#so i deleted that stuff. i cut that connection. i no longer have her number. and it feels so good

[cactusdodes]

.

[merp-blerp]

Movies that Might Make Good Musicals in My Opinion & Why

So I made a list of musicals that might make good movie musicals before, so now I'll do vice versa. Just like most list I make, this will be long, detailed, and possibly edited later. Sorry, lol.

Dead Poets Society

So I've heard talk of this already existing or being in development, but I haven't seen anything, so this might just be more of a “what I hope for” thing. The movie was also already a stage show. This should have a John Patrick Shanley’s Prodigal Son type vibe, not just because Robert Sean Leonard is in that show too, but the sense of the script and feel of the show. I can see the music having a Spring Awakening sound to it. I think a musical would be a great way to improve upon the film in some areas, like Knox and Chris’s romance that bordered on creepy (and underdeveloped), and the Nuwanda stuff that was pretty insensitive to Native Americans. Also, maybe change how... white the film was, in terms of cast and extras. Brown v. Board had happened by 1959; there could've been students of color (maybe the casting reflected how rigid Welton Academy was, but that should be acknowledged, which it wasn't, if so). And please keep Neil and Todd’s queer subtext, or better yet, make the queerness explicit. And I don't know if he can sing or anything, but I'd die to see Ethan Hawke, or really any of the og poets play Keating. Ethan now just reminds me the most of Keating for some reason, and I think it’d be touching.

Wild Nights with Emily

Emily Dickinson’s poems are famous for being pretty musical, so a musical about her would be cool. Wild Nights with Emily is one of my favorite piece of media about Dickinson because it doesn't portray her as a boring shut-in who wrote boring poetry, a far cry from who she was. It was also the right amount of silly for me personally (I love Apple TV’s Dickinson, but the modern humor could be a bit much for me sometimes. But that's just a me thing, not an inherent flaw of the show. It's storyline is also a bit too long for a musical, it being a series). Turning Emily’s poems to songs would be easy (?) because of how she wrote them; they already fit songs like "House of the Rising Sun", "The Yellow Rose of Texas", etc. Dickinson’s “Split The Lark” song kills me every time (straight up cast Ella Hunt in this hypothetical show would be a cool idea). And I could see Mabel singing lines from Emily's poems and warping them as a villain song since she seemingly did that in real life.

The Sandlot

I love musicals staring a bunch of kids. I like feeling impressed and like they're more talented than me. The Sandlot would be fun. I could see it being performed in the round. I don't have many detailed thoughts about this one right now honestly. I just like the idea. And I love this movie.

Rocketman

This one feels like it was supposed to be on stage from the get-go. The movie, especially during the title number, felt like the world’s most detailed proshot. Not a flaw to me, but to some.

The Iron Giant

I'm glad this once underrated flick has gotten more attention over the years. Even though it's amazing, I always felt like there could be more to it. Like we could develop Dean and Annie's relationship beyond one or two-ish scenes of bonding and boom! Relationship. Or maybe cut out their romantic connection entirely, as it's not necessary. And include the deleted scene (that was included in the extended cut) of Dean seeing Giant’s dream projected on the his TV so that his views on Giant changing when he almost attacks Hogarth make a bit more sense. I think it wouldn't hurt for the story to be longer. I don't know how the technicalities of the show would work with Giant and how big he is. There's a King Kong musical, so maybe something like that, or of course scaling down Giant in the process but still making him big. It’d be an impressive puppet.

Secondhand Lions

This film should be a classic! If you haven't seen the it I recommend it. It has a similar-esque story to The Iron Giant, being about a boy making friends with a non human creature (a lion if you didn't guess). The film just deserves more attention. EDIT: So I recently rewatched this film and notice what might be the actor playing young Garth (who's white) with a painted face to look darker during one of Hub’s backstories. It might've just been the lighting on the scene, but it might not be. This would obviously be really bad, so some kind of musical remake could be an opportunity to fix this issue. Just a heads up that it might be there.

Pippi Longstocking

If you can't tell, kids' movies to me would be the easiest to turn into musicals. I grew up with the Swedish version of Pippi (English dubbed) thanks to my dad. I loved it, along with the American film, cartoon, and even the Shirley Temple Show version. It could work as a musical. The films and show already had their own different theme songs.

The Lorax

I know this might sound odd. Of all the films on this list, I want this one the most. The Illumination film, while fun, had a lot of flaws (no shame if you still liked it), such as marketing for the film contradicting its own message, the film being too safe, etc. But that's exactly why I think a stage show would work. It could improve on the film. Like having better characterization and being less gimmicky. I would also want it to be a bit more faithful to the book/TV short film in a few ways. If it's possible on stage, I liked the idea of obscuring The Once-Ler’s face to symbolize that he could be anyone, including the audience if they let themselves. Maybe even make Once-Ler a gender-ambiguous role to reflect that more. And the story ending with the child (Ted in the film, unnamed in the book/TV short) being given the tree seed and walking away from The Once-Ler’s home, reminding the audience that there is hope to save the trees, but it hasn't been done yet, as the trees are still in danger unless people care to help the trees. The film’s very happy ending arguably only serves as inspiration porn rather than actually teaching people to care about the trees. I could see “Let It Grow” staying in some way as a song sung by The Lorax and his animal friends in the beginning when Once-Ler first arrives at the forest, trying to convince him to not harm the trees. Maybe even obscure the child’s identity and gender to symbolize that they could be anyone as well. Make the Once-Ler’s rise to greed longer than just one song. You don't destroy the trees in a day. You don't become a monster in a day. It would hit better. And make Once-Ler’s destruction a conscious choice rather than blame his unawareness of the trees' deaths. Maybe even have him lie initially about his awareness of the trees to Thneedvile till he confesses to the kid that he did know, but didn't care so he could make money. Companies lie like that all the time. Imagine a scene immediately after his full transmission to evil (“How Bad Can I Be?” in the film) where he looks upon the treeless land and actually looks apathetic towards it and only cares when he realizes it will ruin his business since he can't find an alternative to tree fluff/leaves; he doesn't express true care till he talks about it to the child/Ted, as he's only realized his folly over the years. There are some things from the film that could be saved, like the memorial Lorax and the animals have for the UNLESS tree. That was the best addition the film made. And include the cut song “Biggering” rather than “How Bad Can I Be?”! That was a masterpiece and should've never been cut. Or better yet, have bits of “How bad can I be” performed at the beginning of Once-Ler’s poor decision-making, and have “Biggering” be this sort of final crescendo before his complete downfall. Like “How Bad Can I Be?” is a cut-up as a prologue(s). The demo version of “Thneedvile” also added to Ted/the kid more, so I think that would stay too. All the cut songs actually add a lot to the story and have great humor, but the film wanted to be marketable and as inoffensive as possible rather than good (and was made by one of the most money-hungry, Once-Ler-like film companies ever). I would want a slightly more dark approach to the massaging. Show more of the effects of the world losing trees rather than just talk about how bad it is. Show us why we should care. Maybe include an endangered animal in the story and have it go extinct thanks to The Once-Ler’s practices. Just something. The message could even be extended to not just care about the trees, but the natural world as a whole, as global warming and other issues like it are still as big of problems as ever.

Jennifer's Body

I think we need more horror musicals. We have Carrie The Musical, Starkid’s Hatchetfield Universe, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Jekyll and Hyde, etc. so a horror musical isn't as odd as it might sound at first. I liked the film, but there were some things that if feel could us an update. Like the dialogue being very cheesy and dated (nothing wrong if you like that, I get its appeal; it's just not my thing unless done in a particular way). Or Needy and Jen’s attraction to each other being treated more as sapphic fetishization to get guys to see the movie rather than it being there for representation (especially in the trailers for the film). I think it would be nice to see more pre-succubus Jennifer, and her friendship with Needy pre-succubus, so that it could be a bit more sad when she's changes and so that the change is felt more. It would also make it more sad when Needy has to kill her. I want more pain or hesitance from Needy having to fight and kill Jen. Even though she knows it's not Jennifer anymore it still can't be easy to deal with your best friend/crush dying twice. They were friends from childhood, it has to be a least a little painful. I guess I just want a bit more heart behind it than the film had (not that I thought the film didn't have any).

The Invisible Man

We have Jekyll and Hyde and Frankenstein musicals. Griffin might as well join his mad scientist bros. This would almost definitely have to be a musical movie because I have no idea how you would make Griffin look invisible on stage practically. I really like gothic musicals and I think this could have a similar vibe. Griffin’s more blatantly asshole-y behavior when compared to Jekyll and Frankenstein’s well-meaning but flawed natures could make him and the musical stand out against its other mad scientist processors.

[organic-guacamole]

episode 209 spoilers below

I'm so late today but here it is

I love EJ, he's finally learning to be happy. I'm so proud.

Ms Jenn = every boomer during zoom calls, like jeez yes we can hear you stop shouting at me.

LOVE THE SUBTLE JOKE ABOUT QUARANTINE "these dark times" "you mean spring break?"

ah yes, remember when we thought covid was just gonna give us a longer spring break? good times

SEBLOS

damn the passive aggressiveness from Carlos and the absolutely over it tone from seb✋

CASWELL COUSINS!!!!! THEY'RE THE BEST!!!!

we needed more if this kind of goofiness for the first part of season 2 that only such an iconic duo can provide.

old old movies-

is it even that old, or is Nini being a gen alpha rn-

i choose to imagine EJ being scared of the movie and hiding in Ashlyn's shoulder while she keeps a straight face and then EJ pretending to be tough afterwards

aww redlyn are soulmates.... yknow, if gingers had souls

(please ignore me)

y'all saw how EJ's face *lit up* when Gina logged on? how dare you tell me he doesn't like her

ofc she's no damsel in distress, she's Gina porter, she's amazing.

so do we think she'd be the type to just glare at suspicious people? or bark at them

do they not know that Rini broke up? or is Ms Jenn just wanting Nini to suffer through her heartbreak to make her a better actress....

speaking of, why is Nini in the call? she's not in the show anymore. Unless she is, even after the rose and the song got cut, which would be so unfair to all those that auditioned properly before she even came back but whatever, she's the main character I get it 🙄

big red is a hero honestly, Nini better thank him for changing the subject like that

I can't-

i won't work you over the break-

this woman would 100% work her kids 24/7 if it was legal and idk how to feel about it.

YES GINA USE THAT CHARM

QUEEN

FRENCH QUEEN

SHE LEARNT FROM THE BEST (antoine obvi)

smh the airport lady, eavesdropping on Gina's call.

The way she was so happy to answer EJ's call, "eej"

I love them your honour.

EJ WITH PAINTED NAILS YES PLEASE

great now we need to see Gina, Ashlyn and EJ having a complete spa day and EJ getting really into it and Gina and Ashlyn take pictures of him when he's laying down in a robe with a mask and cucumbers on his eyes.

finally we get to see Gina's side of portwell

the way she considered it as flirting, this is the sign she asked for in episode 6 come onnnnn

no is Asher/jack really doing tiktok dances in an airport-

Ricky is me. I am burrito.

oh Lynne, sweetie, I'm sorry but the blonde hair is not it

is that even the same lady or-

THE BEAN

THE CHICAGO BEAN

THE BIG OLD METAL BEAN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY 😭

jetlag is my go to excuse for anything... I haven't travelled in 2 years.

"welcome to the Lynne and Mike gossip show. where we talk about our depressed son that we both neglect in certain ways! And now a word from our sponsor, Nord VPN..."

SO MANY CANDLES

WHAT DEMON IS LYNNE TRYING TO SUMMON IN HIS ROOM-

is Nina becoming social media obsessed EJ from season 1? AND SHE LIED ABOUT HAVING SONGS TOO PLEASE WHY ARW THEY RECYCLING THE SAME PLOT-

Gina smiling at the picture of her family on Instagram makes me so happy, idek why.

EJ's nails are so pretty, we needed to see it more (unless he had it on for the rest of the episode and I just.... didn't notice🧍🏽‍♀️)

oh not the tiktok kid✋

yes ma'am end this strange mans whole tiktok career

sir take a hint and leave

GINA NO DONT SAY YOUR LAST NAME HE COULD BE A HUMAN TRAFFICKER

Ricky, walking in style✨

weird kid, ok then Lynne, can't you see he's this close to the edge?

not all your fault baby Ricky, Nini sucks a bit more

RICKY YOU DIDN'T COME DOWN HARD ON THE SONG-

YOU ASKED WHAT IT WAS ABOUT AND SHE SHUT YOU DOWN-

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME YOURSELF

ok but the deleting comment thing was very bad

still don't know if I like Jack honestly

hmmm so Nini's calling herself Nini instead of Nina in her little egg seat, while trying to write a song without inspiration.... Nini, honey, Ricky was your muse, he inspired you to write all those songs, even if it wasn't good for the relationship.

that doesn't mean you gotta get back with him, or that you can't write a song that not about him butttt it'll take some time

the rainbow sticker in her box and her rainbow shirt-

anyways wbk she's not totally straight

Jack are you a criminal?

quick, Gina, check his ankle for a tracker

THE YES AND PRACTICE STRIKES AGAIN

the way Gina wasn't into it in episode 6 but she's used the technique twice now

stole her grandma's Pomeranian-

Jack where the hell did you pull that out from-

the fake crying killed me, that looks like so much fun though

anyone wanna raid a first class lounge with me?

wait so is jack not gonna go in with her?

wouldn't he go in too? help look for the credit card? SO CONFUSED

the first class lounge guy was so into the drama though, watch his face when they start arguing 😭

sorry to break this to you Kourtney, but you haven't even blocked the second act yet soooo...

take that as you will

I love how all of them are totally dissing the dance off

that's the most realistic part of this show tbh

shouldn't Nini have asked how she knew....since the start? why is the fact that her best friend has knowledge of a North high secret now dawning on her...

Howie is sweet honestly, at least he's trying to help. but I stand with Kourtney, don't take him back just because he sang an amazing song, and is giving you a heads up on what's gonna happen...

KOURTNEY IS ME TRYING TO LEAVE AN ONLINE CLASS

I hate school

ooo Nini's writing a song about bad internet connection 🤩🤩🤩

I never lie, except when I do-

son that is the creepiest thing you could say to a stranger that you've been "helping"

2 truths and a lie👀

he's an Ariana fan 100%

called it.

OLDER BROTHER-

WHAT-

free spirit? damn so brother porter was in that horse movie

so has she been kissed or not?????????

I feel like she's moved more than 15 times though so possibly

but then if she's moved so much, and before east high she never opened up to anyone, she's never been kissed then?? damn

same though Gina so let's be besties please

heartbreak president is a great song title idea, give Nini a call rn

but wait

is the no strings attached feeling thing about her telling Ricky she liked him? she thought she was moving away so she thought it'd be no strings attached???

guys I think I figured it out insert the "I've connected two dots" meme

THE DUKE SWEATSHIRT

IS THAT YOUR BOYFRIEND'S

OMG I LOVE I LOVE

NOT THAT I KNOW OF???

ma'am did you just kill me

yes you did

Lynne and Ricky have such a weird relationship

YES IT DID SUCK

TODD SUCKS

LYNNE SUCKS

yeah I get that you wanted Ricky to like Todd BUT THAT WASN'T THE TIME

right so we already know that Ricky was so desperate to keep Nini cuz he didn't want to be like his parents, and now Lynne's talking about this-

Richard needs a long hug

yes Lynne, it is your fault. thank you for finally admitting it.

YES DYE YOUR HAIR

BLOND HIGHLIGHTS RICKY WILL RISE AGAIN

"sometimes the best, last thing you can do for someone you love, is let them go."

gotta admit I teared up at that point

not me thinking big red was calling ms Jenn cupcake for a hot second-

Carlos please omg, you're at the "beach" and they're leaving for the pool?

also, why not just do the call from the hotel room please omg

"don't ask me"

"Carlos"

OMG WHAT HAPPENED

big red wants the tea

O M G

SEB IS JEALOUS

JEALOUS SEBBY IS MY FAVOURITE THING IDC

I'm surprised ms Jenn knew how to give Nini permission to screenshare tbh

So lily's been stalking the East high kids and spending time editing this video while she's supposedly in an immersion trip.... right

EJ and Ashlyn's picture is so chaotic, what even is happening there

"slacking off" bestie its spring break, obviously they're confident enough that they'll get it done in time so why not focus on your own musical.

jealous seb = sassy seb

please what if those guys Carlos is posing with are his cousins or something and that's why he's so confused about Seb

6 YEAR OLD EJ I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM

Nini saying she's obsessed with her ex, that's not weird at all 👍

I can just tell Matt had a blast harassing Julia with those puppets.

Jack please dont be like that, "yet"

chances are you'll never see eachother again 🥰

(honestly sometimes I really miss those friends I made on trips and stuff when we'd spend the day or week together, only to never see them again....those were the good days though)

Ashlyn and Nini should write more songs..... something better than this one at least

Nini: "im good"

cue the Tia Mowry (please I can't spell) crying gif

oh I forgot Ricky was in the show for a hot second

1. where did Gina get to film this without people being around

2. did she just... randomly change her clothes???

ok but the transition between Carlos and EJ

*chefs kiss*

now everyone shut up, EJ's singing

oh i think I'm pregnant

HIS MUSCLES

YES KOURTNEY

I love how big red and Kourtney went from being "the best friends™" to the couple in season 1, to kinda close themselves and having their own plots

sebby makes me so happy

props to biggies editing skills honestly

PORTWELL BEING SIDE TO SIDE I CANT

AND SEBLOS OMG

big red lives for the drama

"wow" so true Ricky

no he is not cute, stop it

"holding" ok that's kinda cute

yeah EJ's a lucky guy😌

jokes aside, it's not that hard to exchange numbers-

keep in touch if you want

ok I really like Jack now

if he comes back in season 3, maybe have him be LGBTQ+ ?

like the only out characters they have rn are Seb and Carlos and they're like the sterotypes, yk?

I'd love to see jack kinda break the mold

Ricky's breaking my heart

that song just hurts

the only thing

now I don't hate Lynne????????

HOW DARE THEY WRITE IN A PROPER REDEMPTION ARC FOR HER

UGH IM SUPPOSED TO HATE HER FOREVER

I mean I don't live her now but she's good

but honestly

"mom can I show you something"

IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL

THE PICTURE AND EVERYTHING OMG

I'm sobbing please help

Gina saying she's just waiting for the right guy and then EJ coming to the airport to pick her up late at night without her asking, offering to bring her back in the morning so she won't have to Uber, bringing her a granola bar (WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT SHE FORGOT TO PACK) and without expecting anything in return???

ms ma'am you've got a keeper right there

her smile at the end was so heartwarming I really can't.

this episode was great.

it felt really short but I liked it, great character development for Ricky, Lynne and Gina.

Cant wait for next episode to see more of EJ being the ideal boyfriend /hj

[vinceaddams]

obvs feel free to keep this private, but I got recommended the UFH channel by a friend of mine, haven't gotten around to watching anything from it. I trust your judgement on the content, but my friend considers it her main resource 🙃 of course, since you only watched a few videos you might not be able to answer this, but was there any specific really bad/unacademic approaches I should keep my eye out for that my friend might have adopted? we work on a historical festival together so im concern

(I was going to answer this privately but then it got really long and turned into a post I want to post.)

Oh dear! Well, It appears that the lady behind that channel only cares about the 20th century, so maaybe she’s got good stuff on the 20th century at least? I don’t know, but the 2 videos that I saw were so incredibly awful that I’m highly suspicious of all her stuff. 

The first bad thing about her channel is that her videos all have a one or two sentence caption and nothing else. (I clicked on a few more just to check) No sources listed, no links of any kind except to her merch store. I don’t recall her mentioning any particular sources for any of the things she said in the videos either, she just declared them very matter of factly. 

Good historians cite sources! Bernadette Banners’ video on the history of PPE has so many source links she ran out of room in the description box and had to put the rest of them on a page on her website.  (Oh poo, now I feel a bit bad because I love Karolina Zebrowska but she really needs to do better with leaving source links. But she does talk about doing research, talk in a more nuanced way, and doesn’t present herself as an expert or academic, unlike the UFH lady.)

Good historians also embrace nuance, and aren’t afraid to say “I don’t know” or “I was wrong”. Presenting things in a “this person did this one big thing, and then this happened, and that caused this” kind of way isn’t good because history is more like “all these things happened and as far as we can tell it appears to have influenced this, which was also connected to this other stuff that we don’t know all that much about”. History is foggy and complicated, no matter how much the general public wants it to be simple.

Her description of herself also seems a bit... misleading? In her about page on youtube it says “Amanda Hallay, a college professor specializing in fashion, costume, and cultural history.” but if you look at the CV linked on her website the only degrees she has are in creative writing and art history. I’m not saying a person can’t be really knowledgable about something without a degree, but her whole online presence is about being a “professor” who teaches this stuff so I find it weird.

And if the 1850′s-60s video is anything to go by, she presents things in a shockingly unprofessional way. She starts off by saying she thinks these fashions are ugly and ridiculous and that she has some “theories of her own” on them. @marzipanandminutiae has a post with a lot more about what was wrong with that video, and a few others I haven’t seen. She claims that hoop skirts were oppressive cages when in reality they were a liberating garment that allowed women to achieve full skirts without the heavy layered petticoats they wore previously. 

She posts a photo of a naked lady and says “Now lets start with a beautiful naked lady and cover her up with ugly and unflattering clothes. Now this sexy naked lady isn’t so sexy” I wish I was making this up but that’s almost word for word what she said. Along with a whole lot of untrue or exaggerated stuff about Victorian modesty. She says dresses with layered flounces were called “pagoda dresses”, which isn’t a term that anyone has ever used for those dresses. She says this is cut down from a longer video she uses for teaching class, and I find the thought of this being presented in a classroom quite appalling.

After spending about 95% of the video talking about womens fashion in an extremely condescending and disdainful tone of voice, she posts what appear to be the 5 biggest and most extreme examples of 19th century moustaches she could find, presenting them as if they were what every man looked like.

