#so long as i have 3... thatll be enough...

[orcelito]

Hey I'm graduating college in may and I just kinda realized that I'll be Done Done with school after that. Not fake-done like I was graduating high school, where I'd have to go to college at the start of the fall. And not fake-done like I was in any of my semesters I took off.

Done Done. As in I accomplished my degree, and I won't ever have to go back to school if I don't want to. What a beautiful, beautiful thought.

[arsenicflame]

It's a time-honoured tradition- every time Sam comes across Izzy (and Ed) in their travels, he asks Izzy to marry him. And every time, Izzy turns him down.

At this point, Sam is asking more for the sake of it than any belief Izzy will ever say yes, a remnant of childhood dedication touched with 30 years of heartbreak and regret- though even now, a small part of him still holds out hope. Sam's promises have only got more extravagant over the years, from a job as his first mate, to a captaincy, a fleet at his command, a whole fucking island if that's what Izzy wants- but he knows it isn't though, not really. If Izzy was ever going to agree to marry him, to leave his life and go with Sam, it wouldn't be for anything Sam could offer him. Izzy never did care for flashy shows of wealth, for a ship or to be captain. The only thing that ever mattered to him was loyalty given, and loyalty shown in return. 

It all comes to a head after Stede left and came back, after Izzy lost a toe, lost his leg. Sam hasn't seen him since before things with Ed started to really slide off the rails, before stress permanently set into the lines of Izzy’s face. So, when he sees a dishevelled man with a hoof for a leg in a no-name port, he doesn't even consider the idea that he might know him. It's only when he turns towards him, and Sam catches a glance at those oh too familiar tattoos, he realises this is Izzy, his Izzy, that stands before him.

Knowing Izzy's discomfort with pity, he doesn't treat him any differently than he would in years gone by, positioning himself in Izzy's line of sight before approaching and sweeping him up into a bone crushing hug. 

“Israel-goddamn-Hands!” he exclaims, as Izzy grumbles back a begrudging “Samuel-fucking-Bellamy”, a tradition almost as old as their friendship itself. Izzy might not hug him back, but he can’t keep the corner of his mouth from twitching, just for a second.

(If Sam holds Izzy a little tighter and a little longer than usual, well. That's his business)

By the time Sam lets go, most of the crew has appeared in the town square, drawn in by the commotion. They may have given Izzy his leg and welcomed him as one of them, but still there’s an underlying tension, with nobody quite ready to set aside everything that happened before the Kraken. Seeing him cosying up to an unknown man sets everyone on edge, unsure whether to come to their first mate’s aid, or to assume that they've been betrayed once again.

When Ed sees that the yelling was Sam, his hand goes tense where it's held in Stede's. He knows the routine, has seen it more times than he can count, but as he watches them part he realises that this is the first time in a long time he's unsure of what Izzy's response will be.

Knowing that something’s different, knowing that Izzy's feeling vulnerable already, Sam doesn't go for the same flashy proposal he’s been giving for years. He doesn't promise Izzy the world, he doesn't cause a scene (or, any more of a scene than he already has, anyway). He looks at the fractured man in front of him, takes his face in his hands, and says the exact same thing to him he said when they were little more than boys. “Israel, I have to ask you. I know what you'll say, but I have to try. Come with me. Marry me and sail away with me. I'll keep you safe”

And Izzy… hesitates. He glances over at Ed, at Stede, and says to Sam “...We’re staying in port for a week. Ask me again then”

That's the moment Sam knows there is something deeply, horribly, wrong. He's not just looking at an Izzy who got seriously injured in a fight and is struggling to cope, this is something so much bigger than that- and that Ed has something to do with it. Izzy wouldn't even be considering leaving if he didn't. Whether it was negligence or something more sinister, Sam doesn't yet know, but he intends to find out.

[fishyartist]

think ive finally figured out a building process i dont despise. still got a LONGGG way to go improvement wise (a whole lifetime even) but the process occurs regardless :3

[opens-up-4-nobody]

Fuck u I shouldn't have to work on weekends vs Jesus christ I have so much to do. Fight.

[arolesbianism]

My current oni playthrough is generally going well except for the fact that for some ungodly reason I chose a bionic dupe heavy save that is almost completely built around bionic dupes to go for locavore for the first time. For the first 80 or so cycles I had 1 normal dupe. I have only within the past two sessions gotten two more dupes. All three just sit at home and cook occasionally because I can't be assed to set up atmosuit docs for them. I only just today finally got access to a pip. I have been fighting for my god damn life to get any tier 3 research done my poor bionic dupes need their yummy yummy power please let me get steam turbines already so I can do that without boiling my planetoid. I need my weezeworts or I'll die.

