well, you're not! And you're not getting away with this, not on my watch!"

He stalked back to his room with his stew to work on a solution to this. He was not going to be the fool, not by a long shot! He grabbed his paper from before and considered what to write. It had to make a point...

Logan obviously wrote down that he wanted equal fronting time to Roman's amount, and he could angle his way for more in the discussion if he really needed to. But what else did he need to write down? If this was a conspiracy against him he needed all of his bases covered.

Patton sometimes snuck around to influence him and Thomas, and obviously that would have to stop if he was on Roman's side of this whole thing. Logan scoffed to himself. Roman didn't have a leg to stand on; he was irrational, too fanciful to see the pragmatism that would prevent what he wanted from happening, and it would ultimately lead to Thomas' downfall. And naturally, Logan would then have to pick up the pieces.

But if he could stop the break before it started, he could prove himself to be the superior personality in this field and therefore the one most deserving to front with Thomas.

...Why did he even have to prove that, anyway? He would have thought with all his years of helping Thomas in school the others would see by now that he was clearly the most helpful. He did everything he needed to do to organize and finish work, he helped keep Thomas excited to learn, and he protected Thomas from heartbreak a time or two as well.

Sure, Virgil could claim that he had helped Thomas stay away from potentially disastrous situations, Roman could say he calmed Thomas down after the bad event occurred, and Patton could...do that sponge thing with emotions, but Logan was the one who could well and truly protect Thomas from the fallout as it was falling.

Logan had the ability to push all of his emotions aside leaving nothing but cold, precise logic behind to deal with a mess. If someone was trying to hurt Thomas, either a so-called "friend" or a crush, Logan would come to the front and block out Thomas' emotions so they could just observe what needed to be done and do it. Later, the emotions might show up and Logan could process them in a more effective way, but he couldn't process and fix everything at the same time, that was just plain unreasonable.

So he had his methods of protecting Thomas and they worked out just fine. They could fix the problem and go on with their day. Logan would remind Thomas to eat or go to bed when necessary, but for the most part during their school years he would primarily focus on learning.

There was the time when Thomas wasn't learning that he called Roman to the front for, and Logan was mildly confused about that every time; those sorts of stories Roman would cook up were draining for Logan to deal with, so he rarely stuck around, but Logan couldn't understand why Thomas might want Roman over him. Sure, his stories had some success and he enjoyed making videos, but...all of that was just...fluff material, nothing he saw really worth pursuing given the odds of it actually working and giving Thomas a name for himself.

But Thomas and Roman kept at it, and as the school years dwindled away, Logan began to get worried. He was being called up front less and less, and Roman was getting more and more control, and this didn't look good for Logan at all. The longer Roman stayed at front, the more convinced Logan became that he was becoming obsolete. His only solution was to stay at front.

And that was what the others couldn't see. They were trying to thwart his plans for getting up front, then they were thwarting his plans of staying in existence, and Logan did not take kindly to the thought of them trying to get rid of him.

No, he didn't take kindly to that at all. He had to do something about it, and that was what he would do when Patton tried to start this truce. He would shut Roman down every chance he got in order to maintain his position at front as much as possible, and he would succeed.

He had to.

Tag List: @loganpatton @lizzysperil @tree4life25 @nyxwordsmith @lilbeanblr @kittyboof8 @irish-newzealand-idian-dutch

[dearben]

30.09.20

Dear Ben

i. My parents have a neighbour, this pension-aged divorcee who lives alone. She’s got two grown children, both in high-powered jet-setting careers, whom she doesn’t talk to a lot. She calls pretty much on the daily to talk to my mother, and the isolation hasn’t been kind to her because we get the sense that she’s losing the plot. She called the other night ranting and raving about how I’d screwed up her phone, but Dad’s convinced that it was because she refused to update her iOS.

(FTR, Dad used to try to get me to talk her through how to use her phone but three unsuccessful attempts convinced me that you can’t teach an idiot, so I try to refrain from talking to her where possible).

Mum and Dad have tried to convince her to seek help, but that suggestion hasn’t been taken very well.

(I wish you could talk back to me, but let’s be clear that you’re really a figment of my imagination, because I find it so much easier to talk to one, and part of me doesn’t want to scare you away even though there’s realistically close to zero chance that we’ll ever talk again.)

Anyhow the real reason I don’t like her is because she is essentially who I fear becoming in the future – alone and isolated both by volition and vocation.

ii. I just got into a fight with dad and my sister about what a failure I am. I’d seen this coming for a long time since moving back in – Dad even took me aside to warn me in advance not to be a pain in the arse before I came home. Dad told me that he’s essentially given up on nagging me and only keeps it up instinctively because I’m his progeny, which only hammers home that it’s no longer just in my head but in life that I might’ve failed.

I thought that this was going to be my year, the year that life was finally going to start behaving itself, and then a pandemic came along and gave it all a giant middle finger. It’s been over 6 months yet I still find myself yearning for what could have been. Everyone’s like, “maybe this is the year you strip it all back and regroup, and emerge from the other end like a butterfly”. Since then Operation Butterfly has become my obsession but part of me thinks it’s a distraction from the mess my life’s become.

This year has essentially just rammed home time and again what a failure I am. Crappy job, no social life or skills, and hardly any personality and generally a terrible excuse for a human being. I remember the darkness starting when I was finishing high school – it was like I knew uni was the peak and after that everything would start going downhill. I’m always terrified of the possibility that I peaked way too early, but Dad reckons (rightly so) that I have a complex where I’m unhappy if I’m not the centre of attention. How ironic then that I seemed to have developed a meta-complex about this, rather than behaving constructively about it.

iii. Then kids I’d grown up with are off conquering the world, getting high-powered jobs, getting married, buying houses and having children (or all at once). I can’t even hold down a boyfriend who doesn’t espouse right wing tendencies or isn’t a kidult. But then that opens a pot-kettle situation which I quite often run out of steam to cycle around.

Sarah’s said that anxiety does this – that it zaps the energy to give a fuck, resulting in one becoming an arse to the world because what’s remaining of that energy’s just directed towards keeping the basic systems running. I can’t even figure out how to format excel spreadsheets anymore. It’s super funny because I feel like I don’t have the patience to understand mental illness anymore, having fallen into that chasm despite once being so curious about it. I somehow manage to drown every day while decrying everyone else in the same boat for being a wimp. It’s days like these that I can’t picture the sun coming up tomorrow – or if it does, that the world will be in grayscale.

iv. Gabby’s just made us do a gratitude exercise. Truth be told I’ve always been skeptical of these because every time I do that, the rug gets pulled from under me and things on that list just mysteriously disappear. Mihika said that it was almost as if I was scared of being happy, which was pathological, but is it possible that I’m just too lazy to be?