This part really grinds my gears, because she says “I haven’t said anything about menswear because there’s really not much to say.” She posts photos of suits from 5 different decades and says they’re basically all the same, and also basically the same as a modern suit. Excuse you, there is A LOT of difference between menswear of the 1850′s and the 1890′s. Yes the changes over the decades are more subtle, and the colours are often more subdued than in centuries past, but it is absolutely not (as she claims) “the century when men stopped doing fashion”.   I personally am not hugely interested in 19th century mens fashion, and can tentatively date things in the first few decades but after the middle of the century I can’t. But people who are interested and who study that era can tell the decades apart. Because they’re different. And there is SO MUCH to talk about! Suits for different levels of formality, accessories, waistcoats, sportswear, sleepwear, knitwear, swimsuits, loungewear, underwear, etc. are all extremely different from their modern equivalents. 

It’s perfectly fine to only study womens fashion if that’s what you’re interested in, but it is not okay to then declare that the history of mens fashion is worthless and nonexistent. Simply not being interested in a thing is no excuse for publicly shitting all over it. (I’ve seen people do this more than once. We already have so few men who do historical fashion stuff! Stop putting off newcomers who might be interested!!)

The fact that her online presence is so closed off is also highly unusual. Comments are turned off for her videos, and the only social media link she has is to a private facebook group. (There is also a link to a fb page, but it appears to have been deleted.) Turning off comments is of course the personal choice of the one posting the videos, but the fashion history side of youtube usually tends towards pretty decent comment threads, and people often have nice little discussions and learn stuff in them. Here it looks like she doesn’t want discussion, doesn’t want to be contradicted or asked for sources, doesn’t want to learn new things.

I had never even heard of this channel until I saw @marzipanandminutiae mention it, nor have I ever heard any of the many historical costumers/youtubers I follow mention it, yet somehow it has 55k followers? I don’t know the demographics that watch it (especially not with the comments turned off!) but I’d wager that videos like the 1850′s-60′s one I suffered through are mainly watched by people who like hearing things trash talked, rather than people who actually want to learn about fashion history. The same sort of people who loved that Beau Brummell twitter thread, which was also full of lies and unsourced garbage. People like to believe the past was way worse and grosser than it was because it makes them feel like we’re smarter and better now.

Lastly, the whole premise of the channel is just bad. Calling any one thing “The Ultimate Fashion History” is a bad idea. Her channel trailer says “Youtube’s number one channel for original fashion history content” “we’ve got it all, fifty thousand years of fashion history”. You can’t have one channel that’s the ultimate resource for ALL of fashion history! It’s a huge, HUGE subject, and even if she did do actual good research she’d barely be able to scratch the surface of fifty thousand years. That’s like saying one channel is the ultimate source for all of science, or all of music, or all of cooking. No one thing can come close to covering all of it. I will deign to admit that she’s at least right to call it “original”, because she has some very original lies I haven’t found anywhere else. 

Most people who study fashion history/historical sewing have one or several eras they like best and find most interesting, perhaps with occasional jaunts into other eras. This way we can focus and get a much better understanding of the eras that we find most interesting, rather than just a vague notion of everything. 

For example: I’m most interested in 18th century menswear, and so far have mainly researched and sewn 1785-95 stuff, and more recently some 1730′s. I usually focus on fashionable civilian clothing, so I don’t know as much about working class clothes, and next to nothing about military and other occupational dress. Even with this narrow area of interest, which I’ve been obsessed with for many years, I still have so much to learn! I could never make anything claiming to be the ultimate source for 18th century menswear, because I’m just one person focusing on some aspects, and there are other people out there who research other aspects of it and their work is just as important. It’s all so big and so much, even if you narrow it down to one era.

Amanda Hallay is basically holding up a bucket of saltwater and calling it the ocean.

I haven’t watched any of her 20th century videos, so maybe they’re better than the older ones I watched. I don’t know. (But even if they’re actually good they still don’t have source links.) Edit: okay, nope, turns out they’re just as bad! They appear to make up the vast majority of her videos, so if she’s most interested in the 20th century then maybe she should just... make her channel more clearly 20th century focused instead of trying to paint it as a channel for all eras?

TL;DR, the main bad things about that channel are:

Lying and making ridiculous claims, not citing ANY sources. Spouting easily debunked myths.

Stating things matter of factly without any nuance, even though history is foggy and complicated.

Being extremely judgemental about historical fashions and talking about how much she hates them and thinks they’re ugly, which really isn’t appropriate for a fashion history teacher. You can hear the disgust in her voice and it’s awful and I hate it.

Comments turned off on all her videos, leaving no way to communicate or have public discussions. Unknowing viewers are left to accept her statements as fact without any outside opinions.

Claiming one channel is the ultimate channel for an incalculably enormous subject. Says it covers 50,000 years of fashion history when it’s mostly just the 20th century.

I would like to add that I am not what I would consider an expert either, and have no formal education in fashion history beyond the one college class that was part of my 2 year sewing course. I have learned mainly from books and the internet, and as I said earlier I still have a huge amount to learn. I’m sure a more knowledgable historian could put things better than I have. 

But I’m confident in stating that primary sources are needed to back up a claim! Sometimes even widely accepted beliefs turn out to be entirely unfounded myths, like that one about doctors using vibrators to treat “hysteria”. Total nonsense someone made up in 1999.

Wow this post got way longer than intended. Anyways, yes, I do not like condescending slideshow lady.

[sierraraeck]

Takin’ One for the Team

BAU x OC Aundreya

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Summary: Partially inspired by 8x12 Zugzwang. Maeve arc reimagined. Can Aundreya being in the mix change the outcome? Story seventeen.

Category: Angst. Per usual.

Warnings: Cussing. Shots fired.

Word Count: 4.4k

I felt like I was 14 again. Double that amount of time later, and I was back to doing the same damn thing. It’s like my life is taking place inside of a hamsterwheel and I’m just the ignorant, pitiful little hamster, tirelessly running around and around and around again, expecting to actually get somewhere. Expecting things to actually change. But I just kept looking at the same metal bars spinning beneath my feet. Or in my case, metal bars in front of my face.

Luckily, I was getting some reprieve from said bars because I was out, tracing a possible stalker and murderer. Much better than having to be stuck in a cell with one, though.

Hotch was right; this Robert character was not someone who wanted to be found. Not like he was any match for me. Garcia gave me a general starting point with his last known address and where he used to work, but he hadn’t been seen or heard from for weeks. I casually struck up a conversation with some of his coworkers and previous neighbors, indulging myself in the lies I had to come up with for the more cautious ones. I was Robert’s girlfriend, ex-wife, parole officer, drug sponsor, and hot barista fuck buddy. They gave me an even better idea about what kind of person he was and where I could find him. It was funny to me, that a few of the people I talked to had informed me ‘against their better judgement’ that the FBI was interested in him as well. I acted surprised, as if I didn’t already know that the rest of the team was still going about their profile as usual. They were just hoping I could maybe get to the same conclusion faster (since they didn’t want to get docked for using illegal stalking methods. Funny though, that they weren't allowed to do that, but were allowed to ‘hire’ someone to do that, but nobody asked for my opinion).

After two and a half days of nonstop chatting and moving around to follow his friends and family, I overheard a conversation between two of his previous best friends. They were meeting at 11 at night in a small bar. I sat a few seats away from them, pretending to sip on the cocktail in front of me. They mentioned some new and sort of secret girlfriend. The way they were talking, it sounded to me like they were worried about him.

“He hasn’t told me anything else besides that,” the blonde said.

“And you’re sure? I wouldn’t think that he’d just disappear on us like that? And for some chick?” the ginger questioned.

“I heard a woman’s voice in the background, and he quickly hung up. I’m telling you, that was it.”

If I could get my hands on his phone…

From my seat at the bar, I turned to face the pair. I caught the blonde’s eye, gave him a small smile, and then took a slow sip from my drink, keeping eye contact with him the whole time. Then, I looked away. I gave it a minute or so more of them arguing over what they think did and didn’t happen before glancing back over at the blonde. His eyes were on me, so I decided to cut to the chase. I didn’t have time for the long game.

I hopped out of my seat and strutted over to them. “Hello, boys.”

Both of them looked up at me from their seats, a smile spreading on their faces and their shoulders becoming less tense. I scanned the blonde, evaluating his pockets, trying to figure out which one had his phone in it.

“Well, hi there,” the ginger said. “What is a pretty girl like you doing here all alone?”

“I don’t intend on being alone for much longer,” I smiled, cheeky. I ran my hand along his shoulder and then across to his friend, the blonde, who was my real target. I noticed the rectangular outline of his phone in one of his pants pockets.

“You don’t?” the blonde squeaked. Good, he’s the shy one. That’ll make this a lot easier.

I walked around him to the side that concealed his phone. My hand brushed over his chest and down to his leg which had started jumping.

“No, not really.” I reached inside his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Do you mind?”

He shook his head, eyes wide.

Men, I laughed to myself.

I opened his phone and quickly typed a message to Garcia’s number, letting her know that she should track his call history. I deleted the message, and then seductively slid his phone back into his pocket. Just to complete the sale, I leaned over and put my lips to his ear. “When you’re done here, give me a call.”

I turned and walked out the door, offering him one more wink in my wake.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

Garcia tracked the number back to his apartment. Which we already knew was empty.

Fuck. Ok, so if I’m Robert, skipping town for a girl is not usual for me, so I’m either running from something or I’m in trouble. If I’m running, the first place I’d go is to my secret girlfriend’s place, because no one would know how to find me there. If my girlfriend is crazy like my friends think she is, then she’s the reason I’d potentially be in trouble. If I’m the crazy one, then maybe I’m going after Maeve, which we already knew, but then where would I take her? I couldn’t take her to my girlfriend’s house, now could I?

Unless… I could? Maybe they’re both crazy and he’s getting back at Maeve for god knows what, and maybe his girlfriend doesn’t like that Maeve ‘hurt’ her boyfriend in some way? Or maybe she doesn’t like that he’s still thinking about her? Could this be a team effort?

However I sliced it, I had to figure out who, and where, this girlfriend was.

I broke back into his apartment and searched his entire phone again, already knowing there wasn’t really anything helpful there. I rummaged through his desk and random things in his bedroom and still didn’t see anything more useful than the first time.

So I’m dating someone that I feel comfortable sharing things like Maeve with. I’ve known her for a while, and I probably felt an immediate connection or something extra special because I haven’t introduced her to anyone. Maybe there’s something about her that I just don’t want to share. Am I embarrassed or protective? Am I worried that people won’t approve? Is there something different about her than my usual type? What is my usual type? Is she manipulating me into not sharing her? Is she controlling me, compelling me to submit to her? Is it more subtle than that? Could she be the mastermind behind all of this? I mean, his friends did sound pretty worried…

The one question I decided I could try to answer first was his usual type. For the next few days, I struck up more conversations about who he usually dated, and all of their answers described someone like Maeve. Smart, brunette, into science and medicine and stuff.

So this new woman, does she fit this type? Does she almost fit this type, but not completely? Based on what I’ve heard, someone like Maeve would handle these types of things, relationships and such, with a clear head, so whoever this is has got to be more immature. Petty? Probably. What is her role in all of this?

I went back to his apartment, again, to rummage through his stuff for the third time. But I guess they do say, third time’s the charm.

I was messing around in his bedroom when I heard the door unlock. I froze, not daring to make a sound. I peered around the edge of his door and saw Robert standing right there in the middle of his living room. He sighed and then started heading for his bedroom. Heading right at me. I scrambled over his bed and luckily hopped out of the window before he got in. There was a railing just below that I could put my toes on so I could peek into the room. Robert bee-lined it toward his bed, got on his knees, and then crawled almost completely underneath it. I watched in curiosity as he squirmed back out, seeming to have accomplished nothing, and then turned to walk right back out the door.

I slid back inside and dropped to my own knees, needing to know what it was he was looking at. I swiped my hands around on the increasingly dusty floor until I felt it. A small, single finger sized, latch. I tugged and it offered some resistance, but then revealed a pile of pictures. Him and his mystery woman. I pulled them out and into the light, only to notice an outline of dust on the top picture.

A gun. He just grabbed out a gun.

I flipped the pictures over and read a single sentence: “Lovely Diane, 2013.” Of course, there was no last name.

I tossed the pictures on the bed and exited through the window, eyeing Robert from above. I dropped down to the pavement, and made sure to keep a healthy distance behind him. I followed him all the way back to some beat up, abandoned loft, taking a variety of unnecessary twists and turns. At least he was trying to be thorough, not like it was really doing him any good. I watched him cross the street and stood in the nearest alleyway where I could still see him.

He walked in, but after 19 hours of nonstop serveilience, he never came out.

What is going on in there?

My answer came an hour later when a bang went off. It was practically the dead of night, but when it happened, even the few people standing around didn’t seem too bothered by it. If you really wanted to ignore it, I guess you could have just crossed it off as someone throwing a really heavy metal pot on the cement floors. I, however, knew better.

I left my hideout spot and swiftly crossed the street in search of a back door. Turning around to the back of the bruised building, I found no doors, but there were windows. Luckily for me, there was an emergency ladder drilled into the wall, so I could use that to peer through each of the windows. Of course, nothing can be easy, so it took me all the way until the top before I found something. Sitting there, tied to a chair, was Robert, blood streaming out of the hole in his temple. Across from him was that crazy bitch Diane, pacing back and forth with the gun in her hand, and Maeve, tied to the chair in front of her.

She’s pretty, and she looks sweet. Perfect for Reid. Too bad he refused to look at her picture.

I was tempted to just barge in and handle things on my own, but I knew it wouldn’t go as well as calling the team. I convinced some poor guy to give me a few quarters for a payphone I ran to, calling Garcia. She said the team was already on their way.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

“She got a gun, Robert’s dead, and Maeve’s in there,” I confirmed as the stream of agents got out of their SUVs.

Reid started moving in the direction of the door before I grabbed his arm and yanked him back. “Where do you think you’re going? Did you miss the gun and the dead part?”

“I was kinda focused on the Maeve part,” he spat, trying to shake me off. I held him firm, almost digging my nails into him. He longingly looked towards the door, but he didn’t make a move to go. Had he, I probably would have left bruises on his bicep.

“What’s the plan?” I asked, directing my attention to the rest of the group.

It was Reid who answered instead, “Me for her.”

The weight of those three words hit me like a brick, causing me to loosen my grip on his arm. He took advantage of that, pulling his arm out of my grasp. “Huh?”

“I was in contact with Diane before the ride here. The deal is me for her. I’m going in there,” he gave me a pointed look. Whether you like it or not, seemed to be the follow-up phrase in his eyes.

Hotch gave out orders as to what everyone needed to be doing, and what they needed to be ready for, all except for me.

“And you are going to stay here,” his voice was stern and not one to argue with. But when have I ever not argued?

“What? You’re going to let Reid go in there literally blind while the rest of us wait out here? And then when something does happen, you just expect me to stand here?”

“Yes.”

The look in his eyes shut me up. But they didn’t stop me from looking for the first opportunity to get away.

Everyone was so focused on what Reid was doing, and paying attention to the front of the building, that no one noticed me sneak off to the back of the building. I used the same avenue I’d used earlier, climbing up the escape ladder to the top. I now saw Reid tied to a chair, opposite Maeve, Diane just waltzing around, waving her gun between the two of them. Since they were in a room across the narrow hall, I hoped she wouldn’t hear me as I slowly brought the window upwards. I slid into the room soundlessly, relieved that there was concrete beneath my feet and not squeaky wood. I looked around for anything in the room that could potentially be useful against this lunatic, considering I didn’t have a gun with me, and the FBI confiscated all of my knives. I found nothing.

When I turned my attention back to the other room, I saw Diane with her lips on Reid’s. Maeve and I had similar reactions to the sight, but there wasn’t time to think about that, because the next thing I knew, Diane screeched, “Liar!”

Had I blinked, I would have missed Spencer standing up out of his chair, aiming the gun away from him and towards the ceiling. There was a loud bang, followed by the echo off the roof. Within seconds, another bang went off and Hotch was leading as the team streamed into the room. Spencer was on the ground holding his arm, and I released a sigh of relief knowing he wasn’t dead. That relief quickly diminished as I saw Diane grab Maeve around the neck, gun to her throat.

No, no, not today bitch.

Spencer’s pleas for the team to stay back were being ignored, so he spoke up, “Diane, Diane, there’s still a way out of this.”

“You never wanted me,” she said, and I could hear the tears in her throat. “Never! You lied!”

As her grip on Maeve tightened, Spencer took a step forward. “I didn’t,” he tried, “Diane, I offered you a deal, and you can still take it. Me for her, let me take her place.”

He looked so desperate, and Diane’s posture was rigid as she continued to adjust her grip on Maeve, whose head was bobbing around like a bobble head. I started to move in from behind her, steps even and noiseless, like I liked.

“You would do that?” Diane croaked.

“Yes.” The sureness in Reid’s voice almost shook me enough to stop me, but I couldn’t stop now. I had emerged enough from the hallway entrance that the team could see me. Hotch gave me a wicked side eye, but Spencer seemed to be blind, tunnel vision on Maeve and Diane.

“You would kill yourself for her?” Diane’s voice cracked.

“Yes.” Not if I can help it.

Any doubts in my head about messing this up flew right out the window I’d come through. In a single move, I reached around the pair and grabbed both Diane’s hands. I easily pulled them out from around Maeve, turning her to face me, both arms up. I kneed her in the stomach, which left her breathless and on the ground.

But she didn’t drop the gun. The impact of her hitting the floor wasn’t enough to release the gun out of her determined grip like I’d planned.

Whatever Maeve was about to say got muffled by me yanking her behind me. With no weapon, no bulletproof vest, and a psycho with a gun pointed at me, all I could think about was how if I died, at least I died for the sake of two people’s happiness. Probably more.

From her position on the ground, Diane shot at me. My ears were ringing from the sensation and I made a movement to stay standing, but all I could feel was the cool concrete that seemed to be melting underneath me.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

The first thing I felt was the chains. Well, that’s not true. I felt the pain first. The pounding in my head, the throbbing in my left side, and then the all too familiar ring around my wrist, surly leaving a bruise. I peeked one eye open, confirming my theory that I was in fact handcuffed to the hospital bed by my right wrist. Right after, I saw faces staring at me, and decided to close my eye again. I was not about to face the team. Not yet.

But, because I seem to have to face things much sooner than I’d like, a deep voice cooed, “Wakey, wakey, Sleeping Beauty.”

With my eyes still squeezed shut, I muttered, “I swear to god, if you came anywhere near my lips to wake me up, I think I’ll vomit.” I squinted open my eyes to Derek making kissy faces at me and groaned. I went to playfully push his face away, but my wrist caught in the cuffs. He looked down at them with a strained face as I quipped, “Well, that kinda kills the mood, now doesn’t it?”

“Chambers-”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Some bullshit about getting me outta prison and it being necessary or whatever. Doesn’t make it more enjoyable,” I gave a tight lipped smile.

“How do you feel?” Prentiss asked, trying to change the subject.

“Like someone who just got shot in the side,” I nodded nonchalantly, “What happened to our favorite sociopath?”

“You just told us. She got shot in the side,” Derek smiled with a shrug.

“Ha ha, you’re hilarious. But seriously?”

“As Diane shot at you, I shot her in the back of the head,” Hotch stated.

“Naturally. Of course, you couldn’t have done that before I got shot,” I offered him a small smirk, “So, uh, him and Maeve are good?” I questioned.

“Yeah, Maeve and Spencer are fine,” Prentiss said, emphasizing Spencer’s name a bit extra, letting me know she, and probably the rest of the team, noticed I’d avoided using it. I just nodded in response.

“Actually…” Penelope said, looking around at the others for what seemed like some sort of approval, “They want to see you.”

My face scrunched up in a mix between a question and disbelief. “Why?”

“They want to thank you,” she simply put it.

“Great. Tell them ‘you’re welcome’ for me,” I raised my eyebrows. Hotch gave me a pointed look but I wasn’t really in the mood for seeing the happy couple together after just getting shot for them. I should have been fine with it, him and Maeve were good together and I was over him. I was. Really, I was, but I just didn’t want to see them together, was that really so bad of me? But the look on Hotch’s face told me otherwise.

I huffed out, “Fine.”

Penelope smiled at me, and went to fetch them. The interim before they showed up was painful, in more ways than one. Hotch, Morgan, Prentiss, and I all just waited in silence, the three of them sharing looks I was not privy to, and frankly too tired to decipher. Penelope returned, ushering Reid and Maeve into my room.

“Hey,” Maeve’s gentle voice rang.

“Hey,” mine, in contrast, sounded scruffy, tired, and deep.

“How are you doing?” she asked. Her soft features had a brightness to them, and I could tell that light was probably why Reid was attracted to her.

“I’m doing okay. How are you?”

“Doing okay as well, thanks to you,” she smiled at me. I attempted to give her one back without grimacing. I waited in silence for her to continue. “I just wanted to thank you for what you did. It was very brave and I wouldn’t be standing here with this amazing guy-” gag, “-without you. I owe you everything.”

“That’s very sweet, but you owe me nothing,” I managed through clenched teeth. I hadn’t even looked over at him yet. I honestly didn’t think I could, knowing only days before I’d been on the brink of a love confession to the guy whose girlfriend I just got shot for.

“I wanted to thank you as well,” the voice, his voice, hit my eardrums like a hammer, “You didn’t have to do something like that for her, you didn’t really even have a reason to, and you did it anyways. I’m glad you’re okay.” I wanted to be insulted by the fact that he thought I wasn’t nice enough to do that for any rando, but I knew what he was getting at, so I attempted to overlook it. I finally glanced over at him, which was one of the many mistakes of my life. My heart clenched, and I fought the feeling of water brimming in my eyes. I thought I could do it, but I couldn’t. I can’t sit here and look at them, thanking me for saving their relationship when I don’t want them to have one in the first place.