[phagodyke]

can't take my new painkillers anymore bc theyre destroying my stomach even on the lowest suggested dose and I can't take a proton pump inhibitor to stop it from doing that bc it would interact w my adhd meds... well it was a good 3 days while it lasted 😔

[itsalwaysdark]

so tmrw i need to shower und then do laundry ^_^

[paradoxbeta]

WHO IS EOC? i am very curious now!!!

>:) okay SO

tumblr picture formatting is utter garbage and i dont want these to take up too much space so im cramming these drawings into one row (or not if this crapsite breaks on me, because it seems to be REALLY fighting me on this, so if it ends up not making a nice little picture row know that i tried my best). but this is effigy of composure!

he has a couple problems, but the big one is that his superstructure has a terrible parasite situation. the parasites are flat, thin, and able to make it into grooves and pipes the inspectors cant reach. flushing out doesnt do much to dislodge them and they breed faster than they can be killed, so theyve happily made their homes in this sheltered, food-rich haven (to the obvious distress and horror of the host iterator). originally the concept for these parasites were much closer to centipedes and had the placeholder name "synapcipedes," but ive since started leaning more towards an obvious tapeworm motif for them because its gross and i enjoy it morbidly. it also has some pretty cursed implications if you think about it for too long which i have decided are funny/really disgusting/so stupid that they have to stay. i still flipflop between considering them centipedes vs tapeworms though and i dont think thatll ever be rigidly defined. the ambiguity is nice to toy with

on the top 10 list of "things that are not fun" having turbo worms has to be somewhere up there, so eoc has it *rough,* and kind of sort of eventually barrels off into the deep end because of it. his futile attempts to clean his own structure are frustrating enough, and the constant feeling of bugs crawling all over the inside of his body (which only gets progressively worse with time) does no favors either. however, the real big reason why he mentally declines is just because there's a ton of centi-worm things eating like fire through his neurons and other what-have-yous that iterators need to think and function. i think if he only got hit with one of these 3 things then he might have been able to hang onto his sanity, but with the triple combo he doesn't really stand a chance of doing much except stalling his functional death. which is good on him because if i was an iterator and my overseers told me i had a structure infestation, my mental health would have just preemptively swan dived off a bridge before anything even happened

anyhow, exponential parasite population growth meant exponential increase in all this other fun stuff, which means the time from the beginning of the infection to the time eoc is considered officially gone is startlingly short (for iterators, at least). it still took quite the while because losing your marbles is a loonnnng process, but still, yikes. its unfortunate because eoc was a real jokester pre-everything, and a cool guy to talk to. he was one of those people who could come up witty comments for anything like hed been ripped from the script of a sitcom. oh yeah, also, should have mentioned this earlier, but he ends up accidentally amassing a scavenger cult mid-insanity which goes hilariously bad because he's barely aware it's happening. nothing really works out for this poor iterator.

tldr: eoc gets parasites, they erode his brain, he goes nuts about it, (accidentally amasses a cult,) dies

[pinazee]

Season 3 time!

Ghosts!

And oh baby are they coming out swinging with all that juicy drama. Prepare yourselves ya’ll, im about to read way too much into things.

How come we’ve never seen Ray?? He’s henrys partner; given cop lore i would think he’d be a pretty significant person in his and probably shawns life, especially since he seems to be a voice of reason trying to get henry not to go through with arresting his son. Does he show up later? I don’t remember.

“Oo i have rights, thatll be new and fun” -i know that this line is probably just shawn being a bit dramatic but like, it cut me deep.

“This officially ends your chances of being a cop” -its just really sad that henry thinks thats whats going to make him rethink his actions. But also, i think this means Shawn was thinking of going down that path up until his mom left, because maddy even says when she left she thought he was going to be okay. Given Shawns character its kind of surprising he didn’t rebel against his dad long before that. Personally, i think shawn knew his arguments with his dad made things worse between his parents so he did what his dad wanted to keep the peace. Then when maddy left, well, there was no reason to keep the peace anymore.

Now, the henry of it all. This just makes me so sad. And i know they kind of say it’s the reason he retired later, that he regretted it, but i cant believe he ever thought this would “scare him straight,” and the way its shot certainly doesn’t seem like henry ever tried to connect with him. Like, if they wanted us to sympathize with henry later, they could have given us a shot of henry having second thoughts or even explained how Shawn was using the fact that henry was a cop to get away with breaking the law because he never thought his own dad would arrest him. They could have explained how shawns actions were becoming more and more reckless and henry didn’t know what else to do. But i think the reason they didn’t was because shawn is our protagonist and they didn’t want to muck up his character that much. I think it could’ve added some depth, personally. The way its shot though, it just makes henry look like an ass, sticking to the law unwaveringly without any remorse. (Sidenote-i can see how gus’s parents would think shawn was a bad influence)

Hes so rough with him :( (also baby lassie! Aww look at his little mustache)

I had to look up pinochet. Thats a heck of a reference.