I don’t know why I’m writing, when I haven’t in such a long time (I was afraid, I think, that my writing had become mediocre but I don’t care now because no one’ll read this…I think). I’ve always been a fast talker, fast thinker – maybe I just have too many thoughts in my head yelling over one another like inkblots and fireworks, and perhaps this might help me slow them down. I don’t need this to look pretty or aesthetic – I just need to figure a way out of the knots.

v. What I want to say to Dad and Mom and Ying (and the world) is that I wish I had the maturity to own a house, or have children, or even make things different for myself when I’m not happy about them, rather than make excuses all the time and wallow in self-pity. Or even, just to be happy with myself. Buying a car was terrifying enough, and that was with Ying and Dad there to do most of the legwork for me. Why the fuck am I licensed to perform surgery and give people life-changing medical advice, when I can’t even drive properly without thinking I’m going to die every time I step into a car?

All I can promise is that I will try, but that there will be days when I’ll fuck up again and again, even though that’s not an excuse to let things slide. I’m afraid to talk openly about this because it’ll force me to confront that deep dark chasm that is my anxiety about being a failure in life, and if I’m not careful I might finally fall in.

I know that I have so much growing up to do because I’ve spent too much time with my head in the clouds – mostly as a distraction because I’m fed up with life and humanity. I want to say that I care enough to not be a terrible person, but sometimes I find it hard to be 10/10. Dad keeps telling me to be introspective and self-reflective but sometimes I feel like time alone with my thoughts isn’t helpful but that’s mostly because I end up wallowing in cycles of despair. I know it’s a cop-out whenever I call myself a failure because it’s the easy way out, to fall with gravity, but my choices have consequences and I don’t like what’s on the other end of that alternative. But treading water is getting so tiring sometimes – I wish I could accept that this will be for life but I find it difficult sometimes to realise that there are ups and downs.

vi. I have found myself indulging, more and more, in thoughts of what we could’ve been. I find that they tend to be more salient whenever things and times get rough. Kit reckons that I do this to comfort myself with the memory of the closest I came to success but it always comes with that painful shock from your rejection. Even though rationally, you were reacting or behaving normally and were honest enough as to warn me ahead of time that you weren’t ready for a relationship and were even kind enough to check up on me despite my stupid faceplant, it only made you more irresistible. How I have tried time and again to be rational and stop thinking of you on a pedestal; once I even forced myself to read through your old messages talking about how you’d moved on. Oh god, I thought the pain would kill me but it didn’t and here I remain a strange shade holding onto regret. We only met twice and I was stupid at both, and clearly stupid enough to keep using you as the benchmark for what every subsequent partner should be. It’s been nearly 5 years. It nearly destroyed the one who came after you because he wasn’t you and despite both of us trying it wasn’t fair for him to be compared to a memory.

But then I’m starting to wonder if what I’m really finding alluring about you are your qualities and successes. I wonder if you were just another right-wing conservative social justice denier with stunted career prospects living with his parents, I would still be enamoured of you – and I’m starting to come to the realisation that perhaps I might not be. But you aren’t any of those things (particularly the right-wing conservative) – and here I’m falling into my own trap yet again.

I sometimes flirt (and come close to) with the idea of just asking you. Not flirtatiously with an emoticon in an unexpected text, but with raw honesty. Are you still with her? Are you happy? How is working from home, since you were already an expert before this shitstorm hit. How do you become an adult? And do you ever think of me as anyone aside from a fling?

But then that would utterly destroy the boundary I put up for my own good, by not replying to you the last time you asked me, and I know realistically I have destroyed any chance of that happening when you must’ve found me stalking your LinkedIn. More importantly it will make it blatantly obvious that beyond those two times, I wasn’t anything but a blip on your radar. Maybe I prefer this illusion of you, after all, and confronting you in life will eliminate him.

You’re not the only guy I’ve done this to. Most of the time, I embarrass myself enough in my delusions that I shudder at the mere thought of ever talking to them again. Once, it worked out, but then I ended up getting bored and breaking his heart years later. I often wonder if this is karmic payback for being so thoughtless but again the rational part of my brain realises that’s a cop-out.

vii. When I was thirteen my parents made me attend this motivational seminar over summer break, which famously (and sensationally) involved bullying us to study hard by visualising our parents on their deathbeds. They made us chant the line “Choices have consequences” on the hour and it has stuck. It’s wavered in my consciousness at times, particularly when I’m swimming in depression, and I often feel guilty coming out of the zenith when I realise that I’d just left it up to fate and faith to float me back to normality.

Every time I go back to Singapore and want to visit the places of my childhood, I find myself saddened by how things have changed and how my memories are disappearing. Again, there’s that tendency to comfort myself with memories to the extent of wishing them to reality, again an impossibility. Maybe that’s a good way to let your ghost rest, by realising that that is all you are – a memory, and a fleeting one at that. Again, I know it won’t happen overnight but it’s worth a try.

The other main strategy that everyone espouses to that end is trying to make myself the best possible version of myself I could be, almost to convince myself I deserve better than you. But why should I need to convince myself when I could just believe – but oh, that is still strangely counterintuitive.

What would giving in and talking to you achieve? Realistically, it’s been two years since that last message that I never answered, so quite possibly an unwelcome shock to you because why won’t I just rest and move on with life already? Awkward, almost immediately, because I’d been stalking your LinkedIn. You’d ask me how I was and I’d either a) launch into a diatribe about how I hate my life and existence and you’d be stuck at an awkward loss or b) I’d lie outlandishly about how my life is fucking awesome and you’d congratulate me and I’d struggle to fall asleep in self-loathing because my reality is anything but. So not a good outcome either way.

My choices have consequences, right? So talking to you, in both scenarios, would result in a negative, soul scorching outcome. I don’t ever want to have to endure that gutwrenching ache ever again, the choking sensation of my heart almost being hooked out of my chest. So rather than contemplate that today, let me figure out how I’m going to try and fix one broken part of my life, in planning out what to say to my family when I apologise for tonight’s outburst. Hopefully some of my earlier reflections will help.

And I know that this isn’t goodbye, not just yet. Perhaps I will one day be ready to finally lay you to rest. For now your phantom will just need to listen to my rambling emotions. For some reason or other I don’t think you’ll mind, so thank you for that. Maybe I’ll know you’re ready to go when I no longer have anything to say to you.

[dearmysan]

Wooyoung’s Notes.