That thought hit me hard, realizing that, while I’d been convincing myself this whole time that he was better off without me, better with Maeve, I still didn’t want that. Yes, I still believed that he would be better with someone else, but it was the first time I cracked and allowed my real thoughts to rise to the surface of my mind. And it almost broke me.

I swallowed that though and replied, “Yeah, I’m okay. At least we both have matching injuries now, you know, trying to save Maeve and all.” Venom, and what I refused to be jealousy, clung to my words, and I knew the look I was giving the two of them. Both of their faces contorted into a vast mix of hurt, confusion, and discomfort. And while that’s what I was going for, I knew it was wrong of me. Neither one of them asked me to take a bullet for her, I did that all on my own. So I quickly shook the feelings, and the face, and covered with, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. I think I’m just tired, and the drugs they’re giving me-”

Morgan piped up, “They didn’t give you any drugs, we made sure of that.”

“Good,” I clenched my jaw, but forced my words to be relaxed and welcoming, “then it’s the pain. Either way, thank you for coming in here and thanking me. It means a lot, and doesn't happen enough to the people in this line of work. Plus, it wasn’t just me, it was everyone else, too.”

Maeve and Reid quickly recovered and gave me a small smile. Maeve quickly thanked everyone else, which I’m sure she’d already done, and left with a small, “I hope you recover quickly.”

“Thank you. I’m glad you’re both doing well,” I croaked. Once they left, another quiet spell hovered over the room. Before anyone could say, ask, or scold, I followed with, “I think I’m going to get some rest.”

The three of them nodded, and left me alone without another word.

# # # # # # # # # # # # #

The only thought coursing through my head was, I have got to get out of here.

So that’s exactly what I did. It’d been a few hours since they left, and I didn’t foresee any new visitors coming, or even nurses for that matter. I searched the room for anything useful that could release the cuff on my right hand, and luckily, the clipboard with whatever fancy papers on it was by the foot of the bed. I shimmied down until I could grab the board between my feet, and made an awkward maneuver to get it to my left hand. I brought it back to my face and pulled off the paper clips holding some of the sheets together. I awkwardly bent my right wrist to try to aid in the process of picking the lock, but I had to essentially do it all with my left, not like that was particularly difficult. Definitely not compared to some of the things I’d been through lately, that’s for sure. Then I heard what had come to be one of my favorite sounds, a nice little ‘click.’

I quickly got out of bed with a groan, hobbled over to the table with my few belongings, and threw on the clothes I’d been wearing since they retrieved me from prison. They were itchy and smelled similar to sewer water, but they were clothes that were not a jumpsuit or a hospital gown, so at least there was that.

Right before I left, I walked over to the sheets of paper still attached to the clipboard. I flipped the first one around, and wrote two simple sentences on it.

Because I had to.

Because I have to fix things.

I left that face up on my now empty bed, where I honestly should’ve still been considering how shity my side and head still felt. But instead, I kept my head down, my hands in my pockets, and just walked right out the door. Because while their stalker case might have been solved, I still didn’t have mine as neatly wrapped up.

Series Taglist (open)

@justanothetfangirl @kris-stuff @blameitonthenight21 @wooya1224 @unded-bride @swiftingday @dezzxmx

[comicteaparty]

June 10th-June 16th, 2020 Reader Favorites Archive

The archive for the Reader Favorites chat that occurred from June 10th, 2020 to June 16th, 2020.  The chat focused on the following  question:

How does poor web design affect if and/or how you read a particular webcomic?

carcarchu

it's a huge factor. if a comic is amazing in every way but the website or app makes it difficult for me to read i'm simply NOT going to read it. there are a lot of great series that i've put on the back burner just because the website is so annoying to navigate

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

i've honestly never run into a website so bad it stopped me from reading a comic i was interested in

carcarchu

FYI the worst comic app i've ever experienced is Aqua Kiss which I downloaded to read a single series. it's the most barebones app imaginable with no search bar. if you want to read something you actually have to manually load each calendar week to find it and some stuff are buried dozens of pages back. and to make matters worse it doesn't have a "history" or "bookmarks" feature either

Deo101 [Millennium]

The worst things with sites that I see often are 1: huge headers, and 2: laggy sites (not really site design, but its adjacent I think) Another is if the pages are too big on the screen, so you can't, for instance, see some panels all at once. Those kinds of things can really ruin a reading experience for me

carcarchu

One example of a website that is hostile to the reading experience is ZMYK which for some reason hosts vertical scroll comics but cuts them up into little pieces as if they were comic format so you can't actually scroll through the entire chapter as it was intended to

That kind of thing grinds my gears so much how can something you have to pay for be that incredibly bad

Deo101 [Millennium]

I've also seen some sites that have graphic design issues, where elements are illegible due to their color, and some have very busy and distracting backgrounds. Those kinds of things won't necessarily ruin it, but they're distracting

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

forward comic's website was doing this weird thing where the further I read the longer pages took to load. Near the end it seemed they were taking 10 full seconds. Still read the whole thing though. Reading manga on shady sites with terrible internet connection as a kid has desensitized me

Oh one comic I was interested in but didn't read because of the site: I was kidnapped by lesbian pirates from outer space. It doesn't have a website. To read it you have to pirate (hehe) copies of the archive.

It's a pretty sad story- the author was young and tricked into giving up the rights to her series

She ended up taking the site down to prevent the company from getting any more money off of it

https://rosalarian.tumblr.com/post/65353128180/its-with-extreme-sadness-that-i-announce-that-my

Here's her post about it

I think it can be a good warning message to us

Cronaj (Whispers of the Past)

For me, the biggest thing that deters me from reading a comic is if the website isn't well optimized for mobile (as someone who reads a lot on the go). This includes the images loading bigger than the page, or navigation being hidden on mobile, or glitchy scrolling, or any number of ungodly things. Also, too many ads. That'll turn me away in a heartbeat.

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah ads are definitely a huge turnoff for me too

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

FYI the worst comic app i've ever experienced is Aqua Kiss which I downloaded to read a single series. it's the most barebones app imaginable with no search bar. if you want to read something you actually have to manually load each calendar week to find it and some stuff are buried dozens of pages back. and to make matters worse it doesn't have a "history" or "bookmarks" feature either

@carcarchu okay i just digested this comment and wtf

no search bar is laughably bad omg

how did you even find out about it

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah that's ridiculous hahahaha

carcarchu

it's a shame because there are genuinely good comics on there you can't read anywhere else?? and i found it because an artist i adore did a series for it but it got AXED after only 2 chapters and after that was pretty much scrubbed from the internet. i think it's a shame because it really had so much potential and it ended before the story was really able to start

it's a screenshot from the app. you can see that it is categorized reverse chronologically by week

the point of aqua kiss is to emulate monthly/weekly style manga magazines but in app form. however i think the execution of this idea was horrendous

SteffieMusings

Oh no! It must make reading there so challenging. As for me, if the navigation is so hard to understand/pages don't load properly when you click a link or when the website's colours hurt my eyes so much I can't stay there for too long.

Shizamura 🌟 O Sarilho

Honestly nowadays most of the CMS's out there share the same basic functionality and adaptability, so it's getting harder to screw up on that. Most sites are OK, if only a bit laggy. If the site takes less than 2 seconds to load and it's not so crowded that I have to look for the comic, I'm generally good.

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

How much bad/inaccessible web design I'll tolerate is directly proportional to how much I care about the comic.

I've dropped a couple series in the middle of the archive just because they changed the site design to screw up the tracking of bookmarking sites, so I would've had to figure out an alternate way to keep track of it, and it didn't seem worth the effort

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Oh yeah, I've totally had that happen too where I was deep into an archive, had taken a reading break for a month or two, and came back to find the urls had been updated and my spot was lost it isn't so bad if a comic also has an archive page, but ive stopped reading a few stories that it would have been too hard to track down where I was.

DaeofthePast

I haven’t had to experience weird websites in a while, but I do sometimes go to an unknown website to read the comic/manga I’m looking for. Mostly what I’ve had trouble with is unnumbered chapters, of that it’s unclear where/how to start reading in general.(edited)

Like, I get to the page for that specific comic and then there’s no easy “start reading here” button anywhere

And when I do find the chapters list, I don’t know which end of the list is the beginning bc it’s unnumbered

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Is a "First page" button enough or are you looking for a "new readers start here" button? (<- is redisigning her page)

DaeofthePast

Is there a difference? :0

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

hm, sometimes yes.

Some old running comics have different jump-on points (schlock mercenary for example).

DaeofthePast

Ooh I see

Well when I first go on the site, I just want to start reading so idk

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

So, I always try to read every comic that's featured in the book club all the way through. Like even if I don't particularly like the opening, or if the comic is thousands of pages long, or I don't have time to meaningfully discuss the comic, I do try to at least give the comic a fair shake by reading through the entire archive. There have been four exceptions. One was because of content (it was a gag a day comic, and the content was SO horrible for SO long that I just couldn't stand it anymore. real "punching down" type of humor). Another was because the comic was literally deleted before I could get to it. The remaining two were because the site design/organization were so awful that the comics were unreadable. One of the two comics had a custom built, hand-coded site (I assume), and it just... didn't work properly. Like the "previous" button seemingly took you to a random page, the "next" button and the "latest" button led to the same place, etc. I'm not sure the creator ever bothered to test the site. The other one used some pre-built stuff, so it was ok... but you had to scroll to the top of the page to go to the next page. Not only that, but the author was posting all their comics to the same archive - which means one page would be the comic that was actually meant to be read for the book club and the next few pages were a completely different comic entirely. And this wasn't a gag-a-day either - it was a story based comic, so the three action minimum to get to the next page made things absolute hell to keep track of.(edited)

DaeofthePast

Wow

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Uff, yeah, that sounds horrible.

Nyx+Nyssa's page is currently a barebone mess, but I made at least sure the navigation works. :/

DaeofthePast

Having the comic be deleted while you’re reading it sounds like such a weird experience lmao

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

i mean, it wasn't thanos snap style lol

DaeofthePast

Was the website gone too or?

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

it was in between days

nah the website was still there, it's just that the author had decided to reboot their comic and forgot that they had submitted it to the book club

DaeofthePast

Oh okay I imagined Thanos snap style

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Not really a design but a site thing: I can't do comics without an archive of some sort. On platforms like Tapas or WT, the episode list serves that purpose perfectly fine. I personally need to be able to see how many pages there are, and I need a way to go to specific pages easily. It might sound like a small complaint, but it's a big thing for me! There have been comics that piqued my interest, but once I saw that there was no archive of any form, I left forever. Sure, I might be missing out, but there are also lots of good comics out there that have accessible archives. My life isn't long enough to read them all, so I'm letting myself be very picky.

copperine

I can manage a very basic site just fine. But if a site is hard to navigate, or just makes reading the page/getting to the next page difficult - I'd be likely to give up eventually. Doesn't matter about the quality of the comic, but if it's a chore to just read it, it's going to put me off after a while

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I will note - if you want me to actually discuss your comic in the book club, please do have an archive link, and probably a cast page too. Like the lack of one doesn't stop me from reading entirely, but I can't discuss anything without being able to look back at specific moments. (and one of those archives that just has dates doesn't count - lemme know what the chapter is!)

copperine

For example - when I read webcomics on dA, I was absolutely fine with either the author having a dedicated folder with the pages in order. Another option was to link next and prev pages in the description. But if I had to go find each next page, I just wouldn't.

DaeofthePast

By an archive do you mean kinda like a chapters list?

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

A list of all the pages, ideally

That also list the chapters somehow

copperine

Short version: if I feel like I'm spending half as much time navigating the site as I am actually reading, it's gonna get old real quick

DaeofthePast

And same copperine. As long as it’s organized well, I will probably read it

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

Like maybe you click on a chapter link to get to a list of the pages, or maybe it's just a list of the pages with the chapter names as headers

some sort of organization

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah! (I admit my own comic's archive page isn't the prettiest, but it's 100% functional.)

DaeofthePast

I only have a chapter list so far ^^; idk how to go about getting an archive

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Chapter list is totally fine if your chapters tend to be on the shorter side

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

I like having chapter lists around, although coding them can be a handful Not sure if to go for an archive with thumbnails or just with page numbers though.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's also workable if you also have like... a dropdown menu for individual pages on the actual pages? So it only takes 2 clicks to go to a specific page (first click to go to the chapter, second click to go to the page)

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

OH yeah, there was also a dA comic in the book club once that didn't have any next/previous buttons. However, it was a short comic - the bare minimum for getting into the book club - so I still read it all the way through. But it was pretty annoying to do so. (it was also pretty obviously a fetish comic, but that's not really relevant to the discussion XD)

DaeofthePast

I want to post by scene so I’ll be dividing chapters like “chapter 3 part 1” to hopefully that will be better

copperine

I'll always take functional over pretty

DaeofthePast

Haha I’m not sure if I want to know the comic for that one

Also what is “punching down” humor?

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

Like, the author was a straight man, and nearly every joke was making fun of people who weren't those things.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

it's like making fun of people but

copperine

Yikes

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

you're intentially trying to put them down

that's punching down in my imo rip

DaeofthePast

Oh

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

yeah....

DaeofthePast

Well at least I know what to call it when I see it in the future ._.

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

Like, occasionally I see a shitty joke in a comic and I keep reading because maybe the author improved (we do sometimes get comics with archives that date back decades in here) But this comic was just so consistently awful for so long that I couldn't stand it

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

oof that aint good

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

Though that's kinda off topic lol

DaeofthePast

Oh yeah

So bad site design...

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

Anyway, I don't really wanna post the examples of the comics I talked about in here cuz I don't wanna call anyone out

Actually, hold on, lemme check something

DaeofthePast

I feel I haven’t had too much experience with bad site designs, but I might have just forgotten(edited)

K

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

ok yeah

so, the comic where you had to scroll up to the top of each page to click to the next one, and the site was multiple comics alternating pages that made the story rough to follow

copperine

Oof yeah having to scroll up to click next won't stop me but it is a bother

DaeofthePast

I like having the next button both on top and the bottom, even if they update page by page(edited)

It just feels convinient

copperine

Yeah same

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Re: punching up/down, here's an overly simplistic set of examples: billionaires making fun of poor people is punching down. Poor people making fun of billionaires is punching up.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

's good webdesign pattern for everything with continous content - e.g. blogs, web-novels, webcomics.

Ideally you have one on top, between content and comments and under comments

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

the comic that alternated storylines & required scrolling back up to go to the next page was Antibunny: http://vinnied.comicgenesis.com/d/20061002.html if you see that page I linked and click next a few times, there's no obvious distinction between the main story and the spinoff story (no, like, header change between the two, and the art style looks similar), so you can see how it'd be confusing to follow and the scrolling is just icing on the cake (it used to be even worse) the only reason I feel comfortable sharing that is because the author uploaded the comics to new sites, and fixed all those issues in the process: http://antibunny.net/

DaeofthePast

Oh nice. So they realized the problem

copperine

Aren't they in this server? Or am I thinking of another one

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

Yeah, the author is in this server

copperine

I thought so

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

Hence why he realized, because we told him that there was a problem during the book club

copperine

I'm not gonna take anything said here as a comment on anyway btw

DaeofthePast

It’s cool that submitting their comic to the tea party resulted in some good feedback :3

copperine

You love to see it!

It always makes me happy when webcomic community stuff helps people out, that seems like the ideal outcome

DaeofthePast

Yess

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

i agree on that yeee

DaeofthePast

It’s like having a friend point out a spelling mistake. Embarrassing but you can live with the knowledge that your work is now a little bit better(edited)

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

Yeah kinda off-topic, but I love it when the author of the comic for the book club joins the server. Like not only does it mean that the author could join in on others' discussions in the future (pay it forward 'n stuff), but... it's just really sad when I see a comic pop up in the book club and the author seemingly forgot they submitted it.

DaeofthePast

How long does it usually take to get to a comic? :0 that they would forget they submitted it?

copperine

I always hope I can help others out or support them, and I hope they feel the same

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

The book club had a very very long wait list in the past. These days, not so long.

DaeofthePast

And I guess if you submit a comic with a website, the people here can be your beta testers

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

what's odd is that five months ago, the wait list was six months but now, the wait list is two months y'all need to submit/resubmit your comics

DaeofthePast

I tried going to submit mine yesterday and the site doesn’t let me v.v says you’re booked for July

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

oh yeah, so it is

DaeofthePast

Maybe later :3

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

i guess Rebel doesn't want the queue to get too long

copperine

I would submit mine but I'm only at 10 pages and I believe you need to have 20 to submit

DaeofthePast

Ooh they have a minimum?

Gotta count my pages now

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I mean it makes sense. Hard to discuss a comic that only has the cover for chapter 1

DaeofthePast

XD

Tru

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

"Let us dissect this cover image for an entire week"

DaeofthePast

It would be a hilarious April fools challenge

copperine

Idk I think it was 20 minimum?

DaeofthePast

shrug

copperine

@snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights) can you shed any light on this

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

The sign up form is where you would normally find that information.

copperine

... very good point

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

But the form is currently unavailable, and it's possible that Rebel might change the requirement when it becomes available again

copperine

Ah

Thank you for the heads up

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

FYI, https://comicteaparty.com/ is where the form will be available eventually

Shizamura 🌟 O Sarilho

They accept resubmissions now?

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

I def like arrows on the top and bottom of pages for sites to be more of a thing, as well as clicking the image for the next page too! Honestly there hasn't been a make or break, mainly preferences, and the most complaints i have are with the mobile formatting. I think most comics have been pretty solid in functionality that i've read, and it's clear that having their own website is becoming mainstream enough for there to be help, tips, and tricks to making it work!

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I definitely prefer if I can just click on the comic image to go to the next page especially for mobile.

copperine

Agreed!

Idk about resubmissions tho

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

... Wow. I absolutely HATE clickable images on mobile, because they usually mess with the pinch-zoom.

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

i've had sites that didnt have image click throughs and the arrow..... was like SO TINY XD

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

Didn't think anyone would actually like it, so... huh.

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

i kept going back and forth

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

yeah, navigation needs to be bigger on mobile for safe tapping.

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Oh, re:resubmissions, I'm pretty sure you can if it's been long enough? I think @snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights) mentioned it recently as an option. But maybe a tangent for #general

boogeymadam

i dont mind the pinch zoom being a little more difficult from time to time cause usually the clickable image is worth it to me

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Same

boogeymadam

am also fond of sites that allow left/right arrows to let you move forward and back on desktop

mariah (rainy day dreams)

Mainly it's just for like Krispy said, reading on mobile and tiny next/previous buttons.

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

ye my dummy thicc fingers prefer the click through image for sure

ohh yes Boogey that too

boogeymadam

it took me hours of googling to find the very simple comicpress option to just turn that on on my site

copperine

Mmm I do like sites that allow pinch zoom though

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I also prefer clicking on the image to go to the next page

mariah (rainy day dreams)

My fingers small, but still dummy T-T

copperine

It makes it easier to get a better look at the page

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

iweudhweiu Mariah XD

copperine

Especially if it's got smaller font

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

nyxandnyssa has a seperate navigation for mobile that's much bigger and skipping scene select to make tapping easier.

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

I've had the hover text def bum me out for some comics, where you click the image and it just displays the text, then you gotta click the tiny next bar def killed me there

copperine

I've never had issues with pinch zoom affecting clickable images but I can imagine it would be annoying

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

but! never breaks me out of a comic for me to stop reading-! i persevere in the face of adversity XD

boogeymadam

i've never encountered a site so bad i couldnt continue reading. maybe stuff where i'd stop reading until i was less frustrated but i'd come back later.

DaeofthePast

That’s something I’ll have to consider for my site then

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I feel like Smackjeeves had a really obnoxious auto pitch & zoom before they updated most recently. I like when I can turn it off on my phone. I'd rather do it myself most of the time and let my phone try to auto it X')

DaeofthePast

I usually read on desktop more often than on mobile so it’s good to hear from other’s experiences

copperine

Idk I've never used a custom site yet

boogeymadam

same dae, except on tapas and webtoons!(edited)

comics with their own website i'll boot up my computer for a single update of

DaeofthePast

Even on webtoons I read on desktop

boogeymadam

omg your power, webtoons feels so choppy on desktop to me

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

im definitely lucky that our site got a mobile friendly version i remember the 'ol pinchy zoomz was tiresome on our site for sure

DaeofthePast

I get headaches from reading on my phone unfortunately :/

Idk what the difference is between reading mobile and on a desktop but my brain doesn’t like it

Like, I can text fine???? But reading a comic for some reason is like “no”

So yeah, comics on desktop for me

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

ohh!! it could be the close proximity!

DaeofthePast

Ooh :0 maybe?