Completely overlooked that haversham warmed his hot coco in a teapot. What an idiot (thats brilliant)

I love that each person in the show is like a dork for something. Juliet has weird football facts, carlton has westerns and guns, shawn has a few but i think favors movies, and gus has literally everything

I love the mystery of this ep! They make you think shawns solving one case (the ghost), and then you find out he is the ghost and they make you think Shawn had that one plan but then psych!turns out hes really looking for dirt the whole time. Also, shawn has to know quite a bit about business to pull that summary out of his hat. I might add it to his list of random skills.

Why would she have to clear henry for twisting his ankle? Also, now that i think about it, henry doesn’t seem the type to 1. Actually talk to a shrink or 2. Think highly enough of them to want to date one. So i have to imagine young maddy was a smoke show and he lost all sensibility.

I love that she calls him goose. Thats such a cute little nickname- that i need to know the origin of. Was this a goose and maverick thing? Was she maverick? Also, we get some more insight into shawns gifts because it implies he can remember everything hes heard thanks to his mother. So thats neat, and a cool way to show his “powers” didn’t necessarily all come from henry. Its nice to see maddy gave him something other than abandonment issues.

Ohmygod its so sad that shawn thinks his dad would sabotage him with his own mother jesus christ this family.

I wanted to end this with my thoughts on Maddy. I love that we see bits of shawns personality that came from her. He got her charisma, certain aspects of her humor, certain ways of speaking (like when carlton says, “then you wouldnt be opposed to me patting you down,” and maddy deadpan replied, “actually im very opposed to that.” It just sounded like something shawn would say). i love how the episode frames the narrative from shawns perspective too by putting maddy on a pedestal. Shes a very likable person. She takes his side when he tells her henry never told him she was coming, tells henry to buy him a phone, goes toe to toe with lassie and keenly gets him to open up.

But come on. This lady sucks.

First of all, SHAWN HASNT SEEN HIS MOM IN 3 YEARS, mind you the show says they’ve been doing Psych for about a year, so thats two years where he’s bouncing from job to job and not once did he visit her. And she was out of the country apparently and never told him she was back- why wouldn’t you let your kid know you were coming back to the country? She couldn’t shoot him an email or texted?

I would argue she is almost a worse parent by the sheer neglect alone. She gives off the impression of someone having never wanted to be a mom. she never seems to be around when shawn was little, we never see or hear of shawns mom sticking up for him against henrys teachings, and she straight up abandoned him the first chance she saw. And then on top of that, fails to communicate with him.

Lastly, I cant believe maddy (a psychologist mind you!) never talked to shawn about any of this years ago. She assumed henry would explain it all, but what part of his personality ever gave her the impression that henry could have an open and honest conversation with Shawn? And shawn says they used to talk all the time, but, like, how long ago because it seems like they haven’t had any real conversations in a long time. So its not just that she left him physically, but she also left him on his own to handle the emotional burden, because his dad certainly couldn’t talk about it. Shes the one who left shawn to pick up the pieces, not henry.

I mean its no wonder shawn struggles to form long lasting relationships.

P.S

Boneless shawn! Boneless shawn! My heart is filled with so much warm nostalgia it might burst! I remember when this first aired i laughed so goddamn much!

[luvism333]

the maze runner maze diversity ideas directly inspired by this @petrichor-idyllic post!!

ive literally been thinking about it nonstop since omg okay BASICALLY its confirmed in the scorch trials movie that there are a bunch of other mazes aside from the glade and group b. since these other mazes are never touched on there are one million and one ways people could go with them in fanfiction in terms of layout, weather conditions, etc. so i wanted to share some!

petri had tons of great ideas (go follow them right NEOW) and im just here to expand on them. 4 the sake of simplicity im gonna call the “gladers” subjects/mazers since we dont really know what theyd call themselves, and im gonna call the “glade” the centre. i am gonna keep calling new kids greenies bc i think its a funny little name + DISCLAIMER i have not read the books and i also do not have the time or energy to rewatch the movies so if any information is off my bad fr