Here’s only the smallest collection of all the things I have noted along our journey so far. Enjoy reading them, I’m sure there was some I have missed out on, but there definitely will be more to add along the way!  ↷ San often gets shy when it comes to me. He says it’s because what he’s had with me was unlike anything he’s had with anyone before. I get what he means by that, as I also can’t help but to feel shy when I’m around him. What we have is really different and special to me.  ↷ He’s into Overwatch as much as I am, probably even more! Recently he has found out how much of a god he was at Hanzo. He says his favorite player is Jjonak and he often goes to a lot of games. I hope to go with him one day.  ↷ We played Overwatch together with a few of his close friends. I had a lot of fun! But there was one time where we met, I kind of panicked and killed him. It made him sad but not as sad as I was. It’s okay though because in return, he shot me right in the head. hM.  ↷ I asked San if I could kiss him, and he said he wouldn’t ever push me away, He probably doesn’t know this but he is the most precious person to me, hence it took me awhile. I did it though, I kissed him and he kissed me back, now I’m afraid I may have an addiction.  ↷ I always tell San how much I like him, so instead, I tried something different and I told him I loved him. He told me he loved me and though our intellectual sides were screaming, it’s really a day I don’t think I’d ever forget.  ↷ I was busy one week, and in the end, I couldn’t spend as much time as I wanted to with him. I really miss him.  ↷ IF SAN’S DIMPLES AREN’T THE CUTEST SHIT EVER WTFF. And can I just say, nice, nice jawline. What a pretty neck he has too. He’s just pretty in general, we may have a problem, I love him too much. ↷ Warning! San has found ways to tease me and make me jealous in return. Maybe I should cool down my teasing, maybe he’ll have some mercy on me.  ↷ He had a dream about Yunho and Hongjoong, I sure hope that we meet in our dreams instead. But then again, he called me his dream come true and that just made me the softest shit ever.  ↷ After our first time, I was surprised to learn about one of his risky kinks, I’m definitely putting it on my list of things to try with him though, how exciting! ↷ He’s so cute when he’s drunk. He literally sent me a whole spam of gifs that were all like, “I love you” & “I miss you.” It was the most precious thing ever.  ↷ Since I first met San, there hasn’t been a day without spams of himself. I love seeing his cute face everywhere so I never mind though. It really reminds me that I need to get my lazy ass off to give him a spam as well.  ↷ He’s so competitive and I can tell he get’s sad when people stop playing games with him. I hope everyone continues to play games with him even if he is always victorious!  ↷ I took him on our first date. We had pizza and a ton of beer, we even played 20 questions and though we’re not currently done, I hope to continue soon as I still have many things to learn about him. ↷ We’re going on our first Vacation together, just me and him, alone. We’re travelling to the Maldive Islands. Though I’m sure it’d be beautiful, I don’t think it’d beat his beauty.  ↷ San’s so honest. He’s probably the most down to earth person that I’d ever come across. He’s too sweet for his own good. I’ll protect him, no matter what it takes! I hope the greatest people come his way, always. A good person deserves good things, I hope only the best things come his way from now on. ↷ San gets easily stressed when things aren’t organized. Sadly, I hate how I can’t do much, I can only be here for him at the end of the day when he is done. San should take his medications with him always though, I want him to be safe and I want him to always feel content. He’s a really strong person and I admire him for that. ↷ He really has endless love for the people around him. ↷ He says he’s not a fighter, yet when it came to me, he couldn’t let go. I still find that so cute.  ↷ San asked me to be officially his, he even blushed and boom, there went my heart again. The answer was too obvious though, of course I’d say yes. ↷ Our vacation was short lived, but extremely fun! We had a nice dinner and he even threw himself into the water. I hope we get to go again, this time, I’d like to take him somewhere nice. Also, we forgot Shiber, poor baby. ↷ So like, San asked me if it’d be alright for him to temporary cc to a girl. He’s so goofy, of course I’d be more than alright with that. Whoever he may be in the world, he’ll always be my one and only. As long as it’s him and no one else, I’d be absolutely content.  ↷ I had one of my firsts rabbit sessions with San a week or two ago. I don’t remember how far back it was because at this point, we’ve had so much sessions! We watch scary videos, scary mazes and even disney things! I felt like I was there right beside him. It made me so happy to see him so excited over the things he likes. ↷ So, San put on a scary game play in the middle of the night when I was preparing to go to sleep. I couldn’t do it...and I left. I’m still sorry about it. Also, he couldn’t exit out of the video after I left and we started talking about how we’re cursed. ICB. ↷ Noted. San loves heavy metal. He’s also calls himself a nerd because he loves Star Wars and Lord of The Rings. So precious, I want to share his love for all the things he likes so, it’s definitely on my list to do so. ↷ Perhaps, does San love Winnie The Pooh more than me? I’m shaking.  ↷ I’m shaking again because my little boy is growing so fast. Don’t tell me he’s going to get taller and taller and taller.  ↷ We finally got a place to ourselves! It’s on the outskirt of town and it’s quite a beautiful little home. We still need to incorporate a lot of Mickey Mouse decorations in our home though, we specifically talked about the kitchen! I hope to get to that soon.  ↷ I’ve been desperate to get tall so, I did it, I am currently Yunho. I think San likes it though. Now he can curl up in my chest all he’d like! May I also add that I am a fan of my blue hair. ↷ I’m starting to think he doesn’t realize how beautiful of a person he is. I’m dyiiiiiiing.  ↷ Okay so, he had a dream about Han and I got mad. Then he had a dream about Han again but this time I was there to pull him away. He said it made him laugh, and it honestly made me super happy yet embarrassed! ↷ It’s his birthday today! I’m celebrating it with him for the first time. I couldn’t prepare much but I hope he enjoys his time today anyways. He deserves so much. Also, I shall add that we also reached our first month together as companions!  ↷ Though my baby is a daredevil, he isn’t good with drop rides. I definitely have to protect him when it comes to those! ↷ San brought home a kitty! We decided to keep the baby and call the kitty Simba, our very own baby! ↷ Over the time span that we’ve been together, San has gone from Soojin to Solar to Yeeun and back to himself multiple times. I have even more fond memories of these people now. May I also say that he was beautiful every single time.  ↷ So like, we went to the mall together. I bought a few suits and San/Yeeun wore the prettiest skirt. What happened after that was quite exciting. We even had a session in the car afterwards. I hope we have many more opportunity to share those exciting and rebellious times together,  ↷ I finally got to watch San play some horror games. It honestly wasn’t as scary as I initially thought it was going to be so I’m quite glad. Not going to lie though, I closed my eyes a few time and sat pretty far from the screen. He’s so brave compared to me.  ↷  We finished Pokemon XY & Z. I still remember when we first started. Man have I grown so attached to all the characters. I am real excited to fall in love all over again with the new cast of the Sun & Moon series we are watching. My baby even got us a netflix to try out so we could finish Lord of The Rings as well, especially after rabbit died off and made me real sad.  ↷ A car trip came to mind with San. It sounds absolutely perfect and I can’t wait to set out on that adventure. It’s like we share the same idea of many dates and I find it absolutely adorable. I have somewhere I want to take him. ↷ San had started talking about Jeno ever since that Boom comeback. Something about an attractive undercut and headband. I’m kind of real jealous but it’s okay, I’m learning how to live with it. Pft.  ↷ We played so much dating doors, it’s so fun to see how our choices differ and how they are yet so similar. I really didn’t want to play the NCT because of you know who but it’s alright, I had a great time anyways.  ↷ My baby called me dramatic...a lot of things started making sense after that. I am indeed a over dramatic person.  ↷ San has started work again. I really hope he learns how to take better care of himself. I don’t like seeing him in pain. Before when we were just friends, I know he had a lot of stress and it brought upon chest pains. Now San’s back is often sore as well. I just hope my baby is okay after an exhausting day. I believe that he’ll always do his very best. I just hope he doesn’t push himself to hard.  ↷ I have started school. Not going to lie, I’m very upset about the fact that my time with him has been cut off shorter, like I’m super upset. I hope he knows how important he is to me and I hope to keep him by my side, always.  ↷ I miss him, all the time.  ↷ San is really my source of strength. He keeps me motivated and really pushes me to make good decisions. He says he doesn’t know how to offer words of encouragement but little does he understand that just his mere presence is enough to keep my spirits up.  ↷ We betrayed each other in a game and I was really sad. Reminded me of that old overwatch days where we killed each other. I never want to go against him again, it’ll break my poor baby’s heart and my own. ↷  San seemed to really enjoy his Loki self. I got Nick Wilde, oh yeah! ↷ I believe we are exchanging gifts this year and I’m real excited for it. I’ll work hard so I can buy him meaningful gifts.  ↷ There’s something I want to do, but I’ll keep it to myself until we have time.