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

i know i get motion sickness depending on how close/ far i am from screens

DaeofthePast

Maybe it’s something like that... :O

boogeymadam

whatever the reason sorry you get headaches and motion sickness from comics :'0

DaeofthePast

Every once in a while I’ll try again to read on mobile I never learn

boogeymadam

the only reason i dont like mobile is sometimes comics text is a combination of too small there and the font is hard on my dyslexia

DaeofthePast

Rip

boogeymadam

so i see if zooming in on my computer helps

DaeofthePast

The lesson here is that it’s good to have both mobile and desktop options

boogeymadam

yep :'D

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

ohhh yea def agree. I know that feeling and i sometimes ... have a Time reading my own work XD (i admit it lol!!)

boogeymadam

sometimes my own comic is hard on my dyslexia for The Effect so i never have hard feelings with other comics

copperine

(brb)

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

ewiudhiwue the things we do AT WHAT COST XD

DaeofthePast

Asdfghjkl

Meanwhile I use the same font for everything

boogeymadam

wait im gonna generalize this more so it can be a party

DaeofthePast

Please post that on pillowfort so I can reblog it

boogeymadam

you can post it for yourself if you want dae!

i'm having a hard time logging on asdfgjh

DaeofthePast

Rip sure

copperine

Ah see I have both

Because hand lettering

It's great for feeling right for a comic but also eternally wondering if it's readable

DaeofthePast

Ooh yeah I guess that would count as both

What’s your comic btw :0

Wait, we’re supposed to be talking about website design right

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yep! If it gets too off topic, you can always continue in another channel that's more fitting.

copperine

Ah sorry! Sure thing

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Mobile is too small for me

DaeofthePast

Yeah

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

(oHHMYYGOSH BOOGEY XD)

boogeymadam

mm archives were mentioned already, and how it can really turn readers away to simply not have one at all? my favorite archive is https://www.vaingloriouscomic.com/comic/archive 's but i've seen some where they attempted an all picture archive and it backfired by just being a page of all empty boxes. this didn't deter me from reading it and it got fixed pretty quick tho~ mine is one of these and its a very chonky slowmoving page cause i uploaded the first 90ish as fullsized pictures. nobody's ever complained so idk if it's ever deterred anyone from reading but i know i gotta fix it someday.(edited)

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I really dont mind any kind of web design in particular though tbh. I prefer desktop sites but it’s fine if the design isnt great

DaeofthePast

Have you guys ever gone to a comic website (for a single comic) and the colors used in the background were so bright that it felt like they were blinding you to the point it was hard to read the actual pages?

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

My archive is down right now becayse it broke and I dont know how to fix it lol

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

i def want a fully view-able archive but we're gonna be hitting 800 pages and i dont know how well that will work XD

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

But I have a navigation bar now

boogeymadam

u could have multiple pages of archive, krispy!

i'm starting a new page for chapter 2

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Or dropdown menus

boogeymadam

but its probably important to have a dropdown if u have more than 1 page, yeah

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I want to switch to picture archives, but I haven't found a good plug in/way to get my word press to do it :( if anyone has recommendations...

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I wish I knew how to make dropdown menus

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

i'll have to bring that up ! we dont do the tech work for our site ( thank gosh seriously) but i love archives that show full pages

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

If I could make dropdown menus I would be unstoppable

copperine

I miss the drop-downs on SJ

boogeymadam

i feel like dropdowns are smth i pretty much only exclusively see on hiveworks comics

i wonder what their secret is,,,

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I’ve inspected the elements on so many hiveworks sites lol

I want to know

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

they use word press I think

for their comic sites

just have to do some digging with the site html and csss

copperine

Right click and inspect maybe...

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

Php stands for my Personal hell pit

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

if i could go undercover for yall i would XD

boogeymadam

also!! @mariah (rainy day dreams) i use elementor for mine

its not perfect and breaks like every time i update it but it works asdfg

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

... I'm currently writing a sparkling fresh wp-plugin for my page (comic easel wasn't doing what I wanted), but I am also a software dev who enjoys coding.

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

My template I use functions in mostly php and xml and its gibberish to me but functions so well I dont know how to improve it to have specific things I want

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

my knowledge with site design is basic at best lmao

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

wordpress is a bit special in that it does most things more complicated than strictly necessary.

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

but I do like fiddling with stuff

^that too lmao

FeatherNotes(Krispy)

I know Shiza of osarilho is really good at web designing? she's made some beautiful work with her site!

boogeymadam

i want to ask shiza for more help but not before i have some money to pay her :')

she's helped me a lot already

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I can do html and css at the babiest level

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I'll check that out Boogey, thanks! Even if it does break X') And I guess I'll just make a note to start stashing money to hire shiza XD im definitely at the point where my site needs a general face lift, but I don't have the spoons for it.

boogeymadam

imo i've made some really pretty pges with it. it's a drag and drop that's excellent at galleries, but it doesn't like when you don't have even rows for some reason

the wordpress plugin, Elementor, i mean.

copperine

I've been wanting to try comicpress for ages

I just don't know where to start

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I'm gonna move over to #shop_talk for my response

copperine

I had someone who was gonna help me out but we lost contact so it's on the back burner

boogeymadam

OOPS yeah

copperine

But for websites in general I prefer to have one that feels very basic than one that feels too busy or crowded

I'm not a graphic designer at all lol

If I do try an independent site I'm planning to pay a coding friend to help me

DaeofthePast

yeah i have no idea what I'm doing when working on my site, it's kinda basic, but at least it looks nice

copperine

I just use a premade theme on my ComicFury site

It works and that's good enough for me so far

Oh I guess the other thing that would put me off reading a comic is if the site isn't formatted for mobile, and/or particularly if the site doesn't have adaptive formatting

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

same, but editted it hard core so it looks like it's own thing lmao

copperine

I usually read on my phone because my computer is where I work so I like to get off it for hobbies

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

but for me uh i guess mobile i try to read it either on tapas, webtoon or its own site

I find just clicking the page to the next one helps me a lot lol I don't do a lot of zooming

copperine

Mmm

copperine

It's personal preference a lot tbh!

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I like my comuter because its big

copperine

Valid

Mine is not

Shizamura 🌟 O Sarilho

did anyone talk about paying me please you don't have to do that

copperine

Idk but you can pay me

Idk what for but

I'll take money

mariah (rainy day dreams)

I absolutely would have to if you made my site awesome X') work is work, and you should be paid for it

Shizamura 🌟 O Sarilho

fair enough

Just send me a DM whenever you're up for that and lemme take a look at what you already have

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I would hire someone to do web design for me but I dont have the funds & I dont wnat to make someone do work for me for free

sierrabravo (Hans Vogel is Dead)

I've been meaning to set up my own website for a while now, since the collective i was originally hosting my webcomic with kinda fell apart, but it's so much work and i'm hella intimidated :'''D

copperine

@sierrabravo (Hans Vogel is Dead) there's been some related discussion in #shop_talk and I believe @boogeymadam might be able to advise (I'm sure others can too but I'm going off the convo from earlier)

Shizamura 🌟 O Sarilho

@sierrabravo (Hans Vogel is Dead) depending on how much it is I can help you out

RebelVampire

Admin Reminder Remember this channel is for experiences as a reader first and foremost, so #shop_talk and #general are better if you want to discuss your own stuff.

DaeofthePast

thank you for the reminder :3

RebelVampire

I would say poor web design is something I have a complicated relationship regarding webcomics. On the one hand, outside of a site being 100% completely broken, I'm willing to sit through a lot to read. So in terms of affecting whether I read a comic the first time or not, there isn't much to say there. But it does affect how engaged I am with the comic. Cause if I can't easily go back to re-read a page, easily find things like character names, have to deal with extreme lag cause the host is garbage, have to deal with eye bleeding color schemes, etc. you can bet your bottom dollar 1 time is all that comic is going to get in terms of reading it. I can only subject myself to so much, and if I don't feel like reading a comic again because of the site itself, I'm going to quickly forget it in favor of comics whose sites don't make me cry. I do give more leeway to sites created by creators in many respects. But professional bigtime hosts like Tapas or Webtoons literally have no excuse for some of their garbage design choices. And some of their design choices are super duper garbage.

DaeofthePast

that's true yeah, there's a big distinction of the quality expectations between sites by small creators and those of big companies like Webtoons

RebelVampire

At the same time, though, I know from first hand experience that poor design choices are literally influenced by user data for bigger companies. So for every decision I consider stupid- at the same time they probably did the AB tests that showed crappy design A had better results for their conversion rates than user friendly design B.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Which boggles my mind

I wonder if there's some kinda causation-correlation thing going on that the A/B tests could not detect accurately

boogeymadam

Rebel mentioned sites that have eyebleedy color schemes and I'm in the same boat; will read the comic, just will be turning down the screen brightness a looot. Sites that have a huge space of extremely neon background that distracts from the comic make me reluctant to read on the site, and I'll look for a mirror before trying. That white background of the 2 big comic hosting sites can at least be affected and turned dark by nightmode when needed, while nightmode doesn't work on half the bright comic sites I've tried it on. u-u

[something-tofightfor]

Neon Lights Part 4:

Pairing: Ryan Brenner x Reader

Word Count: 2650

Rating: M (language, lil bit of steam)

Summary: What happens when things get personal?

Parts 1-3 can be found on my 500 follower event masterlist (at the bottom of my main masterlist page) - This one is taking on a life of its own, and i’m not even trying to stop it at this point. 

Tagging: @ooo-barff-ooo @agent-bossypants @likethetailofacomet

You didn’t know how long you sat on the edge of the bed, staring out the window as the rain pounded against the glass. Though you couldn’t hear it, you watched the water as it moved, tracing paths down the window, mercilessly hitting the street below. You almost kissed a total stranger. “I met a woman.” Ryan cleared his throat, and you turned to look at him, leaning against the wall just outside of the bathroom. He had one arm up and gripping the opposite shoulder, the other hanging loosely by his side. “I was in Utah a little over a year ago, and I met a girl.” Oh. That’s why he got spooked, I went to kiss him and he has a girlfriend. Of course he does. “Her name is Jackie.” 

He stepped away from the wall, shaking his head, and moved to stand in front of the window. “She got hit by a truck, knocked over, and I saw it happen.” He shook his head. “She was a stranger, and I couldn’t help it, she was alone, and…” He trailed off. “I’d been travelin’ for so long, and I decided to stay a few days in this town, just to see if I could stay in one place, and it was OK, my friend’s girl was there with their kid, and I knew someone else, not just Jackie and her daughter and her mom.” He look down at the floor, one hand reaching out to touch the glass in front of him. “My friend… he died while I was there, and it… I know how dangerous it is to do what I do, but I couldn’t help it.”

“Ryan…” He shook his head, cutting you off.

“Jackie and me, we had a connection. She helped me write that song I played, Southbound? Not really helped me, but made me see...” You nodded, even though all he could see was the outline of your reflection in the window. “I left to go up to Portland, to record with my friends and some other people, but I didn’t stay, We laid down some songs, but I missed… her, I guess? Recording wasn’t what I thought it would be. Went back, surprised her, and it was good for a while, for a little over two months.” That’s not long at all. “She got a job, wanted me to get one, too.” He turned to face you and you saw that his face had fallen. “I tried. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go somewhere and sit behind a desk or stand in one place for 40 hours a week.” He closed his eyes, angrily clenching his fists by his sides. “She didn’t get it. She thought that because I went back there for her, I meant to stay there forever, to give up my entire lifestyle and just settle down, be a family man.”

“You can’t change that quickly, Ryan.” You shook your head, gesturing with one hand over at your camera. “Years and years of traveling, just… over?” He laughed, biting down on his lower lip. “I’ve only been doing photography for a few years now, and I can’t imagine not being able to just go when I want to. You need the freedom.” He was staring at you, brow furrowed. “I think… I think that my life growing up was very different from yours, and I’m thankful for that, but it doesn’t mean I don’t understand.” You stood, pushing off of the bed and moving to stand next to him, looking down over the Strip with him. “You need to travel, to see things and feel things and meet people.” You looked at him out of the corner of your eye, noticing that he was watching you, head turned toward you. “You wouldn’t be the same person if you had a different life, Ryan. You won’t be the same person if you change now.” He nodded.

“You understand.” You closed your eyes, thinking of your parents, of your life, of your home - the house just outside of Philadelphia that you didn’t think you’d ever be able to return to - the way you felt stepping off of a plane in a new city, the way that your passport was burning a hole in your pocket each time you sat idle. I understand. I know what it feels like to want more, to want to do something unexpected, to change. You thought of the rush you got each time you looked through your pictures and saw the perfect image, found that you’d captured the moment you intended to. “You get it.”

Swallowing hard, you nodded, the next words out of your mouth not ones you wanted to ask, but you figured you had to. “What happened with Jackie?” He didn’t respond right away, instead reaching up with his hand again, tracing the path of the water down the glass.

“She told me that if I wasn’t going to try that I needed to leave. That she couldn’t wait for me to decide to grow up, like she’d done.” He scoffed. “She was a singer for a while, had a record deal an’ everything. But she gave it up to be a parent, and her life changed.” He turned to face you, reaching out and touching your arm hesitantly with his right hand and you turned toward him, too. “So I left. I wasn’t going to stay, and we both knew it, especially after she compared settling down to growing up.” He fell silent and you looked down at his hand, watching as his fingers moved over your skin, stroking down the inside of your arm. “I did grow up, hmm? I learned that this is my choice to make, and I choose to live my life how I want to. I made the decision to head out, to get out before it hurt us anymore, before she made me into somethin’ I’m not.” It was the right decision for you, I can hear that in the way you talk. “I left, and I deleted her number, and she hasn’t tried to contact me in seven months. I made the right decision.”

“You did.” Your eyes were locked on his hand, the fingers still tracing patterns onto your arm, thumb sliding smoothly up toward your elbow. “You did what made you the happiest. Maybe not right when you left, but -” You stopped talking as he suddenly closed his hand around your elbow, tugging you closer to him. You could feel his heart beating beneath your shirt, and his other hand came up to touch the side of your face. This… it might… he just stopped talking about his ex and now he’s touching me like this and… “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice your gift, Ryan.” He nodded, his face moving closer to yours. “Staying in one place isn’t the best you have to offer, and you have a gift…”

“Hey, I’m listening to what you’re sayin’, but if it’s alright, I’m gonna kiss you now.” The words were quiet, his voice a little hoarse. Yes, God, yes. You reached up with the arm that he wasn’t holding onto and touched his hair while you nodded, and then his lips met yours. You sighed into the kiss, and unless you were imagining things, he did too. It was brief, but when he pulled away he was smiling. “I’ve wanted to do that since yesterday.” You laughed, feeling your cheeks turning red. “I wanna do it again right now.” The hand at your arm moved to your waist when you didn’t tell him no and he stepped forward again, turning you so that your back was pressed against he window, his body curving around yours.

You curled your fingers in his hair, thumb settling right behind his ear, and you saw him smile before his mouth was on yours again, his lips parted this time, tongue gently flicking out and against your lips. You responded immediately, opening your own mouth and he wasted no time, tilting his head slightly to deepen the kiss, mouth moving as if it was made to kiss yours. He kissed you slowly, deeply - the action the complete opposite of what you expected simply based on his appearance - and you felt yourself shivering in his arms. If you were being honest, you hadn’t ever been kissed in this way, as if you were the only thing that mattered, like him pulling away from you would have been the worst thing to happen to him. He tasted like the mint chocolate gelato that he’d eaten, his hair was soft and thick beneath your fingers, his body warm against yours.

Your other hand settled at his waist for a moment after he let your arm go, his palm flattening against the glass as he pressed his body to yours, pinning you to the window, and you moved your fingers beneath the fabric of his shirt, a low moan coming from you as you felt the skin beneath your fingertips ripple as he moved. “Ryan…” You sighed his name as he pulled his mouth away from yours, moving to kiss your jaw and  then your neck, his tongue again out and moving across the skin beneath it. You slid your hand around  to his back, nails scratching lightly over his skin and then he abruptly pulled away from you, shaking his head and breathing hard.

“I need to stop. We need to stop otherwise…” His eyes were so dark they were nearly black, his neck flushed, chest rising and falling rapidly. “I don’t want you to think that…” I don’t want you to stop, I want… “I don’t have anything on me, I didn’t think…” Oh. Yeah, that’s a problem. You took a deep breath of your own, hand coming up to touch his cheek, feeling the coarse hair of his beard beneath your fingers. “I should go, I can figure out the bus schedule, it’s gotta be simple enough.” No. Stay one night. He won’t, but…

“Can you stay a little longer?” He froze for a moment. “It’s still pouring, Ryan, and it’s after eleven, you can call your friend and tell him that you’ll be back, but that you don’t wanna get soaked, so you’re waiting.” You didn’t want to sound as if you were asking him to stay-stay, but you kind of were. Sleep here. Stay with me, just for the night.

“I have a confession.” He pressed his lips together, shaking his head. “I’m not really staying with a friend here. I’m… I caught a few hours of sleep last night in a park, and…” He shook his head. “My buddy moved without telling me, and I got here and he was gone, and…” Oh.

“Where’s your stuff?” He blinked a few times before answering, looking almost ashamed. “Hey, Ryan, where’s your stuff? You have clothes and all that, right?”

“I went to the bus station, rented a locker. My pack is there, all I’ve got on me is my guitar, some cash, and my phone.” He shrugged. “Figured I’d just go back and grab it all when I wanted to head out… the only reason I changed my shirt was for you.” For me?

“You’ll stay the night.” You weren’t asking anymore, the idea of scaring him away gone. “You’re not sleeping on a bench or on the ground tonight. I have a bed, I have a shower, I have air conditioning. Hell, I’m here for two more nights, you’re more than welcome to stay.” Is that too much? I don’t care. He might be a traveler, but he shouldn’t be uncomfortable.

“I can’t do that.” He shook his head. “This is your room, there’s only one bed, it’s fine.” He looked around. “You don’t even know me.”

“Ryan, you just told me everything I needed to know about you.” And then kissed me like you meant to stay. “I’m not afraid of you, if I was, I would have let you figure out the buses.” You stepped forward again, rising onto your tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. “Stay. It’s one night. Take a shower, get clean, relax. Think of it as paying you back for causing you to miss out on 45 minutes of busking time.” He grinned at you, his eyes darting to the bathroom. “The shower is incredible. I promise.”

“Ok.” He agreed with you, nodding his head. “You’ve convinced me.” Good. He leaned in, kissing your forehead and hugging you to him. “Can we…. get somethin’ to eat?” Oh, I didn’t even think about that, I figured he ate earlier… “I’ll pay for my meal, but -”

“Yeah, I can go down to the lobby and grab something, there are a bunch of restaurants to choose from. What do you like?” He shrugged his shoulders, already heading toward the bathroom as you moved to slip your flip flops back on and grab your purse.

“Don’t care. I’m not picky. Surprise me and let me know what I owe you.” You nodded in agreement, though you weren’t going to accept money from him. “Thank you.” He spoke softly, catching your arm as you walked past the bathroom doorway where he stood. “For this, for bein’ nice to me.”

“Of course, Ryan.” You gestured into the bathroom. “All of my shower stuff is in there, feel free to use anything you find. Blue razor is brand new. There’s a robe. Whatever you need. Take your time.” With another small smile, he slid the door shut, and you couldn’t help the one that overtook your own face as you stepped into the hallway, pulling your room door shut behind you. Skipping those shows was the best decision I’ve ever made.

---

[ongnable]

last love w/ daniel

for: @fluffykth, the loveliest - dian. i hope everything that causes you unhappiness disappears; and that only good, better things lay ahead in your future because you deserve nothing but the best a/n: part 1 here. set around a month post-break up, angst (with happy end)

{part 2 of 2}

“thank-you for coming to join us tonight on the late night radio show despite your busy schedule, kang daniel-sshi. we’re now moving on to our final segment – ‘words i could never say’. would you like to read out the first letter we received tonight, daniel-sshi?”

“of course,” daniel loosened one ear out of the headphones while reaching for the paper from the host, eyes glazing as he scanned the black ink, clearing his throat

“i thought everything was finally going right. i had everything i wanted. i was where i wanted to be. and then one day my reason for wanting everything - my motivation to keep me going had left.” his voice shook slightly, prompting the host to speak

gentle tones whispered into the mic; “left? why did they leave?”

“she walked away from me. she left me behind because i didn’t - couldn’t - appreciate her. we were no longer the same people we once were.” 

daniel paused. wondering if he could divert from the original wording

how was it so accurate?

“we weren’t what each other needed”

picking up the phone, daniel dialled jisung’s number to tell him that recording had finished; waiting for the eldest member to pick up

a smile, wry and bitter, lingered on his lips

maybe it was true, he’s changed.

daniel had thought that if you ever left him, he’d never be able to pick himself up and move on

but in truth, his schedule kept him preoccupied, physical exertion keeping you out of his mind as he collapsed at the end of each day

the dull ache from the day you left is so constant; a weight over his heart, pressed tightly, deep into his chest

and yet - all daniel felt was empty

empty like the flat you lived in

he’d known about you moving out the day after your break up

everything was still in place; 

ceramic mugs with last christmas’s photos printed over them, a pair of fluffy couple slippers the two of you always kicked under the dining table, the coat you wore on your last date thrown lazily on top of a chair; 

your clothes, your makeup, your perfumes, you’d even left your toothbrush and toothpaste behind - opting to simply buy another toothbrush

you didn’t need your own toothpaste back at your parent’s either

and you didn’t want them questioning why you were taking stuff back to theirs

after all, daniel had keys to the flat that your parents had brought you when you moved to seoul with him after months of convincing your parents that nothing would ever come between you two

and you didn’t know what to tell your parents

so you’d only taken your chargers and a few essentials

acting as if everything was okay, and that you simply missed them; pretending to be excited when they mentioned your ‘successful boyfriend’

just as you had done before when you were still together

that day, daniel had tidied the living room quietly, as if creating sound would disturb the state of the flat;

putting the mugs left on the dining table back in their cupboards, setting the slippers by the door, hanging your coat back in the closet

everything was in place.

but you.

somehow, the fact that he was still functioning fine without you made him angry

angry that you were right

that the two of you had changed

he wanted himself to break down, to stop being the bright kang daniel bursting with those so called puppy-like charms on screen, the charismatic kang daniel on stage

he just wanted to be your’s again, just wanted to hear your voice

(niel-ah niel-ah niel-ah)

daniel wanted to prove you wrong - to have some type of evidence that he needed you; 

you were the one he loved, how could he possibly live without you in his life?

but somehow. he was still there.

“-niel?” his call connected.

“jisung-hyung, i finished the recording.”