NOT PROOFREAD

MONSTER IDEAS

a maze with birdbox style monsters so they have to navigate the maze blindfolded

a maze where the monsters are deathly afraid of some sort of metal that wicked wont send them enough of to make clothes or armor (at least not enough to keep every mazer safe) so all the people are heavily pierced. greenies come up piercingless and have to sit in the piercing hut (where they keep the metal) for however long it takes them to let the maze piercers do their job because absolutely no shot are they letting any dumbass teenager go anywhere with their rare life saving metal without it being fused to their bodies. the maze record for time a greenie has spent in the piercing hut is 3 full days and the less time you spend in there when you first arrive the more street cred you get

^ the piercer would probably be the maze leader, im picturing someone who at the beginning was the only person that could talk greenies into getting the piercing over n done with and as more came up the maze just filled with people that would only listen to the one person they trusted enough to pierce them straight out of the box.

a maze with underground monsters. you drop something heavy enough and something shoots out of the ground, jaws wide open. they have treestyle type houses, floating bridges connecting buildings. they dont have runner equivalents bc theyre working on building bridges through the maze and its like a no brainer that they cant go anywhere without a bridge. instead of “someone should try surviving the maze at night” its “we should climb the walls” and everyone thinks hes just as nuts

^theyd have a box but wouldnt it be fucking funny if their greenies just fell out of the sky?? they have a little platform right underneath where the greenies and supplies land (they call it ground zero) picturing wicked somehow forgetting to cushion the platform at first and patient zero falls out of the sky and dies on impact

a maze where the monsters arent giant teen eating beasts but deadly insects. one bite of that one and youll vomit up your internal organs, breathe in gas from that one and your entire body will be paralyzed. accidentally step on that one and your foot will swell to the size of a bowling ball and fucking explode. experiment with how your mazers cope with this - maybe everyone wears layers and layers of bee keeping style clothes outside and all the buildings are netted. do they have disinfecting rooms? do they have some sort of poison that takes the insects out? how to they distribute this poison since they cant just pierce it on like the metal maze?

a maze with the hunger games mutt type monster-mutations made out of fallen mazers

a maze where the monsters arent monsters or a threat at all but contain clues or keys thatll help the mazers get out and are notoriously impossible to catch

MAZE IDEAS

on the wiki page for group b it says their maze went vertical at one point - a maze that is completely vertical, their centre (creatively named The Hole) being like a tube just walled in by heaven high maze structures. you look up and at some point the walls give way to an abyss. most of the mazers have given up hope of getting out because it looks endless - or does it? nobody really entertains the idea that the top of The Wall is closer than they think, that the creators have put in a fake ceiling to fuck with them, but the people theyve sent up dont come back down and when the hole is quiet enough they can hear something alive up there and nobody can say for sure that their little village is any worse than what theyll find if they try to leave

hunger games quarter quell type maze where different sections of it have different monsters or obstacles. the sections with the easiest to bypass obstacles have the most complicated puzzle, the sections that are the easiest to navigate have obstacles 10x as deadly

PEOPLE IDEAS

a maze where 2 people come up in the box at a time (inspired by this thomas fic). theyd have names like box-mate or smth for whoever you come up in the box with (i.e thats jeff, he’s clints box-mate) and everyone is really close with their box-mate, platonically or otherwise. i feel like theres alot of cute potential for this idea, like an alby-equivalent talking to aggressive mazers like why dont you go find your box-mate and chill out. go cuddle or something. greenies often feeling weird about their connection w their box-mate (bc who wouldnt??) and long time mazers teasing them about it “oooooh somebodys making eyes at their booox-maaate muah muah muah”

unisex maze (although all these ideas can be unisex) where the number of boys and girls is slightly or very uneven at any given time. people have bets going around that time of the month every month about whether theyre getting a boy or a girl w things like chores and food being traded like currency. the bonfires on greenie day are just celebrations for the winning party

got this idea from petri but someone alone in a maze!!! just completely isolated for however long, not being expected to survive but making it out somehow. have you guys ever read an article or paper on the long term psychological effects of solitary confinement in prisons? of course itd be different but isolation is literally used as a torture method in some places. humans are not supposed to be so alone!! a lone mazer that sleeps by the thinnest part of the walls at night so they can hear the monsters, have some sort of connection to another living thing. a lone mazer that only survives their maze because they know their monsters like the back of their hand after spending endless nights well hidden in the maze just OBSERVING the creatures because it becomes a comfort to them, seeing something outside of themself move by its own free will. a lone mazer that never stops talking once theyre out of the maze because long silence makes them feel like theyre all alone again, a lone mazer that doesnt talk at all once theyre out of the maze because they cant stand the sound of their own voice anymore.