[feliciasink]

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme originally from Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share News. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things I have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on my blog.

Hey you all, I’m so sorry for being absent these past few weeks. I haven’t been in my writing mood for a couple of months, but I been completely absent the past few weeks… So I’m gonna give you a recap of how these past 3 weeks have been for me…

So I started the week, 3 weeks ago, with going back to my speech therapist again. Yes, I stutter and yes, it will never go away completely… No big deal for me, but the techniques I learn there, help me in my daily life. I also went to the doctor’s for the pain in my right calf muscle.. He didn’t see anything, gave me painkillers and said it would go away… I got a bit irritated again, because it was blue, swollen and that’s the answer I almost always get.

School that week wasn’t very excited, I didn’t have a model so I had to train on my exercise head again. Did break my own record in doing a perm. We have to roll a complete perm in an hour max, and I did it in 50 minutes, my record was 52 =]

Thursday I had my last Taekwondo training before my exam on Friday. It was good to go over everything I had to do like kicks, techniques and walking my daeguk. Afterwards we went for a drink in town. It was really fun to socialize with the group and build my friendship with them. They told me the sweetest thing!! They said I was a really good and fun addition for the team =] To hear that makes me feel really good. I’ve lived in this area for three years now and still haven’t got any friends. So it really did do me good =] I’m happy to have found that group of people and really like them =]

So Friday was the big day for me. My first Taekwondo exam. It was really tough on my stamina hahahahah… I did make a few dumb mistakes. Like with the sparring part, I don’t have any protection yet, so I kicked against an elbow, it hurts like shit, and guess what… a minute later I kicked with my other foot against the other elbow.. So it gave me two very blue feet, a few bruises on my arms and shins and the worst part to tell you guys… Before sparring I had to show kicking techniques on pillows my friend [she’s a black belt] held up. But she held up two for a jumping kick and because of my calf muscle I calculated my jumped kick to land on my left leg. But in the heat of the battle I had to do a double jumped kick aaaaaannddd landed on my right leg… So I have a tear in my MCL- or more commonly known as my inner knee ligament [just found that out last Tuesday by the way] – I felt it snap and had to spar after that… whoops… But all in all it was worth it and I passed!! Check out the picture above!!

That weekend we visited mu aunt and her wife. I was sore, bruised and tired, but most of all sad… It was the first time being there and Simba not greeting us… She was their dog and child.. She was 14, but 4 in spirit… I got the news while doing groceries the weekend before. It broke me, I grew up with Simba. Think about it she was 14, I’m 24 years… So that was a weird and emotional weekend….

After this busy week it got boring and painful… I couldn’t go to Taekwondo for a while [that while ain’t over yet, sadly] and that made me miss my friends and my two occasions of getting out of the house in the week… It also screwed my schedule.. I just got used to working out twice a week, and that made me feel good.. Now that’s gone for a while and that makes me sad and restless.. I feel stuck in my house, especially with my knee… So no Taekwondo, a lot of job hunting and school this week was with my exercise head again. This wasn’t for the fact I couldn’t find a model, but because we got a colouring demo and a test run with water mixed with a hair mask on our exercise heads…. It was a lot of information, but exciting to start colouring other’s hair =]…

Then the real fun began.. Hello to having a fucking fever for four days =/ it was good for my bingewatching as you can see from Thursday through Sunday hahahahaaa… So that wraps up the first two weeks…

So last week was kind of exciting for the family. On Monday my father-in-law got a new pacemaker. That’s always a tricky thing in my opinion… But it went very well and he’s doing better after having the surgery.. So the rest of the week was me limping, me job hunting, me doing a mini makeover with a haircut on my model [and she’s going for another haircut and a perm in april woohoo], me giving my father-in-law a haircut after the hairdresser didn’t do a great job and asked me to do it. He was happy with it and so was I. I haven’t had training in cutting a man’s hair [will cover it in the second year] and he was my first male haircut =] I’m glad I can learn from the saying ‘Monkey see, monkey do’ hahahaha..

Today was a slow day. Had a tough night sleeping.. Because of the stinging pain in my leg and my bf woke me up twice. He couldn’t sleep so the first was because of the light of the TV [my mask had slipped from my eyes] and the second time because he felt like eating Oreo’s and ripping the package. And I can guarantee you, plastic ain’t silent xD So I had a tough time falling asleep again after the Oreo incident and that kept me up for 45 minutes again… Finally fell asleep and got some more hours luckily.. But I’m still tired as shit and so today wasn’t a very quick day… Watched some Grimm episodes, prepped some review posts to finish them – hopefully tomorrow – and made fresh tomato soup… Guess what.. I forgot my soup veggies =/ the most essential ingredient… So I had soup with meat and pasta today and will buy the veggies and add them tomorrow hahahaha… I am glad I finally caught up with my blog again and have the motivation to write my reviews again… Not in the same speed as before, but I’m getting there..

So I hope you have had a great time and will have in the coming week =]

XoXo Felicia

So because of all of the above, no posts since my last Sunday Post =[ But I’m trying very hard to do some posts next week and catch up with my Top Ten Tuesdays. I hope I can do them all, but I’m not going to promise anything. My game hasn’t been good the last few months and it’s taking me a while to get it back. I hope you will forgive me for posting so little, but as I’ve explained in the Life section of this post, life ain’t easy these days…

Coming next week – in no particular order of reviews or memes and such:

#73 First Year.

#74 Non-Heir.

#75 Apprentice.

#76 Caraval.

TTT#21  Ten Underrated/Hidden Gem Books I’ve Read In The Past Year Or So.

TTT#22 FREEBIE.

TTT#23 All about the visuals: Top Ten Favorite Graphic Novels/Comics or Ten Comics on My TBR or Top Ten Favorite Picture Books.

TTT#24 Top Ten Books I Wish Had (More/Less) X In Them.

TTT#25 All About Romance Tropes/Types.

TTT#26 Ten Books I Loved Less/More Than I Thought I Would (recently or all time).

Most Anticipated Releases January 2017.

January Haul.

January Wrap-Up + February TBR.

I did do a lot of reading these past few weeks. =] Good books will keep you reading on hahaha… So I finished Carve the Mark on January 29 and The Tales of Beedle the Bard on February 4. Since then I’ve read The Gender Secret and The Gender Lie by Bella Forrest, Haven by Katherine Bogle from a review copy, Caraval by Stephanie Garber and First Year, Non-Heir, and Apprentice by Rachel E. Carter. I’m really excited by and in love with The Black Mage series by Rachel E. Carter =] It’s sooooo good!!!!