“you finished early, that’s good! that means you have time to come back to the dorm and shower. we’re going out for drinks tonight. minhyun and jaehwan aren’t coming so they can take care of the kids.” 

settling yourself in the kitchen, you pour yourself a drink

swinging your legs under the table, you’re about to reach for the small glass when you hear your phone ring

"hello? is it y/n?” you hear jisung’s voice over the muffled line. static and unstable

“jisung-oppa?” you try after a moment’s hesitation. “how did you get my number?”

you knew that when wanna one debut, all the members changed numbers. daniel had painstakingly tried to change his contact info on your phone without letting you find out. jisung and you hadn’t exchanged numbers though

“i got it from daniel’s phone.”

ah. so he hasn’t deleted your number yet.

it wasn’t exactly a happy breakup, you wouldn’t be surprised if daniel never wanted to see you again

you wonder if he’s changed your name in his contacts - you couldn’t bring yourself to change daniel’s

peter and rooney’s appa, your face used to always light up whenever you saw the cat emoji show up on your screen

“what’s wrong?” jisung wouldn’t call you out of the blue. daniel shared everything with that man. if anyone would know about the breakup - it’s jisung

a sigh. jisung knew that’d you’d pick up on something straight away. “whereabouts are you right now?”

“i’m back home.”

“in busan?”

you nod, an automatic reaction despite that fact that he wouldn’t see you anyway. “yeah.”

“nevermind then. sorry to bother y-”

jisung gets cut off as you hear the phone being passed around.

snatched maybe. 

there’s another voice now. one you know much too clearly

“it is y/n? jisung-hyung, did you call y/n? right? it’s her right-”

and you also know daniel well enough to know that despite the lack of apparent slurring - he’s drunk

suddenly, you don’t feel like drinking anymore

“niel!” jisung snatched the phone again. and you hear something akin to the device being wrestled around. “sorry y/n- you know how he can be-”

“hyung! she doesn’t know! she doesn’t know! if she knew she wouldn’t have left!”

you wonder why you like this sweet pain, pressing the phone closer to you ear, adamant to hear his voice

it seems that the other end of the phone has forgotten about you too, and you hear other voices chiming in, focusing on calming him down

“it’s all right-” jisung tried. “you said she left everything in the flat. she’ll come back eventually to pick up her things and you can talk then.”

“hyung, y/n ran away. she ran away from of me. because of me. i was making her sad.” you could almost see him. his voice so loud, so clear, that you could picture him, a bottle of soju in his hands - drinking straight out of the bottle like he would when he was stressed

“but niel-ie, you can’t do this.” that’s ong seongwoo’s voice. you recognised it from all the wanna one shows you’ve diligently watched. “it’s not right to call her when you’re drunk. wait until your head is clear-”

a whine. “i can’t- i can’t call her.”

you wonder if he knows that he’s still holding the phone that his older companions are so desperately trying to remove from him.

“if i call y/n, i’ll make her sad. it’s not fair. why do i have to choose, hyung? i miss her, hyung. i want to see her. i want to say i’m sorry. i want to tell her i love her. hyung- hyung, you have to help me.”

ah. so that’s why jisung called you.

“you said it yourself. you’ve broken up. if she wasn’t happy, you have to let her go.”

and that’s ha sungwoon.

they’re drinking out? together? but you thought that daniel didn’t want to let the others know about you

funny how he tells them everything after your breakup

“jisung-oppa?” you try. voice a little louder so that they can hear your over the commotion on the other hand.

“y/n?” he sounds surprised. you guess that they really didn’t know that the call was still going. maybe he expected you to hang up as soon as you heard daniel’s voice.

you didn’t know why you continued listening either

“i’m coming back to seoul this weekend. i’m starting work there next week. tell dan-”

“i’ll tell daniel.” you could hear jisung chirp almost excitedly as you mentioned the boy

“tell daniel…” you repeated. your voice was steeled. controlled. even though you could feel sobs beginning to form, wrecking you from within. 

i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry

“tell daniel to delete my number.”

you’d delete his number from your phone too

dragging your suitcase out of the elevator into your flat, you slip on your fluffy slippers, making a mental note to hide the bigger pair next to them somewhere deep in the shoe cupboard

you might not have left with a lot, but you did bring back way too much from busan

emptying the contents of your suitcase into the closet, you were about to head to the kitchen to make a cup of tea when you heard the door open

you’re not entirely surprised that it’s daniel

nobody else had your key

but - “what are you doing here?”

“i know i shouldn’t be here.” you nod. backing into your room as daniel walks closer. the corridor too narrow for your liking.

he was too close. his familiar scent engulfing you in this small space

you don’t know if you can keep yourself from going towards him when you’re so close

“i left my phone here the other day. so i’m just trying to find it.”

the other day?

he responds quickly to the change in your expression, and you’re suddenly hyperaware of how well daniel can still read you

“i came to pick something up.” your anniversary gift was left unsaid, as he clutched the necklace in his pocket. 

daniel had kept it on his body since that drunken night; it was the only part of you that he could always carry with him now that you’d left

“i can’t find it anywhere. i- um. y/n, could you maybe call me? i’ll leave after finding it.” you probably don’t want to see me, he thought, not after what i put you through “i’ve already left my keys on the table when i came in.”

“my keys” you wanted to laugh. he still called them his own when he had already returned them to you.

but you guess you’re the same.

you were also calling things no longer yours, ‘mine’

“it’s no problem. i’ll call you. there’s no need to be a stranger daniel, we can still be friends.” you were friends before lovers. and it’d hurt to lose that.

you had made friends in seoul - but there’s no one you were particularly close to

nothing could compare to the type of friendship the two of you shared before you started dating

before the two of you ruined everything

you see him nod wordlessly, following you as you walk out of your room with fake confidence, strolling past him in that narrow narrow corridor, making sure not to touch him

reaching for your mobile and dialling the number so easily it scares you

because somehow, it means that your body will continue remembering traces of him even when you try to get rid of everything

‘im feeling so energetic’ echoes through the living room and you reach for the source of sound from under the couch, eyes widening when you see the cat emoji on the screen. the name of the caller making your heart clench

peter and rooney’s umma is calling

oh. he didn’t change it.

you don’t know why - but you do but you do - but it hurts, and its the same pain you felt when you heard his voice over the phone

getting up from your crouch, you hand the phone - face down - back to daniel. he’s standing behind you. straight, his expression unreadable. 

“i couldn’t change it.” i couldn’t delete your number

“i saw.”

"you typed in my number.” you didn’t use your contacts. i’m already gone.

you’re not surprised that he saw, daniel had always been attentive despite how childlike he seemed

“i don’t want that.” daniel’s surprised too, that he’d let it slip. but as if suddenly gaining confidence, he continues - the words he locked in spilling out when he sees that you refuse to look at him. his voice gentle and firm

“hey, y/n. i figured it out. i do need you, just not the same way as before. you were my source of strength before, but now i want to be strong for you.”

you wish you could’ve heard these words earlier

much earlier

because he sounds so proud, so happy with himself, as if he’s figured out how to fix the two of you

and because you’ve been unfair. mean. cruel even. 

and you’re realising too late that you never truly told daniel why you broke up with him

why you could no longer face him

why you couldn’t see the future that you imagined together anymore

“daniel, it’s not about you changing, it’s me as well. i used to be the one making you laugh, but now you’re the source of laughter for so many others and i don’t know how i compare. where i fit in. does that make sense, niel-ah?”

you see him flinch at the affectionate nickname

maybe you shouldn’t use it

“yes.” he nods. “yes, it makes sense. y/n-”

“i loved you kang daniel.”

loved. past tense. because the kang daniel you loved has become someone else now. and now daniel knew it too - that neither of you were the same as you once were

“then why can’t you fall in love with me again?”

the words leave him so quickly you wonder if he’s programmed himself to somehow have a reply for everything you say

to have a foolishly perfect answer to all your questions

“we’re different. but maybe our ‘different’ can still fit together. why can’t we try?”

and you realize that this is what you wanted

what you needed

some sort of proof that he was willing to fight for the two of you

that there was a chance for you to be happy together

“i don’t know” 

the words are hard to choke out through your tears. 

there’s lingering sadness when you think of how faraway he looks, and daniel holds your hands in his own instead of reaching to wipe tears from your face straight away like he used to

and he cups them in his own instead of lacing your fingers together

baby steps.

“you’ve always been there for me - always been the one taking care of me. but i want to be the one you need now.”

the two of you would take baby steps.

“fall in love with me again, y/n, please.” for me, it’s always been you. 

reaching up, he lets his fingers dry the tears, bringing your face close to his

whispering ‘i love you’s as he kisses you gently. as if he’d scare you away, 

he kisses like you’d break any moment

only when he feels you kiss back does he press a little harder, a little deeper - as if trying to stamp his existence into you

“i love you.” you can hear daniel whisper against your lips like a habit, his hands cradling your face when he lets you go - out of breath

“please don’t leave again.”

memories of long ago give you the strength to wrap your arms around him, “i won’t, i’ll stay by your side”

you couldn’t give him empty promises of eternal love. but you’d stay by his side forever.

you weren’t ready to say that you love him. 

but that was okay.

at least, daniel said it was okay.

and you found yourself trusting him

the two of you were no longer the same people you once were

he was no longer kang euigeon who suddenly changed his name to daniel and began b-boying after school in hand me downs

and you were no longer the same girl who hid and cheered for him behind the cheap cam-corder with a carton of coffee milk and packed lunches

but it was going to be okay

because all roads lead back home, and home was him.

he was your beginning and you were his end

[shadowsfascination]

YAAU - Chapter fourteen - Puzzled

In a nearly silent room filled with more empty coffee cups than considered to be good for one Miles Prower and Dr. Eggman sat behind their desks, cracking their brains in order to decode information and find patterns in the map they created from the A.R.'s underground tunnel network. The duo had been working for hours but hit a wall  when a virus bypassed the system's security and tried to delete the information they were trying to convert into a map. Being an excellent hacker with lots of experience the mustached scientist succeeded in disarming the virus and put it in quarantine . After a sigh of relief and a cocky smile  spread across the former evil genius' face a new challenge was provided to them in the form of a timer. “I thought you disarmed the virus?!” “I swear I thought I did so too...” His words slowly muted into silence as he contemplated the screen. “No need to tell you only bad things can come from the timer hitting zero as you were a satisfied user of them in the past,” Tails stated sarcastically, alluding to the rocket issue in Station Square years ago. “No need to tell me indeed, fox boy.” He answered with his eyes still locked at the screen, the light's reflection of it showing in his glasses as his signature feature. “Not so much of a coincidence this happened, considering the intellectual abilities of our opponent as proved before...“ he added. “Yet it's an unpleasant surprise that it happened within hours after the military provided this information to us. How could they know this already?” Tails wondered out loud. “We have no time to focus on that right now. Let's get back to work and see if we can do something about it before it hits zero and who knows what'll happen.” Tails nodded and turned to his own screen again after glaring at his co-worker for a moment. Even though he needed all his attention on the job they were given, he couldn't stop his mind from wandering off and forming all these conspiracy theories. It is remarkable that this happened right now. How could the A.R. Already know about their discovery? It raised questions as well  as suspicion on the case and with his co-worker having quite a record he was Tails' number one suspect of playing both sides. What if Eggman was about to sell them out- once again? No time for that now. Just keep an eye on him. You know his moves. Obliged by his job, working with this man was inevitable now and so would the subject of trusting him be.   “I can't locate the source of the virus.” Frustration being read between the forming lines of his now frowned brows, Eggman scoured the ends of his mustache together. His gloved hands swiftly pressing the keys of keyboard on the mahogany colored desk, his eyes prying- set to catch this prey and disarm it- but found nothing. The wrinkle between his frown deepened. The young fox behind the other mahogany desk in the room had a similar expression. He palmed off the desk in exasperation, heaving a sigh, his hands thrown into air. The office chair rolled him backwards into the room and stopped when he hit the wall. The scientist did not pay attention to him. “Could it be another file type?” The youngster questioned out loud after moments in silence. “Like?” The other person still did not turn around, but only swifted his eyes to him. “We're searching for a file that's most likely a '.exe' file. What if it's another file type?” “There's only a limited number of possible options. It doesn't make sense to look for another type of file.” “I mean: what if they're using another file type to cover the program running behind it?” “Hmm.” Dr. Robotnik twisted the ends of his mustache once again, his view now locked on the ceiling, contemplating the theory for himself. “That actually makes sense. Let's run another search on active programs and files.” “Roger.” Tails swifted his chair back in position, took a deep breath and opened the prompt window to command a search on the entire system. “I'm running the scan as we speak and will check the main files again.” “I'll try to reboot the system.” “WAIT!” He scowled seriously and with an almost startled note in his voice, not looking away from his screen. “Not until we're out of other options.” “I will prepare, just in case.” “Hm.” Tails nodded while his eyes regarding the screen again. Scanning the list of what seemed an endless amount of files, his pair of deep blue orbs followed the movement of the downwards scrolling list. The sounds of mouse clicks and pressed, then released buttons on the keyboards filled the room and the more concentrated they dug into the job, the more present these sounds seemed to become- even annoying in a way. Clicking the files to open and closing them again became an act of routine in the passing time. Once in a while they anxiously glared at the timer, then moved their attention back to the screen once more. Tails started to sweat it now. The pressure was killing, heavily breathing in the back of his neck and chasing him into a corner. Hints of this restless feeling connected with his memories of several previous situations of the past- like when Eggman tried to blow up earth with the eclipse cannon. The situation appeared hopeless at the time too and this time not even Sonic and Shadow would be able to fix it. Sweat presented itself on his now shining forehead and he rubbed it away with his left arm. Focus!  Like an inner voice calling him to his senses he forced himself to continue solving this puzzled madness. There must be a clue! There has to be a link- find it! If there's a connection between their plans and ours... Let's limit the search to that area... Where do they store the files regarding battlefield strategies and such? “Stop being such a coward, Tails!” Eggman scoffed at him firmly and angrily, catching Tails by surprise. He hadn't known the man had been observing him and wondered how he kept his cool in situations like this. “You can't fully pay attention to the case if you're scared. The adrenaline will only arouse you and despite what many think: it doesn't sharpen your senses, it blurs them. We need to work together and give it our all.” He now turned his chair toward him and glared at him from behind his glasses. Miles locked eyes with him for a moment, swallowed , regained self-esteem and returned his gaze with a determined look: “I might have a clue on how to fix this puzzle. “ “Let's not delay our victory any longer then.” The lips of the scientist curled up just enough to call it a smile. “What do you know?” “I believe there's no way this attack is a coincidence. I suspect we're either dealing with a spy or one of our own team members is playing both sides. Someone must have known about the discovery of the map. It doesn't matter how they do it, they have access to inside information about our moves.” “I agree with you on the possibility of a spy being amongst us. This attack has been too awfully  specific. What do you suggest?” “If we limit our search, and that's a risky move, to the military strategy files, we might be able to find it quicker. What do you say?” “Let's do it.” “Be prepared to shut down the system at any time.” “Roger.” Meanwhile in the Mystic Ruins Amy sat on a rock, eyes closed, crossed legged and wiggling her left foot in impatience – when did she pick up that habit from Sonic? She and Knuckles had made plans to investigate some recently discovered caves underneath the surface of Angel Island. What's taking him so long? They were supposed to meet at 12 o'clock, right? She looked at her wristwatch to check and let out an agitated sigh when she found she was right indeed. How much longer was he going to let her wait? They didn't have all day- she at least did not. When nothing went wrong Amy and Knuckles got along just fine, but when things didn't go as planned their temperamental personalities would easily clash. Either she'd feel like he took her for granted or he would misunderstand something and blow up the subject to march away in anger. As for today: chances were things were going to explode once again, judging from Amy's chagrined mood.  It was just one of those days where she found herself unable to stop getting upset over every little thing. Looking at her watch again she had enough. She was going to find that Knuckles and give him a piece of her mind. “No need for a long search when that red moron is surely around the altar of the Master Emerald” she murmured while footing her way to the entrance of the cave that would lead to the open air again. She jumped into what appeared to be a pit, but was lifted up by the strong winds blowing out of it and once she was lifted up high enough she dived onto the higher ground of another cave tunnel. “Knuckles! How much longer were you going to let me wait?” The tone in her voice did raise the hairs on the back of his neck and Knuckles turned around to face a very agitated Amy Rose. “I had more important stuff to take care of. I was going to meet up with you after I finished them.” “More important stuff to do? Excuse me?” “I don't have time for drama right now, Amy. Now, get out of the way.” He shoved her aside and looked into the eyes of his comrades, whom Amy did not notice had arrived, but the friendly atmosphere that was  usually around them, was gone. Instead you could cut the tension with a knife. “Get out of the way, Knuckles!” The red echidna didn't even flinch, simply closed his eyes and crossed his arms. No need to tell anyone he wasn't gonna step aside. “Knuckles, we don't want to hurt you. Don't be so stubborn. Military orders, man! We can't do anything about it.” “It is what it is, just move!” The comrades all shouted at him in futile attempts to get him out of their way. All except one: Espio. The chameleon stood in the back of the group and leaned onto a tree with his eyes shut and one foot pressed against the trunk. “Knuckles, what is going on here?” Amy now asked. “They want to take the Master Emerald and the Chaos Emeralds away.” “Why?” “This is none of your business, lady!” “Yeah, in fact we should take her with us as well.” “What?” Amy glared around in discomfort, trying to figure out what was going on. “What are they talking about, Knuckles? What orders?” “Didn't ya hear, missy? Three hours ago multiple explosives were brought to detonation all over the region. The damage is enormous, the chaos even bigger and the military has given orders to start the emergency evacuation plan.” “We need those emeralds for that!” “... And all the women and children are to be brought far away for their own safety, so you're coming with us!” “What?! Emergency evacuation?!” the screaming bystanders suddenly seemed muted when the shocking facts dawned to her now awe-struck mind. She turned to her contacting device and in great haste she opened the news app. It was loaded with recently posted articles about the blown up parts of cities close to them. How could she not have noticed anything? Without warning all the air was knocked out of her lungs and a strong, sharp pain flung through her chest: what about Sonic and Shadow? All of the sudden she noticed the device was muted and her eye was caught by the many unread messages on the device. What the-? She anxiously  tapped  the screen to open the message-application and found Sonic and Shadow had tried to contact her as well as Tails. She was brought back to reality when someone roughly grabbed her arms and pressed them behind her back. “Hey!” When had everyone started fighting? Around her everyone was fighting, kicking, punching and screaming bloody murder over the emeralds. As strong as Knuckles was, he couldn't take all of them by himself. Amy struggled to free herself and grab her hammer, but the hold of this stranger was to tight. While she was still thinking of a way to free herself, she was pleasantly surprised  to find the man behind her suddenly collapsed onto the ground.  She turned around and caught a glimpse of a blurry silhouette that swiftly threw a ninja star at another man and she knew she was covered. Amy grabbed her hammer and swung a bunch of their opponents down the stairs of the shrine and saw Knuckles aggressively punching the remaining men with his shovel claws. She chuckled when the last man standing was now swung through the air by what seemed to be an invisible adversary. The chameleon became visible again and stepped towards Amy and Knuckles. “Now what? We can't keep them occupied forever.”

It took me a little while, sorry for that. This chapter needed to be well constructed because it will be a key-part of the story. You'll see I have yet to start with the next chapter. Lately I have trouble keeping my focus compared to a couple of months ago. That's partly the reason that it took me some time to finish this chapter. Previous chapter: read here Next chapter: Illustrations:

[teimywimey]

Chapter 2 is up!

Summary:

Every person is born with their soulmate's name written somewhere on their body. Symmetra’s used to be on her left wrist.

Or

Sombra has no real connections. The person she used to be did, but it’s better this way. Soulmates complicate things.

Chapter under the cut

Sombra paces in her hotel room, trying to keep her breathing steady. Her heart hammers in her chest. Come on, idiot. You’re Sombra. Sombra always knows what to do. Sombra always has a plan.

She doesn’t have a plan.

Soulmates had never really worked out in her experience. Half the kids she had run with in Los Muertos had felt their soulmates die - she remembers Angelo, who had been like a big brother to her, curling into a ball and clutching his bicep where his soul mark burned, screaming the name of a woman he never got a chance to meet. She remembers how the mark on the back of her mother’s hand had faded to scars even as she had refused to let her children give up hope. She remembers waiting for the pain to flare on her own wrist and for the gold letters to turn white, hoping that the seemingly inevitable loss would hurt less if she was ready for it. She remembers, and she knows that she must choose logic, she must choose to fight anything and anyone that would even try to control her.

And yet.

She can’t help but feel a certain pull towards the architech. It almost feels like recognition, and she supposes that, in a way, it might be. People believe all kinds of things about how soulmates are paired, but everyone talks about how you just know. And Sombra just knows.

She sits on the edge of the bed to breathe through the waves of fear. Pull yourself together. Sombra isn’t afraid of anything. She takes a deep breath in. Not even your soulmate being the most talented, intelligent, gorgeous- she forces that train of thought to stop as she exhales. Focus.

In, and out.

In, and out.

As Sombra calms, she pushes the unhelpful feelings away.

In, and out.

Be logical.

Something has to be done. For now, she has to ignore the fact that Satya is her soulmate. She sighs. It’s not like ‘Sombra’ was the name on her wrist. That person can’t exist anymore. I am Sombra, not that little girl.

Sombra opens her holoscreens and pulls up the profiles of the other architechs. There has to be more information. She makes notes for a while, but finds it near impossible to stay on task. Eventually she returns to Satya’s file. She can’t help but wonder what Satya would think of her. She is elegant where Sombra is crass, quiet where Sombra is harsh. How are we supposed to work together?

As she stares at her screens, she considers the facts of the situation. Vishkar is doing anything and everything to sate their greed; no one else has had both the means and the will to do anything about it; her soulmate is among the people in need of help. Sombra hates feeling obligated to do anything. Even Talon knows better than to try to force her into completing a task she does not want to do.

And yet.

Taking down Vishkar has to be done - for Lúcio’s sake, if nothing else. They have to be punished for what they’ve done. Sombra doesn’t want to admit it, but her curiosity about Satya is growing with every moment.