^ petri had the idea of an animal companion and i think that is a wonderful idea!! they have this fic where the reader had a dog and theyre really cute together. go full on disney princess & give your character a bird or a chameleon or a tiger if youre a jasmine guy. a dog or any predatory animal can conceivably help your character escape the maze - give your character a sloth or a koala or just a really lazy cat. give me a lone mazer whos animal companion is dead weight but they dont have the heart to leave them, who keeps their fat cat strapped to their chest like a baby as they fight for their life. 

person alone in a maze with a baby. ik this sounds so random but wicked wanting to see the effects of growing up in the maze so they send in a carer, someone that looks after the mazers before theyre sent in. the carer raises the kid angry at whoever has trapped their now adopted child in this torture chamber come to find out they used to be one of them

maze where the subjects are supposed to get injured in some way to force them to rely on one another. a subject being deafened by a banshee type monster, a subject getting a limb amputated by medjack equivalents after getting suddenly and suspisciously sick. they dont spend so much time mapping the maze as figuring out how to get all of them through to the very end because they quite literally cannot make it without every single mazer

a maze where the subjects keep their memories but theyve all been altered. some remember wicked as saviours providing shelter for them as orphaned children, others remember being restrained, poked and prodded, a vague feeling of grief and betrayal that they cant explain. others dont remember wicked at all and insist that the maze is a paradise compared to desert wastelands filled with zombie people and viral disease.

your mazers can react to this in any way shape or form. maybe factions/cliques of people with similar memories form. nobody wants a leader from a different group in charge of the entire maze so they dont have one, there not being any rules that apply to every group in the maze because nobody will listen to eachother. everyone thinks the ones that dont remember wicked are crazy and the anti-wicked group have the most reason to become violent, have been the most violent in the past so everyone thinks theyre psychos. it takes them longer than other groups to get out despite having memory because they all take over different parts of the maze and refuse to share information.

mazers that have access to technology. they can make things like recordings and audios but no way of connecting to the outside world and no information aside from what they put in themselves. they learn to program things and make robots/drones to navigate the maze for them, make intro videos for greenies so they dont have to deal with them. instead of track hoes and medjacks they have groups of people that work on different kinds of technology because theyve learnt to automate most of the stuff the gladers do by hand. some work on exploring the maze, some make weapons, some study the monster corpses theyve managed to get, etc etc.

CULTURE/TRADITION IDEAS

the different ways people commemorate dead mazers!! in the glade they cross out their names on the maze walls and in group Bs maze they like sculpt their faces into the ice. give me a maze that tattoos the names of their fallen, whos oldest mazers have the most ink so it kind of goes without saying that the more tattoos you have the more authority you have. greenies being able to tell clearly whos been around longer based on which names they have tattooed. give me a maze that mounts the weapons of the dead on a wall, a maze with a regular graveyard that the mazers visit on slow days

greenie events!!! give me greenie celebrations like the bonfire we see in the glade, parties or games, feasts to welcome newcomers. give me a maze where the arrival of a greenie is grim, one more mouth to feed, one more lost soul trapped. a maze where everything dims down around that time of the month because another person means another month theyve failed to get out. give me mazes that test their greenies to see if theyre of any use to the group because those that arent are dead weight. a maze that holds Greenie Trials, where you have to complete an obstacle course or survive a night in the maze or complete some obscure challenge and if you cant youre tossed to the monsters.

^bonus points for a gally-equivalent getting to say ominous shit like The Last One Didn’t Make It

TATTOO SUBGENRE

because i dont know what else to do with these

maze where wicked programmed the monsters to respond to some basic specific kind of symbol and the people have it tattooed in very visible places, painted on every hut and wall

maze where the monsters are deathly allergic to some sort of liquid so the subjects tattoo themselves with it

maze where you have to be incredibly light on your feet when navigating the maze so people tattoo maps on themselves.

GROUP B

i know im supposed to be talking about maze ideas not mentioned in canon but group b has so much potential their wiki says that group b doesnt have runners, they literally all just go out into the maze in a giant group, AND that their monsters are out day and night PLUS their maze is a frozen wasteland. i imagine any girls that arent strong enough to withstand everything are like pretty quickly weeded out and only the hardasses that adapted quickly enough were left omg the cultural norms that would form?? theyre all absolutely jacked and if a greenie dies nobody bats an eye cause tough shit. no introduction no transition period you come into the maze with us and dodge airborne monsters or you stay here and freeze to death. the creators do send them medical supplies but over time they start to notice the way the group interacts w eachother so they start sending less to see if they can push it even farther, make the girls have to ration their medical supplies. it works tenfold oh you broke your arm and you want a sling, aris?? rachel got her arm CHEWED OFF by a FLYING MUTANT PTERADACTDOL and didnt ask me for so much as a BANDAID

this is like evidenced on the wiki too multiple girls suggesting they just leave aris to freeze to death or get eaten by monsters in the maze because theyre SUSPISCIOUS of him?? like absolutely unprovoked too thomas had a stung glader accusing him of being at fault for the maze an unconscious girl who came at the wrong time who is apparently going to be the last greenie they ever recieve feverishly gasping his name just so much ammo for the gladers to toss him out and it takes the death of like half the glade and an insane gally to get him where aris was upon arrival. they literally punch aris square in the face immediately after they decide not to kill him bc “its the fastest way to remember your name” like how did you guys realise that??? "fastest way” so you admit there are other ways??? why are you giving all your greenies concussions