My next reads will be Candidate, and Last Stand by Rachel E. Carter, Passenger, and Wayfarer by Alexandra Bracken and if I make it this month The Gender War by Bella Forrest… The Gender Secret series is also really, really good!!!

Goodreads Reading Challenge 2017 Update: 18/100 books

The Backlist Reader Challenge 2017 Update: 9/50 books, 0 reviews yet

What are you reading??

Monday Jan 30, Buffy the Vampire Slayer S2E11: Ted

Monday Jan 30, Buffy the Vampire Slayer S2E12: Bad Eggs

Monday Jan 30, Buffy the Vampire Slayer S2E13: Surprise (1)

Monday Jan 30, Buffy the Vampire Slayer S2E14: Innocence (2)

Tuesday Jan 31, Buffy the Vampire Slayer S2E15: Phases

Tuesday Jan 31, Buffy the Vampire Slayer S2E16: Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

Tuesday Jan 31, Buffy the Vampire Slayer S2E17: Passion

Tuesday Jan 31, Buffy the Vampire Slayer S2E18: Killed by Death

Tuesday Jan 31, Buffy the Vampire Slayer S2E19: I Only Have Eyes For You

Wednesday Feb 1, Buffy the Vampire Slayer S2E20: Go Fish

Wednesday Feb 1, Buffy the Vampire Slayer S2E21: Becoming (1)

Wednesday Feb 1, Buffy the Vampire Slayer S2E22: Becoming (2)

Thursday Feb 2, NCIS S2E1: See No Evil

Thursday Feb 2, NCIS S2E2: The Good Wives Club

Thursday Feb 2, NCIS S2E3: Vanished

Friday Feb 3, NCIS S2E4: Lt. Jane Doe

Friday Feb 3, NCIS S2E5: The Bone Yard

Friday Feb 3, Brooklyn Nine-Nine S2E2: Chocolate Milk

Monday Feb 6, NCIS S2E6: Terminal Leave

Monday Feb 6, NCIS S2E7: Call of Silence

Monday Feb 6, NCIS S2E8: Heart Break

Monday Feb 6, NCIS S2E9: Forced Entry

Monday Feb 6 NCIS S2E10: Chained

Monday Feb 6, NCIS S2E11: Black Water

Monday Feb 6, NCIS S2E12: Doppelgänger

Tuesday Feb 7, NCIS S2E13: The Meat Puzzle

Wednesday Feb 8, NCIS S2E14: Witness

Thursday Feb 9, NCIS S2E15: Caught on Tape

Thursday Feb 9, NCIS S2E16: Pop Life

Thursday Feb 9, NCIS S2E17: An Eye for an Eye

Thursday Feb 9, NCIS S2E18: Bikini Wax

Thursday Feb 9, NCIS S2E19: Conspiracy Theory

Friday Feb 10, NCIS S2E20: Red Cell

Friday Feb 10, NCIS S2E21: Hometown Hero

Friday Feb 10, NCIS S2E22: SWAK

Friday Feb 10, NCIS S2E23: Twilight

Friday Feb 10, NCIS S3E1: Kill Ari (1)

Friday Feb 10, NCIS S3E2: Kill Ari (2)

Friday Feb 10, Grimm S4E1: Thanks for the Memories

Friday Feb 10, Grimm S4E2: Octopus Head

Friday Feb 10, Grimm S4E3: The Last Fight

Friday Feb 10, Grimm S4E4: Dyin’ on a Prayer

Friday Feb 10, Grimm S4E5: Cry Luison

Friday Feb 10, Grimm S4E6: Highway of Tears

Saturday Feb 11, Grimm S4E7: The Grimm Who Stole Christmas

Saturday Feb 11, Grimm S4E8: Chupacabra

Saturday Feb 11, Grimm S4E9: Wesenrein

Saturday Feb 11, Grimm S4E10: Tribunal

Saturday Feb 11, Grimm S4E11: Death Do Us Part

Saturday Feb 11, Grimm S4E12: Maréchaussée

Saturday Feb 11, Grimm S4E13: Trial by Fire

Saturday Feb 11, Grimm S4E14: Bad Luck

Sunday Feb 12, Grimm S4E15: Double Date

Sunday Feb 12, Grimm S4E16: Heartbreaker

Sunday Feb 12, Grimm S4E17: Hibernaculum

Sunday Feb 12, Grimm S4E18: Mishipeshu

Sunday Feb 12, Grimm S4E19: Iron Hans

Sunday Feb 12, Grimm S4E20: You Don’t Know Jack

Sunday Feb 12, Grimm S4E21: Headache

Sunday Feb 12, Grimm S4E22: Cry Havoc

Sunday Feb 12, Grimm S5E1: The Grimm Identity

Sunday Feb 12, Grimm S5E2: Clear and Wesen Danger

Sunday Feb 12, Grimm S5E3: Lost Boys

Sunday Feb 12, Grimm S5E4: Maiden Quest

Sunday Feb 12, Grimm S5E5: Rat King

Sunday Feb 12, Grimm S5E6: Wesen Nacht

Sunday Feb 12, Grimm S5E7: Eve of Destruction

Tuesday Feb 14, Grimm S5E8: A Reptile Dysfunction

Wednesday Feb 15, Grimm S5E9: Star-Crossed

Friday Feb 17, Grimm S5E10: Map of the Seven Knights

Sunday Feb 19, Grimm S5E11: Key Move

Sunday Feb 19, Grimm S5E12: Into the Schwarzwald

Sunday Feb 19, Grimm S5E13: Silence of the Slams

With the bf:

Tuesday Feb 7, Last Man Standing S1E1: Pilot

Tuesday Feb 7, Last Man Standing S1E2: Last Baby Proofing Standing

Tuesday Feb 7, Last Man Standing S1E3: Grandparents Day

Sunday Feb 12, Last Man Standing S1E4: Last Halloween Standing

Sunday Feb 12, Last Man Standing S1E5: Co-Ed Softball

Sunday Feb 12, Last Man Standing S1E6: Good Cop, Bad Cop

Sunday Feb 12, Last Man Standing S1E7: Home Security

Wednesday Feb 15, Life in Pieces S1E1: Pilot

Wednesday Feb 15, Life in Pieces S1E2: Interrupts Prison Breast Movin’

Thursday Feb 16, Last Man Standing S1E8: House Rules

Saturday Feb 18, Last Man Standing S1E9: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

Saturday Feb 18, Last Man Standing S1E10: Last Christmas Standing

Saturday Feb 18, Last Man Standing S1E11:  The Passion of the Mandy

Sunday Feb 19, Last Man Standing S1E12: Moon Over Kenya

Sunday Feb 19, Last Man Standing S1E13: Take Your Daughter to Work

In case you’ve missed these:

Sunday Post #26. January 29

Sunday Post #25. January 22

Sunday Post #23 & #24. January 8 & 15

#72 The Diabolic.

TTT#20 Top Ten 2016 Releases I Meant To Read But Didn’t Get To (But TOTALLY plan to).