Sombra sighs. Of course this is the one time that my heart and my head point me in the same direction. Taking a deep breath, she hacks into Vishkar’s network and searches it for Satya’s computer.

---

Halfway across the world in Vishkar’s Utopaea headquarters, Satya settles into her apartment after work. The day had been long and tedious, filled with endless meetings and trainings and appointments. Ever since she had returned from Rio, things had felt ever so slightly off - almost like her fellow employees were watching her a bit more carefully. She had brought it up during one of the monthly psychological evaluations, but decided to drop it when Sanjay scolded her for it afterwards.

She sits on the couch and opens her laptop to check her email. It takes a second or two longer than usual for her to log in, and when she does, something seems wrong. She pauses.

One, two, three, four, five - the correct number of columns in the grid of icons on the left side of the screen. Two, four, six, eight, ten - the correct number of rows. Satya frowns. Separate from the grid, off to the right, there is an outlier, a word document she does not remember creating.

The text underneath it reads “hello.”

Satya deletes it and runs a malware scan.

The scan comes up clean and she goes to check her email.

She answers a few from colleagues, and a few from clients. Sanjay had sent an email asking for a report that Satya is sure she had sent him at least twice already, but she sends it again anyway. As she searches the documents folder, she sees it.

“Hello take 2,” this one is called. When she minimizes the windows she has up, sure enough, another icon has appeared on her screen. She deletes it and continues on with her business. Maybe someone is just messing with me. Some of her coworkers liked to do that sometimes. Their joking didn’t bother her when they left her out of it, but this was too much.

She sends the last few emails, and exits all the windows to check for another icon.

“plz”

Satya pinches the bridge of her nose. They don’t pay me enough to deal with this. She sighs and opens the document.

It is blank.

Satya isn’t sure what she was expecting.

She closes it, deletes it, and runs another scan. Still nothing is flagged. She almost screams in frustration when she closes the scan window and yet another icon has appeared. She opens it and taps out a message.

Why are you doing this?

Satya glares at the screen as though that might make the person on the other end reply faster. After a moment, the cursor jumps a couple lines down the page and the text color changes to purple.

I have information for you. You have the right to know.

The words send a spike of combined dread and curiosity through Satya. She presses enter twice and types:

Who are you?

The cursor moves again, then sits there blinking on the page.

I’m

It pauses. A ‘y’ appears and is quickly deleted.

a friend.

Satya frowns.

If you are my friend, you can communicate with me through more appropriate channels. I do not appreciate what you’re doing

The cursor moves almost immediately when she finishes typing.

I know, I’m sorry. We haven’t met

Satya presses enter before the person can continue.

Then how are we friends?

There is a pause, then the typing continues.

Details, details. I’m a friend and I mean you no harm. Please listen to me.

The cursor jumps down and waits for Satya’s input. She sighs.

Fine.

The stranger types out the address of a website, a username, and a password.

Log in.

What is that?

An ‘appropriate channel.’

Satya rolls her eyes and opens the web browser.

The website appears to be a local news site for a small town that Satya has never heard of. She logs in with the information she had been given, and is surprised to find what almost looks like a forum. She freezes. A chat window pops up at the bottom of the page.

Sombra: hey!

Sombra: I’m the friend

Hermosa: What is all this?

Sombra: just an archive of stuff, and sort of a forum. Most of it is locked for you right now, and none of the other users besides me can interact with you yet

Hermosa: Why is it locked if you want to give me information?

Hermosa: And who are the other users?

Hermosa: How does this work?

Sombra: a curious mind, I like it ;)

Sombra: 1) just a precaution, 2) some friends of mine. Maybe three of us use this regularly. 3) it’s hard to explain, but do some research on virtualization if you want, it’s cool shit

Sombra: go to the corps tab, >Vishkar, >Rio/Calado

Satya goes to the tabs as ‘Sombra’ instructed. She looks through the compiled information and almost forgets to breathe.

There is CCTV footage of Symmetra in the Calado building on that night, footage that shows her knocking out guards and looking through files. There are recordings of conversations between Vishkar employees, Calado employees, and government officials. Medical reports, death certificates, lawsuits - there is so much information, so much incriminating information, that all she can do is sit and stare. The pinging sound of a notification startles her.

Sombra: I know this is probably a lot to take in

Sombra: this is what I wanted you to see first

One of the files becomes highlighted in purple. Satya clicks on the first one apprehensively.

It is a recording of a phone call between Sanjay and one of the Vishkar CEO’s underlings. Her heart sinks as she listens.

“-and good job with the placement, that fire saved us the headache of buying the land.” The man chuckled. “At this rate you’re in for a promotion, Korpal.”

“Thank you, sir,” Sanjay responded. “I should also let you know - Vaswani didn’t like what happened.”

“Well, that’s why we don’t leave the decision making to Vaswani, isn’t it? Remind her of her place, tell her whatever she wants to hear. Let her keep dreaming.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Keep a closer eye on her, too. We don’t want too many funny ideas to take root.”

“Yes, sir.”

Satya closes the recording. She sits and stares at the screen, at a loss for what to do. No, I- no. It can’t be real. It’s a joke. We’re making the world a better place.

Frustrated, she logs out of the website and goes to delete all traces of her conversation with Sombra. She is surprised to see that the document they had been talking through earlier had already been deleted and replaced with something new - “Satya.” She almost doesn’t want to, but she looks at what it says.

Satya-

I know this is hard to believe, but it is real. All the information I have to give you is real. You’re trying to make a better world - so am I. We can help each other. Just think about it. And don’t worry, I will make sure that there are no traces of me for Vishkar to find.

Vishkar will not stand forever. I’d love to work with you.

-Sombra

Satya closes the document, and moments later, it is deleted. She sits curled up on her couch, watching the sun set over the Utopaea skyline, and considers her options.

---

Sombra falls into an uneasy sleep after she finishes cleaning up the evidence of her intrusion into Vishkar’s network. She dreams of a child playing in a field with her brother and sister, waiting for their mother and father to call them in for dinner.

---

Sombra is woken at dawn by a notification. She checks the archive and selects the blinking chat window.

Hermosa: This is how it’s going to be. I will ask you questions - about anything and everything, and you will provide me with answers and sources proving those answers. If you ever lie to me, I’m out, and I will take everything I know to Vishkar. Deal?

Sombra laughs as she reads the message. I like her already.

She grins and responds.

Sombra: Deal

Author’s note: credit where credit is due - the talking via the word doc is inspired by the Millenium series by Steig Larsson, can’t remember which book

[blythewonder]

Good Girls Go Bad || Bridget & Molly [AR]

A sampling from the other side...

In Ashford River, Molly and Bridget deal with a deal gone somewhat wrong.

ft. the AR Boyfriends (aka Xavier and Jonas)

Molly was lying on the grass with one earbud tucked into her left ear as the other laid uselessly in the grass next to her head. The headphones had become a permanent accessory for Molly it seemed, and even at work the older Scribes didn't say anything to her about her headphones any longer. Not that they held much hold over her to begin with. Her father and grandfather held pretty high positions in this chapter and basically gave Molly immunity from any of the other Scribes that might have a problem with her or what she wore to work daily. But today wasn't a work day. Today she was just waiting for whoever Bridget had set up to buy some information to show up. Molly used to just supply the information for Bridget and let her handle the physical deal, accepting her cut afterwards. But she grew tired of sitting in the background and requested to start coming along just because she had grown bored. But waiting for this buyer to show up was equally as boring. "Is this a repeat customer? If so he sucks." Molly groaned from the ground, looking over at Bridget. She had been to a few meetings with her by now, but none that she had to wait outside in the cold for.

Bridget was sitting up, legs crossed as she scrolled through her phone, only half-paying attention to the buzz of the town around her. Her hair hung around her face in perfect curls. Her contact was supposed to arrive now, and she hated waiting. Always had. It was part of why she'd straight up applied early decision to college -- and even that hadn't been fast enough. "Where the fuck is he?" She glared at her phone, typing out a quick message. "He's repeat, but he's usually ​quite​ prompt." She glanced over to Molly. "You haven't heard anything, right? Because he's running on fifteen minutes late now and I'm ready to move on with my day." Her phone buzzed and she looked down. Someone else, not the guy they were supposed to be meeting. "What are you listening to?" She nodded at Molly as she pulled a package of gum out of her purse and unwrapped a piece. "Want one?" She held it out to her friend.

"He's quite late today," ​Molly​ pointed out the obvious, shaking her head at Bridget's next question. "Nope. I don't even know who the guy is. You made me promise not to hack into your stuff remember?" Molly had made it a habit of reading every file of every Scribe member that worked in Ashford River. Including Bridget's. And sometimes Molly took it a little further by adding a backdoor into their computer systems, especially if Molly thought it might be useful to her in the future. But the closer that her and Bridget became, the quicker Bridget became aware of just how capable Molly was with computers. She made Molly promise not to look into her personal things soon after that. Being the good friend Molly was, she had decided to respect that wish. "Avril Lavigne of course." A true pioneer of her generation and severely underappreciated. "Don't mind if I do" she popped the piece into her mouth and chewed for a bit before blowing a big bubble and letting it pop.

"So I've noticed." ​Bridget​ rolled her eyes. "I do remember, but I don't know, maybe you heard something from him." She tapped angrily at her phone again, red manicured nails clicking against the screen. "This isn't him, FYI." She said, chewing on her gum. "Some bullshit trainee Scribe wants to talk to me and ask about all my studies, just because one of my dads published that paper about fae languages. Like I give even one shit." She sighed. "Avril Lavigne? Not bad. A little dated, but hey, I like a girl who can appreciate the classics." She giggled, before blowing a bubble with her gum and sucking it back in. "I swear, if I get frostbite I'm going to kill somebody." She tugged her jacket tighter around her body.

Molly shrugged from her spot on the ground, barely doing anything except wrinkling her leather jacket. "I let you handle the people stuff I just steal the information." Molly had purposely built a login system into the Scribe server she created, specifically created as a security system for purposes exactly like how Molly now used it. The irony killed Molly too. All information logged or pulled up was kept under a specific Scribe number assigned to each person. That way she could keep track of who used what. Luckily Molly knew the only way around that. It's what made her so valuable to Bridget. "Have you told him that he can just look the stuff up on the computers and read the files for himself?" Molly suggested, a small part of her still acting in defensive of the to-be Scribe. She didn't care enough to actually get involved with it though. She glanced over at her phone, which currently had the camera feed from the park pulled up on it, to see a figure approaching the entrance. "Hey this dude looks shady is this your guy?" Molly asked, tossing her phone at Bridget.

Bridget nodded. "I'm aware, I'm quite a people person, funny enough. Thanks daddy and papa, at least you did something right." She made a face. "You know that I'm forever totally grateful to you for that, right?" She smiled over to Molly. It was true, she had grown incredibly fond of the other girl. Her job was possible to do solo -- she'd done just that back in Salem -- but having someone else made it all the more enjoyable. "I have. He says, and I practically quote, 'Oh, but Bridget, I want to talk to you.' Though he used the letter 'u' for 'you', but whatever." She glanced over to Molly's phone. "Mm-hmm, looks like him." She pushed herself off the ground, stuffing her own phone into her jacket pocket and crossed her arms over her chest. "Remember, he's curious about ashrays, right? He's just a warlock or something. Should be no problem-o at all."

Molly sat up and smiled widely at Bridget, "I know." She had been pretty thankful for the two finding each other. Before Bridget Molly had only ever stolen one file from that Scribes, and that was for Jonas. But that had been it. She had basically done nothing in her entire life wrong and had grown so incredibly bored of it. She needed something a little more flavorful in her live. "Maybe he has a crush on you. How adorable." Making a heart symbol with her hands and finally getting to her feet also. "Right. I got the flashdrive right here." She fished the flashdrive out of her jacket pocket and waved it around before stuffing it back into her pocket. "Ooh here comes the broody warlock right now. Work your magic Blythe."

"Well, so long as you know." ​Bridget​ grinned back to Molly. At least there was somebody else in the stifling place that was Ashford's HQ who she could stand to talk to. She made a face as Molly continued. "Oh I hope not. I mean, I am hot, but I don't think Xavier wants to share me, at least not with the boy who's been begging for the chance to talk to me. But hey, maybe I'll do it anyhow, wear an extra nice outfit, make his year." She let out a soft giggle. "Thanks a load." She nodded. "Don't call him that to his face, but I'm on it." Bridget fluffed the ends of her hair and made her way over to the man -- tall -- not as tall as Xavier, she noted with pride -- hair with way too much gel, a tattoo on his neck. As if he could become anything more of a stereotype. "We've got what you asked for," she smirked, making sure to keep the grin on her face as she stared up at him. "Every. Last. Detail." Bridget took a few steps closer to the man, relishing in the moment. "We don't disappoint," she cracked her gum, "so now all you've got to do is tuck that check of yours that I know you've already written," Bridget winked, "right into my pocket and my friend here'll give you just what you asked for, and then all of us can be out of this frigid weather." She blew out, her breath crystalizing, as if to make her point all the more clear. "Well, this'll be of good use." He replied. "But I wanna see what I'm getting first." He looked over to Molly. "Not given, just a view."

With a sort of astonished amazement, ​Molly​ watched as Bridget seemingly flipped a switch around different people. In front of the other Scribes Bridget was seemingly a perfect Scribe, living up to her legacy just as Molly was. And yet when she was with Molly she did almost a 180. Sarcastic, making fun of any Scribe that had dared to talk to her that day. She seemed real. Then in front of this man is was all business, with just a bit of fun tucked into it. Bridget was so good at playing others that she actually started to wonder just if the Bridget that Molly saw was the real one or just another mask. Whether or not that was the case, Molly couldn't help but like Bridget even more. Then the warlock turned his attention onto Molly and asked for the information. A preview at least. Right. Confirmation of the goods. People were good for this. She pulled her phone out of her jacket pocket and found his phone rather easily. Searching for Wi-Fi out here in the middle of the park? Not the wisest decision. She hacked into his phone easily and then pulled out the cord that connected from her phone and allowed someone to transfer a Flashdrive's information onto a cellular device. "Check your phone" she said, just as his phone began chiming. "Take a good luck now dude. Because that file will delete itself in about thirty seconds." As the grumbled and became distracted looking at his phone Molly grinned at Bridget and gave her a nonchalant thumbs up.

She almost wished Xavier could be here to watch her. But ​Bridget​ thoroughly enjoyed everything she did on her own. Without her sister around -- like her fathers had attempted to force upon her when she was a little girl. No, this was all on her own, and she'd gotten a true friend out of it in Molly, and so really, what was the harm? She could detail this to Xavier later when she went to his apartment. He'd said that he had a special surprise for her. She hoped it was new clothing. As the warlock -- Garvey -- spoke, Bridget chanced a glance over to Molly, watching in awe and appreciation as she worked her magic, before she turned back to Garvey. "I -- we -- don't disappoint." She winked at Molly. "This is good." Garvey said, voice gruff. "But I don't know, you're only two little girls, should I really pay you the full amount? This'll just be used for one quick viewing -- after all, that boy should be exposed for what he is, after all, and you two are charging quite the steep price." Bridget took a step forward, lips in a straight line. "We deliver, you pay." She glanced over at Molly. "My friend's done a fucking brilliant job, here. Also last I heard, you weren't doing this for any sort of bullshit exposure. I thought it was to gain some of their water or whatever. What gives?"

Excuse this creep, ​Molly​ was above average height for a female. She rolled her eyes at the man from a few feet back and began looking through his phone. Bridget even sounded a little confused as to his motives. Not that the two generally cared much for the reason behind wanting something from them, only caring about the highest bidder. But when those bidders went back on the money, Molly became a little more curious. She started going through his text messages, searching for anytime he used the word 'Ashray'. She flicked through a few messages that he had exchanged with a man who popped up in his phone as bae. Original. "Bridge. He's trying to expose a Scribe" She questioned out loud. Very clear, the name of a man that the two worked with at the headquarters who was clearly a an Ashray according to the file Molly had read when she started, was splattered all across their messages. "Our files detail how to kill an Ashray." Molly didn't care for the Scribes in any way, but she had worked with the guy. It wasn't like she wanted him to die. Molly took a deep breath, knowing that showing weakness was only going to make things worse. Instead, she did the next best thing she could think of. "Tsk tsk. You told your banking app to save your password?" She looked down at the phone dramatically, "And it's just your birthday backwards? Gotta do better than that dude." She tapped away at the phone, making sure to be extra loud with it. "You bitch" He growled, inching forward, but she held up a hand. "It'd be a lost cheaper to just give us the check than let me transfer out as much money as I can type in a second. Spoiler: It's a lot."

"Hm?" ​Bridget​ stepped away from the man for a minute, casting her eyes over to Molly. She'd had a bidder back out once before, or try to, until Bridget got him to change his mind. But this was different, and during that time she hadn't had Molly around to see if something else was up. Until now. "I don't--" ​care​, she wanted to say, but the words caught in her throat and she let out a sigh before flashing a glare over to Garvey. Damn Molly and her still mostly-present morals. At least when it came to caring about their co-workers. Not that Bridget advocated death, but she just wanted the deal cut and down with now, before her whole body froze. "Fuck off, Garvey." She moved away from Molly again. "You told me it was just so you could have fun with a bothersome one. You know I don't" -- ​usually​ "sell out my coworkers. That's some bullshit you're trying to pull on us." She crossed her arms. "My friend's not shitting you, so you better do what we say." Garvey took a step towards Bridget and she felt her body stiffen just slightly. "No can do, sweet-heart." He blew a kiss at the two of them. "You said you'd deliver, I never made you any kind of promise. So give me the file and all'll be well and good."

Molly could transfer all of the money out of his accounts in seconds, but that didn't seem to bother him. And without being able to threaten him electronically, what could Molly even do against the man? He was a warlock after all. Even if he was just a regular man she wasn't sure if the two could fight him off. Molly knew she couldn't. She inched backwards almost instinctively, letting a wave of fear wash over her. They could run right? Maybe they could. Could he stop them with some kind of magic? She played with the flash drive in her jacket pocket and thought about just handing it over to him. But before she could pull it out she saw a ridiculously tall figure approaching from behind the man. Next to him was a slightly shorter man and Molly was overcome with relief. "This douchebag giving you a problem?" The taller man called out curiously. The boyfriends were here.

Bridget wasn't sure exactly what do do. She had half a mind to grab the flashdrive from Molly and step on it, but what good would that do? Garvey didn't seem to be the sort to let things like that go lightly. Or maybe she could grab the flashdrive and just give it to him. One fewer scribe for the world to have to deal with. "I--" she'd began, before Xavier and Jonas appeared and Bridget let out a sigh of relief, flashing a grin over to Xavier. "He is." She pouted, just slightly. Not enough for it to be whinny, but just enough that he came over and pulled her closer to his body. "Dude, what gives?" Xavier said, his voice slightly gruff. "Breaking promises can lead to other broken things, let that sink into your mind." Bridget glanced over to Jonas, wondering if he'd speak up or if he and Molly were going to let her and Xavier do all the talking. She almost hoped he'd speak up. The two of them had shown up, the least they could do would be provide some use to the situation.

"What do you want me to do with him?" Jonas whispered into ​Molly​'s ear s he wrapped his arms around her waist from behind her. She stood just a few inches short than he did, just enough for him to rest his chin on her shoulder. Molly grinned. "Well a few broken bones wouldn't hurt too bad would it?" She asked out loud, mostly to the four of them. With all four of them here, this warlock did little more than annoy Molly. "What do you two think of some broken bones?" She called out to Bridget and Xavier.

"I wouldn't be opposed to a little of that, how about you?" Xavier pressed his lips against ​Bridget's​ head. "I haven't done that in a long while." He glanced over to Jonas and back to Garvey. Bridget found herself straightening up a little taller. Not that she would have let someone like the warlock ruffle her, but having both her and Molly's boyfriends here just made everything all the more thrilling. Especially when Garvey was at least four inches shorter than Xavier. "It might be a proper response, given how gosh darn disrespectful he's been to us, don't you think?" Bridget blew a bubble with her gum and let it ​pop!​ against her lips, sucking it in. "What goes around comes around, huh? In all sorts of funny ways."

"Fuck you guys," The warlock growled, pulling the crumpled check out of his pocket and practically throwing it at Bridget and Xavier before scampering off across the grass and out of their line of sight. Molly and Jonas both immediately busted out laughing. "What a fucking prick" Jonas laughed, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket, popping it in his mouth, and then lighting it, "Should let me go after him. I could catch him." Molly shook her head and shrugged his suggestion off. "Don't worry. The ARPD are going to realize that they actually have an open warrant for arrest on Garvey for attempted murder soon." She beamed from her phone, then pulled herself free from Jonas and made her way over offering a high five to both Xavier and Bridget, "We crushed that deal I think?"

"I love you." ​Bridget​ giggled, blowing a kiss toward Molly. "Best to let him go," Bridget began, glancing up at Xavier, "you can beat something up later, okay?", she bent down to pick up the check, pulling it tight between her hands, "we got paid and didn't even have to give him anything!" She gave a high-five to Molly. "I think this calls for extra celebration, if I do say so myself. Not every day you just get money and an afternoon off, hm?"

“I say we got get some drinks" ​Molly​ suggested. She was still underage, but Jonas had an in with more than a few of the bars here in town. And all of the owners knew Molly now by association. They didn't mind letting her drink when Jonas was with her. "I could really go for a cheeseburger right now" She laughed, wrapping her arms around Jonas in a hug before falling into pace with him, walking alongside Xavier and Bridget. "Maybe you'll get lucky and some drunk guy with start a bar fight Xavier. Then you can break some bones." Nothing was better than making some money on the side then spending her day off with her four best friends.

[cupkayke]

For the fanfiction questions thing: 1, 3, 6, 11, 17, 21, 25, 27, 36, 40, 41, 46, 50 and 51 (I hope these aren't too many)

 Not too many at all! I like talking about myself lol.