GEN

because i dont know where to put these

explore the concept of failed mazes. a desert maze where the subjects couldnt survive on the monthly supplies because they couldnt farm any food on their own because, well, desert. a maze where wicked did something like the memory altering maze, purposefully dividing them but they went too far and the mazers killed eachother off hunger games style

test mazes! have you ever wondered why the mazes operate the way they do? why do they send people up once a month? why are the mazers of all different ages? why not make the centre already stocked with food and buildings so the subjects can spend more time cracking the maze instead of learning how to grow crops?

a maze where they sent all the people up at once and without guidance from more experienced subjects they pretty quickly killed themselves off. a maze where the subjects were too young and werent organising themselves or mapping the maze fast enough, a maze where the subjects were too old and lost hope faster and easier. a maze where the mazers had everything they needed upon arrival and nobody wanted to leave.

AND MANY MORE!!!

IN conclusion make ur own mazes people!!!!! get creative w it there are so many different directions you can take it in!! pls feel free to use any ideas thats what theyre here for i dont need credit but PLEASE tag me id love to see anything that comes from this nonsense!!! nd lmk if anybody wants a pt2 because i had a million half baked ideas that didnt make the cut i am filled to the brim with Thoughts

[tamaharu]

everything i have learned about orv has been against my will but thats ok because it allows me to participate in ask games. anyways 3 & 20?

happy to be annoying as fuck on your dash o7

3. do you have a favourite quote?

no im kidding. theres a quote from a chapter in the late 200s that goes:

"Even if there is an insurmountable wall between me and them, even if it isn't heard by the person beyond the wall, I can write something on the wall and at the very least, the wall will change."

though I typically shorten it to the second half when using it (i can write something on the wall...), it really emphasizes one of orvs more prominent themes (that of connection between people, even if you cant "fully understand" and perfectly communicate with another person) and one that i feel is important for people to internalize. orv........

20. be honest - are you making it to the epilogue?

im going to be so for real i dont totally understand this question. am i going to stick around long enough to see the manhwa finally adapt the epilogue? (for reference: the manhwa has been ongoing since 2020ish, and has only adapted up to ch180 or so out of 551 chapters) whos to say! orv will always have a place in my heart, but i really have no idea how thatll translate to me sticking around for the full adaptation.

am i making it to the metaphorical, personal epilogue though..? i think so. i hope so. because if kim dokja could do it, despite everything, then so can i.

[dreamlanddeluxe]

pro-tip from someone who has had stretches pf insomnia like this since high school: (bc your posts makes it sound like a new development and like youre scared, so i want to help. sorry this unsolicited)

but literally?? fake it

fake sleeping. youre going to lie down, close your eyes, shift when youre uncomfortable, but keep your eyes closed and stay laying down. try to keep your mind as blank as possible, thats really hard for me specifically, so i legit will listen to videos or podcasts or music or ocean-waves as i fake-sleep (bonus, i found something that works for me 60, 70% of the time are those ASMR roleplay videos where it'll be like "your boyfriend/girlfriend talks to you while you sleep" or "you get confessed to while youre asleep" or literally anything where i have to "roleplay" being asleep?? weirdly? flips a switch and ill be KOed before the video ends. what the fuck. but thats niche as hell, idk if itll work for you, but it is an "experiment! you never know" encouragement)

and youre going to want to fake-sleep as best as you can, even if youre actually awake the whole 8+ hours, because it legit tricks your brain into thinking youre asleep enough that it gives you those chemicals you need from sleeping that help regenerate your energy and whatnot. like scientists found this works really well, insomniacs who did this instead of their phone or tasks or reading, even if they rarely fell asleep while fake-sleeping, not only recorded feeling a lot better than the control group who was not given this order to sleep like this, but also had more balanced chemical stuff. i like to akin ir to a cell-phone charge. youre not going to get the 100% you would from actually sleeping, but going from a 20% to a 65% is still p huge and very helpful. before i was told this tip, i literally would meditate to recoup; and shockingly meditation releases those same chemicals so like. i was already doing it. just. sitting up instead of laying down lol