Sunday Post #27 & #28 & #29. February 5 & 12 & 19 The Sunday Post is a weekly meme originally from Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share News.

[tomatoluvr69]

Tag Nine People You’d Like To Get To Know Better!

I was tagged by the delightful @deer-tongue whose vibes are unparalleled ✨ by the way I ADORE every single thing you post from your park attendant job— I am living vicariously through you. It makes me very happy. And I very recently connected the dots about a certain special side blog...........it makes me mugly cry every time I see it. <3

(EDIT: I saw once I pressed post that the lovely @by-thunder had tagged me as well, while I was drafting this post to my weary stenographer. You are GALAXY brained and you always make me laugh and better yet, feel pain in the ’cord. Thanks for the tag :) )

Last song: my last song was the song Run That Body Down by Paul Simon which is, in my opinion, criminally underrated. It’s one of my absolute top numbers the guy ever did. Also, by serendipitous coincidence, a few hours ago I was trying to search the song to reblog (to no avail, rip)....only to find a text post from @deer-tongue herself about this song and MASH. Go figure, small world!! 🤯😮 but yeah, it’s pretty nice :) runners-up are Gone Baby, Don’t Be Long by Erykah Badu, whom I love much more dearly than Paul Simon. Sorry to paul and to my anachronistic vintage media mutuals I’m an imposter. And the second runner-up is Do You Love Me? Part 2 by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds. Again, I’m an imposter here.......

Last movie: My last movie was Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, which I watched last night after a three week no movie stretch that happened by accident. (I did try to watch Venom in that time, but it didn’t stick. Sorry to my brother, who suggested it. Marvel ain’t for me, kiddo. Also get off my blog you’re not allowed to see me like this). I LOVE Butch Cassidy (which my phone has been trying to autocorrect to bitch, so I guess I’ve finally trained it) since I saw it sr year of high school I think? It’s a rare film that you can easily follow along when you’re deeply entrenched in a no thoughts head empty, but is also stunningly beautiful and a real work of art. And Paul Newman my absolute,....,,, uh you get the picture.

Currently reading: ah. You got me there. I adore reading, and have done quite a lot of it, but you know when you’re going to a mental health intake visit and they ask you if you’re losing interest slash motivation in the things you used to enjoy? Well. I’ve been having trouble reading books lately, and it doesn’t help that my library access is pretty pandemic limited. I tried to reread Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, but the brain fog side effect/symptom I’ve been having lately made the prose really inaccessible and I wound up returning it ☹️ last one I finished though was The Likeness by Tana French. LOVED it. OH AND I’m currently working through (at an absolutely glacial pace, sorry you two) two MASH fics: After You/Because Of You (x) by @fieryphrazes and tell all the stars above (x) by @bigyellowtaxis which I wholeheartedly recommend.

Currently watching: this may be surprising but MASH. there’s nothing else, and hasn’t been for many months. I’m extremely bad at consuming TV and it was literally only the structure afforded by MeTV’s daily two episodes that allowed me to finish mash. I haven’t even finished most of the other shows I consider to be all-time favorites. Oops. OH but I did watch my first episode of columbo tonight :) what a funky guy

Currently craving: a sense of stability 😤😔 jkjk I know it’s food. Food’s a bit haywire for me right now but I am always on board for salmon, iced coffee, thai green curry w/kabocha, a bagel sandwich with capers and lox, or anything gochujang, espresso, or lemon. OH actually nevermind. I’m craving fresh strawberries. I’m always craving fresh strawberries. Sourdough bread. Kombucha. Thai tea. Okay I’ll shut up now. Mustard greens, potato leek soup, broccoli, garden fresh tomatoes all warm from the sun—

Tagging: I have seen this post going around and am absolutely lousy at keeping track, plus I think a bunch of folks have been tagged and haven’t done it yet as well so!!! I’m doing the classic cop-out, only it’s not a cop-out it’s a goddamn invitation!!!! So if you’re dying to do it PLEASE do it and you are more than welcome to tag me!!! Yes you!!! The girl reading this (gender neutral)!!!!! I would LOVE to read more about my followers even if we don’t talk!!!!!! :-) and go read the fics I linked ok bye :-)

[givencontext]

To Kill a TBR… What’s On Your List?

If you are a book-lover like me, then you can relate – there are so many books and so little time. Listening to audiobooks on 1.5x speed can only help so much. Any faster and I literally start to panic. When I see a book that I want to read, I know it will be a while before I can get to it, so I like to pop the book on my TBR list. You should already know that means “To Be Read.” And you should already have a method for tracking it. If you don’t do this yet, just trust me when I tell you that it will give you peace of mind. See a book, log it, go back to reading your current selection. It’s the bibliophile’s equivalent of writing down whatever is running through your head keeping you awake at night so that you can sleep. Personally, I use Goodreads for tracking my books. (Go follow me there!)

There are other methods for tracking books that you want to read. Some people keep a database, while others make a physical stack of books. Since I like to use the library or their app, my “currently reading” selections are often dictated by availability. When I search for something on the app, it is often something new and popular, which leads to putting the book on hold. When it comes available, I only have two weeks to read it. Recently I had four of my hold books come available within a few days. One of them was this audiobook, which I have already listened to twice, so I immediately returned it and put myself back at the end of the line to get it again later. That was painful.

Read Harder

I love a Reading Challenge. I especially love ways to motivate myself to read outside of my comfort zone. Sometimes this means picking something that would not have made it onto my TBR otherwise and bumping things further down the list that I have wanted to read for years. Sometimes I get lucky and a task comes up like the one for my book club suggesting that we read a book that has been on our TBR list for at least a year. This prompted me to get curious about my Goodreads list and see what book had been on the list the longest.

According to my sources, I started using Goodreads in July of 2009. I have used it for nearly 10 years. I went back to college in the summer of 2008 and finished my B.A. in English. I will not pretend that I was always consistent in logging books, but I have racked up 401 books read and only have 346 on my TBR list. When I sorted by date, the oldest book still on my list ever since July 2009 was To Kill a Mockingbird. Somehow, I was never assigned this book in high school or college and neither of my kids were either. Honestly, I only watched the movie in the summer of 2017. I love Gregory Peck, but I think I always felt like the subject matter was too heavy and was not prepared to have my heart broken.

Challenge Accepted

The book has been read (#402!) and the heart has been broken. TKAM officially moves from my longest held TBR to my newest all-time favorite. Beautifully written. I could listen to Sissy Spacek read that audiobook forever. For this book to have been written when it was and to have never been out of print since, that speaks to the beauty of this book. I am immensely grateful to this challenge for lighting the fire under my backside that moved me to finally read this one. Sometimes classics are classics for very good reasons. If you have not read this book, go do it now. If you have read it, do it again!

Is there anything I can say about To Kill a Mockingbird that has not already been said? No. The internet is full of wonderful commentary, such as this close reading of the first line which blew my mind. #Protip: When you get to the end, ALWAYS immediately go back to the beginning. I will say that I am grateful that my first encounter with this book was not in school. Thank goodness that I was able to immerse myself in the story instead of looking for themes and such. They are aplenty, but the story and the characters let me forget about them. The best “capital L literature” is the stuff that lets you forget that you are reading one of the best books ever and just be absorbed in one of the best books ever.