Under a cut because longggggg.

1) What was the first fandom you got involved in?

Oh gosh, definitely Tokyo Mew Mew. I never wrote fanfics for it but I co-owned and then owned an Avidgamers RP site for TMM called MewUSA back in like 2004-2006. Avidgamers was a forum site engine that was pretty damn nice for its time (also FREE, that was a plus) and I spent HOURS creating characters, storylines, and layouts for it. There were TONS of individual in-character boards and I think we may have had up to 100 unique users at one point. The detailed characters/plotlines were BASICALLY fanfiction- I think I did an entire rp with myself between a few of my characters once- and it was a whole lot of fun. Some of the OCs from that site were repurposed into a longrunning rp I have with @liarino on AIM and I am FOREVER grateful that I met them through that site

Fanfic-wise, it was Full Metal Alchemist. I had a horrendous LITERAL self-insert OC fic called ‘Nice of Me to Drop In’ that was based on an RP I did with a different friend. Plot? ‘Fangirl of FMA LITERALLY FALLS INTO HER TELEVISION AND WAKES UP IN THE UNIVERSE AND FALLS IN LOVE WITH ALPHONSE’. The end. I never finished it but holy shitballs it got SO MANY REVIEWS. I’m surprised how many people actually enjoyed it- I did get some criticisms but despite the fact that it was so cringe-worthy that I took it down it still got sooooo much positive feedback. I sometimes wonder if people would still be reading it on ff.net if I hadn’t taken it down the last time I overhauled that account. I still have some Ouran oneshots on there that I wrote TEN FUCKING YEARS AGO that still get reviews. Dayum. 

3) What is the best fandom you’ve ever been involved in?

I have to say it’s a tie between the Tokyo Mew Mew fandom circa 2003-2006 and the Ouran fandom from about 2006-2008. My experience with them was limited to RP boards but I had the MOST FUN running MewUSA and a long-running Gaia RP ‘Hosting the Hosts’ because of the warm response to the concepts. The TMM fandom especially was super creative even back in the day- there were so many fan mew mews because the formula was so easy and that was one series that I didn’t mind OCs because the concept was easily applied. In-universe, the creator could have easily made more Mew Mews. So the possibilities were endless. That’s also the fandom I learned the majority of my writing skills from, even if I did get called out a couple times for shitty RPing. I got better and I was so sad when the engine finally kicked the bucket. Aside from the RP sites the TMM fandom had sooooo many fansites dedicated to the show- my other favorite being Neko Tokyo. I think that site might still be up… 

Ouran was limited to that RP I ran but damn I never had one so fun. That group of writers was hysterical and I actually met one of them in person because by sheer coincidence she lived near me. She moved soon after we figured it out but she came back for a convention and we hung out all weekend. Unfortunately I don’t remember her name and I lost her phone number T_T I wonder where she is sometimes. I wonder where a lot of my fan friends from back then are. The problem with early 2000s internet.

Tho I think Boueibu will be my new modern fave fandom.

6) List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

 Ohhhh dear. I’ll keep it to ones that I actually ship characters in because a lot of my early fandoms were MYSELF AS AN OC X HOT MALE CHARACTER. OTL. I was a weeb. Most of these are fandoms I’ve rped in rather than written fanfiction for, however.

Tokyo Mew Mew- PuddingxTart. I like to read IchigoxKisshu fanfics sometimes but that ship is highly problematic looking back on it lol

Code Lyoko - THROWBACK. JeremiexAelita. Adorable.

Ouran HSHC - I’m fond of HunnyxHaruhi (as evidenced by my mostly abandoned ff.net account) but basically AnyonexHaruhi is super cute. I think I read a fic once where Haruhi was in a relationship with ALL of the guys and it was actually super interesting. I don’t think I can find it again, tho.

Harry Potter - Drarry.

Walking Dead - CarolxDaryl FTW. and Richonne. I’ve toyed with the idea of writing fanfics for WD but never quite get up to it.

Mass Effect - Shakarian. Fuck yes. Fun fact I have an unfinished smutfic on the mass effect kinkmeme livejournal that I will EVENTUALLY FINISH ONE DAY AND PUBLISH UNDER MY NAME buuuut for now it will remain an anonymous abandoned fic.

Boueibu - …All of them? OTL I can’t pick one ship… tho if you force me… IoRyuu and BeppuMoto OT3.

YOI - I think everyone’s OTP is Victuuri.

11) Who is your current OTP?

Victuuri.

17)  Who was your first OTP and are they still your favourite?

Since Boueibu is my current fandom- I immediately was drawn to Enatsu since s1 had a relatively large focus on them but I’ve kind of fallen out of actively shipping them. I like them as a couple and I think they’re def boyfriends material but they’re definitely a comfortable ship. Their personalities are just… drama-free, so their relationship to me just seems like a quiet background relationship. IoRyuu is a little more volatile and I really like ships where there is a lot of between-the-lines interpretation and potential for conflict. Also I just really like the Beppus

21) What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. The aformentioned ‘Nice of Me to Drop In’ FMA OC Mary Sue Self insert fic. Definitely the first one I ever published on the interwebs. Although I think TECHNICALLY my very first one was a Pokemon story that I was writing for a little kid neighbor of mine back when I was like… 11. I think I had just gotten a computer in my room and I remember typing it up and drawing some cover art for it… it was basically an expanded version of the episode where Meowth and Pikachu were handcuffed together or something… except there were more Pokemon involved and ALL of the characters were friends. Like Brock and Tracey were both with Ash and Misty and all of the Team Rocket people were friends for some reason. Idk I was a weird child.

Ohhh maybe a tie for the FMA fic was a Code Lyoko one I wrote around the same time called ‘Desert Rose’. I can’t remember now which was published first because I deleted them all. Another Mary Sue OC fic but I actually am still kind of proud of how I expanded the Lyoko universe in my head. I came up with new areas to Lyoko and like a central region and how they all connected. Nevermind the fact that the girl with a CAT THAT COULD OPERATE THE COMPUTER was the main character and obviously I shipped her with Odd because YumiUlrich and JeremieAeilita were OTPs. It was weird.

25) What’s your most popular fanfic?

If the story was still up it might have been ‘Nice of Me to Drop In’ because that fic still haunts me. Buuut it’s either ‘Naptime’ or ‘Desire’, one of my two Hunny x Haruhi fics from my Ouran days that I left up on ff.net for posterity. I have no desire to go read the cringe and find out which one has more hits but I bet it’s the G-rated ‘Naptime’ cuz ‘Desire’ is a) the first M rated Hunny x Haruhi fic on ff.net EVER and b) really really bad porn written by like, 16-year-old me. Oops. It’s a smidgen OOC on the part of Haruhi if I remember right buuut I actually still stand by the idea that Hunny is not as childlike as he seems.

Oh dear maybe that’s why I like Yumoto so much. Similar character type. OTL

27) What do you hate more: Coming up with titles or writing summaries?

I feel like I’m horrendous at both but lately it’s titles that are giving me trouble. 2 of the 3 Boueibu fics I’ve written had different working titles that got changed the second the story went up to be published. I’m having a brain fart and can’t remember them but both ‘All the Pretty Little Horses’ and ‘Completely’ were titled something really stupid. And your giftfic was ‘?’ until I decided on the central theme lol.

36) What’s your favourite genre to write?

I don’t like reading romance novels but I love writing shippy stuff. Tension, build….smut

40)  What do you struggle the most with in your writing?

Pacing in longer works, definitely. Also just… keeping up with it. I am a horrible procrastinator and if I don’t actually have a deadline with external consequences then I never get anything done. I can’t set my own deadlines because I can always move them. I can’t get my family or friends to set them for me because I know they’ll forgive me if I fail (how horrible lol). I have tons upon tons of unfinished fics from fandoms past sitting somewhere in the depths of my word documents folder and about as many original short stories. I have so many ideas but because I get easily distracted and also because I am now working full time and suffer from typical adult exhaustion I can only put a fraction of them on paper. 

My inner critic is also a fucking bitch. I can’t get her to shut her face long enough to write a sentence sometimes. Again, I have to have a deadline looming before I can put her on mute most times. If I have infinite time, she doesn’t shut up and makes me rewrite a sentence 100 times because it sounds stupid.

41) List and link to 5 fanfics you are currently reading:

Ahahahaha… I don’t have 5 simultaneously because I can’t just… not finish reading something before moving onto the next one. I don’t also read things that are unfinished unless they sound REALLY interesting because I’m stupid impatient. But I guess for my current fandom (Boueibu) I’ll link 5 fics I read recently that I liked! 

1) Pink Blood - @magiccatprincess (okay actually this is one I’m going to read soon because it looked interesting… so it fits the question lol)

2) tuesdays - @vagarius (because how can I not love something written for me?

3) Liar - BlackJoker77 (A whoooole lot accomplished here in not a lot of words. Also, Yumoto character study/reading between the lines? Yush.)

4) ….. ok I ran out of ideas. I don’t bookmark anything OTL. I’ll come back to this question at another time with an ACTUAL answer.

46) If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why?

I’m most proud of ‘Completely’ at the moment- I really like how I pulled off Ryuu’s voice and it’s most definitely a scene I wanted to see written… so I’m happy that I was able to provide that scene

50) How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction?

It was basically an extention of RPing for the writing portion of it- ‘Nice of Me to Drop In’ was basically a cleaned up RP and when it wasn’t rping it was fan gratification for the other early fics I did. As a kid I used to (and still sometimes do) make up stories in my head when I was about to go to sleep, and a lot of them were episodes of my favorite shows that I wanted to see. So I’d put some of them on paper. And then it moved into the ~romance~ category; I was a hopeless romantic as a teenager and like a lot of teenage girls I was kind of horny so fanfiction was a way to explore my sexuality in the comfort of my own head, basically. I still like me a good smutfic and bonus points if it’s romantic AND smutty. My bf can definitely tell when I’ve been reading something naughty….

51) Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

Okay, Imma do both! And I have 2 things to rant about because I can’t shut up.

Rant: This is more of a thing that I hate about MYSELF reading fanfics, but I hate that I get turned off of fics so quickly because of writing style. When I can push past beginners writing mistakes or mediocre quality writing I can sometimes find gem fics with plots/characterizations I find adorable, but more often than not I click out of fics after just a few sentences because I can’t stand poor writing. And I feel so elitist about it! Fanfics are free, fan-generated content. A lot of fanfics are written by kids or beginner writers. I have to keep reminding myself that not every fanfic author has gone to school for writing. They may not know the conventions of literature. They may not realize that they’re head-hopping in the middle of paragraphs. They may not know the proper way to punctuate dialogue (and I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW until grad school!!!!). If I let mistakes get in the way of content I may miss out on an up and coming writer. And lord knows I was horrendous when I first started. Everyone starts somewhere. I hate that it takes me so long to get out of teacher/writing student mode and truck through some writing that may not technically be the best but their heart is in the right place. 

Rant2: I don’t like how isolated fanfiction can feel sometimes. It seems like people don’t comment on fics as much as they used to, and I see these posts going around on tumblr about how authors LOOOOOVE comments and want more of them but then comments just… don’t appear. It’s not so hard to post one thing you really liked about the story, and even one thing you didn’t like. Comments help authors grow.I also don’t like how it’s so hard to find a beta reader or three to bounce ideas off of and proofread your work.

Gush: I love communities. I love the events fanfic authors put together. I love how when communities get tight-knit how everyone builds each other up and gives one another ideas. I just love fanfiction in general, really

aaaaaand SHEW. That was a lot. BUT DEF NOT TOO MUCH

[datingadviceonreddit]

If this isn't allowed please let me know!! I just joined reddit today, I'm trying to navigate through all the rules and such.This is a long read, I do apologize. I'm 20(F), turn 21 this year if that matters.I don't have the best guy history.My guy best friend in high school lead me to believe for three years we were together, then he told me I was worthless after I'd asked him senior year where we were headed. Told me it was fun but he's pretty sure he's gay. I cut off all contact, deleted social media, his number. His friends, still, every now and then attempt to contact me and tell me his new number, that he wants to talk to me. I've blocked all of them as well, but they continue to make new accounts to find me again.I got a job after high school and five months in we had someone transfer in because we were desperate for workers. I fell for him, and he and I seemed pretty great together. We talked a lot about his family and he's even cried in front of me before. I snuck to work on an off day to see him and we cozied up outside for hours and talked. It felt like heaven. Later on in this-come to find out-not relationship, he let slip he'd like to bang a coworker of mine if she had been single. It bothered me of course. Things got different after that because wtf?? As it turned out he had a girlfriend in a different state, but their relationship had been on the rocks. Guess he sought me out because he was lonely or wanted love in exchange for nothing. I started treating him the way he started treating me and we grew apart, then he wound up sleeping with my coworker. He's gone now. I know it's my fault he's gone but I don't care. I'm glad.I decided then to give up on love, like any other typical teenage girl would do. One night, on nightshift, I came in crying because my mom and I had been fighting before I got to work. I immediately found my work mom and held onto her for dear life, and one of my regulars had spotted me crying and had purchased a rose for me. He was a very sweet kid, he bought me my first ever rose. Naturally I thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever laid eyes on.He wound up giving me his number one day and we talked; about music, about passions and hobbies, about everything. Sent each other jokes. We had a little date planned for a Saturday I requested off, and the Thursday before that he called the store to say he was coming in on roller skates. I was there with my work mom and a coworker who was in the back doing dishes, and she really wanted to see him roll in because we thought it would be funny. Now, this coworker is someone who amped the relationship between he and I, told me how excited she was for me, and pushed me to talk to him more. Told me to break from my shell a bit. So I did. Anyway, he rolled in but was so fast the coworker didn't get a chance to see him. Later she told me a joke and I sent it to him, but he never responded. Thought he was just busy, so I didn't worry about it. Didn't see him for a while. Called him and texted about our date but he completely ghosted me.The coworker got weird around me and one day she contacted me to say she'd slept with him. Said they were in love. Said it didn't mean anything. Continued to contradict. I just couldn't believe this had happened again. What the ever loving fuck was I doing wrong? He had even brought his parents in from Florida and they all came to the store together. I felt like she was rubbing it in and the other workers thought so as well. I was absolutely so bitter about this situation to the point that she quit her job. They eloped to Florida.I stayed the night with my coworker best friend (I'd known her 2 years) during a promotional training week of mine, and when we were going to sleep (slightly drunk) I'd told her I had a friend crush on a guy coworker. She was the only one I'd told this to. Didn't tell my work mom, either. Found it wasn't important because I wasn't wanting a relationship. So as a result of that, most everyone at work knew I liked him and the info got back to him. My anxiety about this whole thing was so overwhelming that I had to confront him about it because God only knows what exactly she said. So I told him I had a little bit of a crush on him, and I already knew about his preexisting feelings for me. We talked things through about how it wouldn't work, how the age gap made me super uncomfortable, and so we agreed to just be friends. He wound up moving in with a coworker and I didn't find out until after I'd gotten out of the hospital when I'd stayed for over a week. Now, I wasn't affected by this at first, but later I was upset that even if everyone had thought I liked him, now someone else all of a sudden does? I keep going through this exact pattern and I'm not sure how to change it.A few months back we were hiring specifically for assistant managers to send off to other stores. Apparently one of these dudes liked me, I just wasn't aware. I slowly started talking to him. He told me he was in an open relationship, but I didn't think anything of it because I wasn't particularly experienced in this area. And this seems off topic, but honestly things had been rough here with my mom. So yes, I was seeking external comfort. It wasn't from the best place. I know. I just wanted a human fucking connection, okay? And I still do.Anyway, I won't go into super detail but shit got heated too fucking quickly for my liking and long story short he tried to rape me. He no longer works for us. Christmas time isn't going to be the same.I told our new assistant about a cute regular I'd liked since I started working there, she wanted to kinda push me into it (but not force!! I told her I wanted to date but didn't know how to go about things considering all the other shit). So he comes up, she initiates a threesome joke, and I of course get flustered and red faced. He asked for both our numbers. I figured go ahead and forget it considering he wanted both numbers. So I dropped it. She wasn't interested in him at all, and she let him know that too.Later on, months later, I'd wound up sick in the hospital again. Was out of work for three or so weeks. I got back, and that regular asked where I'd been. Over the next few weeks we started flirting, and I finally had the balls to give him my number.I'm actually still texting him, have been since mid February. But I don't exactly know where this is headed. I don't want to be the "what are we?" girl. We have excellent chemistry, but he almost seems kind of introverted-and I find myself initiating most text conversations. I'm an introvert myself, but dealing with the opposite sex is something that I'm just now learning how to really do. As it turns out, I'm really good at flirting (when I'm not awkward and anxious lol). He's bought me roses at work, he held his hand out a couple weeks ago and offered me a hug. We hug almost every time he comes in.I'd just really like to get to know him. Without scaring him off. I want something stable, for once, without the doubt of a coworker taking over. He's an absolute sweetheart (as far as I've seen). And of course we got the virus stuff going on. Can't exactly go out with someone when you can't go out lol.They always say to take risks and put yourself out there but the more I do, the more I seem to get fucked over. I know this isn't going to be forever but at this point the same thing keeps happening and it isn't like I can flat out ask a new guy "Is there any chance you'll sleep with my coworker after I give you my number?"I'm nervous as all hell, quite frankly. I'm merely wanting a connection that serves as more than something physical (I've never been physically intimate with any of those guys, either. Love before sex). I consider myself old fashioned in the romantical sense, but for some reason I'm always drawing in the hookup culture types. I sincerely doubt on my initial meeting with a man I should say, directly, "I'm wanting a commitment. You in?" But at the same time, I feel as if there isn't a way to communicate that without being direct. It's like I'm going about this stuff the wrong way. Am I naive? A bit. I'm young, it's to be expected. But I don't have anyone to look up to in this department so I seek out Google answers or advice from strangers on the internet. Some of you fuckers are smart, though.How do I go about attracting the right guys? via /r/dating_advice

[kennethherrerablog]

Manage Your Money, You Must: 10 Money Lessons We Learned from ‘Star Wars’

The Force will be with us — always.

Because “Star Wars” has embedded itself so deeply into our cultural DNA, it continues to shape the way we think about life.

Over numerous movies and assorted iterations, “Star Wars” has taught us about overcoming obstacles, about dealing with family drama, about friendship, about patience, about beating the odds — and even about money.

Because this is The Penny Hoarder, we’re especially interested in the part about money.

Even though the epic saga of Luke Skywalker & Co. played out a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, the financial wisdom we gleaned from it applies to the here and now.

Now, prepare to make the jump into hyperspace! Here’s what we’ve learned:

1. Always Pay Your Debts — Or Else

Bingo. This is always the first one everyone thinks of.

Han Solo owes money to the giant slug-like crime boss, Jabba the Hutt. When he doesn’t pay up, Jabba sends bounty hunter Boba Fett after him — basically a debt collector with blaster pistols and green Mandalorian armor.

Instead of declaring Chapter 7 bankruptcy, Han ends up frozen in carbonite. Then Princess Leia, Luke, Lando and the iconic droids have to infiltrate Jabba’s lair to save him in a sequel.

Just like with Solo, the longer you don’t pay off your debts, the bigger the problem gets. The interest piles up.

Pro Tip

Credit cards companies charge compound interest. If you don’t pay off your bill each month, the company charges interest that is added to the amount you owe. Then that new total is charged interest.

Your first step should be to figure out what you’re dealing with. Map out exactly what kind of debt you have. For example, which companies do you owe money to? Are any of your debts in collections? What are your minimum monthly payments on each credit card or loan?

An easy way to start doing this is to sign up with a free service like Credit Sesame. This tool shows your balance on any unpaid bills, credit cards or loans. It also offers tips on reducing your debt and raising your credit score.

2. Used Vehicles Offer the Best Value

The Millennium Falcon takes its share of verbal abuse in multiple “Star Wars” films.

“You came in that thing? You’re braver than I thought,” Princess Leia says upon first seeing the starship. And in “The Force Awakens,” Rey calls the ship “garbage.”

But the Millennium Falcon gets the job done. (Did we mention that it made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs?) Turns out you don’t always need a shiny new vehicle.

Used cars are often a better deal than new ones. Consumer Reports recommends buying a car that’s two or three years old. For tips on buying a used car, go here or here or here.

You’ll need to take care of your ride, though. (The Falcon’s hyperdrive keeps breaking down despite Chewbacca’s best efforts in “The Empire Strikes Back.”)

According to a AAA survey, 1 in 3 U.S. drivers can’t pay for an unexpected auto repair. Consider creating an emergency fund with a high-yield bank account.

3. Negotiate the Best Deal You Can

Early in “A New Hope,” Luke and Uncle Owen are bargaining with some creepy little jawas over the price of some used droids.

When an R2 unit they’d just bought immediately breaks down, Uncle Owen aggressively questions the quality of what the jawas are selling: “Hey, what are you trying to push on us?”

The result: Luke’s family gets the best droid ever, R2-D2.

Negotiating isn’t just for markets and cars, any variable expense can be negotiated to a lower price — you just have to know what to look for.

4. “Do or Do Not. There is No Try.”

Yoda’s admonition to Luke in “The Empire Strikes Back” is probably the biggest zen moment in any of these movies.

As always, Yoda is right on target. You’re either going to do it, or you’re not. Don’t just try.

If you’re going to make financial changes, commit to them and be consistent. Don’t just try once or twice and then forget about it. Sticking to it is the key to success.

Pro Tip

Help yourself by making it harder to spend. Deleting your credit card number from your internet browser can create just enough of a hurdle to force you to pause before giving in to that impulse buy.

For instance, saving money is hard. Consider trying an auto-savings app like Acorns.

Once you connect it to a debit or credit card, it rounds your purchases up to the nearest dollar and funnels your digital change into a savings or investment account.

Because the money comes out in increments of less than $1, you’re less likely to feel an impact in your bank account.