also, please do talk to a doctor about getting a sleep study done or something if you have the insurance to afford it. but this is a tip you can do in the meantime in addition to other experimentations thatll help you out. youll still feel exhausted (esp if you cant quiet your brain. my AuDHD mind shuts the fuck when other people speak, so the audio-roleplay and podcast and video-essay people have been god-sends), you won't be that 100% refresh as i already said, but it also wont be AS compounded of an exhaustion which is so helpful when your metaphorical battery is just going down and down and down— to have SOMETHING charge it even a bit or just stall it. i dont want you to think this is a "youll feel back to normal!" cure-all; it truly is the epitome of a "well, thatll help it not get WORSE at any rate, and maybe a bit better" type of rhetoric

for now, i would recommend doing a fake-nap, pick x-amount of hours that feels most comfortable to you (my pick is usually 3 or 4, but my lil sister found she prefers 2 hour long fake-naps and my other lil sister just goes "fuck it, no fake-nap, only fake-sleep; im doing 8+ hours" lmao), see if it at least takes the edge off

i have said a lot of "temper your expectations" type of stuff but i will also say this: at one point, this tip literally saved my life. because i spent 2.5 months running on a total of 4 to 6 hours of legit-sleep per week or per week-and-a-half throughout. and that kinda shit, i belatedly found out, should mean i should be dead. but i was fake-sleeping at least 5 hours a night. and my family's doctor went "uhhhhh thank god i showed your mom that study i guess, omfg". so like. i swear it helps. just. ALSO temper your expectations on how much it helps lol

if this is unsolicited and feels unwarranted, i apologize. im not good at reading tone in text, and just wanted to help. i hope this does help you out, you got this, i believe in you!!

Hey no worries, I appreciate you taking the time to type all this out. Recently (like, within the past one to two years or so) I’ve been more prone to bouts of restlessness and the fake sleeping is actually something I practice and it does help me most of the time. I think right now it’s more of a stress induced sort of thing more than anything that’s led to me having more trouble. Might just be one of those things I gotta wait out to be honest. When I do have a moment where I can’t sleep right it doesn’t last more than a few days normally so I don’t imagine this being different I hope. Maybe seeing a doctor would help but I’ll be honest there’s a probably a few things I should be seeing a doctor about and I just don’t have the money for that lol. But still like I said I appreciate you taking the time to try and help me out and offer some advice that’s very kind of you 🫶

[5eyed]

based on my poll it looks like a number of you guys are interested in knowing more about my ocs so! heres a pic of morgan and skinny i hadnt posted before. these two are the easiest to get into bc theyre not part of any project or story - they just exist for me to draw. info about them under the cut!!

skinny (the one standing above) is a 23yo con artist. his real name is valentine, but hes been nicknamed skinny from his childhood - he was always really small and thin for his age - and he goes by his nickname pretty much exclusively! he grew up without a lot of money and in a pretty unstable household, so he learned pretty early to not play by the rules.. petty theft and shoplifting, fraud, scams of any sort are all fair to him. day drinker, hedonist, drama queen, thrill seeker... skinny is always looking for the next thing thatll excite him.

morgan (kneeling) is 22 years old and undead. he was revived, very much against his will, by skinnys half-sister ursula, who works at the morgue where his body was being kept. morgan was brought back to life to serve as skinnys bodyguard and co-conspirator while he scams and cons his way around. he wasnt very happy about it at all to start off with, but eventually, he mostly adapted to his strange new lease on life. he remains a pretty gloomy and taciturn person - he always was, and whatever few friendships he had he lost with the whole dying thing, so he isnt really doing so well socially.

morgan and skinny dont live anywhere specific - they go from motel to motel and crash with various acquaintances, never staying anywhere very long. their unstable lifestyle is pretty fulfilling for them, though, and they have enough money to indulge skinnys various fancies and addictions.

part of the deal reanimating morgan is that he will die again if he gets more than 10 miles away from skinny. theyre always near each other, and at the same time mostly isolated from other people, and it doesnt make their relationship to each other very healthy. they bicker or get into shouting matches regularly. however, there is a genuine care for each other in both of them that extends past the transactional nature of their relationship.

skinny loves anything pink, heart shaped or fluffy, owns WAY too much clothing for someone whos always on the move, and spends a lot of his time on the phone talking to ursula or some friends of his (who exactly they are is always vague). morgan enjoys cooking and baking and likes wrestling. hes also a fan of rock and nu metal, and he frequently chugs embalming fluid - he says it keeps him "feeling fresh", but cant seem to explain it any better.

so yeah uhhh hope that wasnt too boring sdfljsdf <3 feel free to ask anything about them i love talking abt them :) ill make a separate post to introduce ursula bc i dont have any recent art of all three of them together

art of morgan - skinny - ursula :)

(oh yeah if you wanna know The Stats fjdkdjd skinny is a cis guy, morgan is a trans guy, ursula is loosely cis maybe, all three of them are bisexual. skinny is mixed black+white, ursula is black, morgan is a white latino. oh and ursula is 26 shes the big sister!)