Quote This Book

There are so many quotable quotes in To Kill a Mockingbird. The only thing I don’t like about audiobooks or library books is that I can’t underline and highlight them. English majors are used to highlighting our books. Even if I was planning to sell my books back to the book store, (just kidding, I never did this!) making notes in a text for Lit class is going to help the next person who reads the book. On the other hand, not being able to mark up the text helps me get out of analysis mode and allows me to “just read” the book. There was one point in TKAM when I hit rewind and wanted to hear that juicy quote again. Let’s be real – I hit reverse several times until I was sure I had the quote firmly in my brain – or firm enough that I could google it later. It was when Miss Maudie said, “People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.”

This book is designed to make us think about a lot of stuff, but I did not expect to be challenged with this. We have recently done Strengthsfinder at work. I am a proponent of people leaning into the things they are good at and delegating or steering clear of the things for which they just don’t have a knack. So when Miss Maudie says, “People in their right minds never take pride in their talents,” I am thrown for a loop. She doesn’t just say people shouldn’t do it, but that those who do it are downright certifiable. What’s so crazy about being proud of your talents? Does she mean “pride” in the Biblical sense? As in Seven Deadly Sins? Sin is a theme, right? It is a SIN to kill a mockingbird. The talent that sparks the conversation is Atticus’s sharp-shooting. I think we can understand why he hasn’t told his children about this particular talent, but why does Miss Maudie extend her statement to everyone in their right mind? In my experience, Southerners do like to generalize. We also lean into words like “always” and “never.” When I heard this statement, I instantly began asking myself if I do take pride in my talents. Do I even know what they are? Then again, am I in my right mind? Do I know anyone who is?

Of all the lines to quote in this book, this one stayed with me until the end and remained my favorite. I love Miss Maudie. She is wonderful and insightful. Every kid should have a Miss Maudie in their life during their formative years.

Do you have a favorite quote from this book? Or maybe from another book?

Is there a classic on your TBR that has been getting bumped down that you need to read?

Leave a comment and let me know!

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[marcusssanderson]

50 F. Scott Fitzgerald Quotes on Love and Life

Our latest collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald quotes on Everyday Power.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American fiction writer who is considered one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. His famous novel, The Great Gatsby, is widely regarded as a literary classic and is required reading in many high school and college classes.

Born on September 24th, 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald began honing his craft as a writer from an early age. At the age of 24, he became one of the country’s most promising young writers following the publication of his first novel, This Side of Paradise.

He finished four novels during his lifetime, while a fifth, unfinished novel, was published posthumously. In addition, Fitzgerald wrote a large number of short stories for popular magazines during his career. And in his final years, he worked as a screenwriter and freelance story writer in Hollywood.

Fitzgerald died of a massive heart attack on 21st December 1940, leaving behind a legacy as one of the most distinguished authors in the history of American literature.

Although he enjoyed limited success during his lifetime, his work has inspired many writers and continues to draw huge admiration. To celebrate the contribution he made to the world of literature, here are some beautiful F. Scott Fitzgerald quotes.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald quotes on love and life

  1.) “The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  2.) “Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

  3.) “After all, life hasn’t much to offer except youth, and I suppose for older people, the love of youth in others.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

  4.) “I wasn’t actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  5.) “Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.”  ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  6.) “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

    7.) “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  8.) “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  9.) “There are all kinds of love in this world but never the same love twice.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  10.) “I love her, and that’s the beginning and end of everything.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

   F. Scott Fitzgerald quotes to inspire and teach

  11.) “No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

  12.) “That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  13.) “No such thing as a man willing to be honest – that would be like a blind man willing to see.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

  14.) “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”  – F. Scott Fitzgerald

  15.) “It takes two to make an accident.”  – F. Scott Fitzgerald

    16.) “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone…just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”  – F. Scott Fitzgerald

  17.) “Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  18.) “Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  19.) “I’m a slave to my emotions, to my likes, to my hatred of boredom, to most of my desires.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  20.) “Life is much more successfully looked at from a single window.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  F. Scott Fitzgerald quotes on writing and happiness

  21.) “You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  22.) “Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  23.) “Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  24.) “Great books write themselves, only bad books have to be written.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

    25.) “The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  26.) “All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  27.) “What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  28.) “The ability to hold two competing thoughts in one’s mind and still be able to function is the mark of a superior mind.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  29.) “I don’t care about truth. I want some happiness.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  30.) “I may turn out an intellectual, but I’ll never write anything but mediocre poetry.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  F. Scott Fitzgerald quotes to inspire you to live your best life

  31.) “I don’t want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.”  ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  32.) “I want to know you moved and breathed in the same world with me.”  ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  33.) “The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want.”  ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  34.) “All I kept thinking about, over and over, was ‘You can’t live forever; you can’t live forever.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  35.) “It is not life that’s complicated, it’s the struggle to guide and control life.”  ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

    36.) “Well, you never knew exactly how much space you occupied in people’s lives.”  ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  37.) “For what it’s worth, it’s never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you’re proud of and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.”  ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  38.) “His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him.”  ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  39.) “I never blame failure – there are too many complicated situations in life – but I am absolutely merciless toward lack of effort.”  ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  40.) “Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Other inspirational F. Scott Fitzgerald quotes

  41.) “The world, as a rule, does not live on beaches and in country clubs.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  42.) “Show me a hero, and I’ll write you a tragedy.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  43.) “Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  44.) “Strange children should smile at each other and say, ‘Let’s play.'” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

    45.) “The idea that to make a man work you’ve got to hold gold in front of his eyes is a growth, not an axiom. We’ve done that for so long that we’ve forgotten there’s any other way.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  46.) “In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  47.) “To be kind is more important than to be right. Many times, what people need is not a brilliant mind that speaks but a special heart that listens.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  48.) “Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  49.) “Everywhere we go and move on and change, something’s lost–something’s left behind. You can’t ever quite repeat anything, and I’ve been so yours, here–” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  50.) “The strongest guard is placed at the gateway to nothing … maybe because the condition of emptiness is too shameful to be divulged.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Which of these F. Scott Fitzgerald quotes was your favorite?

Since his works didn’t receive much commercial or critical success during his lifetime, Fitzgerald might have died believing himself a failure.

However, he gained enormous posthumous recognition and is now considered one of the greatest writers America produced in the 20th century. Hopefully, these quotes have inspired and motivated you to fight for your dreams and live your best life.

Did you enjoy these F. Scott Fitzgerald quotes? Which of the quotes was your favorite? We would love to hear all about in the comment section below.

The post 50 F. Scott Fitzgerald Quotes on Love and Life appeared first on Everyday Power Blog.

[kbetolks]

Fic asks! (Answered)

(Original post with questions★)

1. Do you read fic? Do you write fic?

Yes. Since 2008 and 2012, respectively.

2. Favorite genre of fic?

Fluff all the way.

3. Favorite fandom?

That’s hard to say. My relationships with fandoms are always rocky...

4. Favorite pairing?

Writing? Reading? I’d say Ziam.