5. Don’t Let the Little Details Blow Up On You

The Empire spared no expense on the Death Star, don’t you think?

You’ve got to figure that moon-sized battle stations capable of blowing up planets don’t come cheap (especially two of them).

But they overlooked that pesky little design flaw that allowed the Rebel Alliance to destroy the whole thing. Whoops!

Don’t neglect the details like that, because they’ll burn you. Don’t skimp on maintenance and repairs for big-ticket items like your home and car. If you blow that stuff off, you’ll just end up paying more in the end.

Another lesson from the Death Star: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. The Empire sure had a lot riding on its supercool Death Star, didn’t it?

Don’t depend on just one thing. Diversify your investments. Here’s how one woman used an app to make sure her 401(k) was in balance.

6. Get Rid of Your Old Stuff

The “Star Wars” universe looks different than Star Trek and other sci-fi settings. “Star Wars” has that “lived-in” look — there’s junk everywhere. You know, just like your house.

And in the “Star Wars” movies, people make money selling that junk — just like you should.

In “The Force Awakens,” Rey is a scavenger on the planet Jakku, feeding herself by salvaging parts from ships.

On Luke’s home planet of Tatooine, those jawas we mentioned earlier appear to be scavengers, too.

Pro Tip

Letgo is an app that lets you connect with people who want your old stuff. It’s free to use — just snap a photo, upload your item and add a description and price.

In “The Phantom Menace” — hey, here’s our first and only mention of the prequels! — Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi meet young Anakin Skywalker in a junk shop where he fixes things.

Meanwhile, here on our planet, a number of apps are making it easier than ever to sell your old stuff online.

To free up space and earn some extra cash, use apps to sell your stuff. Listing the right stuff in the right marketplaces means you’re more likely to sell it for the right price.

7. Beware of Scams. Know What Things Are Worth.

Toward the beginning of “The Force Awakens,” a hungry Rey nearly pawns the droid BB-8 in exchange for 60 portions of inflatable food. She’s sorely tempted, but senses something is wrong and backs off.

That’s the surest way to spot a scam: If a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Whether you’re selling a droid or shopping for shoes online, you’ve got to watch out for rip-offs. Here’s how to protect yourself from imposter scams, credit repair scams, identity theft and senior scams.

As long as identity theft remains a huge problem you need to keep an eye on your credit and transactions.

8. Embrace the Gig Economy

When Luke and Obi-Wan need transportation to Alderaan, they basically catch an Uber. A space Uber. They pay for the Millennium Falcon to take them there.

Here on Earth, you can make like Han and Chewie in your Honda or Chevy by driving with Uber or Lyft and make extra money each week on your own schedule.

Pro Tip

In addition to age requirements for drivers, Uber and Lyft both have age restriction for your vehicle that are based on regulations in your city.

There are other entry-level ways to make money nowadays that you can do on your own time – and from your phone – thanks to the growing gig economy.

Craigslist is an easy place to sell your services under the “Gigs” section. Pay and tasks will vary, of course. And if you don’t trust Craigslist, check out TaskRabbit or Fiverr – to name just a few.

9. If the Deal Turns to the Dark Side, Cut Your Losses

Here at The Penny Hoarder, we’re always looking for good deals.

We’re always asking, Is this a good deal or not a good deal? And when we hear the words “deal” and “”Star Wars”,” we can’t help but think of Lando Calrissian in “The Empire Strikes Back.”

Lando … Lando did not get a good deal.

When Han, Leia and Chewie first turn up in Cloud City, Lando tells them, “I’ve just made a deal that’ll keep the Empire out of here forever.”

Of course, the deal involves betraying his friends. Later, Darth Vader menacingly informs Lando, “I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”

Still later, when Vader threatens Lando further and mistreats his friends, Lando fumes, “This deal is getting worse all the time!”

That’s when he switches sides.

If you make a deal and the reality doesn’t match what you were promised, be prepared to walk away. Cut your losses and move on.

10. Sand People Always Walk in Single File to Hide Their Numbers

You see, from this we can learn that … no, no, wait. That’s not a good example at all. We learn no financial truths from that.

We’ve got nothing for you here.

Let’s try this instead. One of the most important lessons we learned from “Star Wars” is:

10. Make Sure You Have a Long-Term Plan

The heroes and villains of the “Star Wars” universe are seriously into some long-term planning.

Emperor Palpatine’s master plan takes several movies to unfold. After he reveals himself to be Darth Sidious and strikes, Yoda and Obi-Wan lay low for a couple of decades after the prequels, waiting for their chance to return the favor.

Of course, when we first meet Obi-Wan and Yoda, they’re chilling in a cave and a swamp, respectively. Apparently the Jedi Council didn’t have much of a 401(k) match.

The sooner you start saving, investing and paying down your debt, the better off you’ll be.

All told, that’s everything that “Star Wars” has taught us about money so far. Take it as you will.

Do, or do not.

There is no try.

Mike Brassfield (mike@thepennyhoarder.com) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. His “Star Wars”-loving co-workers helped out with this post.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

Manage Your Money, You Must: 10 Money Lessons We Learned from ‘Star Wars’ published first on https://justinbetreviews.tumblr.com/

[mnefaulkerson]

Why I Deleted My Twitter Account with 7,000 Followers

Hi everyone! About two months ago (April I think?), I deleted my Twitter account. I thought I should write a post explaining this as some of you have been asking me about it.

My Issues with Social Media

First off you guys know my stance with regards to social media. While social media used to be a great place for authentic conversations, it has become a very “noisy” commercial ground now. When I use social media as a content publisher, I feel like I’m just one drop in a very large ocean, where my comments have no impact whatsoever. There are just way too many — think hundreds of millions of — content creators on social media these days, with many using bots, digital assistants, and agencies to tweak every aspect of their social media messaging, so that they can get the best engagement and ROI for their posts.

This is vastly different than years ago, say in 2011, when I was having many authentic interactions with readers on Facebook and social media has not become the monster that it is now.

These days though, the notifications on my FB and Twitter are either spam, some commercialized plug, or some pointless alert. It has become very tiring to log into my social media accounts each day with a bright red alert showing XX notifications, only to sieve through them and see that they are pointless updates. I have talked about these issues in these posts: Why I Deleted My Facebook Page, Challenges that I’m Facing Today, and The Fear of Missing Out (I’ve since reinstated my Facebook page after deleting it in 2016, but I no longer actively maintain it).

This is legitimately how I feel when I log onto social media and my inbox every day for the past few years (Screencap from Detroit Become Human; Image: theRadBrad)

My Issues with Twitter

In the same vein, Twitter has become a frustrating and unrewarding experience for me in the past few years.

To begin with, most readers of PE do not follow me there. Many readers here don’t use Twitter, while those who do don’t connect with me using that channel. I think Twitter has a specific demographic and most PE readers are just not active Twitter users. Users who want to get my updates sign up for my mailing list (which is the official channel to get my updates btw — I post stuff that I don’t post here, including new courses and special messages). For anyone wants to send me a message, the contact form is the way to go.

Next, when I looked at my Twitter followers — about 7,000 of them — I realized that (a) this number has not been growing for the past two years, and (b) 99.9% of them are inactive or “dead.” “Dead” followers because the people no longer use their accounts, or people are following so many accounts that users like me who believe in tweeting less, not more, can no longer be heard anymore. Out of these 7,000, maybe only three people actively read and reply to my tweets (hi Charles, Ted, and Rick!). It became clear that my Twitter follower count has become a vacant number. While I was meticulously maintaining my Twitter account every day for the past few years and thinking that I was reaching 7,000 followers with every tweet, I was really shouting into a black hole.

Following this, I then looked at my Twitter messages. Over the years, I began to receive a high proportion of empty alerts, such as notifications of some company bot tweeting out my articles and tagging me, usually done to increase exposure of their account/business. Messages from content creators trying to network, expressing manufactured interest in what I wrote — but the reality is they are just trying to network to spread the word about their service. Nothing wrong with what they are doing, but when I check Twitter, I’m looking for authentic conversations with people who really read PE, not networking requests and solicitation. These are things that I’ve dealt with immensely for the past ten years, and I feel like I’m at a stage of my life (mid-30s) where I just want to move on and focus on creating content and live my life, not battle the same things that I had been dealing with in my 20s.

Note that this issue is specific to me rather than most Twitter users. Running a very large front-facing website has made me the target of an enormous amount of spam and solicitation requests. When I looked at my issues with Facebook, blog comments, contact form, and now Twitter, it’s the same thing — an enormous amount of spam, noise, and empty comments because of my blog’s visibility. While I used to get a ratio of 100% authentic to 0% noise in my messages, now it’s more like 99.9% noise.

Frustration vs. Inspiration

After thinking about this, I realize the fundamental problem is that the social media landscape and internet landscape has changed enormously since I started my website. Conversations online used to be authentic because most users were using the internet in an authentic way. These days, the internet has become massively commercialized, while abusers have a huge amount of power due to the democratization of technology and automation tools.

The answer is then to change the way I use social media. I asked myself: If this platform is making me feel so frustrated when using it, should I continue using it then? The answer was clearly, a “no.”

To be honest, I felt a little surprised by my answer. Because having a Twitter account feels so basic, so essential in today’s world, something that every business owner must have. Every time you sign up for a new service, you will invariably be asked for your Twitter handle (and Facebook page ID). Not having a Twitter account is unheard of. It feels blasphemous. It feels like you are some backward, outdated business owner who is not in touch with his/her audience.

But is it true though? Because even when I was managing a Twitter account with “7,000 followers,” I didn’t feel like I was reaching anyone. Every time I tweeted something, I felt like I was throwing a coin into an abyss. I didn’t feel this way in the early years of Twitter — it’s only so in the recent years as social media morphed into some giant, monster entity. These days, I feel like everyone is shouting at the top of their lungs and commercial businesses have unlimited resources to micro-optimize every aspect of their presence, and social media is no longer the right place for me to connect with my audience: everyday people without a voice, people whom I want to speak out to and help.

Facebook and Twitter were good ways for me to connect with my audience in the late 2000s to early 2010s, but not anymore as they have morphed into totally different beasts that favor quick engagement and short-form conversation. What I’m interested in is creating long-form, deep content on important life topics, and these are just not well-suited for Facebook and Twitter’s algorithm and landscape today.

“Death by a Thousand Cuts”

In retrospect, I should have considered deleting Twitter two years ago. I feel like this is a case of “death by a thousand cuts,” something which I feel is very common in today’s social media world. When something is unpleasant, if the unpleasantness is on a very small level, you will usually tolerate it. What social media giants have done today is that they are delivering many little cuts slowly, over a long period of time. Tweaking the platform little by little, changing the rules every other day, altering the algorithm in a way that builds stickiness for them (but creates user fatigue), inserting little ads everywhere (having some ads is okay, but overoptimizing ad placement creates a very negative user experience), and just making changes that maximize profit rather than create value.

Since these cuts are delivered little by little, most people don’t observe this. They continue to use the platform every day, addicted to it (an addiction that is carefully engineered by growth hacker teams). At the same time, the users start to experience other changes in their life: decreased productivity, mental fatigue, a general feeling of emptiness, but they have no idea that these are linked to their use of such platforms. So they stay on, getting sucked deeper and deeper. Remember, with regards to social media, when there is no actual product being sold, you are the product. Your information, your mental energy, your happiness — these get twisted and manipulated to fit the platform’s needs. Figure out your needs and use social media in a way that supports your needs, rather than the other way round where you change your life to fit social media platforms’ ever-changing rules and algorithms.

I find this issue with Netflix as well (even though they have an active product which is video subscriptions) — I tried using it for the past month as part of a free trial from another service, and I find that it employs highly negative, dark design patterns meant to suck the user deeply into the platform. Not surprising since this is what many modern-day giants are doing. It could be a neutral platform that provides videos for user’s entertainment and relaxation, but instead, it decides to swing the other way and use all kinds of design hacks to get users to watch video after video as part of shareholder value maximization. As the Netflix CEO himself declared before (and I paraphrase), they regard sleep as their competitor. And they are winning.

End Note

At the end of the day, I guess I’ve spent the past few years trying to make sense of my relationship with social media and online communication tools. And I’m happy to say that I think I’m starting to reach a good place regarding this. I have my Facebook page but I don’t actively maintain it anymore because of the reasons stated here. I no longer have Twitter and I’m happy to have gotten rid of it. I have my growing newsletter list where I can connect authentically with you guys, where I get authentic replies to what I send out (thank you to all of you who have been participating in my surveys and sending kind messages through the contact form!). There are still negative bad eggs every here and there, but I’ve come up with tools and ways to manage and minimize them to a near-zero instance.

In the meantime, I’ve been busy working on my first self-paced course (on how to discover your life purpose), based on your feedback to my email survey sent out a few months ago. I’ve been running online courses since 2012, way before the explosion of online courses, but this will be my first video course created for a self-paced experience. I’ll be sharing updates via my email list when it’s ready, so stay tuned! 😀

Check out:

How Social Media Creates a Fear of Missing Out (And What To Do About It)

Why I Deleted My Facebook Page with 20,800 Likes

Closing Blog Comments at PE

Closure of PE Forums

6 Tips to Deal with Digital Burnout

The post Why I Deleted My Twitter Account with 7,000 Followers appeared first on Personal Excellence.

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[canaryatlaw]

alright. so today was overall pretty good. I woke up to my alarm at 10:15 because I was scheduled to get a call from the DV clinic about potentially interning there for a while at 10:30. So I more or less just got myself to wake up until they called. It was fine, mostly what I knew already, going over what the responsibilities would be and how I could get to court and all that good stuff. I was going to ask if there was a possibility it would lead to a long term job, but I was never given the opportunity to ask questions lol which I’m sure was an accidental oversight on their part, but they did say that they hoped to have all their hiring done by the end of June, so that sounded somewhat promising. I told them I’d keep them updated about news on the New York job and how that may affect me going back to NY, but I could potentially work through the end of June. So that was good. After the call I tried to go back to sleep because I’m lazy and I like sleep, but it wasn’t happening, so I got up and made blueberry pancakes being that I was out of m&ms and other suitable chocolate substitutes. I tried to make the batter a little thicker than I had previously so it would be able to support the blueberries more and not just fall apart, and it worked pretty well and there weren’t any uncooked middle parts which is generally my fear with thicker batter so that I was pleased about. I had cut down on how much batter I actually made, so it only made about three small to medium sized pancakes but that was a solid breakfast. After eating I decided I should get a jump on going to the store since I had the phone interview later, so I got ready and grabbed my cart and walked down to the grocery store. Just stocking up on some essentials like eggs and milk and getting some random stuff (like more m&ms) I needed for one reason or another. Didn't take too long, got checked out and the cashier gave me 17 of the little monopoly game pieces, which I’m pretty sure was way too many for how much I actually bought, but I mean I wasn’t complaining lol. Idk if I’ve mentioned it before, but the grocery store in connection with a bunch of other grocery stores in different states is doing the huge monopoly give away game like the one they did at McDonald’s a million years ago if you remember that, you get game pieces based on how much you spend, and each little piece has 4 property pieces, and if you get all the property pieces for a certain section of the monopoly board you win a prize. So she gave me 17 of them (I counted) and they had 4 each in them, which means I now had 68 new game pieces lol. I got back from the store and started to work on putting my civil rights final info together (as in what to take into the open book final). I had tried to upload some outlines to the outline depot site I was talking about so I could download some, but the ones I had hadn’t been approved yet, so I figured I’d wait until tomorrow to see if they can get approved so I could get the outline. Otherwise I could pay $20 for it, which kind of seems like a lot, but in reality it’s in line with what Quimbee and such would charge for their outlines. Once I had established that, I went through my case briefs and did some editing, just so everything lined up all nice and pretty and deleted some extraneous information, and I managed to cut it down from 66 pages to 58, so that was good. I then added page numbers to the table of contents I had made for each section and case. Once I had all that done I printed both docs, which took a lot of printing obviously, the amount of trees I’ve killed in the name of open book exams is....plentiful, at this point. I pulled a binder out of my closet (where everyone keeps their binders, you know) along with the massive three hole punch I acquired somewhere along the way (love that thing) and set it all up in the binder. At 4 I got the phone call for the longer phone interview, which ended up lasting about 50 minutes. Lots of questions, most of them going along the lines of “can you give me an example of a time when blah blah blah” meaning I had to come up with a story and I am the worst at doing that, but I feel like i managed to come up with mostly true stories, and the more fabricated ones were at least based on fact, so I was more or less satisfied with that. They said the next step was they were going to select like 2 or 3 final candidates and have them interview with their full team, so we’ll see where it goes with that. not gonna lie, I have somewhat of a feeling of dread regarding the job, just because I’m worried that I would be bored out of my mind, but I mean, it’d be a job and it’d be here, which is good....I have mixed feelings, obviously. but we’ll have to see where that goes. Hopefully I’ll have an answer on the NY job before I hear back from them so I’ll at least have a better idea of where I stand with that. After the phone call I spent an absurdly long time putting all the monopoly pieces on the board, lol. The game has been going on for months now, so I have like 3 out of 4 pieces for a lot of the different prize spaces, but of course the thing is they make 3 of them fairly common and just make very few of the last one. But hey, it’s fun, so it’s all good. When I finished up with that I looked at remedies flashcards for about 5 minutes before deciding I wanted to bake cupcakes instead. I had the cake mix I bought last week, but I wasn’t exactly wanting to bake 24 cupcakes, so I decided to get clever divide the necessary ingredients to make a smaller portion. the recipe called for 3 eggs, and since you can’t really divide eggs as well as other ingredients, I figured I’d do 1/3 of the recipe, so 8 cupcakes. so I used my super handy kitchen scale to weigh the cake mix (it was 15.6 oz) and then measure out 1/3 of that (5.2 oz), then mix it with one egg, and a third of the amounts of oil and water. A few times previously I had tried some of the pinterest suggestions for making boxed cake mixes better, mainly like add an extra egg, swap the oil for melted butter and double it (no, really) and use milk instead of water, but in my experience the cake would come out of the oven looking really great and puffy, then literally right away it would just shrink into it self and not be fluffy at all, lol. it still tasted great, but felt kinda heavy, so I decided to not do that. I had to run out of my building and get my amazon package off the front porch, because I had just ordered a new cookie dough scoop since I managed to somehow break my old one, which wasn't actually working well at all anyway, so that wasn’t much of a loss. But I used the scoop to divide out the batter, which was fairly mess free and worked well. Box said 12-17 minutes for cupcakes, I checked after 12 and they were good to go, so I let them cool while I ate some dinner. I had grabbed a rotisserie chicken from the store earlier and had stowed it in the oven for a while so it stayed warm, then kind of ate some of it throughout the afternoon. By the time I sat down in front of the tv it was 7:20, at which point I realized Supergirl started 20 minutes ago and I’m very bad at this whole watching tv shows live thing. So I started the episode from the beginning. It was interesting, probably one of the better episodes lately, so that’s good. The Sam and Lena stuff is getting very interesting, and I know I said this last week but everything Lena is doing is so VERY Luthor, not even in an evil way, but like Lex would do very similar things on Smallville long before he turned evil and back when he was actually a good guy. It’s just very in tune with how their family handles things. I feel so bad for Sam. she’s in such a hard position of course, and I feel like one way or another this season is gonna end in heartbreak. The Supergirl and Imra stuff I was kinda meh on, mostly because I don’t fully agree with Kara’s no kill policy, like if you can avoid it sure but it’s not always going to be avoidable and I could definitely see where Imra was coming on this one. Mon-El was meh, but what else is new. But yeah, overall not bad. I went straight into watching The Resident afterwards, which churned out another excellent episode. ah, it was all just so good with them dealing with their colleague who was suddenly in a dire state, and how they worked so hard to find the actual best way to save him. I totally loved the subplot with Mina and the new doctor, I love Mina so fucking much haha she’s totally brilliant and she knows it and I LOVE HER SO MUCH. That plot was pure hilarity, I very much hope the doctor guy chooses to stick around. All of the stuff with Nic was getting pretty creepy, but we’ve known that was the direction they were heading in since they’re up to some super sketchy stuff. The whole grocery confrontation thing was.....weird, very weird, but I guess it served its purpose of being creepy. After that I tried to get my roommate’s apple tv to work so I could watch Westworld, but it was not cooperating, so I decided to frost the cupcakes instead. I had gotten an icing bag a while back I wanted to try using, but it was being uncooperative and not letting me actually get the icing to the tip of it and I eventually just gave up and iced one cupcake by hand and figured I’d get to the rest of them when I actually want to eat them. So I ate the cupcake and some frosting out of the can because that shit’s good. I didn't want to jump into a long GoT episode, so I watched more of A Series of Unfortunate Events just as a filler show even though it hasn’t been my favorite lately. I think it somewhat has to deal with me not liking Neil Patrick Harris in this role?? Like I’ve always liked him before this but in this show he just kinda grates on me, and not in the way that like a good villain was, he just feels kind of ridiculous to me, even in a show that contains a lot of ridiculousness, it’s just not working for me. I do love the kids of course, they’re brilliant and lovely and even though I know this is the entire premise of the show I feel myself growing increasing frustrated that they still don’t have a safe place to live, which again I KNOW is the point of the show, but like, it’s getting old for me. So we’ll see how much longer I end up sticking with the show. After an episode of that I started to get ready for bed and now I’m here. Tomorrow I have an “evaluation” appointment with a new PT guy at a new PT place (it’s the same company as my old one, and it’s not even very far apart, they’re literally referred to as the [neighborhood name] North and [neighborhood name] South clinics, so it’s not that big of a change really. I’m getting moved to this one because they apparently have a person trained in the type of PT the doctor wanted me to try, so I guess we’ll see what comes of this. I should be doing better with my home exercises, so maybe this will help motivate me with that. and yeah, other than that I’ll hopefully get a civil rights outline and prep the rest of my stuff for the final on Wednesday, should be good. Alright, that’s all for now. Goodnight peeps. Stay chill.