[videostak]

OK now i know why ppl dont drive stick... soooo fkn scary today for realll. i mean idk its just hoorrifying . i wanna learn and like nothings changed i just need to practice more but driving to the mall today was soo scary honestly tho the most horrifying thing was me having trouble getting my rear view mirros right LOL like i was scared for my life when i noticed i pulled to the side and went in a parking lot to fix them to the best of my ability. i think its good now but even aside from that eveyrhint is so scary ._. also was at the mall for like 3 hrs cause the ppl i was sellign the stuff to were like “honestly the longest itll take us to look thru your stuff will be like at most an hour we’ll text u when we’re done” then like 2 hrs went by and i asked them and they were like “ohhh yaa we totally forgot abt yours uhhh we’ll do it rn” -_- so i was rly there for a long time and ran out of things to do and was sleepy n shit. im so sleepy rn but have to pick up my sister in a hour or so T-T either way i learned i dont think im quite ready to go thru big streets yet n stufff i still need lots of practice was def like the fight for my life there anyways literally jam packed exhausting day today just got home and only get like an hour of relaxing before having to drive again! soooo sleepy i mean i think i could do it soon i just have to rly practice and not get nervous n stuff the fact they had me standing there for three hours rly made me tired and made the drive home real nerve wracking. deff lots of practice  i need to do n stuff but like all things considered i did well. looked it up and u can go from neutral to 2nd if the car hasnt slowed down enough to be in first so thats neat to kno hopefully thatll save me lol. like thats what i was messing up w/ but like idk i did it and survived! lol. i think only 1 guy honked at me when the car rocked a bit but i think he just did that cause he was like wtf dude lol. or cause i didnt shift into 2nd quick enough so he wanted me to go faster. tho like yaaa also greaet finds today for average prices at book off got get yer ya yas out on CD :D and singular adventures of style council fuuuuck yea. they werent there last time i went so they mustve just been put out and both great things i really have been looking for literally just listened to ya yas on yt the other day ive rly been in a stones mick taylor mood lately

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[madisonrooney]

i saw rent again in august (and rewatched the proshot last week), i saw on your feet again tonight, and im seeing aint too proud tomorrow, so i think after that might be a good time to reevaluate my musical top 10.

there are no new contenders but the problem is my 3-6 are so close and i just really dont know how i want to order them.

like #1 isnt changing. that goes without saying. that goes without saying that it goes without saying. (i dont even need to name it i dont think)

#2 is mamma mia and thats not changing either. tho i havent seen it in a couple years, i read that super long vogue article about it last month and it just reinvigorated my love for the show for the umpteenth time. im seeing it again next month and im sure thatll just solidify it more.

3-6, in order, are bronx tale, on your feet, aint too proud, and rent. bronx tale i saw again last year and i rewatched the movie in august so its fresh enough in my mind. i love them all on roughly the same level so i just dont know what to do. on your feet and aint too proud flip flop bc they have similar premises. i feel like i was more...vocally annoying about aint too proud lol but idk something about on your feet feels more personal. i learned a ton about gloria, emilio, and their family after seeing the show and theyre just very down to earth on social media, and i even saw emily estefan in person about a month after i first saw the show so something about it is very tangible. but aint too proud is super close bc its the era i love and its even more similar to jersey boys (damn you des mcanuff). itll be interesting to see how seeing them back to back effects my opinions if at all.

rent is the outlier tho. its the main reason im even thinking about doing this. brainrot for that show has been coming and going for almost 5 years and every time it hits, it hits hard. with the production i saw in august, rewatching the proshot, and seeing anthony rapp in concert this week, it hasnt been off my mind in a while. im thinking it could move as far up as #3, but im just not sure. on one hand, theres so much more content for it, but that also isnt really fair to the other shows since they havent been around for nearly as long. plus, it having been around for so long and having been such a massive hit, it becomes less personal to me. but that hasnt been all that much of a problem to me, probably bc the "hype" was over long before i even got into it. its far from an obscure favorite to have, but its not like hamilton or wicked or something if you ask me. the other three tho are much more niche to have as favs. plus its just so different from them!! with on your feet freshest in my mind, im trying to compare them rn and its just so hard to!!

anyway as most of my posts like this are this is mostly for personal record and just to let out a stream of consciousness but. if you care there you go. well see how i feel after tomorrow.