5. Favorite fic author?

Russelia!

6. Favorite fic (or one of them)?

Just Act Normal, All About Jacob, Let Me Know He Cares, hello kisses sweet as wine, Prince Among Wolves, DILF... had a few others but they were all deleted.

7. One-shots or longfic?

(I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive, but I’ll assume it’s about short fics.)

I love One-shots. Either writing or reading. I used to write a bunch of One-shots for my old fandoms because it’s what works the best when you have too many ideas (and can’t write ALL of them). But lately I’ve been writing mostly long stuff. :/ I do want to go back writing short stuff, though!

8. Do you read WIPs?

I do because I know it’s nice to have some motivation from someone reading your stuff. I don’t expect the person to finish it, though. If they do, great. If they don’t, that’s all right. I understand how hard it is to finish a fic, but I also don’t want to leave unfinished fics (that I wrote) behind.

9. What is the longest fic you’ve read?

That’s not mine? hello kisses sweet as wine.

10. Favorite trope/element/scenario in fic?

Anything that can turn into a fluff fest.

11. Least favorite trope/element/scenario?

Anything with the pairing cheating on each other, or any sort of abuse.

12. What turns you away the most from a fic?

I’m not really exigent, but… weird formatting. If it’s something that reduces readability TOO much, I’ll end up leaving it. (I think in my entire life I’ve only dropped ONE fic. It had like 3 lines of spacing between paragraphs and you had to scroll 10 times to get through one page.) Also sexual assault or anything super depressing/commonly triggering that isn’t expected there.

13. Has a fic ever made you cry?

More than one, actually. Sometimes it’s crying from happiness, others not so much. I remember crying like crazy with “All About Jacob”. I’ll be in my deathbed and remember about that fic before my last breath. I swear!

14. What tropes/elements/scenarios get you the worst?

Best friends to lovers. Also anything with one being a dad. Anything remotely fluffy ends my whole existence TBH.

15. Do you mind when characters cry?

Not really. Unless it’s one I hold close to my heart, I’m usually “There, there. Now on with the story!” or something like that. LMAO!

16. How do you feel about character death in fic?

Sometimes it’s necessary, but I skip those with main character death.

17. Any characters who you can’t stand to see in pain?

All of them. I don’t like seeing any suffering.

18. Favorite angst fic?

The Color of Happiness.

19. Do you read porn or does it make you uncomfortable?

I always avoided it. The only one I really read was “hello kisses sweet as wine” and I was never the same. But after that one I didn’t read any others, so I guess I can’t say I read, because it hasn’t become a habit or preference. (Big words from someone writing a story with mostly explicit porn.)

20. Do you like PWPs?

Nah. But if you put some plot and a bit of romance, I might change my mind.

21. How and when did you get introduced to smut fic? Any horror stories?

It’s hard to say! I’ve known about smut since the  Harry Potter days, but I always skipped the smut bits? I’ve never been big on smut, and I don’t think I have any bad stories to tell. Nothing like anyone using a cucumber or having it off with a motorcycle. LMAO! I’ve seen a post about it on tumblr though. The tags were… horrifying. D:

22. Biggest turn-ons in fic?

Body worship, intense tongue action, and crotch grabbing.

23. Biggest turn-offs in fic?

Any limbs going in anyone.

24. Do you have any dirty kinks that you’re ashamed of?

Nah. I’m pretty vanilla.

25. Any kinks that you’d love to try in real life?

Not really?

26. Any kinks that you don’t want to try in real life (but are still hot in a fanfic)?

Breeding.

27. Rough sex or gentle sex?

♫ I bruise easily so be gentle when you handle me ♪ There’s something magical about scenes with slow love-making, like rhythm and passion. The whole pneumatic drill act might get stuff done, but it’s more for sporadic moments.

28. How do you feel about masturbation in fic?

If they’re up to it, they should go for it.

29. How do you feel about non-con and dub-con?

Not for me. Consent is important and there’s nothing hotter than one of them taking the other’s hand into their trousers, and encourages to go on.

30. Favorite porn fic?

hello kisses sweet as wine (though this one isn’t a PWP and has a hell of an emotional plot). I don’t really know many, like I said. Can I say one of mine? If so, then add “Down the Drain” and “Choices Like Waves”.

31. Do you read AUs?

I almost exclusively read AUs. They’re my drug! :D

32. Favorite AU tropes?

Tough one! There’s very few things I like. Anything with abuse and I’m running to the hills! Other than that, I love pretty much everything an AU can bring. Give me chosen ones in love, entity slayer falls for entity, flatmates that get too intimate too quickly, etc. Anything, really. I love to read AUs because the possibilities are infinite!  :D

33. Least favorite AU tropes?

Anything with some sort of abuse and depressing stuff.

34. Do you like UAs (universe-alterations, when the main universe and characters are the same but one plot point/decision/outcome is altered)?

I never heard of this till now.

35. Do you like high school and college AUs?

Yeah! Not as much as in the past, but I still like them.

36. Do you like crossovers? If so, favorite crossover?

I LOVE crossovers! I’m always a sucker for Pokémon crossovers.

37. How do you feel about parent!fics/lovechildren? How about mpreg?

What? As in the pairing having a kid together? I’m cool with those. I don’t really remember reading mpreg stories TBH. I’ve read one for McFly but it was crack, so it was hardly anything serious! But I won’t bat an eye if you give me them with a kid without a surrogate.

38. How do you feel about genderbending? De-aging? Animalizing?

I H A T E with a burning passion “genderbending” fics that are just an excuse to have some cis heterosexual relationship. Everything in the world is straight. Why the hell do you have to go and take away the little queer people have? Take your hetenormativity and leave! *huffs* If we’re talking about one becoming a kid so when he’s adult again both realise they care for each other, that’s cool. Anything remotely shota is very wrong. Uh, as in one of them being a pet? Well, as long as it doesn’t mean bestiality, okay, I guess?

39. Favorite AU fic?

Every kind of AU TBH. Especially the fantasy/adventure ones. I live for those!

40. Do you like fluff?

*cackles* That’s my shit, son.

41. Favorite fluffy tropes?

Hard to tell. I think I love fluff indiscriminately. LOL! But pretend relationships, sharing the same bed, single dad/childminder, little kid finds dad a boyfriend, oblivious best friends in love, hot new neighbour, ANY kind of meet-cute… I like everything that makes my teeth ROT. I’m not picky.

42. Least favorite fluffy tropes?

I can’t think of any? I’m a fluff lover.

43. Do you like fluff on its own or in conjunction with other elements (angst, sex, etc.)

I love pure fluff. It can have a bunch of the other elements, but fluff on its own is enough for me. And I’m not too keen on angst, porn, etc., so it’s better to add fluff. Fluff is the spice of fics. Watch me choke on a handful of paprika.

44. How fluffy is too fluffy?

45. Favorite fluff fic?

There’s this cute kid fic where Zayn had a daughter and Liam was a Santa at the mall and she asked for Zayn to be happy I guess, and Liam ends up trying his hardest to grant her wish and it’s the SWEETEST thing ever, but I just found out it’s been deleted. :( I really liked that one!